Meditations on Truth
21 January 2014 at Hall of Harmony, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, India.
Synopsis :
Meditations on Truth:
We have entered into the Age of Truth. There have been of course a number of other such ages
of Truth and many sub-ages within each Age. But the difference that lies between this one and
the previous cycles is that this time we shall cross the last barriers of the mind and with it all
our previous and present mental constructions, philosophies, sects, ideas and ideologies that
limits and imprison Truth into a narrow rigid system. It is this exclusivity that has led to the
errors of materialistic science and theistic religions and even of spiritual paths that have
focused on this or that aspect of the Totality. We present here some glimpses of Truth to reflect
and meditate upon.
Words of Sri Aurobindo: The Human Cycle: The Unseen Power
When we try to build our outer life in obedience to our ego, our interests, our passions or our
vital needs only or else in a form of our vital needs served and enlarged by our intellect, but not
enlightened with a greater spiritual meaning, we are living within the law of the first cosmic
formulation. It is as insistent Rudra that the unseen Power meets us there, the Master of the
evolution, the Lord of Karma, the King of justice and judgment, who is easily placated with
sacrifice and effort, for even to the Asura and Rakshasa, the Titan and the giant he gives the
fruit of their tapasy ¯a, but who is swift also to wrath and every time that man offends against
the law, even though it be in ignorance, or stands stiff in his ego against the urge of the
evolution or provokes the rebound of Karma, he strikes without mercy; through strife and
stumblings, through passioning and yearning and fierce stress of will and giant endeavour,
construction and destruction, slow labour of evolution and rushing speed of revolution Rudra
works out the divine purpose.
When on the contrary we seek to shape our life by the Ideal, it is the severe Lord of Truth who
meets us with his questioning. Then in so far as we work in the sincerity of the inner truth, we
shall live in an increasing harmony of the result of a divine working. But if the measures of our
ideal are false or if we cast into the balance the unjust weights of our egoism and hypocrisy and
self-deceiving or if we misuse the truth for our narrower ends, if we turn it into a lie or a
convention or an outward machinery without the living soul of the truth in it, then we must pay
a heavy reckoning. For as before we fell into the terrible hand of Rudra, so now we fall into the
subtler more dangerous noose of Varuna.
Only if we can see the Truth and live in it, shall our aspiration be satisfied. Then it is the Master
of Freedom, the Lord of Love, the Spirit of unity who shall inform the soul of the individual and
take up the world’s endeavour. He is the great Liberator and the strong and gentle founder of
Perfection.
It is the wrath of Rudra that has swept over the earth and the track of his footprints can be seen
in these ruins. There has come as a result upon the race the sense of having lived in many
falsehoods and the need of building according to an ideal. Therefore we have now to meet the
question of the Master of Truth. Two great words of the divine Truth have forced
themselves insistently on our minds through the crash of the ruin and the breath of the
tempest and are now the leading words of the hoped-for reconstruction,—freedom and unity.
But everything depends, first, upon the truth of our vision of them, secondly, upon the sincerity
with which we apply it, last and especially on the inwardness of our realisation. Vain will be the
mechanical construction of unity, if unity is not in the heart of the race and if it be made only a
means for safeguarding and organising our interests; the result will then be only, as it was in
the immediate past, a fiercer strife and new outbreaks of revolution and anarchy. No paltering
mechanisms which have the appearance but not the truth of freedom, will help us; the new
structure, however imposing, will only become another prison and compel a fresh struggle for
liberation. The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward, not depending on
institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out of his growing inner perfection availing to
shape a more perfect form and frame of life; for by this inwardness we shall best be able both
to see the truth of the high things which we now only speak with our lips and form into
outward intellectual constructions, and to apply their truth sincerely to all our outward living. If
we are to found the kingdom of God in humanity, we must first know God and see and live the
diviner truth of our being in ourselves; otherwise how shall a new manipulation of the
constructions of the reason and scientific systems of efficiency which have failed us in the past,
avail to establish it? It is because there are plenty of signs that the old error continues and only
a minority, leaders perhaps in light, but not yet in action, are striving to see more clearly,
inwardly and truly, that we must expect as yet rather the last twilight which divides the dying
from the unborn age than the real dawning. For a time, since the mind of man is not yet ready,
the old spirit and method may yet be strong and seem for a short while to prosper; but the
future lies with the men and nations who first see beyond both the glare and the dusk the gods
of the morning and prepare themselves to be fit instruments of the Power that is pressing
towards the light of a greater ideal.
Words of the Mother:
It's very interesting.... Because of this "message" for the new year (everybody is talking about this
message everywhere, it has given a good jolt; even in government circles, everywhere), because of this
message, everyone is claiming to be a "defender of the Truth." They ask me questions, and everyone is
surprised that truth as he conceives it isn't established in the world. So I am beginning to be forced to
wage war for the Truth against all the conceptions of the truth! And that's rather interesting.
For instance, there is here that old idea of vegetarian food. Some people write to me indignantly
that these "holy rules" are being increasingly broken in the Ashram! Someone wrote to me a first time,
asking me to answer; I neglected to. So he wrote a second time to tell me, "What can we do if you don't
answer?" I answered (they'll probably bite their tongues at my reply), I replied something like this:
"Truth is not a dogma that one can learn once and for all and impose as a rule. Truth is as infinite as the
supreme Lord and It manifests every instant for those who are sincere and attentive."
I could have added other things but didn't, so as not to wage battle too openly!
The same day, that is, just today, I got another letter.... The whole letter ranted and raved about all
that's going on in the Ashram, saying, "What! This place is worse than the world!" and so forth. (All this
in the name of "truth," naturally.) So (laughing) I answered:
"Were Truth to manifest in such a way as to be seen and understood by all, they would be terrified by
the enormity of their ignorance and false interpretation."
I hit hard this time.
And it's going on.
Day after day it's like that, growing acute. Everyone is the "defender of the Truth." One about food,
another about money, another about business, another about relationships ... – everyone has his hobbyhorse.
The wonderful thing is that till now not one has told me, "Maybe my opinions aren't true?" – not
one! "Maybe my way of seeing or feeling isn't true?" – not one. They are all in full Truth!
It's very interesting.
The defenders of the truth are often worse than the enemies of the truth.
(Mother nods approvingly) But I can't say anything about that because I am the one responsible, I
told them, "Cling to Truth."
No, they all make the same mistake: they confuse truth with the old idea of virtue. They all make
the same mistake as the moral error.
And above all, they want a truth expressed in a few very clear and well-defined words, so they can
say, "This is true." The old calamity of religions: "This is true" – therefore the rest is falsehood.
How many times ... how many times Sri Aurobindo (and I myself) said, "When a thing is true, you
can be sure that its opposite is also true. When you have understood this, then you will begin to
understand."
This morning I was also bombarded with a quotation from Sri Aurobindo (they came and
bombarded me in the name of Sri Aurobindo!), to tell me that in The Mother he wrote, "The divine
Grace can act only in the Truth" – and I shouldn't forget that! (Mother laughs) There is a quotation from
Sri Aurobindo in which he says, "The divine Grace will answer, but do not think it will answer in
Falsehood...." An admirable sentence. Only, they don't know: THEY are the possessors of the Truth –
Falsehood is for others!... And even intelligent people (that's the strange thing, because it's so idiotic!),
even people who, anyway, have a brain, who understand, fall into the trap.
…..Thanks to all this, I might say (not even "because of" – THANKS TO all this), I have had these last
three days a vision – a concrete vision every second, showing how the supreme Consciousness (which I
personally find convenient to call the "supreme Lord"), how EVERY SECOND it makes you do or say or
see or know ex-act-ly what is needed for everything to move on like this (round gesture expressing the
innumerably ramified movement of universal forces), to move forward. It's not yet the direct, allpowerful, crushing Movement of direct Forces (gesture from above downward, like a sword of light): it's
a movement like this (same round gesture), but marvelous – marvelously subtle, ingenious, respectful of
everything, but everything; you know, a movement that makes use of everything to lead towards the
goal, even "errors" – which aren't errors because when the Consciousness is there, the error isn't one
committed by ignorance: a thing is said or done because that's what needs to be said or needs to be
done – it may in appearance be even a blunder, yet it's ex-act-ly what is needed for everything to move
forward (same innumerable round gesture), move forward luminously towards the desired goal. It's
absolutely marvelous! And seen in tiny little details and in the whole. It's this marvel of a Consciousness
that makes everyone do what must be done, puts everything in its place, sorts out everything, and it's
our idiocy, an absolutely ignorant and stupid vision, that would have us believe in mistakes, in errors, in
... Everyone is a problem to be resolved, so all those problems interpenetrate, and it is the WHOLE that
must be led towards precisely this famous Truth (the true one). But I've spent, you know, hours in
admiration – a blissful admiration – at this marvel of organization, with all the little things around you,
all the little people around you, all the little circumstances.... It's wonderful, wonderful!
And then, this overweening mind which understands nothing and asserts itself in its all-powerful
knowledge, oh ... it's so comical!
(silence)
It is the maximum use of all possibilities and all impossibilities, all capacities and all incapacities; a
maximum use in a maximum power and a maximum Compassion, and also ... a smile! A smile, a sense of
humor, oh! ... Such a benevolent irony, so full of compassion, so wonderful.... And this overweening
mind, a fantastic phenomenon indeed: it spends its time judging what it doesn't know and deciding on
what it doesn't see!
(silence)
Then there was the vision of others and the remembrance of the time when
those things had great importance and were taken very seriously, with a
solemnity ... a wholly moral solemnity. That's amusing, too.
*
When I am right, no one remembers. When I am wrong, no one forgets.
Because there is no true right and wrong — the only Truth is the Lord and He
remembers everything.
26 January 1963
*
Each idea (or system of ideas) is true in its own time and place.
But if it tries to be exclusive or to persist even when its time is over, then it ceases
to be true.
*
If any element of this totality is taken separately and affirmed as the sole truth,
however central or comprehensive it may be, it necessarily becomes a falsehood,
for then it denies all the rest of the total Truth. This is precisely what constitutes
an indisputable dogma, and this is why it is the most dangerous type of falsehood,
because each one affirms that it is the sole and exclusive truth. The absolute,
infinite, eternal Truth is unthinkable for the mind which can only conceive that
which is spatial and temporal, fragmentary and limited. Thus, on the mental
plane, the absolute Truth is divided into innumerable fragmentary and
contradictory truths which strive in their entirety to reproduce the original Truth
as best they can — for each is a truth that attempts to affirm itself as the sole
truth, to the exclusion of all the other truths, which, through their innumerable
totality, express progressively in the becoming the Infinite, Eternal and Absolute
Truth — that is how they deny the total Truth.
*
The truth is neither in separation nor in uniformity.
The truth is in unity manifesting through diversity.
*
Intellectually, the Truth is the point where all the opposites meet and join to
make a unity.
Practically, the Truth is the surrender of the ego, to make possible the birth and
manifestation of the Divine.
Doubt is the best arm used by the ego to protect itself from extinction.
6 October 1965
*****