LAZINESS, TIREDNESS, FATIGUE, TAMAS

The Mother
It is a dangerous illness: laziness.
30 July 1936
*
Tiredness shows lack of will for progress. When you feel tired
or fatigued that is lack of will for progress.
Fire is always burning in you.
*
Fatigue comes from doing without interest the things you do.
Whatever you do you can find interest in it, provided you
take it as the means of progressing; you must try to do better
and better what you are doing, the will for progress must always
be there and then you take interest in what you do, whatever
it is. The most insignificant occupation can prove interesting if
you take it that way.
===

But even the most attractive and important activity will soon
lose all its interest for you if the will for progress towards an
ideal perfection is not there while you act.
*
About every ten days I have an attack of fatigue and
exhaustion which has a tendency to turn into inertia
and discouragement.
Take no notice of it and go on with your programme as usual.
It is the quickest way of getting rid of it.
*
If I work I feel all right, but the fatigue comes after that.
Why? What to do?
It is because you are receptive to the force when you work and
that sustains you. But when you are not under the strain of the
work you are less receptive. You must learn to be receptive in all
circumstances and always — especially when you take rest — it
must not be the “rest” of inertia but a true rest of receptivity.
*
The forces behind the cyclone were not hostile but full of transforming
power. You did the right thing, and I can assure you
that to go inward and to receive the force is more helpful than
to throw oneself into an agitated action. Certainly tamas is not
good, but it is only through surrender to the Divine Consciousness
that tamas can be changed.
*
What are the defects in me that are coming in my way
of spiritual as well as material progress?
Tamas and sluggishness.

What amI to do to get rid of these defects of my nature?
Become more and more conscious.
22 October 1964

===

To say, “Oh, human nature is like this. Oh, we are in the
inconscience. Oh, we are in the ignorance” — all this is laziness
and weakness. And behind this laziness and weakness there is a
huge bad will. There!
I say this because many people have made this remark to
me, many. And it is always a way of justifying oneself: “Oh, we
are doing what we can.” It is not true. Because if you are sincere, once you have seen — as long as you have not seen, nothing can
be said — but the moment you see is the moment when you
receive the Grace, and once you have received the Grace, you
no longer have the right to forget it.
5 December 1958
— — — — -

There is an all-round deterioration of work and workers.
Yes, the disorder is general. The only help is faith.
*
It is not that there is a dearth of people without work in the
Ashram; but those who are without work are certainly so because
they do not like to work; and for that disease it is very
difficult to find a remedy — it is called laziness…
*
When human passions guide the work, I can only stand apart
as a witness. I am politely informed of what is decided — never
asked for what is to be done.
I cannot give orders because if orders were disobeyed, it
would automatically lead to a catastrophe.
So there is nothing else to do than to wait patiently for the
passions to cool down and… hope for the best.
Perhaps some people may wake up to the necessity of working
hard.
*
There are too many conflicting opinions and feelings for me to
give an order.

Now times are difficult for everybody. There is war and everybody
suffers.
Those who have the immense privilege of being here quiet
and in safety must at least show their gratitude by discarding all
petty quarrels and silly grievances.
Everyone must do his or her work conscientiously and
earnestly, and overcome all obscure selfish movements.
27 September 1939
*
Q. I know at the present moment cooperation and coordination
are essential for the Ashram; I try my best but
fail miserably. Perhaps it is the same story with every
one of us.
The Mother: Do not take it as a personal affair. Disharmony and confusion
are spread all over the world because of the resistance of the
falsehood to the action of the Truth. Here as the action of
the Truth is more conscious and concentrated, the resistance
is exasperated. And in this great turmoil most of the individuals
are moved like puppets by the forces in the conflict.

—
As for the conditions in the Ashram, it is as you say and probably
worse. I shall say like Sri Aurobindo: unless the consciousness
changes nothing can really be done.
You will interfere — and it is good as an example and a
demonstration — but the next day it will become worse.
We cannot even call down the Truth to manifest. The falsehood
is so widely and deeply spread that the result would be a
wholesale destruction. Yet the Grace is infinite, it may find out
a way.

— — — — — — —

Q. I did not understand very well “the real meaning of activity and passivity in sadhana”.

The Mother: You don’t know what activity and passivity are? Do you know
what the two words mean?

Disciple: Yes.

The Mother: Yes! So, when you are active, what does it mean?
Disciple: When I work.

The Mother: Work? Good! And when are you passive, when you sleep?
(Laughter)
Disciple: When I am lazy, I cannot do…

The Mother: No, my child, not necessarily. Passivity is not laziness. An active
movement is one in which you throw your force out, that is, when something comes out from you — in a movement, a thought, a feeling — something which goes out from you to others or into the world. Passivity is when you remain just yourself like this, open, and receive what comes from outside. It does not at all depend on whether one moves or sits still. It is not that at all. To be active is to throw out the consciousness or
force or movement from within outwards. To be passive is to remain immobile and receive what comes from outside. So it is said here… I don’t know what is written… (Mother turns the pages of the book.) It is very clear! “Activity in aspiration”, that means that your aspiration goes out from you and rises to the Divine — in the tapasya, the discipline you undertake and when there are forces contrary to your sadhana you reject them. This is a movement of activity.

Now, if you want to get true inspiration, inner guidance, the guide, and if you want to have the force, to receive the force which will guide you and make you act as you should, then you do not move any longer, that is — I don’t mean not move physically but nothing must come out from you any more and, on the contrary, you remain as though you were quite still, butopen, and wait for the Force to enter, and then open yourself
as wide as possible to take in all that comes into you. And it is this movement: instead of out-going vibrations there is a kind of calm quietude, but completely open, as though you were opening all your doors in this way to the force which must descend into you and transform your action and consciousness.

Receptivity is the result of a true passivity.

Q. But Mother, to be able to become passive an effort has
to be made, hasn’t it?

The Mother: Not necessarily, that depends upon people. An effort? One must,
yes, one must want it. But is the will an effort?… Naturally, one must think about it, must want it. But the two things can go together, you see, there is a moment when the two — aspiration and passivity — can not only be alternate but simultaneous. You
can be at once in the state of aspiration, of willing, which calls down something — exactly the will to open oneself and receive, and the aspiration which calls down the force you want to receive — and at the same time be in that state of complete inner
stillness which allows full penetration, for it is in this immobility that one can be penetrated, that one becomes permeable by the Force. Well, the two can be simultaneous without the one disturbing the other, or can alternate so closely that they can
hardly be distinguished. But one can be like that, like a great flame rising in aspiration, and at the same time as though this flame formed a vase, a large vase, opening and receiving all that comes down.
And the two can go together. And when one succeeds in having the two together, one can have them constantly, whatever one may be doing. Only there may be a slight, very slight displacement of consciousness, almost imperceptible, which becomes aware of the flame first and then of the vase of receptivity — of what seeks to be filled and the flame that rises to call down what must fill the vase — a very slight pendular movement and so close that it gives the impression that one has the two at the same time.

(Silence)
This is one of the things one discovers gradually as the body becomes ready for transformation. It is quite a remarkable instrument in the sense that it can experience two contraries at the same time. There is a certain state of body-consciousness which
brings things together, adds up things that in other states of consciousness alternate or even in certain others oppose each other. But if one has reached up there, in the vital and the mind, a development sufficient for harmonising opposites (that of course, is quite indispensable), when one has succeeded in doing this, there are moments when it alternates, you see, one thing comes after the other; but what is remarkable in the consciousness of the body is that it can feel (“feel”, can we say “feel”? — “experience” — the word “aware” expresses it best) all things simultaneously, as though you were hot and cold at once, as though you were active and passive at once, and everything becomes like that. Then you begin to grasp the totality of movements in the cells. It is something much more concrete naturally, but much more perfect in the body than in any other part of the being. This means that if things continue in this way,
it will be proved that the physical, material instrument is the most perfect of all. That is why perhaps it is the most difficult to transform, to perfect. But of all, it is the one most capable of perfection.

That’s enough for today, isn’t it?

So, my children, if we go at this rate, we shall finish the book in three or four lessons, and we must already think about what we shall take up next….

Disciples: The Mother, Sweet Mother.

The Mother: Ah! You want to take up The Mother? Good, we shall read The
Mother. That is decided.
Good night!