Orientation of Our Life
The Mother
The Orientation of our Life
Mother, is the orientation of an individual’s life directed by the psychic?
Yes. Absolutely unconsciously for the individual, most of the time; but it is the psychic which organises his existence — only in what may be called the main lines, because for intervening in the details there would have to be a conscious union between the outer being, that is, the vital and physical being, and the psychic being, but usually this does not exist. So externally, in the details… for example, there was someone who in deep perplexity said to me, “Well, if it is the psychic being or rather the Divine in the psychic who directs our life, is it He who decides the number of pieces of sugar I put in my tea-cup?” That was the question, verbatim. So the answer had to be, “No, because it is not a detailed intervention of this kind.”……
There is the psychic consciousness at work in life, organising all the circumstances of your life but not with a deliberate choice of the details; and in fact very few things are deliberate and conscious in the organisation of the physical life of human beings. Most of the time that’s what happens. If you ask someone, “Why have you done this?” — “That’s how it happened.” It is always like that: “That’s how it happened.” At least seventy-five times out of a hundred. Only, one is so used to going, moving, and doing things like that that one doesn’t even notice it. But if one begins to observe himself, he sees that it is true. There are very few things which were the result of a clear and willed decision, very few, only what one considers important things, and even here there is a wide margin. The amount of inconscience that’s mixed with the physical consciousness is tremendous, but because we are used to it we do not notice it. But as soon as you begin to analyse, look, study, you are terrified. How many times you are just faced with a question. You see, you do things automatically, by habit, perhaps sometimes by choice — sometimes, but suddenly you find yourself facing an absolutely insignificant detail: “Should I do this or should I do that?” Simply this. You can take very small things like… you are in the course of eating, and you ask yourself, “Should I continue eating or should I stop?” How many times can you take a motivated and conscious decision? And you suddenly realise, “Why, I know nothing about it”, and “I don’t know; I can do this, I can do that; I can do that and that and that. But what will choose in me?” Unless you have mental constructions. But then if you have mental constructions ruling your life, you don’t even ask yourself these questions, you live like an automaton, in a habitual routine you have made for yourself. But it’s not just once, it happens a thousand times daily.
For example, you are in contact with someone, you have very good feelings for this person; you find yourself in a slightly difficult circumstance and want to do the best possible. If you act spontaneously, there is no problem before you because you act like that, one thing trailing another, and without reflecting. And you consciously want to do the best… On what will you base your judgment? What knowledge will allow you to decide: “I must do this or I must do that, I must say this or I must say that or I must not say anything” — all the countless possibilities which come before you? And on what will you base your judgment? If you look at it sincerely, you will find out that at each step you do not know. It is only if you have been in the habit of going within yourself, of referring to the inner psychic consciousness and letting it decide in yourself what you want to do, that you do it with certitude, without hesitation, without a question, nothing. You know that this is what must be done and there is no question about it; but that’s the only case. Therefore it is only when you let your psychic guide you consciously, constantly, that you are able to do consciously and constantly the right thing;…….CWM/7/222–224
