Sincerity

For ordinary social life, game of “sincerity” can be played with/among humans easily. In our school life, when we pass from a high school, the school issues a Conduct certificate along with School leaving certificate. The Conduct certificate declares that a student is obedient, hardworking, and sincere. It is quite easy to get a Sincerity badge while living in a society, for example, from a school, or from a parent/ a friend /a spouse/ an employer etc. However, this certificate is never 100% accurate all the time, as human judgement can be erroneous due to its limited mental capacity and power.

For Sadhak of Integral Yoga, Divine Mother is the only judge not any humans. She through Her Divine Gaze does not look at our outer personality or outer achievements and records but looks at our soul’s sincerity directly. She does not give any certificate of Sincerity, but gives an assurance of protection, victory to all the sincere souls.

For Spiritual seekers, to be sincere means is to be Sincere only to the Divine Mother and no one else. Divine Mother clearly knows if one seeker is truly sincere to Her Mission or not. She looks at our past, present, and future simultaneously even now every moment. If we are truly sincere to the Divine, we will start always living in our inmost centre, i.e., in our soul, the only Divine Element present within us for many births. The Soul can tell us in its deepest silence if we live truly for the Mother’s cause even for a second, through our thoughts, speech, and action.

Human conduct certificate of sincerity can be exhibited in the world as a progress report, but Divine’s Sincerity badge will be experienced only in the soul, not in the mind or vital or physical. It can never be displayed as an outer progress report. The moment we showcase that by mistake and declare to the world: “I am the sincerest child of the Divine”, that very moment the level of sincerity will fall drastically, and our inner progress gets badly impacted.

The Mother: If you are sure you have achieved absolute sincerity, you can be sure that you are immersed in falsehood. 6 January 1951

(Words of the Mother – III, CWM 2nd Ed., Vol. 15, pp. 297-301)

The Dictionary meaning of the word Sincerity is the absence of pretence, deceit, or hypocrisy.

What it means to be Truly Sincere:

1. Sincerity deals not with outer achievement of human beings, but only with soul’s progress towards the Divine.

2. We ever growing souls make timeless journey in each birth on Earth and evolve towards the Supreme only. We must never this fact after we are born here on Earth, it is the soul (not our parents) which has landed here, brought us here for a specific purpose. We should always live and act each moment with that highest aspiration of the soul. We must never forget words from Savitri: The Souls that do not aspire are God’s failure.

3. We should always remember that we are Divine Mother’s children only and behave accordingly as if She is present and as living as ever every moment before us. Sri Aurobindo says: Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you, because she is indeed always present.

4. We should allow each part of us (Mind, Body, Emotions and Soul) to be totally merged in the Divine. Each part should express the Divine Truth, Divine Realisation, and the Divine Bliss every moment.

The Mother: The complete unification of the whole being around the psychic centre is the essential condition to realize a perfect sincerity.

5. Sri Aurobindo: Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will. As the sadhak aspires to be an instrument of the Divine and one with the Divine, sincerity in him means that he is really in earnest in his aspiration and refuses all other will or impulse except the Divine’s.

(CWSA Letters on Yoga II – Pg. 50)

6. Sincerity is the first step, and the only step in Spirituality. It is the foundation or backbone of our sadhana. We can achieve the Divine Realisation only with the help of perfect sincerity.

The Mother: The only salvation is in an absolute sincerity and truthfulness.

Sincerity is of two kinds:

1. Sincerity for the Ordinary cause: One will be doing a work whole heartedly for a cause with/without knowing for whom we are doing the work. One might be working with absolute commitment for the sake of duty, for money, or for job or for family/society/country. For example, a CEO might be the most corrupt/smuggler person, but we have no care or concern about his true per, we are only concerned about minting money or saving our job by working sincerely for him/her. Even Asuras were sincere in their work, sincere to their ideal, they might have a different mission against the Divine. We can compare Asuras to present day terrorists. They are brainwashed lots having a particular ideology, are sincere in their own way and they even kill themselves sincerely for that mission.

Q. The German generals were loyal to Hitler, but they weren’t sincere with themselves.

The Mother: This is a very complex problem. They might have been sincere in relation to their own ideal. You do not know.

I have known beings who were the most active instruments against the divine life, against the divine realisation. Well, to some extent, they were loyal to their own ideal... These beings are called Asuras, but as I have just said, they were sincere in relation to their own ideal.

Q. So sincerity is not enough?

The Mother: I didn’t say they had an absolute sincerity. I simply said that they were very sincere. Perhaps, in some part of their being, there was something that did not try to know any more than it knew. It is quite probable.

(Words of the Mother – III, CWM 2nd Ed., Vol. 15, pp. 297-301)

2. Sincerity for the Divine cause: In our yoga, when one is sincere it means one is sincere for the cause of the Divine Mother only and nothing else. If we are not sincere, it means something in us does not want to change and is afraid of the Light or Knowledge or Force.

Sri Aurobindo: Sincerity means more than mere honesty. It means that you mean what you say, feel what you profess, are earnest in your will. As the sadhak aspire to be an instrument of the Divine and one with the Divine, sincerity in him means that he is earnest in aspiration and refuse all other will or impulse except the Divine’s.

The Mother: The true sincerity - To live for the Divine without expecting any benefit from Him in return.

How to be a True Sincere Child of the Divine

- No pretension with the Divine Mother:

We should not act or behave which will be considered as anti-Divine action. For example, we may be in a Study Circle or may be giving a talk, but inside our mind, we will be thinking of something else: money, awards, recognition, revenge, cheating, anger, depression, hopelessness etc. We may be praying inside the Centre or Ashram, but our mind will be in a plot to destroy, abuse or hate someone, etc. We should be crystal clear before the Divine Mother without pretending to be Her ideal child. We should not behave or act exactly opposite way of the Divine expectation. As the consequence of pretension will be enormous, we should not be influenced by any other anti-Divine forces in the lower mind, lower vital or lower physical such as falsehood, ignorance, darkness, and death.

There should be no differentiation with the Divine Mother in terms of our intention, feelings, thoughts, and actions. Everything should come from Her Alone and come for Her Alone. Our sincerity should be perfect with a total consecration to the Divine Mother.

The Mother: “Before the Eternal Consciousness a drop of sincerity has more value than an ocean of pretension and hypocrisy.”

• No hypocrisy with the Divine Mother
  We should not be double-faced in front of the Mother.

For example, one gives a series of lectures on the 4 aspects of the Mother, and arrival of Supramental race etc., but inside home he does all kinds of religious rituals, follows religious activities like fasting, diksha etc. As a seeker of Integral Yoga, we should have absolute clarity about the power of True Spirituality and religions.

As per Mother, Here we do not have religion. We replace religion by the spiritual life, which is truer, deeper, and higher at the same time, that is to say, closer to the Divine… The time of religions is over. We have entered the age of universal spirituality, of spiritual experience in its initial purity.

We must quit the old and prepare ourselves for the new world to receive the new force of Supramental. We cannot keep our two legs on two boats and make our journey towards a Divine destination. Gods at overmind level no doubt helped humanity in our evolutionary journey, they had a particular role to bring us closer to Supermind. That does not mean we will hold on to that past forever for our guidance. When we have the Supreme power of the Supermind at our Earth’s consciousness, the Mother of all Gods, we should not hold on to the old religious rituals, paths, as their impacts are minimal and slow for our transformation. As our body rejects and removes the old cells every second, and creates new cells for its future, we should also reject the old paths which are not relevant or futuristic for our transformation. Religions have brought more hatred, disunity, and bloodshed in the name of rigid belief system in the world as the root cause of division persists even among the overmind Gods.

• We should not be double-tongued in front of the Mother:

Some serious sadhak of Integral Yoga follow, praise and talk about other multiple new-age Gurus and flock to them for advice and guidance. They get easily influenced or attracted by these so-called gurus because of their presentation or oratory skills, logic or wisdom. We as seekers must realise that after we pass a university completing a Doctorate, it will be a total waste of time and effort to restart our education from an Elementary school. If we truly and sincerely read the huge volumes of Works of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, we will get more clarity about the mystery and purpose of our life and our unique role for the Divine Mission. Sri Aurobindo had already synthesised everything, every path so clearly and put forward His Great Words before us, yet we fail miserably to understand Him and His mission. We do not have to follow all paths simultaneously. We can refer to other paths, we can read about them but follow only one Path of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, because this is direct from the Supreme Consciousness.

We should remove this misconception that Sri Aurobindo is an ordinary Guru or another Philosopher or another Freedom fighter. We should listen to Him as an Avatar who comes to us in the crisis of Earth as the Representative of the Supreme to guide us directly through His Writings, Actions and Words and prepare the ignorant humanity for the Supermind. He had Supreme Mother as His Executive Force to carry out the Lord’s Mission. Through the formation of Ashram and Auroville, which is beyond everyone’s imagination, we have got the glimpse of Supreme Power in action already taking us towards that Unity. In other cases, people choose their Gurus, but in our case, it is the Divine Mother who has chosen us for Her Mission based on our soul’s sincere aspirations. We should not waste this opportunity of the Hour of God through our insincerity and falsehood.

Another double-tongued character is that some seekers praise Integral Yoga practices, Ashram, Auroville, in front of the seekers but behind they complain, denounce everyone related to Ashram, everything against every practitioner of Integral Yoga or system of Yoga. We must accept everyone as Mother’s creations and are here to express the Divine Truth in their specific way. No one instantly becomes perfect just because he/she has taken up this Yogic Path or lives in the Ashram/any centres. Everyone must chart their unique path as per the soul’s call; each journey is from a state of imperfection to a state of perfection. Except Divine Mother and Sri Aurobindo, none of the human beings can be called perfect in all aspects. We should not worry about other’s progress or sincerity before we decide to be sincere. To be sincere to the Divine must be an unconditional effort for our soul’s progress.

No Deceit with the Divine Mother

• The Mother: Sincerity means to be turned wholly to the Divine and accept only the Divine impulses—it means also the true and constant will or effort to be like this.
• We should never try to deceive the Divine through our acts and speech. To deceive the Divine means, we do not follow the Words of the Master and Mother in letter and spirit, we cheat the Divine by various mental logic or stupidities, or vital arrogance and desire or by physical inertia etc.
• If we stray away from Truth, Knowledge and Light, we will deceive the Divine. A pinch of insincerity is just like a poison, which kills our years of Sadhana or progress.
• We must centre all our actions around the Psychic Centre, the centre of Truth, then we will never ever be able to deceive the Divine.

No Give & Take Relationship with the Mother

• We should believe in the Mother for the love of Her, not to get any benefit or popularity, or to get name, fame, prestige, recognition, money etc. Mother is beyond all such cost-benefit business relationship. If we do that, there will be death of sincerity, the only quality of our soul.
• We should love the Mother unconditionally without any selfish motive or desires. We should not think of attaining anything other than the Mother. She is the only Goal, Only Mother, none other should be our motto.
• There should be no possessive mindset in our thoughts. We should not feel that we can do anything just because we have Mother at our side. We should also feel that whatever belongs to us is never mine, everything belongs to the Divine Mother only in reality. In fact, nothing belongs to us or remains with us forever, except our psychic or soul. We should live in an expansive and widest consciousness; we must accept and have highest goodwill for others who are unaware of Integral Yoga or followers of other Paths or religions.

In conclusion, to be Sincere child of the Divine:

1. We must be purest in all aspects – purity in thought, purity in action and purity in emotion. There should be nothing and no one between us and the Mother, when we look at the Samadhi or when we are absorbed in Work. It should be a crystal-clear relationship between Mother and us.

2. We must be egoless and desireless. We should not try to think or act to impress any humans or even The Mother. The Mother knows all our inner intention at the inmost cell levels of our being. We must surrender all our little ego and unending desires at the Lotus feet of the Mother unconditionally.

3. We should be widest in our thoughts and action. Narrowness, hatred, ill-will, doubts, arrogance, depression have no place in our yoga. The narrower and angrier we become, the faster we lose the quality of sincerity from us. It will slowly vanish from our soul.

4. We should be always in a prayerful mode with the Mother, preferably constant Nama Japa (i.e., chanting of The Mother’s Name Ma Ma), it develops physical sincerity.

The Mother: Lord, give me perfect sincerity, that sincerity which will lead me straight to Thee.

5W’s of Sincerity

What

- There should be nothing and no one between us and The Mother

Why

- Only Safeguard, Only Protection from Adverse Forces

- Victory over Anti-Divine Hostile Forces

- With sincerity, one can attain the Divine Realisation

How

- Unify and harmonise our whole being around Psychic Centre

- Be Pure, Egoless, Desireless

- No Hypocrisy, No Deceit, No Pretension, Pride, Cleverness with the Mother

When

- Every moment, every second, every birth our souls should be sincere

Where

- Each cell of our being should live in the Truth without any division

Author’s Note: Looking forward to receiving your valuable comments/inputs.

Sanjeev Patra | sanjeevpatra@gmail.com