Q: It is really a problem to know how to create interest in the students, whether in games, athletics or gymnastics. Even our enthusiasm dwindles when we see their lack of interest in everything.
A: The Mother: The interest of students is proportionate to the true capacity of the teacher.
Q: Sweet Mother, you have often told us that our activities must be an offering to the Divine. What does it mean exactly, and how to do it? For instance, when one plays tennis or basketball , how does one do that as an offering? Mental formations are not enough, naturally!.
A: The Mother: It means that what you do should not be done with a personal, egoistic aim, for success, for glory, for gain, for material profit or out of vanity, but as a service and an offering, in order to become more conscious of the divine will and to give oneself more entirely to it, until one has made enough progress to know and feel that it is the Divine who acts in you, His force that animates you and His will that supports you -- not only a mental knowledge, but the sincerity of a state of consciousness and the power of a living experience.
For that to be possible, all egoistic motives and all egoistic reactions must disappear.
20th November, 1961.
Q: One is often afraid of doing what is new; the body refuses to act in a new way, like trying a new gymnastic figure or another way of diving. From where does this fear come? How can one free oneself of it? And again, how can one encourage others to do the same ?
A: The Mother: The body is afraid of anything new because its very base is inertia, tamas; it is the vital which brings the dominance of rajas (activity). That is why, generally, the intrusion of the vital in the form of ambition, emulation and egotism, obliges the body to shake off tamas and make the necessary effort to progress. Naturally, those in whom the mind predominates can lecture their body and provide it with all the necessary reasons to enable it to overcome its fear.
The best way for everybody is self-giving to the Divine and confidence in His infinite Grace.
13th May, 1964.
(The Mother, ‘CWM’, Vol. 12, “On Education”, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry)
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