Let endurance be your watchword: teach the
life-force in you—your vital being—not to complain but to put up with all the
conditions necessary for great achievement. The body is a very enduring
servant, it bears the stress of circumstance tamely like a beast of burden. It
is the vital being that is always grumbling and uneasy. The slavery and torture
to which it subjects the physical is almost incalculable. How it twists and
deforms the poor body to its own fads and fancies, irrationally demanding that
everything should be shaped according to its whimsicality! But the very essence
of endurance is that the vital should learn to give up its capricious likes and
dislikes and preserve an equanimity in the midst of the most trying conditions.
When you are treated roughly by somebody or you lack something which would
relieve your discomfort, you must keep up cheerfully instead of letting
yourself be disturbed. Let nothing ruffle you the least bit, and whenever the
vital tends to air its petty grievances with pompous exaggeration just stop to
consider how very happy you are, compared to so many in this world. Reflect for
a moment on what the soldiers who fought in the last war had to go through. If
you had to bear such hardships you would realise the utter silliness of your
dissatisfactions. And yet I do not wish you to court difficulties - what I want
is simply that you should learn to endure the little insignificant troubles of
your life.
Nothing great is ever accomplished without
endurance. If you study the lives of great men you will see how they set
themselves like flint against the weaknesses of the vital. Even today, the true
meaning of our civilisation is the mastery of the physical through endurance in
the vital. The spirit of sport and of adventure and the dauntless facing of
odds which is evident in all fields of life are part of this ideal of
endurance. In science itself, progress depends on the countless difficult tests
and trials which precede achievement. Surely, with such momentous work as we
have in hand in our Ashram, we have not any less need of endurance. What you
must do is to give your vital a good beating as soon as it protests; for, when
the physical is concerned, there is reason to be considerate and to take
precautions, but with the vital the only method is a sound “kicking”. Kick your
vital the moment it complains, because there is no other way of getting out of
the petty consciousness which attaches so much importance to creature comforts
and social amenities instead of asking for the Light and the Truth.
(CWM, Volume 3, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust,
Puducherry)
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