People are so unwilling to recognise
anything that expresses the Divine that they are ever on the alert to find
fault, discover apparent defects and so reduce what is high to their own level.
They are simply furious at being surpassed and when they do succeed in finding
superficial “shortcomings” they are greatly pleased. But they forget that if
they confront even the Divine, when its presence is on the earth, with their
crude physical mind they are bound to meet only what is crude. They cannot hope
to see what they are themselves incapable of seeing or unwilling to see. They
are sure to misjudge the Divine if they consider the surface-aspect of its
actions, for they will never understand that what seems similar to human
activity is yet altogether dissimilar and proceeds from a source which is
non-human.
The Divine, manifesting itself for the work
on earth, appears to act as men do but really does not. It is not possible to
evaluate it by such standards of the obvious and the apparent. But men are
utterly in love with their own inferiority and cannot bear to submit to or
admit a higher reality. This desire to find fault, this malicious passion to
criticise and doubt what something in oneself tells one is a higher reality is
the very stamp of humanity—marks out the merely human. Wherever, on the other
hand, there is a spontaneous admiration for the true, the beautiful, the noble,
there is something divine expressed. You should know for certain that it is the
psychic being, the soul in you with which your physical consciousness comes in
contact when your heart leaps out to worship and admire what you feel to be of
a divine origin.
The moment you are in front of what you feel
to be such, you should be moved to tears of joy. It is the mean creature who
stops to reflect: “Yes, it is something great but it would be worth admiring if
it fell to my lot, if I were the happy possessor of this quality, the
instrument of this superior manifestation” Why should you bother about your ego
when the main concern is that the Divine should reveal itself wherever it wants
and in whatever manner it chooses? You should feel fulfilled when it is thus
expressed, you should be able to burst the narrow bonds of your miserable
personality, and soar up in unselfish joy. This joy is the true sign that your
soul has awakened and has sensed the truth. It is only then that you can open
to the influence of the descending truth and be shaped by it. I remember
occasions when I used to be moved to tears on seeing even children, even babies
do something that was most divinely beautiful and simple. Feel that joy and you
will be able to profit by the Divine’s presence in your midst.
(CWM, Volume 3,
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Puducherry)
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