Birth into the true consciousness, that of the Divine Presence in us.
What is called “new birth” is the birth into the spiritual
life, the spiritual consciousness; it is to
carry in oneself something of the spirit which, individually, through the soul,
can begin to rule the life and be the master of existence. But in the
supramental world, the spirit will be the master of this entire world and all
its manifestations, all its expressions, consciously, spontaneously, naturally.
In the individual
existence, that is what makes all the difference; so long as one just speaks of
the spirit and it is something one has read about, whose existence one vaguely
knows about, but not a very concrete reality for the consciousness, this means
that one is not born into the spirit. And when one is born into the spirit, it
becomes something much more concrete, much more living, much more real, much
more tangible than the whole material world. And this is what makes the essential
difference between beings. When that becomes spontaneously
real—the true, concrete existence, the atmosphere one can freely breathe—then one knows one has crossed over to the other side. But so long as it is
something rather vague and hazy—you have heard about it, you know that it exists, but… it has no concrete reality—well, this means that the new birth has not yet taken place. As long as you tell yourself, “Yes, this I can see, this I can touch, the pain I
suffer from, the hunger that torments me, the sleep that makes me feel heavy,
this is real, this is concrete…” (Mother laughs), that means
that you have not yet crossed over to the other side, you are not born into the
spirit.
(Silence)
In fact, the vast majority
of men are like prisoners with all the doors and windows closed, so they
suffocate, which is quite natural. But they have with them the key that opens
the doors and windows, and they do not use it…. Certainly there is a time when they don’t know they have the key, but long after they have come to know it, long after they have been told about it, they hesitate
to use it and doubt whether it has the power to open the doors and windows or even that it is a good thing to open them! And even when they
feel that “after all, it might be good”, there remains some fear: “What will happen when these doors and windows are opened?…” and they are afraid. They are afraid of being lost in that light and freedom. They want to remain what they call “themselves”. They like their falsehood and their bondage. Something in them likes it and goes on clinging to it. They still have the impression that without their limits they would no longer exist.
That is why the journey is
so long, that is why it is difficult. For if one truly consented to cease to
exist, everything would become so easy, so swift, so luminous, so joyful—but perhaps
not in the way men understand joy and ease. In truth, there are very few people who do not enjoy fighting. There are very few who could
accept the absence of night, few can conceive of light except as the opposite
of darkness: “Without shadows there would be no picture. Without struggle, there would be no victory. Without suffering there would be no joy.” That is what they think, and so long as
one thinks in this way, one is not yet born into the spirit.
(CWM, Volume 04, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Puducherry)
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