object:1913_11_25p
book class:Prayers And Meditations
author class:The Mother
subject class:Integral Yoga
class:chapter
1913 Tue 25 November
November 25, 1913
The greatest enemy of a silent contemplation turned towards Thee is surely this constant subconscient registering of the multitude of phenomena with which we come into contact. So long as we are mentally active, our conscious thought veils for us this over-activity of our subconscious receptivity; an entire part of our sensibility, and perhaps not the smallest, acts like a cine-camera without our knowledge and indeed to our detriment. It is only when we silence our active thought, which is relatively easy, that we see this multitude of little subconscious notations surging up from every side and often drowning us under their overwhelming flood. So it happens that, as soon as we attempt to enter the silence of deep contemplation, we are assailed by countless thoughtsif thoughts they could be calledwhich do not interest us in the least, do not represent for us any active desire, any conscious attachment, but only prove to us our inability to control what may be described as the mechanical receptivity of our subconscient. A considerable labour is needed to silence all these useless noises, to stop this wearisome train of images and to purify ones mind of these thousand little nothings, so obstructing and worthless. And it is so much time uselessly lost; it is a terrible wastage.
And the remedy? In an over-simple way, certain ascetic disciplines recommend solitude and inaction: sheltering ones subconscient from all possible registration; that seems to me a childish remedy, for it leaves the ascetic at the mercy of the first surprise-attack; and if one day, confident of being perfectly master of himself, he wants to come back among his fellowmen in order to help them, his subconscient, so long deprived of its activity of reception, will surely indulge it more intensively than ever before, as soon as the least opportunity offers.
There is certainly another remedy. What is it? Undoubtedly, one must learn to control ones subconscient just as one controls ones conscious thought. There must be many ways of achieving this. Regular introspection in the Buddhist manner and a methodical analysis of ones dreamsformed almost always from this subconscious registrationare part of the method to be found. But there is surely something more rapidly effective.
O Lord, Eternal Master, Thou shalt be the Teacher, the Inspirer; Thou wilt teach me what should be done, so that after an indispensable application of it to myself, I may make others also benefit from what Thou hast taught me.
With a loving and trustful devotion, I bow to Thee.
***
November 22, 1913
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