Can one study for
the Divine and not for oneself, prepare oneself for the divine
work?
Yes, if you study with the feeling
that you must develop yourselves to
become instruments. But truly, it is done in a very different spirit,
isn't it? —
very different. To
begin with, there are no longer subjects you like and those you don't,
no longer any classes which bore you and those which don't, no longer
any difficult things and things not difficult, no longer any teachers
who are pleasant or any who are not — all that disappears
immediately. One enters a state in which, what ever happens one takes
as an opportunity to learn to prepare oneself for the divine work, and
everything becomes interesting. Naturally, if one is doing that, it is
quite all right.
*
You see, my child,
the unfortunate thing is that you are too
preoccupied with yourself. At your age I was exclusively occupied with
my studies
—
finding things out,
learning, understanding, knowing. That was my interest, even my
passion. My mother, who loved us very much
—
my brother and myself
—
never allowed us to
be ill tempered or discontented or lazy. If we went to complain to her
about one thing or another, to tell her that we were discontented, she
would make fun of us or scold us and say, "What is this nonsense? Don't
be ridiculous. Quick! off you go and work, and never mind whether
you are in a good or a bad mood! That is of no interest at all."
My mother was
perfectly right and I have always been very grateful to
her for having taught me the discipline and necessity of
self-forgetfulness through concentration on what one is doing.
I have told you this
because the anxiety you speak of comes from the fact that you are far
too concerned about yourself. It would be better for you to pay more
attention to what you are doing and to do it well (painting or music),
to
develop your mind which is still very uncultivated, and to learn the
elements of knowledge which are indispensable to a man if he does not
want to be ignorant and uncultured. If you worked regularly
eight to nine hours a day, you would be hungry and you would eat well,
you would feel sleepy and sleep peacefully, and you would have no time
to wonder whether you are in a good or a bad mood. I
am telling you these things with all my affection, and I hope that you will
understand them.
What is the method
of increasing the "capacities of expansion and widening"?
I say there that a
great variety of subjects should be studied. I believe that is it. For
instance, if you are at school, to study all the subjects possible. If
you are reading at home, not to read just one kind of thing, read all
sorts of different things
But, Sweet Mother,
at school it is not possible to take many subjects. We have to
specialise.
Yes, yes! I have heard that, especially from your teachers. I don't
agree. And I know it very well, this is being continuously repeated to
me: if anything is to be done properly, one must specialise. It is the
same thing for sports also. It is the same for everything in life. It
is said and repeated, and there are people who will prove it: to do
something well one must specialise. One must do that and concentrate.
If one wants to become a good philosopher, one must learn only
philosophy, if one wants to be a good chemist, one must learn chemistry
only. And if one wants to become a good tennis-player, one must play
only tennis. That's not what I think, that is all I can say. My
experience is different. I believe there are general faculties and that
it is much more important to acquire these than to specialise
—
unless, naturally, it
be like M and Mme Curie who wanted to develop a certain science, find
some thing new, then of course, they were compelled to concentrate on
that science. But still that was only till they had discovered it;
once they had found it, nothing stopped them from widening their mind.
This is something I
have heard from my very childhood, and I believe our great
grand-parents heard the same thing, and from all time it has been
preached that if you want to succeed in something you must do only
that. And as for me, I was scolded all the time because I did many
different things! And I was always told I would never be good at
anything. I studied, I did painting, I did music, and besides was busy
with other things still. And I was told my music wouldn't be up to much, my painting
wouldn't be worthwhile, and my studies would be quite incomplete.
Probably it is quite true, but still I have found that this had its
advantages
—
those very advantages
I am speaking about, of widening, making supple one's mind and
understanding. It is true that if I had wanted to be a first-class
player and to play in concerts, it would have been necessary to do what
they said. And as for painting, if I had wanted to be among the great
artists of the period, it would have been necessary to do that.
That's quite understandable. But still, that is just one point of view.
I don't see
any
necessity of being the greatest artist, the greatest musician. That
has always seemed to me a vanity. And besides, it is a question of
opinion.... There is but one instance,
that's when one wants to make a
discovery.
Then, naturally, one must dedicate all one's effort to that.
But that is not necessarily a whole lifetime's effort
—
unless one chooses a
very difficult subject as the Curies did. There was a time they had
made their
discovery
—
they could go beyond
it.
Yet
spontaneously, people who wish to keep their balance rest from one
activity
and take up another. Examples are always
cited of great
performers or great artists or great scientists
who have a kind of
mania, a diversion. You have perhaps heard
of Ingres's violin. Ingres was a painter; he did not lack talent and when he had
some free time he started playing
the violin, and his violin interested him much more than his painting.
It seems he did not play the violin very well but it interested him more. And
his painting he did very well and it interested him
less. But I believe that was quite simply because he needed balance.
Concentration on a single thing in order to attain one's aim is very
necessary for the human mind in
its normal functioning, but one can arrive at a different working
that's
more complete, more subtle. Naturally, physically one is bound to be
limited, for in physical life one depends a great deal on time and
space, and also it is difficult to realise great things without special
concentration. But if one wants to lead a higher and deeper life, I
believe one can acquire perhaps much greater capacities by other means
than those of restriction and limitation. There is a considerable
advantage in getting rid of one's limits, if not from the point of view
of realisation in action, at least from that of spiritual realisation.
*
It is more important
to pursue to its end the practice of the effect
produced by an idea that one has met somehow, than to try to accumulate
in the head a large number of ideas. Ideas may all be very useful in
their own time, if they are allowed in at the opportune moment,
particularly if you carry to the extreme limit the result of one of
those dynamic ideas that are capable of making you win an inner
victory. That is to say, one should have for one's chief, if not only
aim the practice of what one knows rather than the accumulation in
oneself of a knowledge which remains purely theoretical.
So
one could sum up: put into practice integrally what you know, only then
can you usefully increase your theoretical knowledge.
*
That is why you go to
school, my children, whether you are big or small, for
one can learn at any age
—
and so you must go to your classes.
Sometimes,
if you are not in a very good mood, you say, "How boring
it is going to be!" Yes, perhaps the teacher who
is
taking your class
does not know how to amuse you. He may be a very good teacher, but at
the
same time he may not know how to entertain you, for it is not always
easy.
There are days when one does not feel like being entertaining. There
are
days, for him as for you, when one would like to be elsewhere than in
school. But still, you go to your class. You go because you must, for
if you obey all your fancies you will never
have any
control over yourselves; your fancies will control
you. So you go to your class, but instead of going there and
thinking, "How bored I am going to be; I am sure it is not going to be
interesting", you should tell yourselves, "There is not a single minute
in life, not one circumstance that is
not an opportunity for progress. So what progress am I going to make
today? The class I am going to now is on a subject that does not interest me.
But perhaps that is because something is
lacking in me; perhaps, in my brain, a certain number of cells are
deficient and that is why I cannot find any
interest in
the subject. If so, I shall try, I shall listen carefully,
concentrate
hard and above all drive out of my mind
aimlessness, this
superficial shallowness which makes me feel bored when there is
something
I cannot grasp. I am bored because I do not make an effort to
understand, because I do not have this will for progress." When one does
not progress, one
feels bored, everyone, young or old; for we are here on earth to
progress. How tedious life would be without progress! Life is
monotonous. Most often it is not fun. It is far from being beautiful. But if you
take it as a field for
progress, then everything changes, everything becomes interesting and
there is no longer any room for boredom. Next time your teacher seems
boring to you, instead of wasting your time doing nothing, try to
understand why he bores you. Then if you have a capacity of
observation
and if you make an effort to understand, you will soon see that a kind
of miracle has occurred and that you are no longer feeling bored at all.
This
remedy is good in almost every case. Sometimes, in certain
circumstances, everything seems dull, boring, stupid; this means that
you are as boring as the circumstances and it clearly shows that you
are not in a state of progress. It is simply a passing wave of boredom,
and nothing is more contrary to the purpose of existence. At such a
moment you might make an effort and ask yourself, "This boredom shows
that I have something to learn, some progress to make in myself, some
inertia to conquer, some weakness to overcome." Boredom is a dullness
of the consciousness; and if you seek the cure within yourself, you
will see that it immediately dissolves. Most people, when they
feel
bored, instead of making an effort to rise one step higher in their
consciousness, come down one step lower; they come down even lower than
they were before and do stupid things, they make themselves vulgar in
the hope of amusing themselves. That is why men intoxicate themselves,
spoil their health, deaden their brains. If they had risen instead of
falling, they would have made use of this opportunity to progress.
*
The usefulness of
work is nothing else but that: to crystallize this mental power. For,
what you learn (unless you put
it in practice
by some work or deeper studies), half of what you learn, at least, will
vanish, disappear with time. But it will leave behind one thing: the
capacity of crystallising your thought, making something clear out of
it, something precise, exact and organised. And that is the true
usefulness of work: to organise your cerebral capacity. If you
remain
in hazy movement in that kind of cloudy fluidity, you may labour
for years, it will be quite useless to you; you will not come
out of it more intelligent than when you entered it. But if you are
able, even for half an hour, to concentrate your attention on things
that seem to you of very little interest, like a rule of grammar, for
example (the rules of grammar are some of the dry things I was speaking
about, there are other
things much more arid, but indeed the rules of grammar are sufficiently arid), if
you take one of them and try to understand it
—
not learn it by heart
and apply mechanically what you have learnt by
heart, that will be of no use
—
but try to understand the thought behind the
words: "Why was this rule formulated
in this way?" and try to find out your own formula for the thing; that
is so interesting. "Why has this gentleman who wrote this rule written
it in this way? But I am
studying, trying to understand why. Why has he put this word after that
and that word after that other, and why has he stated the rule in this way? It
is because he thought that it was the most
complete and the most clear way of expressing the thing." And so that's the
thing you must find. And when you find it, you suddenly exclaim: "That is what it
means! It must be seen in
this way, then it becomes very clear."
I am going to explain it to you: when you have understood,
it forms a little crystal in you, like a little shining point. And when
you have put in many, many, many of these, then you will begin to be
intelligent. That is the utility of work, not simply to stuff the head
with a heap of things that take you nowhere.