greatness and splendour, to make one's hero a genius seeking to transcend himself, because for that one must be a genius oneself, and this is not given to everybody.

*



 [A teacher suggested that books dealing with subjects like crime, violence and licentiousness should not be available to young people.]

It is not so much a question of subject-matter but of vul garity of mind and narrowness and selfish common-sense in the conception of life, expressed in a form devoid of art, great ness or refinement, which must be carefully removed from the reading-matter of children both big and small. All that lowers and degrades the consciousness must be excluded.

Some Practical Advice


 The Mother:
For those who want always to progress, there are three major ways of progressing:

1) To widen the field of one's consciousness.
2) To understand ever better and more completely what one knows.
3) To find the Divine and surrender more and more to his Will.

In other words, this means:

1) To constantly enrich the possibilities of the instrument.
2) To ceaselessly perfect the functioning of this instru ment.
3) To make this instrument increasingly receptive and obedient to the Divine.

To learn to understand and do more and more things. To purify oneself of all that prevents one from being totally sur rendered to the Divine. To make one's consciousness more and more receptive to the Divine Influence.
One could say: to widen oneself more and more, to deepen oneself more and more, to surrender oneself more and more completely.

*






 Light for Students Some Practical Advice 115
What is the meaning of one's birthday apart from its com memorative character? How can one take advantage of this occasion?

Because of the rhythm of the universal forces, a person is supposed to have a special receptivity on his birthday each year.
He can therefore take advantage of this receptivity by making good resolutions and fresh progress on the path of his integral development.

*



 Not to take care of material things which one uses is a sign of inconscience and ignorance.
You have no right to use any material object whatsoever if you do not take care of it.
You must take care of it not because you are attached to it, but because it manifests something of the Divine Conscious ness.


Thus before you eat, concentrate a few seconds in the as piration that the food you are about to eat may bring your body the substance it needs to serve as solid basis for your effort towards the great discovery, and give it the energy for persistence and perseverance in the effort.
Before you go to sleep, concentrate a few seconds in the aspiration that the sleep may restore your fatigued nerves, bring calm and quietness to your brain so that on waking you may, with renewed vigour, begin again your journey on the

path of the great discovery....

When you speak, before the words come out of your mouth, concentrate just long enough to check your words and allow only those that are absolutely necessary to pass, only those that are not in any way harmful to your progress on the path of the great discovery....

To sum up, never forget the purpose and goal of your life.



Replace the ambition to be first by the will to do the best possible.

Replace the desire for success by the yearning for progress. Replace the eagerness for fame by the aspiration for per fection.

Physical Education is meant to bring into the body, con sciousness and control, discipline and mastery, all things necessary for a higher and better life.

Keep all that in mind, practise sincerely and you will be- come a good athlete; this is the first step on the way to be a true man.



...Someone comes and insults you or says unpleasant things to you; and if you begin to vibrate in unison with this anger or this ill-will, you feel quite weak and powerless and usu ally you make a fool of yourself. But if you manage to keep within yourself, especially in your head, a complete immo bility which refuses to receive these vibrations, then at the same time you feel a great strength, and the other person cannot disturb you. If you remain very quiet, even physi


Light for Students

cally, and when violence is directed at you, you are able to remain very quiet, very silent, very still, well, that has a power not only over you but over the other person also. If you don't have these vibrations of inner response, if can remain abso lutely immobile within yourself, everywhere this has an al most immediate effect upon the other person.

That gives you an idea of the power of immobility. And it is a very common fact which can occur every day; it is not a great event of spiritual life, it is something of the outer, mate rial life.

There is a tremendous power in immobility: mental im mobility, sensorial immobility, physical immobility. If you can remain like a wall, absolutely motionless, everything the other person sends you will immediately fall back upon him. And it has an immediate action. It can stop the arm of the assassin, you understand, it has that strength. Only, one must not just appear to be immobile and yet be boiling inside! That's not what I mean. I mean an integral immobility.

*



. ...True quietude is a very great force, a very great strength. In fact one can say, looking at the problem from the other side, that all those who are really strong, powerful, are al ways very calm. It is only the weak who are agitated; as soon as one becomes truly strong, one is peaceful, calm, quiet, and one has the power of endurance to face the adverse waves which come rushing from outside in the hope of disturbing one. This true quietude is always a sign of force. Calmness belongs to the strong.

And this is true even in the physical field. I don't know if

Some Practical Advice 117

you have observed animals like lions, tigers, elephants, but it is a fact that when they are not in action, they are always so perfectly still. A lion sitting and looking at you always seems to be telling you, "Oh, how fidgety you are!" It looks at you with such a peaceful air of wisdom! And all its power, en ergy, physical strength are there, gathered, collected, con centrated and — without a shadow of agitation — ready for action when the order is given.



I suggest the same remedy as the one I was using in my childhood when disagreeing with my young playmates. I was at that time... very sensitive and I felt hurt when abused by them, especially by those whom I had shown only sympathy and kindness. I used to tell myself: "Why be sorry and feel miserable? If they are right in what they say, I have only to be glad for the lesson and correct myself; if they are wrong, why should I worry about it — it is for them to be sorry for their mistake. In both cases the best and the most dignified thing I can do is to remain strong, quiet and unmoved."

This lesson which I was giving myself and trying to follow when I was eight years old, still holds good in all similar cases.



To learn to be quiet and silent... When you have a problem to solve, instead of turning over in your head all the possibili ties, all the consequences, all the possible things one should or should not do, if you remain quiet with an aspiration for goodwill, if possible a need for goodwill, the solution comes very quickly. And as you are silent you are able to hear it.



118 Light for Students

When you are caught in a difficulty, try this method: in stead of becoming agitated, turning over all the ideas and ac tively seeking solutions, of worrying, fretting, running here and there inside your head — I don't mean externally, for ex ternally you probably have enough common sense not to do that! But inside, in your head — remain quiet. And according to your nature, with ardour or peace, with intensity or widen ing or with all these together, implore the Light and wait for it to come.

In this way the path would be considerably shortened.



...So if you never go beyond the limit you have reached, you will never progress. It is quite obvious that people who practise physical culture, for example, if they make progress, it is just because they gradually exceed, go beyond what they could do.

It is all a matter of balance. And the period of receptivity should be in proportion to the period of expenditure.

But if one confines oneself to what one can do at a given moment... First of all it is impossible, for if one doesn't progress, one falls back. Therefore, one must always make a little effort to do a little more than before. Then one is on the upward path. If one is afraid of doing too much, one is sure to go down again and lose one's capacities.

One must always try a little more, a little better than one did the day before or the previous moment. Only, the more one increases one's effort, the more should one increase one's capacity of receptivity and the opportunities to receive. For instance, from the purely physical point of view, if one wants

Some Practical Advice
119

to develop one's muscles, a progressive effort must be made by them, that is to say, a greater and greater effort, but at the same time one must do what is needed: massage, hydrotherapy, etc. to increase at the same time their capacity to receive.



...If you have a tamasic nature, you must use another pro cedure. You must exert your consciousness, your will, your force, gather your energy, shake yourself a little and whip yourself and say: "Clac! clac! forward, march." If it is lazi ness that keeps you back from, say, doing the vaulting, you must immediately do something much more tiring and say:

"Well, you don't want to do that? All right, you are going to do 1500 meters running!" Or else: "I don't want to do the weight-lifting today, I don't feel like doing it: good, I shall go skipping 4000 times at a stretch."


The same method should be used for studies also?

Yes, exactly. If you don't feel like learning your lesson, you take a book ten times more tiring, something dry and compel yourself to read it with attention. There are books of this kind, so dry, of such an arid kind of knowledge... Well, if you don't feel like reading your book of history or geogra phy, which are after all very easy and very entertaining, in stead of that take one of those books that are given to you (Mother looks at a teacher) — I do not dare to say anything, because your teacher is there! — extremely arid, and compel yourself to study at least half the book. Afterwards, every thing else appears charming to you.





 Some Practical Advice 121

Light for Students

I suggest that every one of you should try — oh! not for long, just for one hour a day — to say nothing but the abso lutely indispensable words. Not one more, not one less.

Take one hour of your life, the one which is most conve nient for you, and during that time observe yourself closely

and say only the absolutely indispensable words.

At the outset, the first difficulty will be to know what is

absolutely indispensable and what is not. It is already a study

in itself and every day you will do better.

Next, you will see that so long as one says nothing, it is not difficult to remain absolutely silent, but as soon as you begin to speak, always or almost always you say two or three or ten or twenty useless words which it was not at all neces sary to say.



When you have a little time, whether it is one hour or a few minutes, tell yourself, "At last, I have some time to con centrate, to collect myself, to relive the purpose of my life, to offer myself to the True and die Eternal." If you took care to do this each time you are not harassed by outer circumstances, you would find out that you were advancing very quickly on the path. Instead of wasting your time in chattering, in doing useless things, reading things that lower the consciousness — to choose only the best cases, I am not speaking of other imbecilities which are much more serious — instead of trying to make yourself giddy, to make time, that is already so short, still shorter only to realise at the end of your life that you have lost three-quarters of your chance — then you want to put in double time, but that does not work — it is better to be