10-10- 2014
Non-Action
Non-reaction is powerful, especially in life as it partakes of the power of Silent Will. Non-Action is fully prevalent among those who cannot act. Non-Action, otherwise, is out of culture or cultural restraint. Mr. Bennet not acting when Lydia wanted to go to Brighton was irresponsibility. His not restraining his wife was a cultural freedom the British husband extended to his wife. For an Indian husband, it is inconceivable. If there is an incorruptible politician in India today, we can see it in him. In a corruption-free society, it is nothing, as it is the social will that expresses in him. Here, it is a magnificent example of Non-Action, as he consciously refuses to exercise a power that has the fullest social approval. Youth from rich families can borrow any amount. Most of them won’t. There are youth who itch to borrow and spend it on vanity, mostly on unscrupulous women. Their joy is in the exercise of their capacity to borrow. It is not for them to refrain from borrowing when there is an opportunity. Few men are resourceful in positive aspects of life, in building up a family or building up one’s character. Such men in public life or service earn the name of institution builders. Kurien, Subramaniam are of that type. Resourcefulness can achieve in any field. Pleasant manners too have infinite resourcefulness. One Man, whose natural impulses were not moving towards goodness, had pleasant manners, as they call a pleasant exterior. He was able to win all the possible prizes and awards his country could give without having any qualification. He knew how to please whom and when. He was able to treat a volunteer in a conference as a VIP. Meeting him after several years, he could ask after his wife whose name he would remember. He was able to have a new international prize founded for his sake and became the First Recipient! This is the power of conscious planned cautious initiative.
In terms of effectivity, action and non-action cannot be compared in quantity. As it is from one end to another end, it is infinity extending in both ways. Action expresses the skill or capacity one has in the work. Non-action lets the Brahman, the Absolute behind to express itself in the same work. Brahman cannot but express Himself fully into what he does. We think and understand. Thinking is powerful. If so, what then is non-thinking or non-understanding? Can we practice it? Mother, in Her yoga practiced it to shed seeing, hearing as the senses have learnt and allowed Herself to learn anew. She did say that. It was an experience of the Divine in Her learning to see and hear. There are earlier stages. One who interrupts others while they speak, over the years learns not to interrupt. It is a social skill. Its higher version is psychological, to know inside that he should wait to speak till the other Man stops. The shift is evolutionary, as the difference between clay and the pot. This is an outer social exercise. Shift it inside. Decide NOT to think or understand what you read. The Mental urge to think is irresistible. Only a yogic force of Silence can handle it. This is not dissolving the faculty of thinking. Mother and Sri Aurobindo never thought as they had lost the faculty of thinking.
Non-action starts from not acting, quite a feat, especially when you have all the capacity to act. Imagine one who has recently earned several crores of rupees. Can he refrain himself from spending it? Can a sitting MP not answer a false charge from the Treasury Bench? The experience of Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo in reading are of Minds that had lost the faculty of thinking. Their endowment was a byproduct of their spiritual progress. We are here attempting it without having made that spiritual progress. Still, it is not impossible. Non-action by the vital or the body is more arduous than non-thinking. For one in life and work outside the earmarked territory of yoga, even its attempt or failure will result in a stupendous progress of work in his field. At least let us comprehend what they are. Consecration of speech is one instance. Even the adept will be fully overruled in this attempt. He will not be able to know that he failed to consecrate his speech before 500 words escape him. Speech originates in the Mind. Speaking begins when we meet a person, an act of the senses. A mental act cannot be controlled by a sensational act. For that, the speaking should become a Mental Act, originate in the Mind. It is possible when Silence is born in the senses. Speech itself can be seen as words spoken or an act. Words can be controlled outside or inside. The origin of the words is in a Mental impulse which is difficult to get a hold of. Should you do so, the whole being, of which the body is only a part, comes to a standstill. Should a man succeed or fail in it, his own accomplishment in life will be great. As a rule, accomplishment precedes understanding. Understanding when you find yourself accomplishing is possible. No one who is in that position will ever think of understanding what happened or how it happened. If he does so, it may be after several decades. Now you think about what you have accomplished forty or thirty years ago. Have you stopped and tried to know about it? Have you ever secured first rank or a medal or a prize? You could have taken it as your desert or your capacity has won. Now go back to it and review. Capacity does not accomplish for the possessor. Beyond that, there is the Essence. That takes one to the very end, Brahman the Absolute, the unknowable. Can we tell the project leader of ‘Landing on the Moon’ that non-action is more powerful? Ten thousand organisations cooperated in great enthusiasm synchronizing their interest over a decade. The world war was fought. Can we conceive of the same result from Non-Action? A family strains itself over a long period of two decades to marry a girl or educate a boy. When they successfully complete, what place is there for non-action. The two weddings in the குருக்கள் family explain the phenomenon. The history of 30 future millenniums can be skipped if 12 or a hundred people call down the Supermind, is His yoga. Non-Action is more than true. One can see it in daily life. What is true in one phenomenon is equally true in the wider context of spiritual evolution of several thousand years.
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