It is like those people in despair who tell you, “Why is the world so frightful?” What is the use of lamenting, since it is like that? The only thing you can do is to work to change it. Naturally, from a speculative point of view one may try to understand, but the human mind is incapable of understanding such things.
For the moment it is quite useless. What is useful is to change it. We all agree that the world is detestable, that it is not what it ought to be, and the only thing we have to do is to work to make it otherwise. Consequently, our whole preoccupation should be to find the best means of making it different; and we can understand one thing, it is that the best means (though we do not know it quite well yet), is we ourselves, isn’t it?
And surely you know yourself better than you know your neighbour— you understand better the consciousness manifested in a human being than that manifested in the stars, for instance. So, after a little hesitation you could say, “After all, the best means is what I am. I don’t know very well what I am, but this kind of collection of things that I am, this perhaps is my work, this is perhaps my part of the work, and if I do it as well as I can, perhaps I shall be doing the best I can do.”
This is a very big beginning, very big. It is not overwhelming, not beyond the limits of your possibilities. You have your work at hand, it is always within your reach, so to say, it is always there for you to attend to it—a field of action proportionate to your strength, but varied enough, complex, vast, deep enough to be interesting. And you explore this unknown world.
(For further information on the life and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and articles on their vision and yoga, log on to our website: www.aurosociety.org)
