To Teach or Not to Teach
To teach or not to teach is a key question for an integral yoga practitioner. There are several statements from The Mother that insist on practice and inner experience being primary; intellectual discussion, explanations, teaching of Sri Aurobindo’s works as detrimental to true understanding. At the same time, there is also the Mother’s caution about not making a dogma out of her words as they are meant for a specific context, a specific person even. Where does that leave us?
Personally, it is this aspect of freedom and flexibility that I find most attractive in the Integral Yoga. Sri Aurobindo encourages us to question instead of accepting even his words blindly. However, at the core of that questioning is a deep-seated faith in the Lord, and an aspiration to understand. It is from an inner poise of consciousness that one questions, not from the surface mind. And still, there is an important role the mind has to play in this yoga – to help one organize one’s understanding, to help one discern inner movements, to help one bring order to the other parts of the being and even to the mind itself.
Dwelling on the question – to teach or not to teach – I am reminded of my interactions with Nirod da (Dr. Nirodbaran who served as one of Sri Aurobindo’s attendants, and his scribe for ‘Savitri’, amongst other things). I sat through his weekly ‘Savitri’ study group, when visiting the Ashram. He would only read, there was no discussion or explanation. I also sat through one of his classes on ‘The Synthesis of Yoga’ at the Ashram school (SAICE). In that class there was explanation and discussion. I also know that Nirod da himself would go, as a student, for Arindam da’s (Dr. Arabinda Basu) study groups. I am also reminded of the fact that Sri Aurobindo’s works are ‘taught’ at Knowledge (the Higher section of the Ashram school).
Recently, a close friend who spent time with Nirod da, told me: “Nirod da would attend every single class of Nadkarni ji on ‘Savitri’, where Nadkarni ji gave copious explanations while reading passages of ‘Savitri’. Nirod da insisted I attend and said that he found the classes very useful!”
Juxtaposing the above with the Mother’s injunctions on ‘not teaching’, so to say, I circle back to the question – to teach or not to teach. There is hardly any aspect of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother that is either/or… there is always the challenge of individual discernment and being true to what comes from within. As with the Free Progress method, where The Mother encouraged completely different, at times even completely opposite styles of teaching for each individual teacher, so I suppose it is with everything in the Integral Yoga.
For myself, the words of The Mother (said in a specific context) serve as a reminder to understand Sri Aurobindo’s texts from the inner poise of consciousness – to let the meaning be revealed inwardly and let that meaning then rise to the mind and express itself, if need be, in words. When I express that understanding, it helps me clarify my own understanding and to refine it further. When I listen to others explaining a text, the explanation resonates in different parts of the being. Some go straight within; some address the mind. I relish the first, the second helps me organize my mind, ideas and practice. The challenge is ‘to teach’ or discuss or explain, when required, from the same inner poise. There are times I am able to do it, and times when I am not. My failures push me to try better – try deeper – next time.
There are some texts of Sri Aurobindo that I am able to engage with directly, there are others where a teacher, explanations and discussion have enabled my engagement. In conclusion, I think, each has to find their own answer to this dilemma and that would be the right answer for oneself. With time, that answer may again change… but is that not the very process of growing through Integral Yoga?
- Anuradha (The Gnostic Centre, India)
Keywords: Teaching, Integral Yoga, Spiritual texts, Consciousness, Inner poise
Thank you for your words! Very helpful.
ReplyDelete🙏🏽
DeleteI believe that your blog was, at least partly, a reaction to my comments on SAIEN's recent webinar. I have no intention to start off another thread of intellectual analysis. However you said a few things about the practices in the Ashram and its school that present only a partial picture. I was a student at the Ashram school from 1952 to1961 which covered studies from the university undergraduate level right up to the Masters level in Mathematics and Chemistry. During the last few years Mother asked me and a few others to simultaneously teach at the Higher Secondary level. In 1962, with Mother's Blessings I went abroad for higher studies and ended up as a Professor of Physics in Canada. But during my fairly frequent visits to Pondicherry I gave lectures and the occasional short course and was considered to be part of the teacher's group here.
ReplyDeleteYes, I had Nirod-da as a teacher during my time as a student. Mother had tasked him to teach French Literature and I was in his class. I did not make him very happy because I did not think that committing Moliere to memory would do much to improve my mind. During this period of Mother's physical presence amongst us, Sri Aurobindo and Mother's books were not taught in school. When one of my history teachers requested Mother's permission to read Sri Aurobindo's "The Ideal of Human Unity" in his class, Mother only agreed on condition that there be no discussion on its contents in class. It is true that, later, reading Sri Aurobindo's and Mother's books became part of the curriculum, but this was because the nature of the school had changed. Whereas formerly the school was really meant for children that were for the most part destined to join the Ashram community, now the children were coming mainly for their education and were then going to go out into the world. It was perhaps proper that these should read Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s works as part of their curriculum itself. But these are not accompanied by lengthy discourses by their teachers. Of course, in the mid-fifties, Mother Herself took a weekly class where She read from Sri Aurobindo’s and Her books and answered questions from a relatively young group. Her answers were taped and have been published. These could perhaps be taken as an easier introduction to their major works.
After Mother left the physical world, there was some demand from sadhaks in the Ashram for Sri Nolini Kanta Gupta, long time secretary of the Ashram and the oldest companion of Sri Aurobindo, to speak to them. But almost invariably he read from Sri Aurobindo’s writings – some of these talks have been recorded and are used at the beginning of meditations, both in the Ashram and, for example, in the Toronto group meetings. Our present managing Trustee, Manoj Das Gupta has also recorded a few passages in the same vein and these too are being used as a prelude to meditations.
In my previous comments I have given Sri Aurobindo and Mother’s injunctions on explanations of their works and on the desire to help others. I do want to add a positive point here. It is when one reads their works oneself with deep concentration and a silent mind that we give them the opportunity to work directly on us and that speeds up our progress enormously.
Wishing you the best in all your endeavours!
Thanks for the good wishes. Indeed your sharing initiated this reflection. The reflection led to my own understanding and practice that I tried sharing through the write-up. Agree completely with you about not getting into intellectual discussion on this 😊
DeleteSorry, forgot to announce my name in the above comment - Anuradha
DeleteHi Anuradha:
DeleteSince you are someone who has written and spoken on the Yoga for many many years, can you help me understand what you wrote?
When you speak of not getting into "intellectual" discussion, do you mean "all" discussion or only a kind of discussion?
I may be reading more into it than what you wrote, but it sounds to me like you're saying the same thing I just did - it's not about using words in response to reading Mother and Sri Aurobindo, otherwise the Gnostic Center wouldn't exist!
It's about a particular KIND of thinking.
If one is awake (Self realized) and the mind is silent, and one simply speaks out of intuition, I can't imagine Mother or Sri Aurobindo would ever have had a problem with someone speaking from Silence about Their teachings.
This seems to me related to particularly modern misunderstanding of how the mind is to function in spiritual life.
DeleteI've studied the world traditions and have universally found:
(a) EVERY one of them makes the same warning that Mother and Sri Aurobindo did, regarding the uselessness of analytic understanding of contemplative writings;
and
(b) EVERY one of them (like Mother and Sri Aurobindo) ENCOURAGE developing the ability to reflect on contemplative writings - which includes putting reflections into words - from a stance of inner Silence and if possible, realization.
This is nothing new nor controversial but nowadays (and particularly in the IY community) people speak of this as something unique or unheard of or controversial.
Hello Don. I was only responding to the comment by Binu - “ I have no intention to start off another thread of intellectual analysis.” - not making a general statement. Yes, my own understanding is that we have to use the mind from a poise of silence, even for matters mundane, and more so for matters ‘spiritual’.
Delete"my own understanding is that we have to use the mind from a poise of silence, even for matters mundane, and more so for matters ‘spiritual’.
Deleteah, if only this was universally understood, appreciated and applied in the IY community.
Beautifully and elegantly stated!
Ok, I'm not sure I'm understanding this conversation, as it seems to be an in-house one. So if my comments don't apply, please ignore.
ReplyDeleteThis "sounds' to me like a conversation I've had for decades within the IY community - how do you read/talk about Their writings?
Well, this is something that is the same in ALL contemplative traditions - Christian, Sufi, Taoist, etc; nothing unique to IY, but here's a particularly nice, clear, eloquent passage from Sri Aurobindo on this (from The Intuitive Mind, in the Yoga of Self Perfection)
A fourth method is one which suggests itself naturally to the developed intelligence and suits the thinking man. This is to develop our intellect instead of eliminating it, but with the will not to cherish its limitations, but to heighten its capacity, light, intensity, degree and force of activity until it borders on the thing that transcends it and can easily be taken up and transformed into that higher conscious action. This movement also is founded on the truth of our nature and enters into the course and movement of the complete Yoga of self-perfection. That course, as I have described it, included a heightening and greatening of the action of our natural instruments and powers till they constitute in their purity and essential completeness a preparatory perfection of the present normal movement of the Shakti that acts in us. The reason and intelligent will, the buddhi, is the greatest of these powers and instruments, the natural leader of the rest in the developed human being, the most capable of aiding the development of the others. The ordinary activities of our nature are all of them of use for the greater perfection we seek, are meant to be turned into material for them, and the greater their development, the richer the preparation for the supramental action.
(Page 806).
Now, how do we apply that in practice?
ReplyDeleteI find it's applicable everywhere - in writing this note right now.
Before I expand on this, I wish this was inscribed in every Integral Yogi's mind, and kept in the forefront:
"Our Yoga begins where others end."
Do you recall that Sri Aurobindo said there isn't a single practice or WORD in Bases of Yoga that is unique to IY?
So, let's put it in simple everyday language.
Yes, we have a unique aim in IY - the supramental transformation. If anyone here knows anybody alive who experientially knows what that means, please tell me - I've never met or heard of anyone who does. So one has a wordless aspiration in the heart to open for that. Now, let's go and see what all Yoga the world over, is about?
Is my mind Silent? is my Heart truly open? Is the Soul (PB) fully in front? Have I realized the Self? (see Sri Aurobindo's comment about Ashramites to Nagin Doshi if you think this is not relevant?
Now, with a Silent Mind, open Heart, the soul and Self fully awake (that is, as Sri Aurobindo put it in one of His letters, is the "stress" of consciousness - that is, where the "I" is placed - shifted from mind-vital-body to the Self)?
with that awareness, one uses the mind/body/vital as directed by Her.
This is a universal teaching. It's incredibly simple, obvious and for some reason I've never understood in 50 years, in the IY community, one rarely if ever hears this simplicity, and everything becomes "Unique." I imaging if Sri Aurobindo sneezed, there must be an article somewhere in Mother India about how unique that sneeze is.
Stepping back is not a unique IY exercise
The Witness is not some unique IY discovery.
Nor is the psychic being.
Nor is the idea of complete surrender.
Nor is the idea that one does not (initially) reason or analyze or think when one is reading a spiritual text. Nor is the idea that Sri Aurobindo wrote about that I quoted above, that having established perfect inner Silence, one can then use the mind, but it is a way of thinking/analyzing etc that is radically different from what we usually do.
This, in fact, is what Marco Masi was teaching and presents in his book, "Spirit Calls Nature."
But again, this is not at all unique to IY.
really, I have to ask again - what is this constant need to make things unique in IY which are universal?
ReplyDeleteAnd to make it all so darn complicated?
I came across Bases of Yoga and Mother's writings on education as my first "texts" in the Yoga in 1976. It all seemed utterly obvious. In fact, I recalled having come across this in another life (I also recognized the Bay of Bengal walkway when I first went to Pondy many years later)
But soon after coming across those writings, I started hearing people talk about the Yoga in immensely complex and convoluted ways. And my goodness, NEVER EVER EVER talk about or reflect on what we were reading in the groups. This was gospel. Even though countless times, Mother and Sri Aurobindo said and wrote quite the opposite.
So I just avoided the IY community - for decades.
I've honestly never come across the same thing anywhere else. Do you remember what Sri Aurobindo wrote to Nagin Doshi in the early 1930s?
Nagin was telling him how Self Realization was an easy thing, not a big deal and really, a concern for the old Yogis.
Remember Sri Aurobindo's answer?
"not a big thing? Easy? Something that is the AIM OF OUR YOGA as much as anything else? Is the Ashram then filled with Jivanmuktis?"
It's simple.
Let the mind become silent.
Let the heart open.
Let all thoughts, feelings, actions be guided by the psychic being in front, with the identity shifted to the Self.
Let the aspiration to give all the Mother pervade.
Then, one day, one life, one might be capable to seeing and understanding what is unique about IY. Till then, we have glimpses, our heart may feel vaguely - "as through a glass darkly" - but till then, we just go about our work - whether it's writing about IY, teaching physics, writing blog posts - with an open heart, silent mind, guided by Her, and WRITING, THINKING, etc WITHIN that context.
how much simpler (and non unique) can it be?
Dear Anuradha,
ReplyDeleteI read your piece “To teach or not to teach” with interest. It is true that in sadhana it is imperative to read Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s writings with deep concentration and understanding with both head and heart and over time absorb what one has read. However, what we must understand is that the Mother spoke to many sadhaks individually. Her conversations were subjective and restricted to what the soul of the sadhak needed. For example, She advised a sadhak that smoking is bad for him and therefore he should keep away from cigarettes. To another sadhak She not only allowed smoking but bought cigarettes for him. If we generalise it one will say that the Mother was against smoking and the other we will say that the Mother was for smoking. It is wrong to generalise the advice that She gave in individual conversations.
I work for Sri Aurobindo Society which was established by the Mother in 1960 with the specific mandate to spread the teachings of Sri Aurobindo far and wide. She said that the Society must encourage setting up of Centres when people aspired for it. As a result, the Society has 310 centres all over India and abroad.
Her clear-cut mandate was to disseminate the teachings in the best ways possible. In view of this we have collective meditations, studies, seminars, talks and lectures leading to interactions and questions and answers.
Sri Aurobindo’s yoga is individual and collective ---it begins with the individual and grows into a collectivity -- grows when we meet each other and share our love for the Mother which is the only binding factor. It is only when we meet that we exchange our vibrations and auras which helps in strengthening the collectivity. The transformation cannot take place unless the collectivity grows at a rapid rate which is possible only when the people with a single purpose get together.
I would therefore say --- ‘follow your mandate’.
With regards,
Pradeep Narang
Chairman
Sri Aurobindo Society
ReplyDeleteDear Anuradha,
I deeply resonated with your statement as a teacher.
“For myself, the words of The Mother (said in a specific context) serve as a reminder to understand Sri Aurobindo’s texts from the inner poise of consciousness – to let the meaning be revealed inwardly and let that meaning then rise to the mind and express itself, if need be, in words. When I express that understanding, it helps me clarify my own understanding and to refine it further.”
I started reading Sri Aurobindo seriously in 2014 with the Human Cycle and the Ideal of Human Unity. I laboriously read through the entire texts and understood perhaps less than 5% of them as part of the IPI course.
During the course, I had the opportunity to discuss the books with a scholar from the Ashram for a brief time, where he went through the index with me. In this conversation, it was as if a light bulb went on when I realised that the entire book was premised on the four ways of knowing (Separative, Indirect Knowledge; Separative, Direct Knowledge; Knowledge arising from Direct Contact; and Knowledge by Identity) that informed the various ages (Symbolism, Type and Convention, Rational and Subjective).
I reread the two books soon. This time, more parts of the text opened up.
As I have continued to read Sri Aurobindo’s writing, more and more I sense his supramental location of consciousness (far from my ordinary surface life), where he sees all things as separate and precise and yet part of an indivisible whole that is still and yet dynamic.
As Sri Aurobindo’s writings became part of me, I found including them in my teaching and facilitation. While doing this, I questioned my worth.
To begin with, the sheer vastness of his view is beyond my comprehension. While sometimes, I could get a partial glimpse of this view because of His Grace, it takes considerable energy to retain the required poise, even for a few moments. Also, what could I say that Sri Aurobindo has not said better? Then there is the ongoing battle between the mind being the source of knowledge rather than its expression - the capacity to receive illumination and express it without too much distortion.
In answer to my question, I received Mother’s message that such expressions helped share and refine the ideas and practices of Sadhaks. This has given me some courage to share my views and understanding, including this response.
Thank you.
Gomathy
Thanks for your comments Gomathy. Each of us has a unique way of relating to the words of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother (for that matter, to any words). How these words impel action within and without is what one has to be true to, I suppose : )
Delete