Mistakes Can be Effaced
If errors and mistakes could not be effaced at every moment, there would be no hope of salvation for the world.
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Do not give too much importance to the little incidents of life.
The importance of these incidents lies in the extent to which they have served you to make a progress.
And once the progress has been made, the consequences of past errors, if there are any, disappear through the intervention of the divine Grace.
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For the Supreme Lord, sin does not exist—all defect can be effaced by sincere aspiration and by transformation.
What you feel is the aspiration of your soul that wants to discover the Divine and live Him.
Persevere, be more and more sincere and you will succeed.
24 April 1964
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Sin belongs to the world and not to yoga.
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If you make one mistake in life, then you may have to suffer all your life. It does not mean that everybody suffers like that. There are people who go on making mistakes and yet they do not suffer. But those who are born for a spiritual life have to be very careful.
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235Mistakes: No Torment, Worry or Sadness
If the sense of unworthiness fills you with overflowing gratitude and throws you at Sri Aurobindo’s feet in an ecstasy of joy, then you can know that it comes from a true source; if, on the contrary, it makes you miserable and brings an impulse to hide or to run away, then you can be sure that its origin is hostile. To the first you can open freely; the second must be rejected.
4 February 1933
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One must not torment oneself over errors that one may commit, but one must keep a perfect sincerity in one’s aspiration and in the end everything will be all right.
4 January 1934
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Thinking too much about one’s impurities does not help. It is better to keep the thought fixed on the purity, light and peace that one wants to acquire.
7 February 1934
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It is always our weaknesses that make us sad, and we can easily recover by advancing one step more on the way.
12 May 1934
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You must not worry about these little things—they have no importance in themselves; their value is to show us where unconsciousness still exists in our nature, so that we can bring the light there.
13 July 1934
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236It is all right to see the imperfections and deficiencies but only on condition it brings a greater courage for a new progress, an increase of energy in the determination and a stronger certitude of victory and future perfection.
22 January 1935
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These ideas of incapacity are absurd, they are the negation of the truth of progress—what cannot be done today, will be done another day, if the aspiration is there.
6 February 1935
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Even if things are not as they ought to be, worry does not help to make them better. A quiet confidence is the source of strength.
11 November 1936
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Whenever you have made a mistake I always told you very frankly without hiding anything from you. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody has to learn and to progress. Moreover I have given you a big responsibility. I appreciate fully what you have done but there is still much to learn and I am sure that you will be quite glad to acquire knowledge and experience. With my love and blessings.
13 October 1943
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It is quite wrong to go on brooding about the past. The true attitude is to remember that nothing happens but by God’s will and to submit to that will quietly. If you have made mistakes in the past it is by lack of true surrender and the only way to repair the mistakes is to surrender truly.
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237But it is not a reason for being upset about it. There is only to remain quite cool and do our best within the limits that the human nature ascribes to us.
After all, the whole, entire responsibility is the Lord’s and nobody else’s. So there is nothing to worry about.
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It is good to recognise your mistakes, but you must not torment yourself.
You must not suffer, you must correct yourself instead.
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My dear child,
You must not torment yourself about these little mishaps. Keep very calm and these accidents will not happen any more.
My blessings are always with you.
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The buns did not rise today. We don’t know why. We are afraid that the buns are not good. So at the last minute we prepared a kind of sablé [biscuit] which burned too.
Tell us, Mother, why do things go against us?
You must not worry about these little things, and above all do not believe in fatality. These little failures always have a cause that can be avoided with a little more experience, which is sure to come.
I tasted the bun—the taste is very good. They did not rise because they are not cooked enough. The oven must have been too hot, the bun burned and the outside began to brown before the inside was cooked.
As for the sablés, they are not burnt, they are very good.
238My blessings are always with you.
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Mistakes: Recognise and Correct Them
When a mistake is made, it must always be used as a means for progress; once the necessary change is realised, the mistake and its cause disappear and there can be no repetition.
6 April 1937
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It is very good that you have become conscious of the mistakes and defects of the nature. Once you are conscious it is always possible to rise out of them and to change the nature.
23 January 1938
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It seems to me, on the contrary, that the best way is to remain where you are and make an effort to discover your own faults—you are bound to have some as everybody has—and try to correct them. To be conscious of one’s own mistakes is the surest way to come out of a difficulty.
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A mistake recognised is a mistake pardoned.
14 October 1939
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A mistake one denies is a mistake one refuses to set right.
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Repentance: the first step towards rectifying mistakes.
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239It is no use excusing yourself; you must have the will never to fall back into the faults you have committed.
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Before going to sleep every night, we must pray that the mistakes we may have committed during the day should not be repeated in future.
20 June 1954
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In this last day of the year, let us take the resolution that all our weaknesses and obstinate obscurities will drop from us along with the finishing year.
30 December 1954
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A strong and effective resolution not to commit the same faults any more and a complete trust in the Divine’s Grace are the only remedy.
28 February 1955