Mother, you said that when one consciously makes a mistake it is much more serious than if one makes it unconsciously.
When you make a mistake because you don’t know that it is a mistake, through ignorance, it is obvious that when you learn that it is a mistake, when the ignorance has gone and you have goodwill, you don’t make the mistake any more, and so you come out of the condition in which you could make it. But if you know it is a mistake and make it, this means that there is something perverse in you which has deliberately chosen to be on the side of confusion or bad will or even the anti-divine forces.
And it is quite obvious that if one chooses to be on the side of the anti-divine forces or is so weak and inconsistent that one can’t resist the temptation to be on their side, it is infinitely more serious from the psychological point of view. This means that somewhere something has been corrupted: either an adverse force is already established in you or else you have an innate sympathy for these forces. And it is much more difficult to correct that than to correct an ignorance.
Correcting an ignorance is like eliminating darkness: you light a lamp, the darkness disappears. But to make a mistake once again when you know it is a mistake, is as if someone lighted a lamp and you deliberately put it out.… That corresponds exactly to bringing the darkness back deliberately. For the argument of weakness does not hold. The divine Grace is always there to help those who have decided to correct themselves, and they cannot say, “I am too weak to correct myself.” They can say that they still haven’t taken the resolution to correct themselves, that somewhere in the being there is something that has not decided to do it, and that is what is serious.
307The argument of weakness is an excuse. The Grace is there to give the supreme strength to whoever takes the resolution.
That means an insincerity, it does not mean a weakness. And insincerity is always an open door for the adversary. That means there is some secret sympathy with what is perverse. And that is what is serious.
In the case of ignorance which is to be enlightened, it is enough, as I said, to light the lamp. In the case of conscious relapse, what is necessary is a cauterisation.