Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on dislike and irritation, the cause of it and how to overcome them.
It is this feeling of dislike that must have been the ground for the attack to come in. All feelings of dislike for other sadhaks should be absolutely rejected. Each has his own nature, his own difficulties and has to struggle out of them with the Divine Help. Defects and limitations in them should not be made a ground for dislike.
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These things [reasons for disliking someone] are not sufficient to justify dislike. These dislikes come from some vital feeling and these reasons put forward by the mind are excuses, not the real cause. This collaboration between the mind and the vital, the vital throwing up the wrong movement, the mind justifying it, is one of the chief difficulties in the way of getting rid of the vital deviations.
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Antagonisms, antipathies, dislikes, quarrellings can no more be proclaimed as part of sadhana than sex impulses or acts can be part of sadhana. Harmony, goodwill, forbearance, equanimity are necessary ideals in the relation of sadhak with sadhak. One is not bound to mix, but if one keeps to oneself, it should be for reasons of sadhana, not out of other motives,—moreover it should be without any sense of superiority or contempt for others.
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA, Vol-31, Pg, 346-347
Doesn’t irritation come from ego, even when it is justified by the mind.
Most certainly. In fact the justification by the mind is very far from being a guarantee of truth.
Irritation is always a sign of lack of understanding and narrowness of the spirit, both of which are incompatible with the presence of the supreme consciousness.
The Mother
From the “Bulletin”
Obviously there are some natures which are almost fundamentally bad, beings who are born wicked and love to do harm; and logically, if one is quite natural, not perverted, natural as animals are—for from this point of view they are far superior to men; perversion begins with humanity—then one keeps out of the way, as one would stand aside from something fundamentally harmful. But happily these cases are not very frequent; what one meets in life are usually very mixed natures where there is a kind of balance, so to say, between the good and the bad, and one may expect to have both good and bad relations. There is no reason to feel any deep dislike, for, as one is quite mixed oneself (laughing), like meets like!
The Mother
CWM, Vol-9, Pg, 181-182
X is quite justified in thinking and feeling as he does, but he must understand that the others also are justified in their thinking and feeling although it differs from his and he ought not to despise them and call them bad names.
Among human beings, the most widely spread disease is mental narrowness. They understand only what is in their own consciousness and cannot tolerate anything else.
The Mother
CWM, Vol-14, Pg-267
Each one should have his own way of thinking, feeling and reaction; why do you want others to do as you do and be like you? And even granting that your truth is greater than theirs— though this word means nothing at all, for, from a certain point of view all truths are true; they are all partial, but they are true because they are truths but the minute you want your truth to be greater than your neighbour’s, you begin to wander away from the truth.
This habit of wanting to compel others to think as you do, has always seemed very strange to me; this is what I call “the propagandist spirit”, and it goes very far. You can go one step further and want people to do what you do, feel as you feel, and then it becomes a frightful uniformity.
The Mother
CWM, Vol-8, Pg-105
Discover in your nature the opposite way of being (benevolence, humility, goodwill) and insist that it develop to the detriment of the contrary element.
The Mother
CWM, Vol-14, Pg-206
One can live without quarrelling. It seems strange to say this because as things are, it would seem, on the contrary, that life is made for quarrelling in the sense that the main occupation of people who are together is to quarrel, overtly or covertly. You do not always come to words, you do not always come to blows —fortunately—but you are in a state of perpetual irritation within because you do not find around you the perfection that you would yourself wish to realise, and which you find rather difficult to realise—but you find it entirely natural that others should realise it.
“How can they be like that?...” You forget how difficult you find it in yourself not to be “like that”!
Try, you will see.
Look upon everything with a benevolent smile. Take all the things which irritate you as a lesson for yourself and your life will be more peaceful and more effective as well, for a great percentage of your energy certainly goes to waste in the irritation you feel when you do not find in others the perfection that you would like to realise in yourself.
You stop short at the perfection that others should realise and you are seldom conscious of the goal you should be pursuing yourself. If you are conscious of it, well then, begin with the work which is given to you, that is to say, realise what you have to do and do not concern yourself with what others do, because, after all, it is not your business. And the best way to the true attitude is simply to say, “All those around me, all the circumstances of my life, all the people near me, are a mirror held up to me by the Divine Consciousness to show me the progress I must make. Everything that shocks me in others
means a work I have to do in myself.”
And perhaps if one carried true perfection in oneself, one would discover it more often in others.
The Mother
CWM, Vol-10, Pg, 22-23
M.S. SRINIVASAN
Sri Aurobindo Society
