Freeing Oneself From Responsibility for Oneself By Reliance on the Divine

There was a young man who happened to be living at the same place during the 1970’s, who got into his head the idea that the Divine was watching out for him so he could not come to any harm. He walked out into traffic on a busy road and with cars honking and braking, he survived without a scratch. Was this a sign that, indeed, he needed not to worry about himself — that the Divine was looking out for him?

There is the famous story, told by Sri Ramakrishna, of the disciple who was given the idea of “Thou Art God”, (along with every other living being). He took this seriously and went about his business waking through the town in deep contemplation of this profound teaching, when an out of control elephant came charging down the road at high speed. The driver of the elephant yelled for the youth to get out of the way. The disciple however felt that since both he and the elephant were God, nothing bad could come of it. He was dashed to the ground by the furious elephant and left unconscious. His Guru came and revived him. When he awakened his Guru asked why he had not gotten out of the way. The disciple replied that, relying on the Guru’s inspired teaching, he felt that he was safe in the presence of God, who was immanent in both himself and the elephant. The Guru asked, ‘but why did you not heed the inspired words of the elephant-driver, who also is God.’

Clearly the question of turning over responsibility of all of one’s actions and life to the Divine and not worrying about the individual being and its needs, is a subtle teaching, which cannot be applied with an immature understanding. If one can truly enter into a state of consciousness where the Divine is managing everything, that is a wonderful outcome. As the Mother concludes below, the cells of the body need to be infused with wisdom and common sense. That implies that the state of consciousness needed is not one of heedlessness, as we saw in the two cases recited above, but a state where even the body has to be able to rise to a new level of conscious awareness.

The Mother notes: “It is an inexpressible joy not to have any responsibility for oneself, no longer to think of oneself. It is so dull and monotonous and insipid to be thinking of oneself, to be worrying about what to do and what not to do, what will be good for you and what will be bad for you, what to shun and what to pursue — oh, how wearisome it is! But when one lives like this, quite open, like a flower blossoming in the sun before the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Wisdom, the Supreme Light, the Supreme Love, which knows all, which can do all, which takes charge of you and you have no more worries — that is the ideal condition.”

“And why is it not done?”

“One does not think of it, one forgets to do it, the old habits come back. And above all, behind, hidden somewhere in the inconscient or even in the subconscient, there is this insidious doubt that whispers in your ear: ‘Oh! if you are not careful, some misfortune will happen to you. If you forget to watch over yourself, you do not know what may happen’ — and you are so silly, so silly, so obscure, so stupid that you listen and you begin to pay attention to yoursefl and everything is ruined.”

“You have to begin all over again to infuse into your cells a little wisdom, a little common sense and learn once more not to worry.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, pp..100-101