Page 41 - NAMAH-Jan-2022

Namah Notes on counselling

and effective combination of forces and repeat the same act as one believes that one
unfailing exactitude of result and fulfilment. is always imperfect or the perfection is not
The science and craft and technique of sustainable, is not the same as the perfection
things are Mahasaraswati’s province… viewed from a spiritual gestalt.
her action is laborious and minute and
often seems to our impatience slow and The Perfectionist urge in OCD
interminable, but it is persistent, integral
and flawless…. Nothing is too small or In terms of consciousness as explained by
apparently trivial for her attention; nothing Sri Aurobindo, it is the physical mind that
however impalpable or disguised or latent is involved in OCD. This is the portion of
can escape her. Moulding and remoulding the mind that is sustained by our sensory
she labours each part till it has attained its schemata and is classically the habitual mind
true form, is put in its exact place in the whole that goes about harping on the trivial and
and fulfils its precise purpose…. Carelessness stereotyped issues of daily life. It does not deal
and negligence and indolence she abhors; with lofty ideas or dynamic issues but goes
all scamped and hasty and shuffling work, on automatically harping on unimportant
all clumsiness and a peu pres and misfire, all details. This is not surprising as the physical
false adaptation and misuse of instruments mind is closest to Matter and Matter itself
and faculties and leaving of things undone is marked by automatism that is classically
or half done is offensive and foreign to her portrayed in the automatic rotation of electrons
temper. When her work is finished, nothing in their orbit! One shudders to think what can
has been forgotten, no part has been misplaced happen if that perfect automatic rotation of
or omitted or left in a faulty condition; all is electrons suddenly stops. The world would
solid, accurate, complete, admirable. Nothing have collapsed!
short of a perfect perfection satisfies her and
she is ready to face an eternity of toil if that It is only recently that the principle of
is needed for the fullness of her creation. automaticity is being acknowledged as an
Therefore of all the Mother’s powers she is alternative etiology for habitual behaviours
the most long-suffering with man and his that cannot be satisfactorily explained
thousand imperfections (1).” by resurgence of repressed material. Sri
Aurobindo dwelt on it long back in The Life
As I finished and tried to look knowledgeable, Divine (serialised between 1914 to 1919) and
an anti-climax occurred! An elderly gentleman, explained how evolution begins with a
who had earlier suffered anticipatory anxiety blind ‘automatism of Matter’, resulting
and depression and had perfectionist traits in an obscure harmony of a stereotyped
,accosted me and asked why then I saw existence. “The evolution begins with the
problems with the perfectionist zeal of automatism of Matter and of a lower life
obsessive subjects. This was a really in which all obeys implicitly the drive of
interesting query! Nature, fulfils mechanically its law of
being and therefore succeeds in maintain
The repetitive behavioural habit in OCD to a harmony of its limited type of existence
seek an elusive perfection or compulsion to and action…. (2)”

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