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Namah Why Would I Keep the Temple Clean?

The Mother talks of a vigilance not faltering and interpretations of the inputs from the
even for a moment, in her prayer of December senses. And the feelings are burdened too,
11, 1912: owing to a constant identification with the
feelings as me, and mine.
“I await without haste, without inquietude,
the tearing of another veil, the Union made So, just like we are vigilant about our houses,
more complete. I know that the veil is formed and don’t let the garbage accumulate, and
of a whole mass of small imperfections, of keep on regularly cleaning the house we have
attachments without number…. How shall all to be vigilant about our being. For this being
these disappear? Slowly, as the result of countless that we have is the temple of the Divine, the
small efforts and a vigilance not faltering even house of the godhead within. And we have
for a moment, or suddenly, through a great to begin to honour and respect that Presence
illumination of Thy All-Puissant Love? I know within, and therefore put in the effort in
not, I do not even put to myself the question; I decluttering the inner sanctuary, keeping
wait, keeping watch as best I can, in the certitude the mind free of garbage, the feelings pure
that nothing exists save Thy Will, that Thou and true and light.
alone art the doer and I am the instrument; and
when the instrument is ready for a completer In another song, Saint Kabir talks about how
manifestation, the manifestation will quite the deer of five senses will eat up your farm’s
naturally take place (3).” crop, so be a good guard, put in the right
effort.
Right effort
“Jatan bin, mirgaa ne khet ujaada….”
Saint Kabir too, in many of his couplets and
songs, talks of an unending, uncompromising Translation: “Without effort (jatan), the deer of
vigilance required on the path of divine perfection. five senses, will spoil the farm (5).”

“Kabir ka ghar shikhar pe, aur silhali si gail, With Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s words, we
Wahan paanv tike naa papeel ka, tahan manva laade know that senses are not the problem, they
bail.” can be refined to perfection. The problem
is our wrong identification with the senses
Translation: “Kabir’s home is on the peak, and and the misinterpretation of sensory input
the road to the peak is slippery. Even an ant through the limited logical mind and the
cannot walk without slipping, and you are vital, and sticking tightly and rigidly to our
going to tread the path with this bullock cart version of reality.
(burdened mind)? (4).”
Most often, in our ordinary consciousness,
If we are honest, we will see that without we don’t see the elements of desire, anger,
vigilance, we end up collecting and ambitions, pride, vanity, jealousy, greed, lust
accumulating a lot of garbage in our mind as something disturbing. We see them as a
and feelings. The mind is heavy, and way of our life. Thinking, everyone has all
burdened with all the limited perceptions these, so I too will live with these as a part of

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