The Power of Immobility in Action

The Bhagavad Gita has an interesting verse that provides a clue to the secret of action and inaction, between ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ power, if you will: “He who in action can see inaction and can see action still continuing in cessation from works, is the man of true reason and discernment among men; he is in Yoga and a many-sided universal worker” [translated by Sri Aurobindo in Bhagavad Gita and Its Message, Ch. 4, V. 18]

The Mother points out that the ability to remain immobile under pressure of circumstances is more difficult than letting the energies loose to react and vibrate in tune with whatever is being imposed upon the being.

If we observe our reactions to circumstances and events, we quickly can see how easy it is to get caught up in the energy and respond to it. It is an interesting and insightful experiment to try to practice immobility in the physical, vital and mental beings when pressured. One quickly finds out how much harder it is to remain calm and quiet than to react and ‘spill’ energy in response to these events. This can be either a positive spillage, in the form of joy or extreme happiness when something occurs that one finds desirable; or a negative spillage when one is pressured and insulted, assaulted or outright attacked.

As long as one still vibrates under the impulsion of these outer circumstances, the power of immobility is incomplete. True mastery and the power to impact those external circumstances through a pervading peace, comes when the immobility becomes perfected in the nature.

Some years ago, a devotee reported the following experience. He was living at Sri Aurobindo Ashram at the time of the Mother’s Mahasamadhi. He arrived, as usual, at the Ashram early the next morning, to find the lights on everywhere and people milling around and many of them crying. He inquired and found out that the Mother had left her body. He had just, in the morning on the 17th of November received a Birthday Blessings card from the Mother and the message was “live within, be not shaken by outward happenings.” He was still in something of a walking trance state from the energy of the 17th and he found that he was non-reactive, but observant, and this state continued for some days as people came streaming in from all over the world, many with visible signs of grief to begin with. As the days went on, the energy in the Ashram was so powerfully impacted that those who entered with grief, departed with peace in their hearts. He felt like he had a brief glimpse of the power of immobility granted to him as a Grace just at the moment when outward circumstances were going to test that power within him.

The Mother notes: “I know what you want to say… that a human being becomes aware of power only when it is dynamic; a human being doesn’t consider it a power except when it acts; if it doesn’t act he does not even notice it, he does not realise the tremendous force which is behind this inaction — at times, even frequently, a force more formidable than the power which acts. But you may try it out in yourself, you will see, it is much more difficult to remain calm, immobile, unshakable before something very unpleasant — whether it be words or acts levelled against you — infinitely more difficult than to answer with the same violence. Suppose someone insults you; if in the face of these insults, you can remain immobile (not only outwardly, I mean integrally), without being shaken or touched in any way: you are there like a force against which one can do nothing and you do not reply, you do not make a gesture, you do not say a word, all the insults thrown at you leave you absolutely untouched, within and without; you can keep your heart-beats absolutely quiet, you can keep the thoughts in your head quite immobile and calm without their being in the least disturbed, that is, your head does not answer immediately by similar vibrations and your nerves don’t feel clenched with the need to return a few blows to relieve themselves; if you can be like that, you have a static power, and it is infinitely more powerful than if you had that kind of force which makes you answer insult by insult, blow by blow and agitation by agitation.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter XII Power of Immobility, pp. 101-102