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<title>The Ideal Centre</title>

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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">&nbsp;</p>
<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">
<b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><font size="4">The Ideal Centre</font></span></b></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;border:medium none;
mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 0in 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>ONCE
when the Mother was asked by a group of disciples to give permission and
blessings for opening a centre, She said in answer: &quot;To open a centre is
not sufficient in itself. It must be the pure hearth of perfect sincerity, in a
total consecration to the Divine.&quot; This is the first motto or <i>mantra </i>that
should be inscribed on the tablet of the inner constitution of every group
organisation. It states the basic spirit, the true inspiration that should
initiate the work and guide it through. The second <i>mantra </i>is embodied in
these words of Sri Aurobindo: &quot;Love the Mother: Always behave as if She
was looking at you, for indeed She is always present.&quot; These are words
that should be kept always bright and blazing in the heart of each and every
one. It gives the source and origin of the inspiration, the single fount of all
movements collective and individual. And a third <i>mantra </i>not less living
or less urgent has been given by the Mother: &quot;Let us work as we pray, for
indeed work is the body's best prayer to the Divine.&quot; Here we learn of the
way, the process that is to be followed, the skill as it were, for realising
the goal.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
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mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 0in 0in; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>And for a final comprehension and
direction we are to remember these words of Sri Aurobindo: &quot;All problems
of existence are essentially problems of harmony.&quot;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-line-height-alt:11.75pt;
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style='mso-spacerun:yes'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>In life, which is necessarily corporate
life (a centre essentially means a training and a realisation in corporate
life) the first and last necessity is harmony, that is to say, understanding
and union among the members of the corporate life. That is a self-evident truth
understood and accepted by one and all. But the crux of the matter is how to
achieve the harmony. It can be achieved only on a higher level of being and
conscious­ness, on the lower ordinary level there can be only a compromise, </p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 341</span><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>an unstable balance,
an uncertain counter-poising of diverse and divergent elements. Also, it must
be noted, that the higher and deeper the consciousness, the wider and the more
comprehensive, the more the harmony becomes natural, spontaneous, faultless,
perfect: and on the highest level the harmony becomes not merely union but
indivisible unity.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.2pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>That
is the goal towards which a dedicated centre, that is to say, a spiritually
aspiring group should move and labour. And that also is the primary work, the
first and foremost for which the centre stands as the field. And this work can
be done and has to be achieved through the discipline enunciated in just the
previous, our third <i>mantra – the </i>fundamental attitude with which the
work has to be done. It is said there that the work, consecrated work or
service is the prayer of the body. Mind's prayer is expressed in words, body's
prayer in-works. Work is the prayer in its dynamic and concrete form, it is the
utterance of the physical, the language it knows in order to ask for and seek
the union with the Divine. It is the holy ritual expressing and embodying in
the physical, material life, one's adoration, one's adhesion to the ideal, to
the deity one worships. </p>

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150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Work
or service expressing harmonisation needs to be based, as I have said, upon a
higher and higher consciousness. Work done as prayer is the best means of
effecting an ascent in consciousness. This is the lesson that each individual
of a centre must learn from the very outset and ever afterwards., He must
always try to rise in consciousness, reach an ever higher status of being and
from there let the work flow, as it were, from a spontaneous spring. As one
rises in consciousness and being) naturally and inevitably this consciousness
widens and one feels naturally and spontaneously kinship and union with all
others. Work or service is then only a dynamic means of achieving and realising
the sense of perfect unity of oneself with all other selves.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Work
is not meant to- show or express one's capacity or skilfulness or cleverness,
nor is it a mere mechanical execution of outward acts performing certain duties
however conscien­tiously or meticulously. It is indeed a ritual of prayer and
self­dedication, adhesion and surrender of the most dynamic and material parts
of our being – the most unresponsive and in­sensible elements – to the One
Divine Will.</p>
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<span style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 342</span><span style='font-size:10.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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11.75pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>And
this brings us to the major, the cardinal <i>mantra </i>of a centre, the <i>mantra
</i>which Sri Aurobindo gives about the constant and living presence of the Mother.
The very core of a centre is this Presence. A centre grows and can grow
perfectly only around the Mother's Presence and Consciousness. As the ideal for
the individual is to be conscious of its central inner being and relate all its
parts and all its movements to that central reality, organise itself in perfect
harmony around this core of its being, even so a group-centre has to organise
itself in perfect harmony around the central reality of the Mother: only so can
it grow and grow harmoniously. Indeed a group, that is to say, a centre, like
the individual can successfully grow into a living and harmonious dynamic Truth
only when it has in its consciousness at every moment and in every movement of
its life the never-failing Presence of the Divine Mother, for thus only a
centre can become a divine embodiment and incarnation of the Supreme Mother for
the expression and realisation of her truth upon this earth.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 343<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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