The enclosed teaching of Mother Mirra on sincerity, has been excerpted from her book: Words of Long Ago. In it Mother uses the story of a wolf, to point out that sincerity means being true to what we say, to always keep our word, our promise.
For it is a common habit of many of us, to say things we do not mean. To manage situations we say whatever is convenient, but then we go ahead and do the exact opposite. This hypocrisy is visible not only in our political leaders, but also in our own selves. For example, we typically like to put on the pretense of being nice to our friends by heaping compliments on their face, but the moment their back is turned, we leave no stone unturned in criticizing them and bringing them down in the eyes of others.
We love to make a show of friendliness by inviting relatives and acquaintances to our homes, but in actuality we don’t really want them to come, for that would increase our housework as we would have to look after them. To get our children to behave, we often promise them, “if you listen to me, I will buy you that game”. But when our children fulfill their end of the bargain, we never bother to keep our side of the promise.
In this way, not only does our lack of sincerity cause us to eventually lose the trust of our friends and loved ones, but we also end up damaging our inner connection with God as we clog and litter our mind with the negative qualities of deceit and untruthfulness. Therefore as Mother Mirra has explained below, we must learn to be sincere, we must keep our word, our promise and we must mean what we say.
– Mother Mirra, Sri Aurobindo Ashram
A wolf had his den in the rocks on the bank of the river Ganges.
When the snows melted, the water began to rise. It rose so high that it surrounded the wolf’s rock on every side. So one day he was unable to go out in search of food.
“Oh well!” he said when he saw that he had nothing left to eat, “today shall be a holy day, in honour of which I proclaim a fast.” He sat on the edge of the rock and put on a very solemn air to celebrate the holy day and the fast.
But no sooner had he done this than a wild goat came bounding across the water, from rock to rock, and reached the place where the wolf was sitting full of devotion.
“Oho!” he exclaimed when he saw it. “Here is something to eat.” He pounced on the goat and missed it, he pounced once more and missed it again. Finally the goat escaped by leaping across the stream.
“Oh well!” said the wolf, resuming his saintly pose, “I shall not be so impious as to eat goat’s flesh on a holy day. No, no — no meat for me on a fast day!”
What do you think of the wolf, his devotion and his respect for the holy day? You laugh at his roguery. But how many people there are whose sincerity is like this, who adorn themselves with fine sentiments because it suits their interests, and pose as little saints because they are unable to give free rein to their vices. But in spite of all their cunning, do you think that these tricksters can prevail for very long against one who is right and just (God)?
