There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers.
At the Feet of The Mother
‘The Mother’ by Sri Aurobindo
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'The Mother' was first published in 1928. It consists of six chapters, all of which has a separate history. Chapter 1 is an essay Sri Aurobindo wrote as a message for distribution on 21 February 1927, the birthday of the Mother.
In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature.
Chapter 2 is a piece written by Sri Aurobindo after he had finished replying to a series of questions asked by Motilal Mehta, a disciple living in Gujarat, in a letter dated 30 May 1927. Sri Aurobindo concluded his reply as follows: “Calling on God to do everything and save one all the trouble and struggle is a self-deception and does not lead to freedom and perfection.”
To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together — the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender.
Sri Aurobindo wrote this piece as a letter to Punamchand Shah, a disciple living in Gujarat, on 1 August 1927. In 1928 it was published as the third chapter of The Mother.
Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine.
You must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the money power, the means it gives and the objects it brings, nor cherish a rajasic attachment to them or a spirit of enslaving self-indulgence in their gratifications.
If you want to be a true doer of divine works, your first aim must be to be totally free from all desire and self-regarding ego. All your life must be an offering and a sacrifice to the Supreme....
Sri Aurobindo wrote this piece as a letter to Punamchand Shah on 19 August 1927. Full text is attached.
Video in English
The four Powers of the Mother are four of her outstanding Personalities, portions and embodiments of her divinity through whom she acts on her creatures, orders and harmonises her creations in the worlds and directs the working out of her thousand forces.
Video in English with text in Hindi
Sri Aurobindo wrote this essay dealing with the four aspects of the Mother and related topics in the autumn of 1927 with the idea of publishing it in the booklet that eventually became The Mother. The essay was published as the sixth chapter of The Mother in 1928.
Four great Aspects of the Mother, four of her leading Powers and Personalities have stood in front in her guidance of this universe and in her dealings with the terrestrial play.
माता इस विश्वब्रह्माण्ड का जो परिचालन और जगन्नाट्य-संबंधी जो कार्य करती हैं उसमें उनके चार महारूप विशेष रूप से सामने प्रकट हैं, ये उनकी प्रमुख शक्तियों और विग्रहों में से चार हैं। प्रथमा हैं उनकी विग्रहभूता प्रशांत विशालता, सर्वव्यापिनी ज्ञानवत्ता, अचंचल मङ्गलमयता, अशेष निःशेष करुणा, अतुल अद्वितीय महिमा और विश्वराट् गौरव-गरिमा।
Imperial MAHESHWARI is seated in the wideness above the thinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them.
MAHAKALI is of another nature. Not wideness but height, not wisdom but force and strength are her peculiar power. There is in her an overwhelming intensity, a mighty passion of force to achieve, a divine violence rushing to shatter every limit and obstacle.