SRI AUROBINDO

The Mother

with Letters on the Mother

Section Three
The Mother and the Practice of the Integral Yoga

Aspiration and Surrender to the Mother

Yoga, Sadhana, Dhyana

200

Yoga is union with the Divine, sadhana is what you do in order to unite with the Divine. You have to get away from the ordinary human consciousness and get into touch with the divine Consciousness.

For that call always on the Mother, open yourself to her, aspire and pray for her Force to work in you so as to make you fit – reject desire, restlessness, disturbances of the mind and vital. Dhyana means to make the mind and vital quiet and concentrate in aspiration for the Mother’s Peace, the Mother’s Presence, her Light, Force and Ananda.

10 October 1933

Aspiration

201

Nowadays I feel utterly disturbed and upset. Wherever there is disturbance or confusion I take my consciousness away from it. I have a kind of faith, but there is nothing regular or systematic in it. My mind has wandered very much trying to find the true way of doing sadhana.

It is only by constantly aspiring to the Mother’s light and force that you can make true and steady progress. It is only by the constant repetition and persistence of the Mother’s light and force that the habit of disturbance and lack of organisation can diminish and finally disappear. Only so can the lower being be prepared and the decisive descent of the Truth and Light be finally made possible.

23 August 1931

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202

The Mother’s Peace is above you – by aspiration and quiet self-opening it descends. When it takes hold of the vital and the body, then equanimity becomes easy and in the end automatic.

28 August 1933

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203

O Mother, come down in me. So many times I have promised to offer myself to you, and every time the promise has been broken, leaving me suspended in the air. But if I am reminded of my unfitness, what shall I do? I can’t do anything.

The fitness comes with the aspiration.

15 March 1934

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204

Please give your Grace to this unfortunate lady, whose letter I enclose. Be kind enough to instruct me what I should write to her. She prays for your upadeśa and blessings.

But it is not by upadeśa that this sadhana is given or carried on. It is only those who are capable by aspiration and meditation on the Mother to open and receive her action and working within that can succeed in this Yoga.

21 June 1937

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205

Let the power of the Mother work in you, but be careful to avoid any mixture or substitution, in its place, of either a magnified ego-working or a force of Ignorance presenting itself as Truth. Aspire especially for the elimination of all obscurity and unconsciousness in the nature.

Undated

Aspiration and the Psychic

206

Nowadays I often get psychic feelings and gratitude. Then the aspiration comes to concentrate above, as I was doing some days back. But from time to time I get the feeling that I should not change the form of my meditation and aspiration so frequently. Should I stick to one form of practice or should the form of practice be allowed to change naturally according to the Light that descends?

To be in contact with the Mother’s Light and Force is the one important thing (fundamental) to which you must aspire. For this the psychic feeling is the indispensable condition; for it is through the psychic that this contact becomes easy and natural. It gives the psychic basis. Once the basis is there firmly established the rest can be done according to need and it will be much better done, because then there will be the safety from hostile attack and the right guidance.

12 November 1930

The Psychic Fire and Offering

207

I saw a fire in my heart and my offering falling into it like bits of paper. I heard someone say: “Offer everything into the fire!” But when obscurities and resistance arise, I feel a hesitation to offer them to the Mother. The thought comes: offer the best things to the Mother, not ugly things.

The fire is the purifying psychic fire. Offering to the psychic fire is not contrary to the worship of the Mother. To purify all in the psychic fire rather than throw the obscurities and resistance on the Mother is obviously the right way.

9 June 1936

Aspiration, Rejection, Surrender

208

What you say of sadhana is true. Sadhana is necessary and the Divine Force cannot do things in the void but must lead each one according to his nature to the point at which he can feel the Mother working within and doing all for him. Till then the sadhak’s aspiration, self-consecration, assent and support to the Mother’s workings, his rejection of all that comes in the way is very necessary – indispensable.

25 September 1936

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209

It is quite true that aspiration, rejection and the remembrance of the Mother and surrender to her and union with her consciousness are the main means of the sadhana. It is also true that to seek the supramental for oneself by one’s own means is a folly; that I have said from the beginning and emphasised it recently more and more. It is true also that to make the union with the Divine the cardinal aim and all the rest subsidiary and a consequence of it, not to seek progress, experiences, etc.for their own sake or for the sake of the ego is the proper attitude for the sadhak. It is true finally that meditation, vision and almost all else in the Yoga can be misused if the sadhak is self-centred, egoistic and obscure. But that does not mean that meditation, vision etc. are of no use and should be avoided in the sadhana.

The theory that once you remember the Mother always, everything you do flows from the Divine and therefore it does not matter what you do is rather a dangerous one. It may end by giving sanction instead of rejection to many things that ought to go out of the nature.

As for living a free outer life it cannot be said that that is good for everybody at every stage any more than living a retired life is good for everybody or at every stage. The disadvantage of a free jolly outward social life without restrictions is that one becomes entirely or mostly externalised and that all sorts of vital interchanges are part of it which can hamper the inner growth or the total self-consecration to the Divine. The disadvantage of too complete a retirement is that it makes the person one-sided and shut up in himself, subjective, without the stabilising contact with earth and consequently with the danger of morbidity and self-delusion. A middle path with the rule of living more and more within, standing back from outward things but not throwing them aside, looking at them with a new consciousness, a new view and acting on them from this inner consciousness is the best way. But there is need for some at some stages to minimise outward contacts without abolishing them during part of the process of this shifting of the consciousness. No absolute rule can be laid down in this matter.

14 October 1936

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210

I always thought that in other Yogas seekers first had to undergo a rigorous disciplined period of 12 years of Brahmacharya, and only when the Guru certified their physical, vital, mental immunity were they allowed to enter into its practical course.

Never heard of this 12 years affair or of any certificate. Perhaps in European occultism there are noviciates, stages, ordeals, grades etc. In India the Guru gives a mantra as soon as he accepts a disciple and tells him to go ahead with it. We have no mantra except the Mother’s name. But usually we give work, tell them to aspire, reject, open to the Mother. I don’t know whether you call that the practical course. Anyhow people have got into difficulties here even without any practical course, most while doing their “twelve years” and in some cases we have had to push them into active sadhana as the only way to control the lower forces and get them out of it.

Here the merry lot fancy they can do all manner of things.

What things? I find only a small minority doing anything at all except gossiping, discussing, quarrelling, complaining etc. etc. A certain number do the aspiration, rejection, Motherward turn – but nothing more. They have enough difficulty with that even.

Even when strenuous measures are adopted for practising the nearest approximation to real Yoga, ought not there to be a question of a triple fitness first?

How are they to develop it without any sadhana? Just by sitting still? No one has it to start with.

20 October 1936

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211

The effort demanded of the sadhak is that of aspiration, rejection and surrender. If these three are done the rest is to come of itself by the Grace of the Mother and the working of her force in you. But of the three the most important is surrender of which the first necessary form is trust and confidence and patience in difficulty. There is no rule that trust and confidence can only remain if aspiration is there. On the contrary, when even aspiration is not there because of the pressure of inertia, trust and confidence and patience can remain. If trust and patience fail when aspiration is quiescent, that would mean that the sadhak is relying solely on his own effort – it would mean, “Oh, my aspiration has failed, so there is no hope for me. My aspiration fails, so what can Mother do?” On the contrary, the sadhak should feel, “Never mind, my aspiration will come back again. Meanwhile I know that the Mother is with me even when I do not feel her; she will carry me even through the darkest period.” That is the fully right attitude you must have. To those who have it depression can do nothing; even if it comes it has to return baffled. That is not tamasic surrender. Tamasic surrender is when one says, “I won’t do anything; let Mother do everything. Aspiration, rejection, surrender even are not necessary. Let her do all that in me.” There is a great difference between the two attitudes. One is that of the shirker who won’t do anything, the other is that of the sadhak who does his best, but when he is reduced to quiescence for a time and things are adverse, keeps always his trust in the Mother’s force and presence behind all and by that trust baffles the opposition force and calls back the activity of the sadhana.

26 October 1936

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212

How long will it take for all the parts of my being to turn to and surrender to the Mother?

It depends on yourself – if there is a strong aspiration and quiet persistence, it can be done soon.

Undated

Surrender to the Mother

213

There is not much spiritual meaning in keeping open to the Mother if you withhold your surrender. Self-giving or surrender is demanded of those who practise this Yoga, because without such a progressive surrender of the being it is quite impossible to get anywhere near the goal. To keep open means to call in her Force to work in you, and if you do not surrender to it, it amounts to not allowing the Force to work in you at all or else only on condition that it will work in the way you want and not in its own way which is the way of the Divine Truth. A suggestion of this kind is usually made by some adverse Power or by some egoistic element of mind or vital which wants the Grace or the Force, but only in order to use it for its own purpose, and is not willing to live for the Divine Purpose,– it is willing to take from the Divine all it can get, but not to give itself to the Divine. The soul, the true being, on the contrary, turns towards the Divine and is not only willing but eager and happy to surrender.

In this Yoga one is supposed to go beyond every mental idealistic culture. Ideas and ideals belong to the mind and are half-truths only; the mind too is, more often than not, satisfied with merely having an ideal, with the pleasure of idealising, while life remains always the same, untransformed or changed only a little and mostly in appearance. The spiritual seeker does not turn aside from the pursuit of realisation to mere idealising; not to idealise, but to realise the Divine Truth is always his aim, either beyond or in life also – and in the latter case it is necessary to transform mind and life which cannot be done without surrender to the action of the Divine Force, the Mother.

To seek after the Impersonal is the way of those who want to withdraw from life, but usually they try by their own effort, and not by an opening of themselves to a superior Power or by the way of surrender; for the Impersonal is not something that guides or helps, but something to be attained and it leaves each man to attain it according to the way and capacity of his nature. On the other hand by an opening and surrender to the Mother one can realise the Impersonal and every other aspect of Truth also.

The surrender must necessarily be progressive. No one can make the complete surrender from the beginning, so it is quite natural that when one looks into oneself, one should find its absence. That is no reason why the principle of surrender should not be accepted and carried out steadily from stage to stage, from field to field, applying it successively to all the parts of the nature.

Undated

*

214

It is necessary if you want to progress in your sadhana that you should make the submission and surrender of which you speak sincere, real and complete. This cannot be as long as you mix up your desires with your spiritual aspiration. It cannot be as long as you cherish vital attachment to family, child or anything or anybody else. If you are to do this Yoga, you must have only one desire and aspiration, to receive the spiritual Truth and manifest it in all your thoughts, feelings, actions and nature. You must not hunger after any relations with anyone. The relations of the sadhaka with others must be created for him from within, when he has the true consciousness and lives in the Light. They will be determined within him by the power and will of the Divine Mother according to the supramental Truth for the divine life and the divine work; they must not be determined by his mind and his vital desires. This is the thing you have to remember. Your psychic being is capable of giving itself to the Mother and living and growing in the Truth; but your lower vital being has been full of attachments and sanskaras and an impure movement of desire and your external physical mind was not able to shake off its ignorant ideas and habits and open to the Truth. That was the reason why you were unable to progress, because you were keeping up an element and movements which could not be allowed to remain; for they were the exact opposite of what has to be established in a divine life. The Mother can only free you from these things, if you really want it, not only in your psychic being, but in your physical mind and all your vital nature. The sign will be that you no longer cherish or insist on your personal notions, attachments or desires, and that whatever the distance or wherever you may be, you will feel yourself open and the power and presence of the Mother with you and working in you and will be contented, quiet, confident, wanting nothing else, awaiting always the Mother’s will.

6 January 1928

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215

However hard the fight, the only thing is to fight it out now and here to the end.

The trouble is that you have never fully faced and conquered the real obstacle. There is in a very fundamental part of your nature a strong formation of ego-individuality which has mixed in your spiritual aspiration a clinging element of pride and spiritual ambition. This formation has never consented to be broken up in order to give place to something more true and divine. Therefore, when the Mother has put her force upon you or when you yourself have pulled the force upon you, this in you has always prevented it from doing its work in its own way. It has begun itself building according to the ideas of the mind or some demand of the ego, trying to make its own creation in its “own way”, by its own strength, its own sadhana, its own tapasya. There has never been here any real surrender, any giving up of yourself freely and simply into the hands of the Divine Mother. And yet that is the only way to succeed in the supramental Yoga. To be a Yogi, a Sannyasi, a Tapaswi is not the object here. The object is transformation, and the transformation can only be done by a force infinitely greater than your own; it can only be done by being truly like a child in the hands of the Divine Mother.

7 June 1928

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216

A lady has written a letter to me. She has been attracted to follow this path. She seems to be in affliction and so she wants peace. Shall I reply to her?

You can write to her briefly – telling her that the life of sansar is in its nature a field of unrest – to go through it in the right way one has to offer one’s life and actions to the Divine and pray for the peace of the Divine within. When the mind becomes quiet, one can feel the Divine Mother supporting the life and put everything into her hands – these are the first things to do, if she wants to have peace.

16 April 1933

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217

In these moods the thoughts that assail you are so much out of focus! The essence of surrender is not to ask the Mother before doing anything – but to accept whole-heartedly the influence and the guidance, when the joy and peace come down to accept them without question or cavil and let them grow, when the Force is felt at work to let it work without opposition, when the Knowledge is given to receive and follow it, when the Will is revealed to make oneself its instrument. It is also, no doubt, to accept the guidance and control of the Guru who is at least supposed to know better than oneself what is or is not the Truth and the way to the Truth. All that is nothing very terrible, it is simple common sense. As to the particular kind of control you speak of, it is not imposed on anybody; it is only a few in the Asram who at all follow any such rule. X whom you mention would not have dreamed a year or two ago of asking the Mother before doing anything; if he does so now, it is not because the Mother told him to do so or “imposed” it on him, but because he felt the need for it for his sadhana. The Mother never imposed any rule on Y; he made his own rule of life of his own accord according to his own perception of the best way for him to concentrate and took the sanction of the Mother. You yourself were told by the Mother that you had no need to do what Z was trying to do in this respect at that time of her own motion – that for each it was only when he felt the need that he should do it. I do not see therefore why you should fear so much for your liberty – when in the whole Asram of 120 people there are hardly half a dozen who follow any such rule of strict external surrender. And I cannot understand what you mean by the reproach that we have made some people stiff and speechless. Who are they? X, Y, A? As far as I know, they are quite indefatigable and eloquent or fluent talkers. I am guiltless of the crime you charge against me.

Another thing let me correct. It is not at all correct to say that we – in this instance the Mother, never warned B and C of their deterioration – they were warned and plainly warned and also of the influences from outside the Asram to which they were succumbing. The Mother had even foreseen from the beginning that this might happen and put them on their guard in due time. If they fell, it was because they preferred to follow their lower nature and side with the lower forces. The Divine can lead, he does not drive. There is an internal freedom permitted to every mental being called man to assent or not to assent to the Divine leading – how else can any real spiritual evolution be done?

If there is so serious an obstacle to your going forward, it consists only of two things, your vital depressions and your mental doubts which make you challenge even the experiences you have and belittle any progress you make. Never have we told you to be stiff and gloomy and speechless – on the contrary we have pressed upon the other side. Other obstacles or difficulties there are, but they could be overcome if these two things were out of the way or rejected and inoperative.

If I constantly encourage you, it is not because I see you deteriorating and want to hide it – I see nothing of the kind,– but because I have faith in your capacities and see the nobler D behind all outward weakness. I would not speak what I know to be false – that much credit you can give me.

P. S. What put this into your head that you are regarded as an untouchable and a bad influence? If every man who had difficulties were so regarded, the whole Asram would be an asylum of untouchables.

13 May 1933

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218

Sometimes my mental, vital and physical beings work together in harmony. At other times one being dominates the others, and there is disorder. How can this disorder be removed?

The best way is to live in the psychic being, for that is always surrendered to the Mother and can lead the others in the right way. For control one has to centralise somewhere – some do it in the mind or above the mind, others do it in the heart and through the heart in the psychic centre.

11 June 1933

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219

Now that you are here, try to enter into the higher ways of the sadhana. Withdraw from the vital and its demands and desires, make the inner heart and the psychic being your centre and seek union with the Mother’s consciousness through self-giving and surrender.

22 August 1933

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220

You have to make your vital single-pointed towards the Mother, peaceful, without demands and desires, aspiring only for surrender and to be one with the Mother’s consciousness and filled with her.

24 September 1933

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221

I can only say – it is your vital you have to change. Make it perfectly straight and clear and pure. Make it free from all selfishness, blindness, insincerity, anger, abhiman, self-indulgence, vital desire – and give it as a pure offering to the Mother.

28 September 1933

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222

The body as well as all else came from the Mother and has to be surrendered to her as an instrument. That is all that is needed.

15 November 1933

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223

Surrender means to look to the Divine Mother only – to reject all desires and do only her will, not to insist on one’s own ideas and preferences, but to ask for her Truth only, to obey and follow her guidance, to open oneself and become aware of her Force and its workings and to allow those workings to change the nature into the divine nature.

24 March 1934

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224

At present my subnature is still resisting and it is difficult to bring it under permanent control. But why does this difficulty hold on when my lower vital has already put itself in the Mother’s hands?

Yes, but it is not enough that the lower vital should put itself into the Mother’s hands. The whole physical and subconscient and everything else must do likewise.

4 January 1935

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225

Put all before the Mother in your heart so that her Light may work on it for the best.

21 April 1935

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226

If I cannot concentrate or meditate, I simply imagine myself lying eternally in the Mother’s lap and going out when she sends me out.

This is the best possible kind of concentration.

12 August 1935

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227

It is the true attitude so to leave all to the Mother and trust entirely in her and let her lead you on the path to the goal.

2 March 1936

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228

You have asked me, “How do you surrender to the psychic if you are not conscious of its action?” I do it in the same way that I surrender to the Force above. I simply imagine that there is the Force above or that there is a psychic being in the heart centre. Imagining so, I surrender myself to it.

It is then a saṅkalpa of surrender. But the surrender must be to the Mother – not even to the Force, but to the Mother herself.

But I do not know whether surrender to the psychic is necessary at present. My being is not yet capable of surrendering to the Force and to the psychic simultaneously.

There is no need of all this complication. If the psychic manifests, it will not ask you to surrender to it, but to surrender to the Mother.

4 October 1936

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229

I had said that the human vital does not like to be controlled or dominated by another and I said that that also was a reason why sadhaks found it difficult to surrender to the Mother. For the vital wants to affirm its own ideas, impulses, desires, preferences and to do what it likes, it does not want to feel another force than that of its own nature leading or driving it; but surrender to the Mother means that it must give up all these personal things and allow her Force to guide and drive it in the ways of a higher Truth which are not its own ways: so it resists, does not want to be dominated by the Truth Light and the Mother’s Force, insists on its own independence and refuses to surrender.

These ideas of breakdown and personal frustration are again wrong suggestions and the dissatisfaction with yourself is as harmful almost as dissatisfaction with the Mother would be. It prevents the confidence and courage necessary for following the path of the sadhana. You must dismiss these suggestions from you.

8 October 1936

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230

Frequently when I put a strong suggestion or pressure upon you, your inner being becomes conscious of it and something of it comes to your surface perceptions; but also, usually, your external mind, which is always busy and active trying to take a hand in everything, gives it a wrong turn or twist.

What I wanted you to do was (1) to surrender wholly to the Mother, sincerely, simply and without any reserves of the ego, (2) to become conscious of the habitual defects of your external being and reject them, (3) to open these obscure parts to the light and change their movement.

This was the twist – the mental turn of giving up all reserve – interpreted not as a complete surrender to the Divine Shakti, but as giving yourself up to anything that came, which might very well be a wrong movement of the lower vital Nature or even a hostile force.

I have repeatedly said that this kind of passivity is not the meaning of surrender. You cannot surrender at the same time to the Divine Shakti and to the movements of the lower cosmic Nature. To allow everything as her movement is to contradict the very sense and object of this Yoga. To surrender to the Mother means that you stop giving yourself to these other forces. Therefore discrimination (by the psychic feeling and the seeing conscious mind, more even than by the thinking part) and rejection are necessary accompaniments and helps to consecration and surrender.

Naturally, with this wrong turn, the first result was that certain things in you to which the mind had refused free outward play but of which you had not been sufficiently conscious or else not able to reject from your nature got their chance and manifested in a very extravagant manner.

Undated

Opening, Sincerity and the Mother’s Grace

The Meaning of Opening

231

What is real opening?

It is the receptivity to the Mother’s presence and her forces.

What is the right and perfect rule of opening?

Aspiration, quietude, widening of oneself to receive, rejection of all that tries to shut you to the Divine.

How shall I know that I am opening to the Mother and not to other forces?

You have to be vigilant and see that there is no movement of disturbance, desire, ego.

What are the signs of a real opening to the Mother?

That shows itself at once – when you feel the divine peace, equality, wideness, light, Ananda, Knowledge, strength, when you are aware of the Mother’s nearness or presence or the working of her Force, etc., etc. If any of these things are felt, it is the opening – the more are felt, the more complete the opening.

What is the way to open all the knots of the being?

By aspiration, by consent of the being to the workings of the Divine Force, by the descent and working of that Force.

25 April 1933

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232

What does “opening” mean? Is it “not to keep anything secret from the Mother”?

That is the first step towards opening.

17 June 1933

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233

How does one “open”?

By faith and surrender in a quiet mind.

18 June 1933

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234

To be open is simply to be so turned to the Mother that her Force can work in you without anything refusing or obstructing her action. If the mind is shut up in its own ideas and refuses to allow her to bring in the Light and the Truth, if the vital clings to its desires and does not admit the true initiative and impulsions that the Mother’s power brings, if the physical is shut up in its desire, habits and inertia and does not allow the Light and Force to enter in it and work, then one is not open. It is not possible to be entirely open all at once in all the movements, but there must be a central opening in each part and a dominant aspiration or will in each part (not in the mind alone) to admit only the Mother’s workings, the rest will then be progressively done.

28 October 1934

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235

To remain open to the Mother is to remain always quiet and happy and confident, not restless, not grieving or desponding, to let her force work in you, guide you, give you knowledge, give you peace and Ananda. If you cannot keep yourself open, then aspire constantly but quietly that you may be open.

Undated

Opening to the Mother and the Integral Yoga

236

I cannot understand whether I am doing Yoga. Can it be said that I am doing your Purna Yoga?

Everyone who is turned to the Mother is doing my Yoga. It is a great mistake to suppose that one can “do” the Purna Yoga – i.e. carry out and fulfil all the sides of the Yoga by one’s own effort. No human being can do that. What one has to do is to put oneself in the Mother’s hands and open oneself to her by service, by bhakti, by aspiration; then the Mother by her light and force works in him so that the sadhana is done. It is a mistake also to have the ambition to be a big Purna Yogi or a supramental being and ask oneself how far have I got towards that. The right attitude is to be devoted and given to the Mother and to wish to be whatever she wants you to be. The rest is for the Mother to decide and do in you.

April 1929

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237

I offer myself at your feet. Accept me as your child and show me the divine path. Give me directions and inform me what will be the attitude in my sadhana.

Write to him¹ that he can begin sadhana, if he feels truly the call. He need do nothing at first but sit in meditation for a short time every day and try to open himself to the Mother’s power, aspiring for the opening, for a true change of consciousness, for peace, purity and strength to go through the sadhana, for her protection against all difficulties and errors and for an always increasing devotion. Let him see first if he can thus successfully open himself.

2 November 1929

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238

Today at soup time I remained concentrated. I felt all kinds of eccentric movements rise up, but they were not in contact with the Mother. Sometimes when I concentrate to get contact with her force and touch, I feel that my head is becoming a solid block, compact, and that my mind has become a vacuum. But I think this prevents the opening and permits attacks from above when the consciousness goes below.

You write always as if all opening must be to the confused mental and vital movements, thoughts, voices etc. That is not so. You can be open in all your being, but to the Mother alone, to the Divine alone and to nothing else.

When the consciousness is filled with the Mother’s force, then there is the condition you speak of as felt in the head – a solid block, compact, silent, free from all random thoughts and movements. But this can be felt not only in the head, but in all the body and also in all the consciousness above, around and below the body. When it is like that then all foreign intrusions are either automatically excluded or if they come, easily observed and rejected as not one’s own and not the Divine’s. One feels full of the Divine, full of the Mother’s force and presence so that nothing else can enter and misuse the mind, the vital or the body.

6 April 1931

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239

Sita suffered without Rama, the Gopis without Krishna – how they longed for God! This will not happen to us because you and the Mother are here with us. If this is the Truth, why do we still feel dissatisfied at times? How to establish the Truth in the mind and vital so that we have an end to the feelings of dissatisfaction?

The Truth for you is to feel the Divine in you, open to the Mother and work for the Divine till you are aware of her in all your actions. The physical presence here is not enough; there must be this consciousness of the divine presence in your heart and the divine guidance in your acts. This the psychic being can easily, swiftly, deeply feel if it is fully awake; once the psychic has felt it, it can spread to the mental and vital also.

16 February 1932

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240

The advantage of being in the psychic consciousness is that you have the right awareness and its will being in harmony with the Mother’s will, you can call in the Mother’s Force to make the change. Those who live in the mind and the vital are not so well able to do this; they are obliged to use mostly their personal effort and as the awareness and will and force of the mind and vital are divided and imperfect, the work done is imperfect and not definitive. It is only in the Supermind that Awareness, Will, Force are always one movement and automatically effective.

7 May 1932

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241

You have only to aspire, to keep yourself open to the Mother, to reject all that is contrary to her will and to let her work in you – doing also all your work for her and in the faith that it is through her force that you can do it. If you remain open in this way the knowledge and realisation will come to you in due course.

15 May 1932

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242

Keep yourself open to the Mother in the right attitude of surrender and you will receive from her gradually all that you need within you.

21 November 1932

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243

I began work on this masonry project a month ago. At first I had only a general idea of the work. Then I got the necessary energy and interest. Now I think that the fourth aspect of the Mother – richness in detail, completeness, perfection – is coming. I await further suggestions.

It is very good. By remaining psychically open to the Mother, all that is necessary for work or sadhana develops progressively, that is one of the chief secrets, the central secret of the sadhana.

13 February 1933

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244

There is no part of you that is not open, but you have to make the opening always wider and the reception more complete; but that too will be done progressively if you remember and call the Mother’s force at all times and remain confident, vigilant and devoted, as you have been and are.

25 February 1933

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245

Sri Aurobindo says in reply to your letter² that you can meditate on the Mother in the heart and call on her – remember her and dedicate or offer to her all your life and thoughts and actions. If you like you can make a japa of her name. You can call to her to purify your being and change your nature.

Or you can concentrate to call down from above you (where it always is) first her calm and peace, then her power and light and her ananda. It is always there above the head – but superconscient to the human mind – by aspiration and concentration it can become conscient to it and the adhar can open to it so that it descends and enters into mind, life and body.

14 March 1933

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246

If a sadhak even after a long time cannot open himself fully and constantly to the Mother owing to great obstacles in his nature, will he die in the middle and not be accepted by the Mother?

There is no meaning in such a question. Those who follow the Yoga here are accepted by the Mother – for “accepted” means “admitted into the Yoga, accepted as disciples”. But the progress in the Yoga and the siddhi in the Yoga depend on the degree to which there is the opening.

24 June 1933

*

247

Keep open to the Mother – throw away the faults and defects of character you can change of yourself – allow the Mother’s power to work in you – then these difficulties can be made to disappear, the mind will open.

3 May 1934

*

248

A cloud surrounds me. Protect me and give me strength. Let me open completely to the Mother.

To be open to the Mother entirely, you should be open both within and without. You should be perfectly frank and tell her everything – do not shrink from showing to her candidly all that is within you. That will at once enable you to be completely open and her also to help you fully.

22 July 1934

*

249

I am not getting much time to sit down for meditation, but the calmness is maintained throughout my work. What should I do when I can make no time for meditation?

Keep yourself open, remember the Mother always – call for her help and guidance in your work. You must get into a condition in which not only the calmness remains always but the sadhana is going on all the time in work and rest as well as in meditation.

20 September 1934

*

250

I understand that once the Mother accepts us as disciples, we should simply go to her. One should not be miserable if one does not see her in the heart. One has only to remain with her in the Asram.

No, it is not enough to be in the Asram – one has to open to the Mother and put away the mud which one was playing with in the world.

25 September 1934

*

251

I could not decide whether to give up my present work or to change it. Then I thought I will leave the work in order to meditate. But I do not know what is good for me. You alone know everything.

It is a mistake to exercise the mind about these things and try to arrange them with the ordinary mind. It is by confidence in the Mother that the opening needed will come when your consciousness is ready. There is no harm in arranging your present work so that there will be time and energy for some meditation, but it is not by meditation alone that what is needed will come. It is by faith and openness to the Mother.

9 October 1934

*

252

Openness is not always complete from the first – a part of the being opens, other parts of the consciousness remain still closed or half open only – one has to aspire till all is open. Even with the best and most powerful sadhak the full opening takes time; nor is there anyone who has been able to abandon everything at once without any struggle. There is no reason to feel therefore that if you call, you will not be heard – the Mother knows the difficulties of human nature and will help you through. Persevere always, call always and then after each difficulty there will be a progress.

20 April 1935

*

253

What poise or mode should we keep for the supramental descent?

As for poise or mode – that you need not trouble yourself about. An entire faith, opening, self-giving to the Mother are the one condition necessary throughout.

23 September 1935

*

254

It seems to me that the best place for getting rid of wrong movements is the Asram, under the Mother’s grace, help, protection and physical nearness.

That is only true if one can open oneself to the Mother. To be here and shut up to it and under another control does not help.

8 March 1936

*

255

That is what must be done. Trust in the Mother and will only to be open to her always and as quietly confident as may be. The work to be done is too great for the outer mind to understand how it is to be done; it is only by growing light and experience that one day it begins to understand – it is also too great and difficult for it to do by itself,– it can only help the Power that is working by its readiness, aspiration, faith, quietude. But in no sadhak are these things constant – the aspiration gets suspended, the faith wavers, the quietude is disturbed or shaken – but still the Mother is there at work and one has only to persevere,– finally the perseverance will be justified by the result. To give up is the one thing one must never do.

14 May 1936

*

256

That the mind is turning away more and more from outward things and the will to be turned wholly to the Mother is growing is very good, for that is the first necessity. The condition of being so turned and wholly open can then more easily develop. The two minutes’ flash of opening showed you how it will come; for it comes like that, by glimpses at first of brief duration, but afterwards it grows in hold and duration till it is ready for permanence. It is a new birth in the nature and so it can’t come all at once, but once begun it grows till it is perfect. Of course the more quiet the consciousness can remain in a steady way, the more the condition is favourable for this to be.

19 July 1936

*

257

The first thing one has to be careful not to do, is not to shut oneself in any way to the Mother. If one conceals what is happening in one from the Mother, something gets shut up. It is the mistake X has been making. Formerly she was quite open and unreserved and whenever there came a difficulty she got the full help. The Mother has told her to be perfectly open and hide nothing; if she does that, she will soon recover.

The Mother can not only know everything but do everything if she decides to do so – but if she did, where would be the sadhana? All would be only puppets moving in her hands. There are certain conditions which the sadhak must satisfy, and the Divine veils his power and knowledge so that the sadhak may have the occasion to love and will and think and act and grow into the true consciousness.

As for writing, the Mother has no time any longer, that is why she leaves it to me. X formerly used to tell the Mother to take full rest and not wear herself out etc. – how is it now she weeps because the Mother does not write? Her former attitude was the true one – she was in the psychic consciousness and always with the Mother’s presence close to her.

Undated

*

258

In meditation you must call on the Mother and concentrate on the call in your heart till you feel an opening to her or some inner contact with her.

Undated

*

259

I cannot meditate, for when I sit many thoughts come in. Which path must I take, then, to advance and make it easier for the Mother to work in me?

If you cannot meditate, pray. Offer all you do to the Mother and pray to her to take control of your actions and your nature. Love and worship. What is needed is to get a full opening in which you will become conscious of the Mother. These things will bring the opening. Only, even if it takes time, you must not get depression, despair or revolt – for these things get into the way of the opening.

Undated

*

260

The whole thing is to keep yourself open to the Mother. The preparation of the nature for the decisive experiences always takes time and should be a continuous self-opening without discouragement or impatience for immediate results.

Undated

*

261

Confidence in the Mother followed by a full opening to her is the best way.

Undated

*

262

O Mother, how long will you remain far from me? Am I not your child?

The Mother is never far from you. If you keep open, you will always feel her with you.

Undated

*

263

My sweet Mother, let me live in you.

Keep open to the Mother’s peace and joy – by living in it you will come to live in her.

Undated

*

264

Am I right in believing that Mother will do everything for me?

Yes, but it must be done with your inner assent and you must take the right attitude and openness to the Mother.

Undated

*

265

Mother, how can one always receive Ananda from you?

By thinking less and less of oneself and more and more of the Divine.

Mother, how can I open myself to you?

By quieting the mind and vital, by concentrating more on the Mother and by calling for her Force to enter and work in the being.

Mother, why is one harmed when one enters into relation with someone?

It is because one receives mental and vital influences from others and some of these are harmful.

Lord, when will all my undesirable activities be abolished and only daivic activities remain? That is to say, when will I behave only as the Mother wants?

When the psychic being comes in the front.

Mother, how can one develop the buddhi?

The ordinary way is to read and study or to observe and try to understand all things; the sadhak’s way is to open his mind to the light from above.

Undated

Loyalty and Fidelity

266

If an adverse Force comes, one has not to accept and welcome its suggestions, but to turn to the Mother and refuse to turn away from her. Whether one can open or not, one has to be loyal and faithful. Loyalty and fidelity are not qualities for which one has to do Yoga; they are very simple things which any man or woman who aspires to the Truth ought to be able to accomplish.

21 April 1937

The Psychic and Opening

267

When I opened myself to the Mother in meditation, I saw her approaching me with an infant in her arms. As she came near, the golden Purusha frowned at her and she drew back behind you. I have seen this vision several times. What am I to do? You fill my whole being but, despite opening myself to the Mother, she is not allowed to approach me.

The infant in the Mother’s arms is the symbol of the psychic being. The soul in direct touch with the divine Truth is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature (manas, prāṇa, anna of the Taittiriya Upanishad); one may practise Yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason, power and all kinds of experiences in the vital, even physical siddhis, but if the true soul-power behind and the psychic nature do not come into the front, nothing genuine has been done. In this Yoga, the psychic being is that which opens the rest of the nature to the true supramental light and finally to the supreme Ananda. If the soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then the Yoga can be done; otherwise (by the mere power of the mind or any other part) it is impossible. It is this new birth, this awakening of the psychic consciousness, that the Mother is offering in the vision. If the golden Purusha refuses it, it must be because he is bound by some kind of attachment, probably to mere “knowledge”. In that case, he is not very consistent; for it was he who demanded surrender to the Mother and now he rejects the very heart and meaning of the surrender. Probably this repeated experience is an indication of the principal difficulty in the sadhana. If there is refusal of the psychic new birth, a refusal to become the child new born from the Mother, owing to attachment to intellectual knowledge or mental ideas or to some vital desire, then there will be a failure in the sadhana. Only if it is accepted, can his coming and doing sadhana here be fruitful.

26 November 1929

*

268

Keep yourself open to the Mother’s Force, but do not trust all forces. As you go on, if you keep straight, you will come to a time when the psychic becomes more predominantly active and the Light from above prevails more purely and strongly so that the chance of mental constructions and vital formations mixing with the true experience diminishes. As I have told you, these are not and cannot be the supramental Forces; it is a work of preparation which is only making things ready for a future Yoga-siddhi.

18 September 1932

*

269

What is the conscious way to bring the psychic to the front? Does awakening of the psychic being mean its coming to the front?

No. Awakening is a different thing, it means the conscious action of the psychic from behind. When it comes to the front it invades the mind and vital and body and psychicises their movements. It comes best by aspiration and an unquestioning and entire turning and surrender to the Mother. But also it sometimes comes of itself when the Adhar is ready.

5 May 1933

*

270

Is our inner being already open to the Mother or does it open in the course of the sadhana?

The inner being does not open except by sadhana or by some psychic touch on the life.

30 November 1933

*

271

When I think of the Mother’s compassion, I start weeping with gratefulness. Never before in my life have I felt so much affection. If my mind is a bit quiet, will I be able to feel her help?

Yes, it is by quieting the mind that you will become able to call the Mother and open to her. The soothing effect was a touch from the psychic – one of the touches that prepare the opening of the psychic with its gift of inner peace, love and joy.

17 September 1934

*

272

Today again after pranam there were some vital dissatisfactions. But they have a great effect on the heart which has now begun to open to the Mother.

Get rid of these dissatisfactions, they prevent the permanent psychic opening.

29 September 1934

*

273

The heart is beginning to open to the Mother, but it is still easily touched by lower vital suggestions. That is probably why the vital is not always happy with the way the Mother deals with me at pranam.

What the psychic always feels is “What the Mother does is for the best”, and it accepts all with gladness. It is the vital part of the heart that is easily touched by the suggestions.

29 September 1934

*

274

I am not sure whether a direct psychic opening could have been done in my case without any difficulty.

The direct opening of the psychic centre is easy only when the ego-centricity is greatly diminished and also if there is a strong bhakti for the Mother. A spiritual humility and sense of submission and dependence is necessary.

16 July 1936

Sincerity

275

This child of the Mother is so unworthy. Only she knows when the child will be fit to have a place in her lap.

There is only one thing needed to make anyone fit for the Mother’s grace – it is a perfect sincerity and a truthful openness to the Mother in all the being.

2 February 1934

*

276

I see many defects in my nature – for instance my tendency to get angry and to argue. I request the Mother to change all this, for it is in her hands to transform me.

It depends not only on the will of the Mother but on the sincerity of the sadhak. I do not see that you have any sincere will to do Yoga or to change.

13 July 1934

*

277

X once said to the Mother that if the sincerity was perfect there would be transformation in a day; to this the Mother replied “Yes”. I do not understand how that could be possible – a long process of conversion of consciousness compressed into one day’s work. Perhaps the Mother said yes to emphasise the importance of sincerity.

By sincerity Mother meant being open to no influence but the Divine’s only. Now, if the whole being were sincere in that sense even to every cell of the body, what could prevent the most rapid transformation? People cannot be like that, however much the enlightened part of them may want to, because of the nature of the Ignorance out of which the ordinary Prakriti has been built – hence the necessity of a long and laborious working.

26 July 1934

*

278

Why do people often say that this Yoga is a very arduous one, full of difficulties and obstacles? One who is sincere and open exclusively to the Divine Mother would not believe this. It is difficult only for those who refuse to take her as their all.

Of course; but most do not find it easy to take the Mother as their all.

22 March 1935

*

279

We are told the Mother can act best if a sadhak is sincere. But what is meant by this?

What is meant by sincere sadhana? In the Mother’s definition of sincere, it means “opening only to the Divine Forces”, i.e. rejecting all the others even if they come.

21 April 1936

The Mother’s Grace

280

Do calm and equality come down from above by the Mother’s Grace?

When they descend, it is by the soul’s aspiration and the Mother’s grace.

Undated

*

281

The Mother’s grace is there always; open yourself to it in quietude and confidence.

Undated

*

282

I don’t feel Mother’s grace as before. Sometimes I get the suggestion that I am not fit for her service and for Yoga.

What is all this nonsense? The grace of the Mother does not withdraw; open yourself and you will feel it.

1 May 1929

*

283

The presence whose fading he regrets can only be felt if the inner being continues to be consecrated and the outer nature is put into harmony or at least kept under the touch of the inner spirit. But if he does things which his inner being does not approve, this condition will be inevitably tarnished and, each time, the possibility of his feeling the presence will diminish. He must have a strong will to purification and an aspiration that does not flag and cease, if the Mother’s grace is to be there and effective.

6 May 1930

*

284

To practise Yoga implies the will to overcome all attachments and turn to the Divine alone. The principal thing in the Yoga is to trust in the Divine Grace at every step, to direct the thought continually to the Divine and to offer oneself till the being opens and the Mother’s force can be felt working in the Adhara.

26 July 1932

*

285

When a sadhak feels the Mother’s Grace coming down in him, is it by the consent of the Purusha in him?

What do you mean “by the consent”? The Mother’s Grace comes down by the Mother’s will. The Purusha can accept or reject the Grace.

22 April 1933

*

286

Is there any law of the working of the Mother’s Grace?

The more one develops the psychic, the more is it possible for the Grace to act.

13 August 1933

*

287

Is the Mother’s Grace always general?

Both general and special.

8 February 1934

*

288

How to receive what the Mother gives generally?

You have only to keep yourself open and whatever you need and can receive at the moment will come.

10 February 1934

*

289

Some like me have exceptionally great imperfections and defects. We have no claim for any Yoga, much less for the Integral Yoga. Sheerly out of her care and grace, the Mother has managed to keep us here; but the only return we have given is to tire her out.

It is so – if the sadhaks had been different in their reaction to the Mother’s grace, the work in the physical would have been much easier and less perilously subject to hostile attacks; perhaps it would have been done by now.

12 July 1936

Opening and Presence

290

Make yourself quiet and open – have complete confidence and you will feel the Mother’s presence with you.

9 October 1933

*

291

It is by the constant remembrance that the being is prepared for the full opening. By the opening of the heart the Mother’s presence begins to be felt and by the opening to her Power above the Force of the higher consciousness comes down into the body and works there to change the whole nature.

7 August 1934

*

292

The Mother says, “Keep yourself always open to me” and “I am always with you and around you.” How am I to feel her presence always? Also, what does “conscious” mean and how does one become conscious?

The Divine Mother is everywhere and at all times she is with you. If one opens and becomes conscious, then one can feel her presence. It is because the nature is ignorant, full of itself and its desires that one cannot feel the presence. If one turns from self and desires and lives inwardly and outwardly for the Divine, then one begins to feel the divine Presence.

Undated

*

293

The condition you describe is a very good one and it is evident from it that you opened sincerely to the Mother when you met her. Keep that sincere opening always and eventually a state of peace and joy and the sense of the Mother’s presence will become permanent.*

Undated

*

294

My dear Mother, peace in my vital, peace in my heart, peace everywhere.

Let the vital and the heart open always to the Mother’s presence – the true source of peace.

Undated

The Mother’s Presence

She Is Always Present

295

Why do I sometimes feel myself far from the Mother? I want to be able to feel her constantly with me.

The Mother is always there with you. You have only to throw away the forces of Ignorance to feel her with you always.

1 August 1933

*

296

You have said: “Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is, indeed, always present.”³ Does this mean that the Mother knows all our insignificant thoughts at all times, or only when she concentrates?

It is said that the Mother is always present and looking at you. That does not mean that in her physical mind she is thinking of you always and seeing your thoughts. There is no need of that, since she is everywhere and acts everywhere out of her universal knowledge.

It seems to me that the more we communicate our thoughts to her, the more we open ourselves to her forces and the more effective becomes our surrender to her. Am I right?

Yes, quite right.

12 August 1933

*

297

In what sense is the Mother “everywhere”? Is it because she has descended to the universal and has complete knowledge of the forces working there? I suppose the universal or “everywhere” includes the physical plane. If so, does the Mother know all the happenings and events on the physical plane?

Including what Lloyd George had today for breakfast or what Roosevelt said to his wife about their servants? Why should the Mother “know” in the human way all such happenings on the physical plane? Her business in her embodiment is to know the working of the universal forces and use them for her work; for the rest she knows what she needs to know, sometimes with her inner self, sometimes with her physical mind. All knowledge is available in her universal self to her, but she brings forward only what is meant to be brought forward so that the work may be done.

13 August 1933

*

298

I had a dream in which I was walking alone in the desert. Was the meaning of the dream that this sadhana is very dry and difficult?

No. It is perhaps how some part of the vital or physical consciousness figured it. But the path is not a desert nor are you alone, since the Mother is with you.

2 November 1933

*

299

My vital does not seem to have devotion for the Mother. Instead of loving her, it gets mixed with undivine forces. Protect me from these vital obstructions. I wish to feel that I am lying in the Mother’s lap.

The Mother is always with you. The vital has its desires and therefore does not believe in the Mother’s presence. You have to call down the Mother’s Force into it to remove its doubts and desires.

11 November 1933

*

300

The Mother is always with you. Put your faith in her, remain quiet within and do with that quietude what has to be done. You will become more and more aware of her constant Presence, will feel her action behind yours and the burden of your work will no longer be heavy on you.

21 April 1935

*

301

You have written: “Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is, indeed, always present.” On the other hand, you wrote to me recently that it was not physically possible for her to be present everywhere. When I asked the Mother about this, she said that she could be present in many places. How to reconcile these contradictory statements?

If by physically you mean corporeally, in her visible tangible material body, it is obvious that it cannot be. When you asked Mother the question she did not understand you to mean that – she said she could be present everywhere, and she meant, of course, in her consciousness. It is the consciousness and not the body that is the being, the person; the body is only a support and instrument for the action of the consciousness. Mother can be personally present in her consciousness. The universal presence of course is always there and the universal and personal are two aspects of the same being.

25 August 1936

*

302

Sometimes the thought comes to me: “Outwardly and inwardly, I am very far from the Mother.” Why does it come?

It is the feeling of the physical or outward being which is by its ignorance unable to feel the Mother’s nearness.

How can I convince myself of the falsity of this thought and drive it away?

The Mother is always near and within, it is only the obscurity of mind and vital that do not see or feel it. That is a knowledge which the mind ought to hold firmly.

29 April 1937

Feeling the Mother’s Presence

303

Live always as if you were under the very eye of the Supreme and of the Divine Mother. Do nothing, try to think and feel nothing that would be unworthy of the Divine Presence.

16 April 1930

*

304

The constant presence of the Mother comes by practice; the Divine Grace is essential for success in the sadhana, but it is the practice that prepares the descent of the Grace.

You have to learn to go inward, ceasing to live in external things only, quiet the mind and aspire to become aware of the Mother’s workings in you.

2 July 1930

*

305

How and when can one feel the Mother’s concrete presence all the time?

It is a matter, first, of the constant activity of the psychic and secondly of the conversion of the physical and its openness to inner supraphysical experience. Apart from the vital and its disturbances the physical is the chief difficulty in establishing a continuity of Yogic consciousness and experience. If the physical is thoroughly transformed – opened and conscious – then stability and continuity become easy.

16 October 1933

*

306

It is quite necessary to realise the Mother in her formless presence and not only in her form.

December 1933

*

307

But I do not see why you call the feeling sentimental or think that your sense of the presence of the Mother in the heart-beats etc. was unreal. It was your psychic being that suggested it to you and the response showed that the consciousness was ready. Mother felt that something was happening in you and felt that it was the beginning of a realisation – she was encouraging it and did not discourage. If it had been a wrong or vital movement she would not have felt like that.

13 August 1934

*

308

We believe that it is the Mother who does the sadhana in us, but we scarcely feel it. I suppose there must be some veil in us.

It is a veil which disappears when the Mother’s working as well as her presence is consciously felt at all times.

7 January 1935

*

309

Is there any difference between the Mother’s Presence and the Divine Consciousness?

One can feel the Divine Consciousness impersonally as a new consciousness only. The Mother’s Presence is something more – one feels herself there present within or above or enveloping one or all these together.

8 July 1935

*

310

The feeling of the Mother’s Presence or nearness does not depend on whether you write or do not write. Many who write often do not feel it, some who write seldom feel her always close.

11 June 1936

*

311

You write: “One can feel the Divine Consciousness impersonally as a new consciousness only”⁴ but that the Mother’s presence is something more. You also wrote in another letter that the Divine Presence in the heart is much more than the consciousness. In what way is the Presence more than the consciousness?

I meant that one can feel the divine consciousness as an impersonal spiritual state, a state of peace, light, joy, wideness without feeling in it the Divine Presence. The Divine Presence is felt as that of one who is the living source and essence of that light etc., a Being therefore, not merely a spiritual state. The Mother’s Presence is still more concrete, definite, personal – it is not that of Someone unknown, of a Power or Being, but of one who is known, intimate, loved, to whom one can offer all the being in a living concrete way. The image is not indispensable, though it helps – the presence can be inwardly felt without it.

2 July 1936

*

312

There is no such necessary precedence as that first one must feel the Presence and then only can one feel oneself the Mother’s; it is more often the increase of the feeling that brings the Presence. For the feeling comes from the psychic consciousness and it is the growth of the psychic consciousness that makes the constant Presence at last possible. The feeling comes from the psychic and is true of the inner being – its not being yet fulfilled in the whole does not make it an imagination; on the contrary, the more it grows the more is the likelihood of the whole being fulfilling this truth; the inner bhāva takes more and more possession of the outer consciousness and remoulds it so as to make it a truth there also. This is the constant principle of action in the Yogic transformation – what is true within comes out and takes possession of the mind and heart and will and through them prevails over the ignorance of the outer members and brings the inner truth out there also.

16 September 1936

*

313

What stands in the way is the recurring circle of the old mixture. To break out of that is very necessary to arrive at an inner Yogic calm and peace not disturbed by these things. If that is established, it will be possible to feel in it the Mother’s Presence, to open to her guidance, to get, not by occasional glimpses but in a steady opening and flowering, the psychic perception and the descent of the spiritual Light and Ananda. For that help will be with you.

7 March 1937

*

314

It is quite right and part of the right consciousness in sadhana that you should feel drawn in your heart towards the Mother and aspire for the vision and realisation of her presence. But there should not be any kind of restlessness joined to this feeling. The feeling should be quietly intense. It will then be easier for the sense of the presence to come and to grow in you.

Undated

*

315

I feel some movement coming down from above and as if it was broadening my head and face. The whole movement is towards the Mother. What can this be? Has it any direct relation with my artistic creations?

Yes. It is the result of the pressure put by the Mother to see and do things in the true light. What you feel coming down is the true consciousness with the presence and action of the Mother.

Undated

*

316

Mother gave me a quiet mind today. Ever since pranam I have been feeling her atmosphere; some force which I feel to be hers is upon my head and around me. My restlessness is much less, almost gone.

It is the Mother’s touch that you feel upon you – and that indicates her presence. In the state of the consciousness it is the Force working on the system which brings what is needed or aspired to, peace or light or happiness and the psychic opening.

Peace, quiet, followed by a happy state and a psychic opening is what you need – let that grow always.

Undated

Spiritual Possibility due to the Mother’s Presence

317

How much freedom is given to every sadhak here! But how many of us know what is meant by a Guru and how to respect him and treat him?

Certainly very few seem to realise what a possibility has been given them here – all has been turned into an opportunity for the bubbling of the vital or the tamas of the physical rather than used for the intended psychic and spiritual purpose.

7 March 1936

*

318

You write, “Certainly very few seem to realise what a possibility has been given them here.” What precisely do you mean by “possibility” – possibility of what?

I was not speaking of any particular thing – but the whole spiritual possibility due to the Mother’s presence here. Very few realise what that means and even those who have some idea of it take little advantage and allow their lower nature to block the progress.

9 March 1936

The Mother’s Presence and the Adverse Forces

319

X writes: “One thing I do not understand. Though I feel the Mother so near to me, these forces still dare to come and disturb me. How is this possible?” Please tell me what to reply to him.

The forces can always be there so long as there is not the transformation of the whole nature. They manifest themselves whenever they can. But if the Presence of the Mother can always be felt vividly and continuously, then one need not be troubled by their endeavours; one can face and repel them in the full consciousness of the Mother’s grace and protection.

1936

The Mother’s Presence and Human Imperfection

320

Do doubt and ego continue even after one has the realisation of the Divine Consciousness and the Mother’s Presence?

No doubt can remain if there is the realisation of the Divine Consciousness and the Mother’s Presence. Imperfections may remain in the outer being, but they do not trouble the inner being and can be got rid of quietly.

Undated

*

321

In your letters you say always that the Mother has withdrawn from you and you think she does it deliberately because of some fault or defect in your nature. This is an error. The Mother is always present with you; she does not withdraw. But if you believe otherwise, if you always expect her to withdraw, it will cloud your perception and prevent you from realising her presence. On the contrary, have the faith that, whether you feel it or not, her presence and her protection are always there. When old feelings or attachments rise from the subconscient, call her force and light in to clear all that is obscure, for they are there always ready to act. Do not admit any thoughts or ideas that lead to despondency or any kind of tamas.

6 May 1930

*

322

It is quite true that if the consciousness remains always centred in the Mother, then there would be no place for any kind of obscuration or disturbance; but that is not easy for the human mind and vital to get at once. One has to go on perseveringly till one has reached it.

The quickness with which the consciousness changes is a feature of the ordinary action of the physical consciousness when it is active and not inert. But many of the things you now feel (of which you speak in your letters), e.g. the idea of the Mother’s presence and her regard on you, the reference in what you think and do to her with the idea of her approval or disapproval, are signs that the psychic is acting in your lower vital and physical mind and increasing its rule over their movements.

The forms that came before your eyes are sometimes glimpses of the things on other planes, sometimes symbols; e.g., the golden water, golden tree, rising moon. At certain stages of the inner opening such things come in great number before the inner vision. The feet of which you saw the golden footprints must have been the Mother’s in one of her divine forms descending from the higher plane. The pricking and the heat are both of them signs of an action of the Force taking place within and so affecting the body.

The psychic relations I spoke of are those which men form in life which help the power of the psychic to grow and prepare it for the time when it will be ready to come forward and govern the mind, vital and body instead of allowing the mind or the vital to lead the rest. There is a difference between the psychic and the self. The self is the Atman above which is one in all, remains always wide, free, pure, untouched by the action of life in its ignorance. Its nature is peace, freedom, light, wideness, Ananda. The psychic (antarātmā) is the individual being which comes down into life and travels from birth to birth and feels the experiences and grows by them till it is able to join itself with the pure Atman above.

9 April 1936

The Mother’s Emanations

323

I saw the Mother in an experience. Is it an emanation of hers that I saw or is it her whole body and whole consciousness?

An emanation. How can her physical body be seen in a dream experience?

7 July 1933

*

324

The Mother when she works in the supra-physical levels goes out in a different emanation to each sadhak.

11 December 1933

*

325

During the afternoon sleep I often come in contact with the Mother. Is it the Mother who sends her emanation?

Yes. Or rather something of her is always with you.

14 December 1933

The Mother’s Knowledge and Her Emanations

326

In the case of X, I was under the impression that Mother could at once know of such things. Some even say that she knows everything – all that is material or spiritual.

Good Lord! you don’t expect her mind to be a factual encyclopaedia of all that is happening on all the planes and in all the universes? Or even on this earth – e.g. what Lloyd George had for dinner yesterday?

Others maintain that she knows when the question of consciousness is involved...

Questions of consciousness of course she always knows even with her outermost physical mind. Material facts she can know but is not bound to do it. The matter however is too complex for answer in a short space.

but as for material details, she does not know.

What would be true to say, is that she can know if she concentrates or if her attention is called to it and she decides to know. I often know from her what has happened before it is reported by anyone. But she does not care to do that on a general scale.

But if she does not know, what is the meaning of your message: “Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is, indeed, always present”?

It is the emanation of the Mother that is with each sadhak all the time. In former days when she was spending the night in a trance actively working in the Asram, she brought back with her the knowledge of all that was happening to everybody. Nowadays she has no time for that.

This question of Mother’s knowledge became even more interesting for me today. She gave me the flower signifying “Discipline”. I began to wonder why this particular flower was given; then I remembered that yesterday I had not observed the right discipline by taking a little hot khichari with Y and Z.

In this respect the Mother is guided by her intuitions which tell her which flower is needed at the moment or helpful. Sometimes it is accompanied by a perception of a particular state of consciousness, sometimes by that of a material fact; but only the bare fact, usually – e.g. it would not specify that it was hot khichari that was cooked or how Y or Z came in. Not that that is impossible, but it is unnecessary and does not happen unless needed.

Anyway, please tell me how far Mother and you know about our physical, material affairs.

In this case it was a general hint with no special reference to khichari.

16 July 1935

*

327

What you say about emanations is very interesting. The Mother then has about 150 emanations; adding 150 of yours, we find that we are each protected by one god and one goddess.

I am not aware of any emanations of mine. As for the Mother’s, they are not there for protection, but to support the personal relation or contact with the sadhaka and to act so far as he will allow them to act.

16 July 1935

*

328

Kindly tell us a little more about emanations. How do they support the personal relation or contact the Mother has with us? I thought that all personal relations were with the Mother direct, not through a deputy!

It is terribly difficult to write of these things, for you are all as ignorant as blazes about these things and misunderstand at every step. The Emanation is not a deputy, but the Mother herself. She is not bound to her body, but can put herself out (emanate) in any way she likes. What emanates, suits itself to the nature of the personal relation she has with the sadhak which is different with each, but that does not prevent it from being herself. Its presence with the sadhak is not dependent on his consciousness of it. If everything were dependent on the surface consciousness of the sadhak, there would be no possibility of the divine action anywhere; the human worm would remain the human worm and the human ass the human ass for ever and ever. For if the Divine could not be there behind the veil, how could either ever become conscious of anything but their wormhood and asshood even throughout the ages?

When X says that he feels the Mother’s physical touch or approach, with whom does he have the contact – the Mother or the emanation?

With the Mother, the emanation helping – which is its business.

19 July 1935

The Mother’s Awareness of Thoughts and Actions

329

The Mother can know our thoughts, but can she also know the exact words in the thoughts?

If the mind of the person is very clear, yes: otherwise it may be only the substance that comes or a part of the thought or some general idea.

19 May 1933

*

330

In the case of X, the Mother fined the servant boy on such apparently insufficient grounds that it looks illogical. I cannot help thinking that she acted on a strong intuition which she felt and knew to be correct.

Mother acted on her inner perception about the whole affair; she does not act only on the outer facts but on what she feels or sees lying behind them.

29 August 1935

*

331

What you write about X is true. She does not realise that Mother knows all these things by other means and any information given to her only adds certain physical precisions to what she knows already.

How can she be open when she has such ideas against the Mother? They must necessarily shut her up to the Mother’s influence.

Mother has written to her that Y had said nothing and that she knew things about X, independently of any information, from X’s inner being itself which comes to her constantly and tells her or shows her what is in the nature.

The Mother besides sees things in vision and receives the thoughts of the sadhaks at Pranam and other times. Only the Mother never acts on these supraphysical intimations, unless there is a physical confirmation like the letter itself in this case. For nobody would understand her action – the sadhaks living in the physical mind would state her action unfounded and those affected would deny loudly – as many have done in the past – their secret thoughts, feelings and actions. I tell you all this in confidence so that you may understand what is the real cause of Mother’s letters to X.

10 September 1936

*

332

Are our physical movements reflected in the Mother’s mind and seen by her as images, or do they occur in her consciousness at the same time as we do them? But that would be very puzzling. The movements of two hundred people would appear before her eyes every minute or occur in her consciousness. Besides, it would be a very material kind of telepathy.

It would not be worthwhile. Mother can see what people are doing by images received by her in the subtle state which corresponds to sleep or concentration or by images or intimations received in the ordinary state; but much even of what comes to her automatically like that is unnecessary and to be always receiving everything would be intolerably troublesome as it would keep the consciousness occupied with a million trivialities; so that does not happen. What is more important is to know their inner condition and it is this chiefly which comes to her.

29 June 1937

Feeling the Mother’s Presence and Seeing Visions

333

Is it true that when the Presence (image) is seen in the heart all the habits and movements of the lower nature will disappear and there will be no more disturbances from it?

The image and the Presence are not the same. One can feel the Presence without seeing the image. But to produce the results you speak of, the Presence in the heart is not sufficient, there must be Presence in the whole consciousness and the Force of the Mother governing all the action of the nature.

Undated

*

334

You wrote yesterday in regard to X’s visions: “Openness is not reckoned merely by visions.” Quite so. But to have a fusion of the rays of the sun and moon on each side of the body, and to feel the descent and the Mother’s presence in, behind and above oneself, is this not an exceptional vision and experience? Can it occur without sufficient opening to the Mother?

Why should it be exceptional to see the Sun and Moon on each side or to feel the Mother’s presence everywhere around? There are plenty of sadhaks who have had these or equivalent experiences. What would be exceptional is to feel the Mother’s presence like that always. But occasional experiences like these many have had.

15 September 1936

Feeling the Mother’s Presence through a Photograph

335

When I sit in meditation before the Mother’s photographs or the painting of her feet, I get more Force than when I sit at a distance – on my easy chair, for example. I have noticed that this happens invariably and I suppose it is not subjective merely. But I want to know the real truth from you.

No, it is not subjective merely. By your meditating near them, you have been able to enter through them into communion with the Mother and something of her presence and power is there.

14 July 1934

*

336

Your experience about the photograph was a very fine and true experience. The Mother’s presence can be felt through the photograph by one who regards it with devotion towards her. It was her true presence that was there, her subtle physical presence and all you felt was true. It shows that your physical mind is opening to the true consciousness. It is quite sure that this will grow and the remnants of the old movements are bound to disappear.

2 May 1936

Remembering the Mother and Feeling Her Presence

337

Today I felt that the only thing important is the Divine, nothing else. I tried to keep this experience all day long, but just before I sat down to write, I felt depression and confusion coming. But still I remembered my experience.

That is what should always be done. If, instead of yielding to the depression and confusion when they come, you immediately remembered and turned to the Mother, calling the Light and Force, remembering the Divine, rejecting everything else, then these lapses would diminish and light would come into the whole nature.

1 July 1930

*

338

It is the outer nature that is obscure and when it is at ease, feels no necessity of remembering the Mother – when the difficulty comes, then it feels the necessity and remembers. But the inner being is not like that.

11 May 1933

*

339

There must be something soiled in human love – otherwise why should I feel like this? After some problem with X in which he told me some unpleasant things, my vital got disturbed and my mind got confused. I kept remembering the incident over and over instead of remembering the Mother. I have come here for her – why then do my mind and vital want to make contact with human beings and acquire their narrow love and affection? Tell me now what I should do.

These are the usual weaknesses of the human nature when it makes relations with human beings – there are always these clashes and difficulties and turmoil in the vital. If you want to be free from them, do what we have already told you – look on all with a kindly feeling, as children of the Mother, but without any special relation and without any expectation from anybody. Yoga demands an equanimity of mind towards all things and persons.

17 November 1933

*

340

What you have seen as the thing to do is quite correct. To remember the Mother always and to offer up to her all that comes is just the thing to do. There must come a condition in which you live within in the psychic consciousness with the feeling of the Mother’s constant presence, while all the outer activities go on only on the surface and the Mother’s Force acts on them to change them into more and more true psychic and spiritual action. The way you speak of is the best for bringing about that condition. Offer all to the Mother in complete confidence and do not be troubled or anxious about the difficulties that rise, but go on calmly and patiently till they pass.

28 March 1936

*

341

I will be seeing the Mother tomorrow, but I would also like some message from you. Please tell me something which I can always turn to for help and contact during my stay in Bombay. I pray that I may feel the presence of the Mother and yourself throughout my days far away and come back safely to my home here at your feet.

Remember the Mother and, though physically far from her, try to feel her with you and act according to what your inner being tells you would be her will. Then you will be best able to feel her presence and mine and carry our atmosphere around you as a protection and a zone of quietude and light accompanying you everywhere.

12 December 1936

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342

It is quite possible for you to do sadhana at home and in the midst of your work – many do so. What is necessary at the beginning is to remember the Mother as much as possible, to concentrate on her in the heart for a time every day, if possible thinking of her as the Divine Mother, to aspire to feel her there within you, offer her your works and pray that from within she may guide and sustain you. This is a preliminary stage which often takes long, but if one goes through it with sincerity and steadfastness, the mentality begins little by little to change and a new consciousness opens in the sadhak which begins to be aware more and more of the Mother’s presence within, of her working in the nature and in the life or of some other spiritual experience which opens the gate towards realisation.

22 February 1937

The Psychic and the Mother’s Presence

343

The Mother’s presence is always there; but if you decide to act on your own – your own idea, your own notion of things, your own will and demand upon things, then it is quite likely that her presence will get veiled; it is not she who withdraws from you, but you who draw back from her. But your mind and vital don’t want to admit that, because it is always their preoccupation to justify their own movements. If the psychic were allowed its full predominance, this would not happen; it would have felt the veiling, but it would at once have said, “There must have been some mistake in me, a mist has arisen in me,” and it would have looked and found the cause.

25 March 1932

*

344

When I am alone I feel a sweet flow of love for the Mother and surrender to her welling out from my heart. But when I am in her physical presence I do not feel this love. Why does this happen?

It is when you live in the psychic that there is this feeling – but the psychic commands at present only a part of the mind and vital – it does not yet control the most external parts, that is why you do not feel it when in the Mother’s physical presence.

25 December 1933

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345

If you feel the Mother’s presence for the greater part of the day, it means that it is your psychic being that is active and feels like that – for without the activity of the psychic it would not be possible. Therefore your psychic being is there and not at all far off.

14 March 1935

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346

What you feel is not imagination. You have been going more and more into the psychic consciousness deep within you. When one is in the psychic, one begins to feel the presence of the Mother always with one and this becomes more and more frequent, constant, vivid and real as the psychic develops its power. This presence is felt in different ways by different sadhaks, but it is a true experience of the sadhana. It is what we mean when we say that the sadhak must come to feel always the presence of the Mother in his heart or within him. For in fact she is there always, only her presence is veiled by the ordinary movements of the mind, vital and physical, but when these become quiet and the psychic unveils itself, then one feels the presence of the Divine within.

29 February 1936

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347

He must go into himself and find the presence of the Divine Mother within and the psychic behind the heart and from there the knowledge will come and also the power to dissolve the inner obstacles.

21 December 1936

*

348

It is good that you have come out of the bad condition. It is true that before the darshan or at that time attacks are apt to be violent – for the forces that oppose are very conscious and use their whole strength to spoil the darshan if they can. What has to be gained is the constant prominence of that part which is always aware of the Mother – it is of course the psychic – for that though it can be covered over for the time being cannot be misled by the contrary suggestions. Once it is awake, it always reemerges from obscuration – that is the guarantee of the final arrival at the goal, but if it can be maintained in front or even consciously felt behind in all conditions, then the stages of the way also become comparatively safe and can be passed with greater ease and security.

6 February 1937

*

349

In the evening meditation, there was an intense movement of surrender from the heart. I had the feeling of Mother’s presence immediately in front of me and aspiration rose up from below. There was a willing and loving surrender from the heart, from the entire being, as if for fulfilment. I suppose the psychic being came to the front.

You had the psychic condition there and that means a coming of the influence of the psychic being to the front.

But why did I feel the Mother’s presence in front of me and not within me?

It is when there is a complete psychic opening within that there is the presence within. The Presence in front means that it was with you, but had still to enter within.

13 July 1937

Feeling the Mother’s Presence in Sleep

350

Is what X writes in his poem possible? He says:

“Even in sleep-depths I am wide awake

To thy sweet Presence that is always there.”

That does happen, but usually only when the psychic is in full activity.

27 September 1934

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351

It [feeling the Mother’s presence during sleep] follows naturally the presence in the waking state, but it takes a little time.

11 January 1935

Feeling the Mother’s Presence at Work

352

It is for most people not easy to feel the Mother’s presence with the work – they feel as if they are doing the work, the mind getting busy and not having the right passivity or quietude.

Undated

Union with the Mother

353

You write যতদিন না আমার psychic being জাগে.⁵ But your psychic being is already awakened, if it were not, you would not have these experiences. The inner being which you feel in union with the Mother is the psychic being. As you probably have not quite understood what I wrote to you, it might be better if you show Nolini my letter and ask him to explain to you the difference between the three layers স্তর of the being about which I have spoken in the letter –

(1) The inmost psychic being which is now awakened in you.

(2) The external being which you feel doing work while the inner (psychic) is in union with the Mother.

(3) The inner mental, vital and physical consciousness which connects the two, but of which you are not as yet conscious.

9 April 1931

*

354

Is it true that one should feel that it is the Divine Presence which moves one and does everything for one? Would it be possible to feel it without a union with the Divine Mother?

No – that is itself a union with her – to feel the Divine Presence above or in you and moving you.

14 July 1933

*

355

Nowadays I feel that even my blood flow is united with the Mother. When I breathe in, it is the Mother breathing in me and when I breathe out it is she who breathes out of me. Please tell me how my sadhana is proceeding.

It is going on all right. The more the union with the Mother increases, the better for the sadhana.

2 October 1933

*

356

I do not understand what some sadhaks mean by union with the Mother. Sometimes one feels a nearness, but that does not give one the same perception that the Mother has or her knowledge, purity, wideness. In what way can it be called a union?

I suppose they are trying to feel the Mother’s presence, so if they get some sort of feeling of nearness, they call it union. But of course that is only a step towards union. Union is much more than that.

5 March 1934

*

357

While sitting in the meditation hall, I felt a sort of oneness with the Mother’s consciousness. But these days it is not possible to go deep in meditation at all. Perhaps it is not even necessary if there is receptivity in the waking state.

What is most important is the change of consciousness of which this feeling of oneness is a part. The going deep in meditation is only a means and it is not always necessary if the great experiences come easily without it.

8 April 1934

*

358

Yes, that is the true basis. In the perfect equality wholly united with the Mother – so the higher consciousness can be lived and brought even into the outermost parts of the nature.

22 May 1934

*

359

I wrote a prayer to the Mother. Her answer to it was: “Open your heart and you will find me already there.” What exactly did she mean by “already there”?

What Mother meant was this that when there is a certain opening of the heart, you find that there was always the eternal union there (the same that you experience always in the Self above).

2 July 1935

*

360

I saw in a vision a basket full of the flower “Gratitude”. What does it symbolise?

It is the gratitude to the Divine that it indicates – which will come as the soul opens to the Light and Truth and gets the experience and the joy of union with the Mother.

Undated

The Mother’s Force

What Is the Mother’s Force?

361

What is the Yoga shakti? What is Yogic mind-force, Yogic life-force and Yogic body-force?

In the Yogic consciousness one is not only aware of things, but of forces, not only of forces, but of the conscious being behind the forces. One is aware of all this not only in oneself but in the universe. There is a force which accompanies the growth of this new consciousness and at once grows with it and helps it to come about and to perfect itself. This force is the Yoga shakti. It is here asleep and coiled up in all the centres of our inner being (chakras) and is at the base what is called in the Tantras the Kundalini Shakti. But it is also above us, above our head as the Divine Force – not there coiled up, involved, asleep, but awake, scient, potent, extended and wide; it is there waiting for manifestation and to this Force we have to open ourselves – to the power of the Mother. In the mind it manifests itself as a divine mind-force or a universal mind-force and it can do everything that the personal mind cannot do; it is then the Yogic mind-force. When it manifests and works in the vital or physical in the same way, it is then apparent as a Yogic life-force or a Yogic body-force. It can awake in all these forms, bursting outwards and upwards, extending itself into wideness from below; or it can descend and become there a definite power for things; it can pour downwards into the body, working, establishing its reign, extending into wideness from above, link the lowest in us with the highest above us, release the individual into a cosmic universality or into absoluteness and transcendence.

23 March 1933

*

362

You often speak of the Mother’s Force. What is it?

It is the Divine Force which works to remove the ignorance and change the nature into the divine nature.

18 June 1933

*

363

Why do I feel that it is I who do this thing or that? For is it not true that it is the Mother’s force which does everything in us?

When I speak of the Mother’s force, I do not speak of the force of Prakriti which carries on things in the Ignorance but of the higher Force of the Divine that descends from above to transform the nature.

4 August 1933

Progress in Sadhana and the Mother’s Force

364

When you say to someone, “You are open to the Mother”, do you mean open in a general way? Are not all in the Asram more or less open to the Mother as soon as they have accepted her as the Mother? And when the Mother has accepted a sadhak, does her Force not begin to work in him and is it not always with him?

All are not open to the Force. X never was in the least degree and there are others who shut themselves up in their own self-will or their own formations, ideas or desires. If there is no opening, the Force may act for a long time without response – and if there is an insufficient opening then the progress will be slow and chequered by great difficulties.

Undated

*

365

Let nothing and nobody come between you and the Mother’s force. It is on your admitting and keeping that force and responding to the true inspiration and not on any ideas the mind may form that success will depend. Even ideas or plans which might otherwise be useful, will fail if there is not behind them the true spirit and the true force and influence.

23 March 1928

*

366

The illnesses you have are the signs of the resistance of your physical consciousness to the action of the Divine Power.

If you cannot advance in your sadhana, it is because you are divided and do not give yourself without reserve. You speak of surrendering everything to the Mother but you have not done even the one thing which she asked of you and which you have promised more than once. If after having called the action of the Divine Force, you allow other influences to prevail, how can you expect to be free from obstruction and difficulties?

20 November 1928

*

367

Nowadays my vital nature gets excited about anything and everything, even trifles. From morning to night it is in an unhappy condition. I have my doubts whether it can be changed. I know that it is not in my power to do the work; the Mother’s Grace alone can do it. My outer mind needs some rays of hope.

It is to be assumed that you are capable of the change since you are here in the presence and under the protection of the Mother. The pressure and help of the Mother’s Force is always there. Your rapidity of progress depends upon your keeping yourself open to it and rejecting calmly, quietly and steadily all suggestions and invasions of other forces. Especially the nervous excitement of the vital has to be rejected; a calm and quiet strength in the nervous being and the body is the only sound basis. It is there for you to receive, if you open yourself to it always.

27 August 1932

*

368

When I look at the way the Mother deals with people, I feel that she does not love them equally in an outward way. Is this feeling true?

The Mother’s Force is working in all alike, according to their capacity they will receive it and it will work in them; if there is any difference, it is their own nature that makes it.

6 February 1933

*

369

This restless mind and unquiet vital are not peculiar to you; they are the human nature from which every sadhak starts. What you have to get is the Mother’s force and grace bringing with it deliverance, peace and Ananda which you say you from time to time experience. That in the beginning does come only for a short time, but as you persist in the path, it increases in frequency and stays longer until it can be made a permanent experience. It is this that will cure the defects of which you complain.

16 June 1933

*

370

Once you wrote, “Before you read offer it to the Mother and call down her force.” Is her force not already in us and working?

If it is, then you will have no difficulty.

4 August 1933

*

371

Is not every sadhak ready to receive and contain the Mother’s force at any time and in any circumstance? Who would not want to hold its constant action?

It is not a question of mental wish but of capacity and whether all the parts of the being are ready and can retain it. If everybody were containing the constant action of the Mother’s force, the sadhana would be finished by now and the siddhi complete.

7 August 1933

*

372

Is it not time for me to let the Mother’s Force take charge of the Yoga, instead of allowing the Adhar to think it is doing the Yoga?

That can be only when all is ready.

In that case is it necessary for the mind to aspire? Because once the Force is there, it will set everything right.

The system has first to be accustomed to the Force working.

9 May 1934

*

373

All has to be done by the working of the Mother’s force aided by your aspiration, devotion and surrender.

30 October 1934

*

374

The Mother has already given you orally the answer to your letter and the directions you asked for. As she told you, your concentration should be in the heart centre and all the rest – the rising above the head etc. – should come of itself in the natural process of the sadhana. Through the heart you will get the closer and closer touch of the Mother and the working of her Force in the whole being.

9 December 1934

*

375

In a dream yesterday I was walking in the street, carrying some kind of big flat drum. Just for fun I touched it with my fingers and very sweet musical sounds were produced. Perhaps it was a broken drum, for no one expected any music to come from it, but as I went on playing, fine music was coming out.

It is a symbol of the harmony that can be brought out of the human nature in spite of its present imperfection when one gives it the true touch, that is, puts it under the true psychic influence.

People around me were charmed by the music. I was very happy and played more and more; many new fine tunes were coming from the drum as if they were simply ready made.

Always keep open to the Mother’s Force – let the inner consciousness develop – only that will help and deliver from all difficulties as the openness in the physical grows in you.

12 January 1935

*

376

There are some people here who remain constantly in despair and gloom because they have become conscious of their minutest imperfections, but they are unable to get rid of them.

They are unable for two reasons: (1) because they yield to despair and gloom and the illusion of impotence, (2) because they try only with their own strength and do not care or know how to call in the working of the Mother’s force.

10 June 1936

*

377

Sometimes I feel a thick wall between me and the Divine. At other times there is a pressure on me and I feel quietude come into me.

Persevere in spite of the fluctuations. The Mother’s force is at work all the time, even when the thick wall is there, so that there may be no wall in future.

24 June 1936

*

378

You have written that “the Force is there”. Why then do I not feel it except for a short time after pranam? Formerly I felt that the Force above was doing the sadhana. Why do I not feel it now?

The Mother’s Force is not only above on the summit of the being. It is there with you and near you, ready to act whenever your nature will allow it. It is so with everybody here.

15 November 1936

*

379

This evening X told me, “Fill your entire nature with the Mother’s power.” In my past sadhana I have never consciously invoked power; the entire stress has been on purity and clarity. But if that is the need of my nature, I will pray for power along with other things.

It is not necessary to ask for Power. It is the Mother’s Force that must work in the being and if it is there, all necessary power will come.

c. 1936

*

380

When a sadhak works with the right attitude and the higher Force acts in him directly, how does the Force work to purify or remove his defects and imperfections?

It acts by awakening the inner consciousness gradually or swiftly, by replacing the principle of ego-service by the principle of service of the Divine, by making him watch his actions and see his own defects and pushing him to rectify them, by establishing a connection between his consciousness and the Mother’s consciousness, by preparing his nature to be taken up more and more by the Mother’s consciousness and force, by giving him experiences which make him ready for the major experiences of Yoga, by stimulating the growth of his psychic being, by opening him to the Mother as the Universal Being, etc. etc. Naturally it acts differently in different persons.

7 May 1937

Reliance on the Mother’s Force

381

My mind is not yet quiet and that is why I am not getting any joy in my sadhana, any experience or realisation – nothing at all. This makes me very sad and unhappy. May the Mother bestow on me the flow of Peace and help me to open my closed heart-centre.

There has always been too much reliance on the action of your own mind and will – that is why you cannot progress. If you could once get the habit of silent reliance on the power of the Mother – not merely calling it in to support your own effort – the obstacle would diminish and eventually disappear.

14 July 1929

*

382

You should not rely on anything else alone, however helpful it may seem, but chiefly, primarily, fundamentally on the Mother’s Force. The Sun and the Light may be a help, and will be if it is the true light and the true Sun, but cannot take the place of the Mother’s Force.

28 May 1930

*

383

There is no aspiration in me, no capacity to follow something higher. I feel dullness inside. But I do feel quiet from the pressure on my head. I must be patient and keep faith – then you will make me conscious.

Quietude first; with it confidence in the Mother’s Force that is working on you. When the physical mind is obliged to be quiet, it has this impression of inactivity and dullness at first. When it opens more and more to the Force, that impression will disappear.

12 November 1932

*

384

If one gives full and constant consent to the Mother’s working, how can the attempt of other beings to enter into one succeed?

If you give consent to the Mother’s working alone, then it cannot.

It is not always an attempt. One receives the thoughts and feelings of the others without any attempt or intention of theirs, because they are in the atmosphere.

31 July 1933

*

385

The depression has come upon you because you accepted the thought that you were not doing what you should and not using the chance Mother had given you. Such thoughts should never be indulged for they open the door to depression and depression opens the door to the old movements; they used to come formerly from the idea that you were unfit, now it is this idea that you are not doing all you ought to do. As a matter of fact you have been progressing with a surprising rapidity for the last days at a rate that we ourselves did not expect from you. But whether the progress is rapid or slow, the attitude should always be an entire faith and reliance on the Mother; just as you do not think that the progress was the result of your own effort or merit, but of your taking the right attitude of reliance and the Mother’s force working, so you should not think that any slowness or difficulty was due to your own demerit but only seek to keep this attitude of reliance and let the Mother’s Force work,– slowly or rapidly does not matter.

The dream was again one of these experiences of test or ordeal on the vital plane which you have been having – here it was the test of temptation by power, comfort, riches, attractive things, as it was formerly the test by fear, difficulty, trouble. The evidence of all these tests is that your inner being is perfectly ready and free to go unwaveringly to the goal. There is nothing there that is wrong or defective.

Keep the reliance steady in your heart and do not allow self-distrust, depression or sadness to invade you from outside.

14 November 1935

*

386

How can I do Yoga when I know nothing about your Yoga? I do not even know what to do.

There are two ways of doing Yoga, one by knowledge and one’s own efforts, the other by reliance on the Mother. In the last way one has to offer one’s mind and heart and all to the Mother for her Force to work on it, call her in all difficulties, have faith and bhakti. At first it takes time, often a long time, for the consciousness to be prepared in this way and during that time many difficulties can come up, but if one perseveres a time comes when all is ready, the Mother’s Force opens the consciousness fully to the Divine, then all that must develop develops within, spiritual experience comes and with it the knowledge and union with the Divine.

9 April 1937

*

387

You say after several years you have not changed your nature. I only wish the external nature were so easy to transform that it could be done in a few years. You forget also that the real problem – to get rid of the pervading ego in this nature – is a task you have seriously tackled only a short time ago. And it is not in a few months that that can be done. Even the best sadhaks find after many experiences and large changes on the higher planes that here much remains to be done. How do you expect to get rid of it at once unlike everybody else? A Yoga like this needs patience, because it means a change both of the radical motives and of each part and detail of the nature. It will not do to say, “Yesterday I determined this time to give myself entirely to the Mother, and look it is not done, on the contrary all the old opposite things turn up once more; so there is nothing to do but to proclaim myself unfit and give up the Yoga.” Of course when you come to the point where you make a resolution of that kind, immediately all that stands in the way does rise up – it invariably happens. The thing to be done is to stand back, observe and reject, not to allow these things to get hold of you, to keep your central will separate from them and call in the Mother’s Force to meet them. If one does get involved as often happens, then to get disinvolved as soon as possible and go forward again. That is what everybody, every Yogi does – to be depressed because one cannot do everything in a rush is quite contrary to the truth of the matter. A stumble does not mean that one is unfit, nor does prolonged difficulty mean that for oneself the thing is impossible.

The fact that you have to give up your ordinary work when you get depressed does not mean that you have not gained in steadiness – it only means that the steadiness you have gained is not a personal virtue but depends on your keeping the contact with the Mother – for it is her force that is behind it and behind all the progress you can make. Learn to rely on that Force more, to open to it more completely and to seek spiritual progress even not for your own sake but for the sake of the Divine – then you will go on more smoothly. Get the psychic opening in the most external physical consciousness. That and not despondency is the lesson you ought to draw from your present adverse experience.

Undated

Becoming Conscious of the Mother’s Force

388

Yesterday I felt a great Peace and Power. I felt the Mother’s atmosphere around me and a strange nearness to her. I thought that the Mother’s thought or consciousness must be with me. Is this true?

The Force is always around you, for the Mother has put her consciousness there – but it works with especial force when we think of you, and that is what you feel. Your consciousness of it – what you describe of your feeling about it, is quite correct – to become clearly conscious in all parts of the being takes time.

6 July 1933

*

389

X told me that he does not feel it is the Mother’s force that works in him, since with his own force he is able to lift 40 lbs. of grain.

What is meant by one’s own force? All force is cosmic and the individual is merely an instrument – a certain amount of the force may be stored in him, but that does not make it his own. There are certain possibilities in the way of the experience. First there is the faith, or sometimes a mental realisation and this of itself is enough to make one open to the Mother’s force so that it is always available at need or call. Even if one does not feel the Force coming, yet the results are there and visible. The next is when one feels oneself like an instrument and is aware of the Energy using it. A third is the contact with the Power above and its descent (spontaneous or at call) into the body – this is the more concrete way of having it, for one physically feels the Force working in one. Finally there is a state of awareness of close contact with the Mother (inward) which brings a similar result.

12 May 1934

*

390

What I have to see is that my consciousness supports the working of the Mother’s Force in me. For example, if my being constantly supported the Mother’s work, there would hardly be any halt in sadhana due to the tamas in me; the tamasic inertia would get transformed into peace without rising up and darkening the other parts of the being.

Yes, that is how it should happen – but it is difficult so long as the inner being is not conscious and receptive at all times and in all conditions – and it is difficult and takes time to establish such a condition.

23 January 1935

Descent of the Mother’s Force

391

What you feel streaming down must be the Mother’s overhead Force. It flows usually from above the head and works at first in the mind centres (head and neck) and afterwards goes down into the chest and heart and then through the movement of the whole body.

It is the effect of this working which you must be feeling in the head up to the shoulders. The Force that comes down from above is the one that works to transform the consciousness into that of a higher spiritual being. Before that the Mother’s Force works in the psychic, mental, vital and the physical plane itself to support, purify and psychically change the consciousness.

Undated

*

392

When you began to meditate, you saw the Mother’s face; that is very good, it means that there is an inner connection established. The absence of the smile does not mean that she is displeased or that you have done anything against her will. At the same time the Mother’s force descended on you, it was the pressure of her Force that you felt on the head and breast – everybody feels in the beginning this pressure – and what you felt in the breast was the working of the Force. In the Yoga these are signs of the action of the Yoga and you must observe quietly what happens without getting disturbed, remembering the Mother always and trusting in her action upon you.

25 June 1932

*

393

When there is obscurity or habitual thoughts, the narrowness of the physical mind becomes prominent. But now and then, the physical mind seems to become limitless, thoughtless and without obscurity. Is this a true feeling?

Yes. All the parts that have to be changed must widen like that before the higher consciousness can descend into them.

Is there any relation between the Mother’s descent into the physical parts and the descent of the forces that are working in me?

Certainly. In a sense, the descent of the higher forces is the Mother’s own descent – for it is she who comes down in them.

21 December 1933

*

394

As I sat to pray, I felt an electric force pass through my spinal cord. It was like the electricity from a battery passing from the crown of my head down to the end of my backbone. The more it went downward, the more strong and joyous was the rapture I felt. What is this?

It is the descent of the Mother’s Force from above through the spinal cord – it is a well-known movement. There are two or three kinds of descent. One is this touching the base of the centres which rest on the spinal cord. Another is through the head into the body going from level to level till the whole body is filled and opening all the centres of consciousness. Another is a descent enveloping the Adhar from outside.

1 February 1934

*

395

Last night I felt that the Mother’s Force, instead of descending through the head as usual, came down directly through the forehead centre.

It can come in anywhere, but the normal way of descent is through the head.

8 May 1934

*

396

When the Peace is established, this higher or Divine Force from above can descend and work in us. It descends usually first into the head and liberates the inner mind centres, then into the heart centre and liberates fully the psychic and emotional being, then into the navel and other vital centres and liberates the inner vital, then into the Muladhara and below and liberates the inner physical being. It works at the same time for perfection as well as liberation; it takes up the whole nature part by part and deals with it, rejecting what has to be rejected, sublimating what has to be sublimated, creating what has to be created. It integrates, harmonises, establishes a new rhythm in the nature. It can bring down too a higher and yet higher force and range of the higher Nature until, if that be the aim of the sadhana, it becomes possible to bring down the supramental force and existence. All this is prepared, assisted, farthered by the work of the psychic being in the heart centre; the more it is open, in front, active, the quicker, safer, easier the working of the Force can be. The more love and bhakti and surrender grow in the heart, the more rapid and perfect becomes the evolution of the sadhana. For the descent and transformation imply at the same time an increasing contact and union with the Divine.

That is the fundamental rationale of the Sadhana. It will be evident that the two most important things here are the opening of the heart centre and the opening of the mind centres to all that is behind and above them. For the heart opens to the psychic being and the mind centres open to the higher consciousness and the nexus between the psychic being and the higher consciousness is the principal means of the Siddhi. The first opening is effected by a concentration in the heart, a call to the Divine to manifest within us and through the psychic to take up and lead the whole nature. Aspiration, prayer, bhakti, love, surrender are the main supports of this part of the Sadhana – accompanied by a rejection of all that stands in the way of what we aspire for. The second opening is effected by a concentration of the consciousness in the head (afterwards, above it) and an aspiration and call and a sustained will for the descent of the divine Peace, Power, Light, Knowledge, Ananda into the being – the Peace first or the Peace and Force together. Some indeed receive Light first or Ananda first or some sudden pouring down of Knowledge. With some there is first an opening which reveals to them a vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them and afterwards either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature. With others there is either the descent, first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening – without any sense of descent – of peace, light, wideness or power or else a horizontal opening into the cosmic consciousness or, in a suddenly widened mind, an outburst of knowledge. Whatever comes has to be welcomed – for there is no absolute rule for all,– but if the peace has not come first, care must be taken not to swell oneself in exultation or lose the balance. The capital movement however is when the Divine Force or Shakti, the Power of the Mother comes down and takes hold, for then the organisation of the consciousness begins and the larger foundation of the Yoga.

11 September 1934

*

397

The experiences you have are a good starting-point for realisation. They have to develop into the light of a deeper state in which there will be the descent of a higher consciousness into you. Your present consciousness in which you feel these things is only a preparatory one – in which the Mother works in you through the cosmic power according to your state of consciousness and your karma and in that working both success and failure can come – one has to remain equal-minded to both while trying always for success. A surer guidance can come even in this preparatory consciousness if you are entirely turned towards her alone in such a way that you can feel her direct guidance and follow it without any other influence or force intervening to act upon you, but that condition is not easy to get or keep – it needs a great one-pointedness and constant single-minded dedication. When the higher consciousness will descend, then a closer union, a more intimate consciousness of the Presence and a more illumined intuition will become possible.

17 November 1934

*

398

The stream which you feel coming down on the head and pouring into you is indeed a current of the Mother’s Force; it is so that it is often felt; it flows into the body in currents and works there to liberate and change the consciousness. As the consciousness changes and develops, you will begin yourself to understand the meaning and working of these things.

21 August 1936

*

399

Something is growing in you, but it is all inside – still if there is the steady persistence it is bound to come out. For instance, this white dazzling light with currents, it is a sure sign of the Force (the Mother’s) entering and working in the ādhāra, but it came to you in sleep – that is to say, in the inner being, still behind the veil. The moment it came out, the dryness would disappear.

5 February 1937

*

400

What the Mother did was to light the fire within – if you did not feel it, it must be because the outer covering has not yet allowed it to come through into the outer consciousness. But something in the inner being must have kept it and opened more widely – that is shown by your experience in sleep, for that was evidently an action of the Mother in the inner being. The descent of this current in the spine is always a descent of the Mother’s Force working in the centres to open them; the strong force of the current which you felt is an evident proof that the wider opening is there. You have only to persist and the effects both of the fire and the force will come out in the surface consciousness – for always there is a preparatory work behind the veil in the inner being before the veil thins or disappears and all the working can be done with the participation of the outer consciousness.

22 April 1937

*

401

The Mother’s force can come down quite nicely and gently – there is no need of palpitations, giddiness or nausea for that.

Undated

Pressure of the Descending Force

402

This is the meaning of your experiences:

(1) The power of the Divine Mother from above is descending upon you and the pressure you feel on your head and the workings of which you are aware are hers.

Put yourself completely into her hands, have entire confidence, observe carefully and accurately all that happens and write that here. There is no need of special instructions since what is needed is being done for you.

(2) The first pressure was on your mind. The centres of the mind are (a) the head and above it, (b) the centre of the forehead between the eyes, (c) the throat and the vital mental (emotional) and sensational mind centres from the breast downward. It is this latter which is the first prāṇa of which you became aware. The action of the Power was to widen these two parts of you and raise them up towards the lowest centre of the higher consciousness above your head, so that hereafter they might both be consciously governed from there and that these might both move in a wide universal consciousness not limited by the body.

(3) The other prāṇa, the restless one of which you became aware, is the vital being, the being of desire and life-movement. The work of the Power has been directed towards quieting the restless movements and making it wide in consciousness as with the Mind. The large body you felt was the vital body, not the physical, sthūla śarīra.

(4) The basis of your Sadhana must be silence and quiet, śānti, nīravatā.

You must remain and grow always more and more deeply quiet and still both in yourself and in your attitude to the world around you. If you can do this, the sadhana is likely to go on progressing and enlarging itself with a minimum of trouble and disturbance.

Never mind your family difficulties and say nothing to your people. Go on quietly trusting to the Power that is at work in you.

8 September 1927

*

403

It is the pressure of Mother’s force. If you keep quiet and don’t resist, then instead of being uneasy, it will make you happy.

11 August 1932

*

404

From time to time there is a feeling of pressure and heaviness in different parts of the body as the pressure comes down. When it passes, the mind is at peace, the heart free, the body light and easy.

The pressure is that of the Mother’s force. When there is a resistance, you feel the pressure. When the resistance is cleared away, there is the lightness and ease.

4 October 1932

*

405

Nowadays in the evening I try to remain calm and pray for half an hour. Then I feel a weight or pressure on my head. It is so calm and cool, yet has such force and fire. Then I am disturbed by nothing whatever. Formerly I also felt this on certain days, but then I lost it due to some disorder of the consciousness.

This weight or pressure on the head is always the sign that the Mother’s Force is in contact with you and pressing from above to envelop your being and enter the Adhar and pervade it – usually passing by degrees through the centres on its way downward. Sometimes it comes first as Peace, sometimes as Force, sometimes as the Mother’s consciousness and her presence, sometimes as Ananda.

When you lost it before, it must have been due either to some uprising of vital imperfections in yourself or an attack from outside. Of course the pressure need not always be there, but if things take the ordinary course, it usually recurs or else continues until the Adhar is open and there is no further obstacle to the descent of the higher consciousness.

18 September 1933

*

406

From time to time, I feel a pressure above my head and also in my head and forehead. For the last few days, when I sit for meditation, there is a feeling as though ants were crawling at the top of my neck and in the spinal cord. Does this have any value?

You can write to him⁶ that the pressure he feels on his head is the pressure of the Mother’s force (the force of the higher consciousness) preparing an opening through the three upper centres (brahmarandhra, base of sahasradala; inner mind centre in the forehead; and the heart or psychic-emotional centre). The feeling in the spine is due to a very slight flow of the current of the Shakti from above – the spine being the base of all the centres and the channel through which the Force tends most easily to flow from one centre to another (Sahasradala = the centre where the human or mental and the higher or spiritual consciousness meet).

15 September 1935

*

407

If the term “pressure” is a wrong one to describe the Mother’s recent dealings with me,⁷ what is the sense in which it is used in The Mother – she “puts on them the required pressure” [p. 18] and “the vehemence of her pressure”? [p. 20]

I was speaking of your case only – it was not my intention to say that the Mother never uses pressure. But pressure also can be of various kinds. There is the pressure of the Force when it is entering the mind or vital or body – a pressure to go faster, a pressure to build or form, a pressure to break and many more. In your case if there is any pressure it is that of help or support or removal of an attack, but it does not seem to me that that can properly be called pressure.

In the same book you say “her hands are outstretched to strike and to succour”. [p. 19] What do you mean by “strike” here?

It expresses her general action in the world. She strikes at the Asuras, she strikes also at everything that has to be got rid of or destroyed, at the obstacles to the sadhana etc. I may say that the Mother never uses the Mahakali power in your case nor the Mahakali pressure.

5 June 1936

*

408

The suggestion that the pressure of sadhana is unbearable has got fixed in my mind, particularly after reading in two places that those whose nerves are weak are better off living outside the Ashram. One place is in one of your letters, and another in the Conversations, where the Mother says: “You must have a strong body and strong nerves.... If you have to bear the pressure of the Divine Descent, you must be very strong and powerful, otherwise you would be shaken to pieces.”⁸ Are these things applicable to me?

These things refer to beginners who are not open and have not a fit Adhar, yet want to do the sadhana.

Your body is not weak and you have considerable vital strength. Moreover you have the openness to the Force and the habit of receiving it, and there is no reason why there should be any upsetting by the Force. It is not the Force, but the suggestion of these vital Forces that produces the upsetting.

7 September 1936

*

409

The feeling of the vibration of the Mother’s force around the head is more than a mental idea or even a mental realisation, it is an experience. This vibration is indeed the action of the Mother’s Force which is first felt above the head or around it, then afterwards within the head. The pressure means that it is working to open the mind and its centres so that it may enter. The mind-centres are in the head, one at the top and above it, another between the eyes, a third in the throat. That is why you feel the vibration around the head and sometimes up to the neck, but not below. It is so usually, for it is only after enveloping and entering the mind that it goes below to the emotional and vital parts (heart, navel, etc.) – though sometimes it is more enveloping before it enters the body.

24 March 1937

Faith and the Working of the Mother’s Force

410

Is it so difficult to have faith and confidence in the Mother? Even with a little of that attitude, the descent was taking place in you.

Undated

*

411

If you want to get back your faith and keep it, you must first quiet your mind and make it open and obedient to the Mother’s force. If you have an excited mind at the mercy of every influence and impulse, you will remain a field of conflicting and contrary forces and cannot progress. You will begin to listen to your own ignorance instead of the Mother’s knowledge and your faith will naturally disappear and you will get into a wrong condition and a wrong attitude.

March 1928

*

412

Put your faith in the Divine Shakti, set your mind at rest and let the Mother’s Force work.

26 August 1933

*

413

There is no reason to be discouraged. Three years is not too much for the preparation of the nature and it is usually through fluctuations that it gradually grows nearer to the point where a continuous progress becomes possible. One has to cleave firmly to the faith in the Mother’s working behind all appearances and you will find that that will carry you through.

31 August 1935

*

414

I can try to call down the Mother’s Force, but faith and surrender would require a wonderful Yogic poise and power possible only in born Yogis, I think.

Not at all. A wonderful Yogic poise and power would usually bring self-reliance rather than faith and surrender. It is the simple people who do the latter most easily.

10 August 1936

Surrender to the Mother and the Working of Her Force

415

Is it the Purusha who consents to the Mother’s Force acting in the whole being?

Yes.

If the Purusha does not consent to the working of the Mother’s Force, does it mean that the other beings (mental, vital, physical and psychic) also cannot come to the front to enable the sadhak to receive the Mother’s Grace?

No. The Purusha often holds back and lets the other beings consent or reject in his place.

22 April 1933

*

416

Make the central surrender. The Mother’s Force will do the rest.

25 October 1933

*

417

In this process of the descent from above and the working it is most important not to rely entirely on oneself, but to rely on the guidance of the Guru and to refer all that happens to his judgment and arbitration and decision. For it often happens that the forces of the lower nature are stimulated and excited by the descent and want to mix with it and turn it to their profit. It often happens too that some Power or Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the Supreme Lord or as the Divine Mother and claim the being’s service and surrender. If these things are accepted, there will be an extremely disastrous consequence. If indeed there is the assent of the sadhak to the Divine working alone and the submission or surrender to that guidance, then all can go smoothly. This assent and a rejection of all egoistic forces or forces that appeal to the ego are the safeguard throughout the sadhana. But the ways of Nature are full of snares, the disguises of the ego are innumerable, the illusions of the Powers of Darkness, Rakshasi Maya, are extraordinarily skilful; the reason is an insufficient guide and often turns traitor; vital desire is always with us tempting to follow any alluring call. This is the reason why in this Yoga we insist so much on what we call samarpaṇa – rather inadequately rendered by the English word surrender. If the heart centre is fully opened and the psychic is always in control, then there is no question; all is safe. But the psychic can at any moment be veiled by a lower upsurge. It is only a few who are exempt from these dangers and it is precisely those to whom surrender is easily possible. The guidance of one who is himself by identity or represents the Divine is in this difficult endeavour imperative and indispensable.

11 September 1934

*

418

Nothing is impossible if the nature of the psychic being is awake and leading you with the Mother’s consciousness and force behind it and working in you.

19 October 1935

Assimilation of the Mother’s Force

419

Allow a quiet and steady will to progress to be settled in you; learn the habit of a silent, persistent and thorough assimilation of what the Mother puts into you. This is the sound way to advance.

March 1928

*

420

As for the Mother’s force, when one receives it the best is to be quiet till it is assimilated; afterwards it is all right, not lost by outward movements or mixing.

24 January 1935

*

421

Ramana Maharshi says that if “you meditate for an hour or two every day, you can then carry on with your duties. If you meditate in the right manner... ”

A very important qualification.

“then the current of mind induced will continue to flow even in the midst of your work. It is as though there are two ways of expressing the same idea; the same line which you take in meditation will be expressed in your activities.”⁹

If the meditation brings poise, peace, a concentrated condition or even a pressure or influence, that can go on in the work, provided one does not throw it away by a relaxed or dispersed state of consciousness. That was why the Mother wanted people not only to be concentrated at pranam or meditation but to remain silent and absorb or assimilate afterwards and also to avoid things that relax or disperse or dissipate too much – precisely for this reason that so the effects of what she put on them might continue and the change of attitude the Maharshi speaks of will take place. But I am afraid most of the sadhaks have never understood or practised anything of the kind – they could not appreciate or understand her directions.

9 February 1936

Calling the Mother’s Force

422

I tried to meditate, but I simply had to give it up as the mind would not cooperate.

When you cannot meditate, remain quiet and call in the Mother’s Peace or Force.

8 April 1933

*

423

Suppose I am in a fix and call down the Mother’s force which is above me. Now, how am I to know whether or not it has descended?

By the feeling of it or the result.

And suppose it has descended, and I am doing my lessons – can I then order it to guard me from outer influences and simultaneously keep me in complete touch with the Mother?

You can’t order anything to the Mother’s force; the Mother’s force is the manifestation of the Mother herself.

I cannot understand how this force can deal with action.

You think the Mother’s force has nothing to do with action or that it is too feeble to act? Or what? What is a force meant for but to act?

26 June 1933

*

424

I am again feeling that depression, but I cannot find out its cause. I feel a burning pain inside me and then some part in me becomes very hostile. There is also some inertia in the nature.

These are the two difficulties, one of the vital dissatisfaction and restlessness, the other of the inertia of the physical consciousness which are the chief obstacles to the sadhana. The first thing to do is to keep detached from them, not to identify yourself mentally with these movements – even if you cannot reject them – next to call on the Mother’s force quietly but steadily for it to descend and make the obstacles disappear.

31 January 1934

*

425

My mind becomes quiet for some time, but then many absurd thoughts rush in and I cannot quiet them down. Then I feel very much harrassed. How long will it take to calm down my mind?

What is still restless in the vital has to quiet down for the peace of mind to be even and constant. It has to be controlled, but only control will not be enough. The Mother’s Power has to be called always.

10 April 1934

*

426

Please initiate me into a tangible form of Yoga. I make this assurance that I shall follow your instructions to the very letter and refer to you my doubts and difficulties on the way.

There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quiet and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience. The more the faith, the more rapid the result is likely to be. For the rest one must not depend on one’s own efforts only, but succeed in establishing a contact with the Divine and a receptivity to the Mother’s Power and Presence.

30 November 1934

*

427

When these attacks of illness come, remain quiet and call on the Mother’s Force to remove them.

17 February 1936

*

428

To stand separate and not let the mind be overcome, is the first step. The next is to learn how to call down the Mother’s Force whenever the attack comes, so that the attack may be pushed away at once or at least very soon before it can affect the outer vital and the body. If that can be done, the body will recover very soon with the inflow of the forces.

Undated

*

429

What should I do so that my work becomes an offering? What should I do so that I can always be with the Mother?

What you should do is to have confidence and try to remain always confident and cheerful. If you feel depressed call for the Mother’s Force to remove the depression. If you fall ill, call the Mother’s Force to cure you. When you work call the Mother’s Force to support you and do the work through you.

Undated

Receptivity and Openness to the Mother’s Force

430

Do not allow yourself to be troubled or discouraged by any difficulties, but quietly and simply open yourself to the Mother’s force and allow it to change you.

10 March 1931

*

431

When you decided to tell the Mother, it had the effect of opening something in your physical consciousness and the Mother’s Force acted. It often happens so – the action of the Mother’s Force depends on a certain power of receptivity in the mind or vital or body – and openness is the first necessary condition for the receptivity.

29 May 1933

*

432

How to become one with the Divine?

Open yourself to the Mother’s Force and aspire – in time you will become one with the Divine.

15 June 1933

*

433

The vital defects and difficulties are the same in all and also the shortcomings of the mind. One has to open in faith and confidence to the Divine; the Mother’s Force will gradually put everything right.

15 September 1933

*

434

I am overcome with disappointment and depression. After reading your last letter, everything crumbled down in a wave. You said you would increase the Mother’s light and consciousness in me, but I can’t receive them correctly when I feel like this. I used to believe that the Mother was always there to help, but now you have uprooted that blind faith of mine. Why did you write like that? A little encouragement from your side would make me stronger to reach the destination.

I wrote so because the action of the sadhana does not depend on the Mother alone, but also on the attitude, will and openness of the sadhak. That is a well-known fact of the spiritual life which everybody is supposed to know. The Mother’s Force can do everything only when there is a real and true and complete surrender and openness to the Mother. All these things have been written again and again and it ought not to be necessary to repeat it to each one as if it were a new and unheard-of idea.

12 January 1934

*

435

I had a terrible headache today. What is this all about? If it is Yogic in origin, I will have some comfort. Is the Mother breaking some resistances inside?

No. To make people ill in order to improve or perfect them is not Mother’s method. But sometimes things like headache come because the brain either tries too much or does not want to receive or makes difficulties. But these Yogic headaches are of a special kind and after the brain has found out the way to receive or respond, they don’t come at all.

20 June 1935

*

436

If one remains in full confidence in the Mother and psychically open, then the Mother’s force will do all and one has only to give consent and keep oneself open and aspire.

12 November 1935

*

437

It is no use giving way to depression or self-distrust, they are only obstacles to the change you want and which the Mother is working at in you. The suggestions which raise these things are always one-sided and exaggerated and one ought not to listen to them. It is not by his own strength or good qualities that anyone can attain to the divine change; there are only two things that matter, the Mother’s force at work and the sadhak’s will to open to it and trust in her working. Keep your will and your trust and care nothing for the rest – they are only difficulties that all meet in their sadhana.

13 May 1936

*

438

I feel the descent of the Mother’s peace and power and the action of her Force down to the physical. Why then does this trouble still persist? Is the nervous part of my being not receiving the Force or is it receiving it but refusing to change?

The Peace and Force come down, but the nervous weakness also rises up and resists and counteracts their influence and prevents them from settling in the being. That is because your mind assents to the nervous weakness, accepts its suggestions as true, is full of apprehensions and doubts, believes even that it is the Force which creates the nervous trouble. If you fear the action of the Force, how can the Force do its work?

5 September 1936

*

439

It is certain that one’s own effort is necessary, though one cannot do the sadhana by one’s own effort alone. The Mother’s Force is needed, but the sadhak must open himself to it, reject what opposes the Force, put his full sincerity, aspiration, will power into the sadhana. It is only when all is open and there is the full surrender that the Divine Power takes up the sadhana so entirely that personal effort is no longer necessary. But that cannot happen at an early stage – one must go on opening oneself, consecrating oneself, making the surrender till that later stage comes. This has been explained in the book The Mother.

17 March 1937

*

440

Open what is closed. The Mother does not withhold her force from anyone – it is there for all in abundance. Her pleasure is in giving her force, not in withholding it. But if you keep your mind filled with thoughts of this kind, about X and others, and your needs and grievances, you shut yourself up in that and there is no room for the higher consciousness and its force to come in.

Undated

Pulling the Mother’s Force

441

I am depressed that the Divine has made me meditate the wrong way for three and a half years without letting me know it was wrong. Why did I feel that I must stimulate my aspiration through great concentration in meditation in order to expedite my progress? Why only now has the Mother told me that I have been meditating in the wrong way, with too much strain and stiffness and tension? This makes me sad beyond words. The more I think about it, the sadder I become. I am so bewildered and confused.

What am I to do? It seems to me that before I was trying to fit the wrong key into the lock of the faery palace, but now I have been left with no key at all.

What is needed is to profit by the discovery and get rid of the impediment. The Mother did not merely point out the impediment; she showed you very expressly how to do it and at that time you understood her, though now (at the time of writing your letter to me) the light which you saw seems to have been clouded by your indulging your vital more and more in the bitter pastime of sadness. That was quite natural, for that is the result sadness always does bring. It is the reason why I object to the gospel of sorrow and to any sadhana which makes sorrow one of its main planks (abhimāna, revolt, viraha). For sorrow is not, as Spinoza pointed out, a passage to a greater perfection, a way to Siddhi; it cannot be, for it confuses and weakens and distracts the mind, depresses the vital force, darkens the spirit. A relapse from joy and vital elasticity and Ananda to sorrow, self-distrust, despondency and weakness is a recoil from a greater to a lesser consciousness,– the habit of these moods shows a clinging of something in the vital to the smaller, obscurer, dark and distressed movement out of which it is the very aim of Yoga to rise.

It is therefore quite incorrect to say that the Mother took away the wrong key with which you were trying to open the faery palace and left you with none at all. For she not only showed you the true key but gave it to you. It was not a mere vague exhortation to cheerfulness she gave you, but she described exactly the condition felt in the right kind of meditation – a state of inner rest, not of straining, of quiet opening, not of eager or desperate pulling, a harmonious giving of oneself to the Divine Force for its working, and in that quietude a sense of the Force working and a restful confidence allowing it to act without any unquiet interference. And she asked you if you had not experienced that condition and you said that you had and knew it very well. Now that condition is the beginning of psychic opening and, if you have had it, you know what the psychic opening is; there is of course much more that afterwards comes to complete it but this is the fundamental condition into which all the rest can most easily come. What you should have done was to keep the key the Mother gave you present in your consciousness and apply it – not to go back and allow sadness and a repining view of the past to grow upon you. In this condition which we term the right or psychic attitude, there may and will be call, prayer, aspiration. Intensity, concentration will come of themselves, not by a hard effort or tense strain on the nature. Rejection of wrong movements, frank confession of defects are not only not incompatible, but helpful to it; but this attitude makes the rejection, the confession easy, spontaneous, entirely complete and sincere and effective. That is the experience of all who have consented to take this attitude.

I may say in passing that consciousness and receptivity are not the same thing; one may be receptive, yet externally unaware of how things are being done and of what is being done. The Force works, as I have repeatedly written, behind the veil; the results remain packed behind and come out afterwards, often slowly, little by little, until there is so much pressure that it breaks through somehow and forces itself upon the external nature. There lies the difference between a mental and vital straining and pulling and a spontaneous psychic openness, and it is not at all the first time that we have spoken of the difference. The Mother and myself have written and spoken of it times without number and we have deprecated pulling¹⁰ and straining and advocated the attitude of psychic openness. It is not really a question of the right or the wrong key, but of putting the key in the lock in the right or the wrong way,– either, because of some difficulty, you try to force the lock turning the key this way and that with violence or confidently and quietly give it the right turn and the door opens.

5 May 1932

*

442

What is meant by pulling? When we want something from the Mother with a vital desire, is it pulling? What is its effect on us?

Yes; that is one kind of pulling – its effect is to blind and confuse the consciousness. But there is also a pulling for right things which is not bad in itself, and most people use – e.g. for Light, Force, Ananda. But it brings more reactions than a quiet opening to the Divine.

1 June 1933

*

443

Can you explain in a few master strokes what you mean by “pulling down”? As I understand it, it is when one makes mental efforts of concentration and meditation without having any eagerness for it.

That is not what is meant by pulling. When one is open and too eager and tries to pull down the force, experience etc. instead of letting it descend quietly, that is called pulling. Many people pull at the Mother’s forces – trying to take more than they can easily assimilate and disturbing the working.

7 April 1935

The Mother’s Force and the Forces of the Lower Nature

444

There is in me a revolt of the vital against the Light resulting in much vital confusion. I hope that one day all my desires and ambition will go away and I will depend completely on the Mother. In the meantime, as these things too come from the Mother, there is nothing to do but wait.

What things? The vital confusion and desires? It is entirely false to say that these things come from the Mother. They come from the lower Nature and its darkness and ignorance. The Mother’s Force is not the lower Nature, it is the Power of the Divine Truth and Light working upon the lower Nature to drive out the confusion and falsehood and desire from it and to transform everything into the Truth and Light.

It is equally false to say “so there is nothing to do but wait”. There is something to do and I have repeatedly told you what it is – I have told you not to go down into the lower vital unless you can go there with the Mother’s Force and Light supporting you. If you are pushed or fall into the lower vital confusion, then to remain quiet (not discussing or consenting to whirl round in the lower vital chaos), to reject the vital suggestions and experiences and open yourself calling down the Mother’s Force to change this part of the being.

Instead of that you begin “experiencing” the chaos and trying to follow every jump and whirl in it and speculating about it with the result that you get falsehoods like these two – the falsehood that “these things too come from the Mother” and the falsehood that “there is nothing to do but wait” and you consent to them!

When will you learn to remember and follow the plain instructions I have given you instead of believing in the ignorant mind and the confused suggestions of this vital chaos?

10 June 1930

*

445

I am practising with the feeling that the Mother is in everything. When I make a mistake, I think: “This also the Mother has done through me to bring me to full consciousness.” I believe that the sadhaks cannot consciously commit mistakes.

The Mother does not make people commit mistakes; it is the Prakriti that makes them do it – if the Purusha does not refuse his consent. The Mother here is not this lower Prakriti, but the Divine Shakti and it is her work to press on this lower Nature to change. You can say that under the pressure, the Prakriti stumbles and is unable to reply perfectly and makes mistakes. But it is not the Mother who makes you do wrong movements or does the wrong movements in you – if you think that, you are in danger of justifying the movements or their continuance.

11 April 1933

*

446

What is the truest and surest means to recognise the Mother’s Force when it acts and to distinguish it from other egoistic or ignorant forces?

One has only to be perfectly sincere, not to justify one’s own desires and faults by the mind’s reasonings, to look impartially and quietly at oneself and one’s movements and to call on the Mother’s Light – then gradually one will begin to discern everything in that light. Even if it cannot be done perfectly at once, the judgment and feeling will get clearer and surer and a right consciousness of these things will be established.

If a sadhak cannot fully discriminate between the Mother’s Force and the egoistic and ignorant forces and cannot reject the lower forces, what will be his condition? And what is the best step for him to take on the path of Yoga?

All these questions are met by my answer. One cannot be perfect in discrimination at once or in rejection either. The one indispensable thing is to go on trying sincerely till there comes the full success. So long as there is complete sincerity, the Divine Grace will be there and assist at every moment on the way.

1 July 1933

*

447

There are two cosmic Forces – one the higher Cosmic Shakti which is a form of the Mother, the other a Power of the Ignorance. You have not to open to the latter, only to the Mother.

25 October 1933

*

448

I told you that when I make some mistake, then the lower forces rise up to trouble me, but you replied: “It is not necessarily due to some mistake or fault that they rise.” But my experience is that so long as the Mother’s name is on my lips nothing undivine can touch me. It is only when I am careless and forget to say her name that mistakes occur.

And what does the carelessness come from? It is because the habit of the lower nature makes you forget. That is an action of the lower forces. It is only by the higher force meeting the lower forces and its pressure on them (this is the contact) that the habit of forgetfulness disappears.

25 January 1935

*

449

How is it that the Mother cannot or will not move the hostile forces to action, since even the Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha are her children?

As for the Asuric forces, their movement is part of the ordinary cosmic movement in the Ignorance, but Mother is not here to encourage that movement, but to bring down the higher Truth in which they have no place. If then she moves the hostile Forces to act against her and her work and the sadhaks (which they are quite ready enough to do of themselves), it would mean that she is working against herself and trying to frustrate her own purpose in being here! Such an action would be absurd in the extreme.

8 April 1935

The Mother’s Force and the Three Gunas

450

When one feels that it is the Mother’s Force that acts through one and not one’s own force, is it the Mother’s Force alone that works in one’s actions while the gunas remain quiescent?

No, the gunas are there and not quiescent – for they are the instrumentation. If the force and the inner consciousness are very strong then there is a tendency for the rajas to become like some inferior form of tapas and the tamas to become more like a kind of inert shama. That is how the transformation begins, but usually it is very slow in its process.

29 January 1936

Conditions for the Working of the Mother’s Force

451

When you can receive the Mother’s peace in the mind and heart, it will act on the vital also and calm it. Once the vital is calm then force can be there in it and give it strength.

There is no intention of test or ordeal. But for the Mother’s force to act certain conditions are necessary. There must be a certain acceptance, a will steady and persistent to reject what comes in the way of her action and to receive her force alone.

But why should you be always thinking about X or others? You have very little to do with X now, and it is no use thinking only of the past. Leave him to the Mother to deal with and forget all that.

Undated

*

452

If ego-sense comes back upon you so strongly, it must be because something in you admits it. The Mother’s force is there always and can help you to get rid of these things, but you on your part must with faith and sincerity accept the Mother and put yourself entirely on her side so as to make it possible for the Force to work with effect. When bad thoughts come, you must reject them, not assent to them in your mind, not give voice to them in your speech, not believe in them or their suggestions. These things cannot vanish in a day, but if you do like that, they will diminish and lose their power to lay strong hold of you and disturb you, and in the end they will disappear.

21 April 1932

*

453

I wish to become ceaseless in aspiration. I feel that it is the Mother’s Force that is aspiring in me. But if the Mother herself does not increase my aspiration through her Grace, how can I become ceaseless in it?

It is true that it is the Mother’s Force that aspires in you, but if the personal consciousness does not give its assent, then the Force does not work. If the personal consciousness ceaselessly looks for the Divine and assents to the working, then aspiration and the working of the Force becomes also ceaseless.

9 April 1933

Discrimination and the Working of the Mother’s Force

454

It is dangerous to think of giving up “all barrier of discrimination and defence against what is trying to descend” upon you. Have you thought what this would mean if what is descending is something not in consonance with the divine Truth, perhaps even adverse? An Adverse Power could ask no better condition for getting control over the seeker. It is only the Mother’s Force and the divine Truth that one should admit without barriers. And even there one must keep the power of discernment in order to detect anything false that comes masquerading as the Mother’s Force and the divine Truth, and keep too the power of rejection that will throw away all mixture.

Keep faith in your spiritual destiny, draw back from error and open more the psychic being to the direct guidance of the Mother’s light and power. If the central will is sincere, each recognition of a mistake can become a stepping-stone to a truer movement and a higher progress.

24 May 1930

*

455

How to recognise that a particular thought, feeling or impulse to action has come from the Mother herself and not from some universal force or anything else? If it is apparently a force from the Falsehood it can be recognised as such, but there are many others of a different character and sometimes one goes on thinking that they are prompted by the Mother from within.

It can only be done by discrimination, care, sincerity, a constant control with regard to the mind’s movements and the growth of a certain kind of psychic tact which detects any mental imitation or false suggestion of its being the Mother’s.

27 April 1933

*

456

About my weaknesses you have mentioned the “inertia and fundamental resistance in the consciousness”. How can I become free of them?

There is only one rule for all these things – to watch oneself closely so as to detect these things always when they show themselves, to reject them always and persistently when seen, to aspire always for their removal, to call always the Force of the Mother to help to remove them. But the most entirely effective thing is if you can feel the Force of the Mother working in you and support its action always.

29 June 1933

*

457

You have written: “But the most entirely effective thing is if you can feel the Force of the Mother working in you and support its action always.” What is the meaning of “support its action always”?

To support its action means that one must recognise the Mother’s force when it acts and distinguish it from other egoistic or ignorant forces and give assent to the one and refuse the others. It is again a general rule – its application each sadhaka has to see for himself.

1 July 1933

*

458

The Mother’s Force may do everything but one has to become more and more conscious of one’s own being and nature and what is below in it.

It is not a question of mental judgment,– that is of little use in these matters,– but of the consciousness feeling and seeing.

Supermind is not organised in the lower planes as the others are. It is only a veiled influence. Otherwise the supramental realisation would be easy.

22 May 1934

*

459

As to the Force, you said, “It creates its own activities in the mind or elsewhere.” In that case does the mind or any other part on which the Force acts express only what the Force has created?

That is the ideal condition when the Force is the true Force only – but there is too much mixture in the nature for that to be possible at this stage of sadhana.

3 August 1934

*

460

You say: “That is the ideal condition when the Force is the true Force only.” Does this mean that what my consciousness feels as the Force is not the real Force of the Mother?

I have said that it gets mixed with the action of the present mind, vital and body. That is inevitable since it has to work upon them. It is only after the transformation that it can be fully the Mother’s Force with no mixture of the separate personality. If the Divine Force in all its perfection without mixture were to act from the beginning, not taking any account of the present nature, then there would be no sadhana, only a miraculous substitution of the Divine for the human without any reason or process.

4 August 1934

Mental Knowledge and the Working of the Mother’s Force

461

During the evening meditation my mind tries to become conscious of the thoughts which the Mother brings down. Is this the right activity?

It is not altogether the way – if the mind is active it is more difficult to become aware of what the Mother is bringing. It is not thoughts she brings, but the higher light, force etc.

22 March 1933

*

462

With reference to the Mother you once said, “Ask for the consciousness of her force.” Does it mean that I should aspire to know her consciousness and her force?

Yes – not know with the mind only, but to feel them and see them with the inner experience.

18 June 1933

*

463

My mind fails to make out the present state of the being. It does not understand what the Mother’s Force is doing.

Plenty of people progress rapidly without understanding what the Force is doing – they simply observe and describe and say “I leave all to the Mother.” Eventually the knowledge and understanding come.

17 July 1933

The Mother’s Force and the Body

464

When can it be said that the material being is ready for the Divine?

If the material consciousness is open, feels the Mother’s Force working in it and responds, then it is ready.

11 June 1933

*

465

I feel the Mother’s light, peace, beauty, joy and love descending from above into each strand of my hair. The whole body, calm and still, becomes absorbed in deep peace.

It can be there in all the atoms of the body since all is secretly conscious.

5 October 1933

*

466

One thing I wish to say about the condition of my body: Do not arrange any medication for me. Medicines are insignificant compared to the Mother’s Force and Compassion. Everything will come all right through her Love and Force – this is my strong faith.

For the Mother’s Force to work fully in the body, the body itself and not only the mind must have faith and be open.

9 October 1933

*

467

I pray that the Mother’s Force may help my body. Kindly let me keep her Light and by that Light mould me through Peace and Love.

Aspire and concentrate for the purification and illumination of the vital. The vital once clear with the Mother’s Light and Force in it, it will be easier for the Force to work on the body.

11 October 1933

*

468

Today while I was sitting with others, slowly something came down and filled up all my body. The body became very heavy, like a statue – I could not move. My body, especially the chest, was expanding. Peace! Calm! Ananda! Afterwards, the upper portion of my body slowly became smaller and smaller. Then something entered from the soles of my feet, and I came back to the physical consciousness.

That is very good. It is the Force and Presence of the Mother from above that comes down like that into the body – first in the head and chest and afterwards into the whole body. It is the first fundamental experience of the sadhana from which all the rest begins – for until it comes all else is only preparation. Very often it takes people years to bring it into the body, and with most it comes only by degrees. That it should come in a mass like that and even down to the chest shows that what I told you was true – that once you get free from the old obstacles that were obstructing you, you can have the Yoga experiences as well as anyone else here.

3 December 1933

*

469

Is the heat that I felt in the body the heat of the fever or the heat of the Mother’s Force? It exerted a tremendous pressure on my mind, life and body.

That has still to be seen. It is most probably the tapas heat; the question is whether it is turned partially in the body into fever.

7 June 1936

*

470

It is quite true that the Mother has been putting a constant pressure of her Force to help you in overcoming this illness. I am very glad you have been so vividly aware of it. We do not think it is correct that the Mother can only take the pain away but cannot replace the organs in their right place. This also is possible for the spiritual Force to effect in time. But it is desirable that you should not allow any inner condition of yours which makes the working easy to yield to one like those you speak of which would make it difficult by allowing the old forces to return. Even if that happens, the Mother will still work of course to restore the previous condition until the thing is set right. But a continuous openness is very desirable.

22 October 1936

*

471

Mother is not opposed to your going to Madras for treatment if you feel it necessary; but she is not at all sure that it will result in a radical cure – it may or it may not and, if it does not, it may return worse; so neither can she recommend your going. It depends on your own decision.

The illness has no doubt a physical cause, but there is associated with it a strong resistance to the Force – which is evidently seated in the subconscient, since you are not aware of it. This is shown by the fact that after Mother put a concentrated force there yesterday, the whole thing returned more violently after an hour’s relief. That is always a sign of a violent and obstinate resistance somewhere. It is only if this is overcome or disappears that complete relief can come.

Your experiences related in the letter were quite sound and very good. There is no delusion about the Force working in the body, but there are evidently points where there is still much resistance. The body consciousness has many parts and many different movements and all do not open or change together. Also the body is very dependent on the subconscient which has to be cleared and illumined before the body can be free from adverse reactions.

15 April 1938

*

472

The Mother’s Force is always pouring down – your body must now forget its habit of depression or sadness. Let the happiness come into it also.

Undated

*

473

First the Mother organises the inner parts of the being; then she begins to work on the outer being. Does this mean that when the inner parts are brought under control, then she begins to work on the physical nature?

It is the usual course, but some work is always being done in the inner parts at all times, because they are interdependent.

Undated

The Mother’s Therapeutic Force

474

While working, I suddenly felt a pressure of weakness, a depression in the chest. When I became conscious of it, I opened myself and called the Mother’s force. After a few minutes it disappeared. Was it the divine strength that supported me in some mysterious way, or was it the inherent strength of the body that awakened?

The inherent strength of the body does not do things like that. It is the Mother’s force that does it, when one calls and opens oneself. Even people who never did Yoga and are conscious of nothing, get cured like that without knowing the reason or feeling the way in which it was done. The Force comes from above or in descending it envelops and comes from without inside or it comes out from inside after descending there. When you are conscious of the play of the Forces, then you feel the working.

5 May 1933

*

475

When I got up from sleep, I found that a cold had already entered my head. My consciousness brought down the Mother’s Force and the cold disappeared. Formerly the consciousness used to say passively, “Let the Force work it out”, but the effect was not the same. I want to know if the method adopted for the Force is quite the right way.

It is quite the right way. It is very good that you are learning to use the Force.

27 August 1934

*

476

Every time I receive the Mother’s touch at Pranam, I feel a sense of strong nourishment, even in the physical being. When she presses her fingers on the opening point of the spinal cord at the top of my head, I feel something subtle coming in which makes my inner being overflow with joy. This sense of nourishment (as if a new substance is being created within) is so strong that even when I am unwell and weak, it completely dominates with its sense of joy and security.

As you suffer from ill-health, Mother presses the nourishment of the divine strength and health into your physical being, renewing its substance with that.

4 November 1934

*

477

If we want the Mother to help someone outside with her Force, but we give her wrong information, does the help she sends miss its mark or does it go automatically where it should? Yesterday I suppose the Mother acted before X gave the wrong information about my uncle, but if she had been misinformed from the start, what would have happened?

Yes, Mother had worked before, but wrong information coming across the working creates a confusion so that it is no longer possible to say what is the result of the working. Of course if the wrong information came at the beginning, it would be still worse. It is very necessary that information given should be correct.

10 June 1935

*

478

I remember the Mother once saying that there is hardly a disease that cannot be cured by Yoga. I was surprised, much surprised, and thought, “What about cancer, then, the most deadly enemy of present civilisation? Can it be cured by Yoga?” What is your opinion?

Of course it can, but on condition of faith or openness or both. Even a mental suggestion can cure cancer – with luck, of course, as is shown by the case of the woman operated on unsuccessfully for cancer, but the doctors lied and told her it had succeeded. Result, cancer symptoms all ceased and she died many years afterwards of another illness altogether.

11 October 1935

*

479

I had a heated but pleasant discussion with X about the action of the healing force. He argued: “Now that the healing force has arrived here, it is likely to operate in other parts of the world and any Tom, Dick and Harry can wield it even if not spiritually developed.”

It may operate but not through every T, D and H, at first at least.

I contended that the healing force will act only if a man is open to the Mother in some way, through devotion, faith or some kind of rapport. I also said that most probably the healing force can act only if the healer is directly in physical contact with her. Certain conditions are necessary for cure. What do you say?

At first it will be no doubt like that if it is to be the true Force, but when once it is settled in the earth-consciousness a more general use of supraphysical force for healing may become possible.

It is not always necessary either that the rapport you speak of should be conscious. Coué for instance was in rapport with the Mother without knowing it – she told me of his getting something of the force and of the beginning of his work long before he was known to anyone (of course she did not know his name but she described him and his work in such a way that the identification was evident).

3 February 1936

*

480

X writes that her hip-joint pain is gone and wants me to thank the Mother for removing it. She calculates that her first letter to me mentioning the pain must have reached me on Thursday and her hip pain almost vanished miraculously at eight in the evening that day. But I did not write to the Mother about X’s complaint until Friday. Could it be that when X’s letter entered the Ashram atmosphere a response came?

Y spoke to the Mother about X’s pain on the same day – so it is not necessary to suppose an automatic effect of the letter itself. But such an automatic effect does often take place either immediately after writing or when the letter enters the Mother’s atmosphere.

17 April 1936

*

481

I generally rely in my practice on medicines impregnated with the Mother’s force. X is now convinced that there is nothing of any medicine left after potentisation except Homeopathic philosophy (the Mother’s force). What is your opinion?

I never have opinions – except for the purpose of writing or conversation. To the eye of the Yogin all opinions are true and all are false. It is only realities and results that matter. The Mother’s force is a reality and the cure is a result – the medicine is perhaps a phenomenal link between the two.

2 June 1936

*

482

It was precisely out of solicitude for you because the suffering of insomnia and the spasms had been excessive that I proposed to you to take the help of treatment. It is a fact of my experience that when the resistance in the body is too strong and persistent, it can help to take some aid of physical means as an instrumentation for the Force to work more directly on the body itself; for the body then feels itself supported against the resistance from both sides, by means both physical as well as supraphysical. The Mother’s force can work through both together.

1 September 1936

*

483

In the last two weeks there has been no improvement in my nervous trouble. I had the belief that the Mother’s look and grace at the Sunday Pranam would ease my situation, but it has not. Shall I undergo medical treatment or rely solely on the Mother’s grace and influence which I shall receive at the Sunday Pranam?

Sunday Pranams are not the only way of receiving Force, one can do it at any time by opening to receive in a quiet concentration. If you can do that, any illness can be cured either at once or, if it is chronic, in time. That should be done in any case. But where there is not the full openness, medical treatment can help as an auxiliary. If you like to consult X, he may be able to understand better your case than by second hand and you can see whether you would care to try any remedies he suggests.

28 March 1937

Receiving the Mother’s Force at a Distance

484

I write from Comilla to present to you the sad story of a sad person’s life. For over twenty-five years I have suffered from leucorrhoea. I have taken all kinds of treatments, but never succeeded in removing it. My body is becoming weaker day by day. I feel that no doctor can remedy this disease. You and the Mother have come on earth to remove people’s sufferings. I pray that you will rid this poor thing of her sufferings for ever.

It is possible for her to be cured,¹¹ but only if she has sufficient and complete faith and can receive the force of the Mother. If she can put herself into the true contact, she will cure.

Undated

*

485

As to what your other friend asks, it is quite possible for him to receive where he is without coming here if he has the adoration of the Mother in his heart and an intense call.

25 August 1935

*

486

You spoke of my friend X as receiving the Mother’s Force.

“In contact with” the Divine Force which is the force of the Mother – that was what I wrote, I believe.

But which Mother?

How many Mothers are there?

Ours or some universal Mother as people say?

Who is this some universal Mother? How many of these some universal Mothers are there?

I ask because I do not understand how, without invoking the Mother, he gets her Force.

Have you not put him by the photograph and his letter in connection with us? Has he not turned in this direction? Has he not met Y and been impressed by him – a third channel of contact? That is quite sufficient to help him to a contact if he has the faith and the Yogic stress in him.

2 February 1936

*

487

Has Mother really been sending force to my friend?

I don’t know whether Mother is sending force in the accepted sense; I haven’t asked her. In any case anyone can receive the force who has faith and sincerity, whose psychic being has begun to wake and who opens himself,– whether he knows or not that he is receiving. If X even imagines that he is receiving, that may open the way to a real reception,– if he feels it, why question his feeling? He is certainly trying hard to change and that is the first necessity; if one tries it can always be done, in more or less time.

28 June 1943

*

488

It was 1 a.m. at night when my brother in excruciating pain called me and asked if Sri Aurobindo could heal him. I took out some Prasad flowers that were with me and touched the affected part with them. And lo! the pain vanished and he began to recover. I want to know if you were aware of this and heard my prayer.

What happens in such cases is that when someone is accepted, the Mother sends out something of herself to him and this is with him wherever he goes and is always in connection with her being here. So when he does anything like what you did in this case with faith and bhakti, it reaches, through that emanation of herself which is with him, the Mother’s consciousness inner or outer and the Force goes in return for the result.

Undated

Sadhana through Work for the Mother

Finding the Mother’s Force in Work and Action

489

Yesterday I worked with great vigour and after I saw Mother in the evening I felt that there was no physical tiredness at all and that I could work for twelve hours more.

It is the Mother’s energy that comes down into the vital and physical for those who are open.

12 February 1933

*

490

I told you that I could work peacefully at the Granary, but alas, I am unable to do so. As I sit quietly doing my work, X comes and starts talking about many things and creates a disturbance in me. I pray that you will help me.

You must be able to find the Mother in work and action as well as in concentration and silence. It is quite possible even if there is the silence within you and no restless movement, to move and act and do all that is needful. It is in fact when all within is silent, free from desire and with no restless movement that the Mother’s force can act best and do things in the right way. You should aspire to the Mother for the right force to act and do work and find her in the work and action.

31 May 1933

*

491

When I do any work for myself or do any work as my own, I get tired. But my mind realises now that this tiredness comes because I have not offered the work to my Divine Parents.

If there is the full surrender in the work and you feel it is the Mother’s and that the Mother’s force is working in you, then fatigue does not come.

July 1933

*

492

During the work, is it good to go on thinking: “It is the Mother who does the work through us”?

If it is work, you can always do that, provided you realise that it depends on the instrument whether the Mother’s force works fully or not.

But if we think it is the Mother who is working through us, wrong movements may hide in the disguise of the Mother?

If you think all your actions come from the Mother, then of course it will have that effect – the actions come from Prakriti. Work is a different matter, for it is the Mother’s work you are doing.

16 August 1933

*

493

Today I felt as if someone other than myself was carrying out my actions. Of course I was there, but in the background. Was it not the Mother’s Force trying to take me into itself integrally?

It is too much to say that. What you say amounts only to some glimpse of the cosmic Force behind all the actions.

2 June 1934

*

494

Everybody is in the Mother, but one must become conscious of that, not of the work only.

1 April 1935

*

495

The feeling that all one does is from the Divine, that all action is the Mother’s is a necessary step in experience, but one cannot remain in it – one has to go farther. Those can remain in it who do not want to change the nature, but only to have the experience of the Truth behind it. Your action is according to universal Nature and in that again it is according to your individual nature, and all Nature is a force put out by the Divine Mother for the action of the universe. But as things are it is an action in the Ignorance and the ego; while what we want is an action of the divine Truth unveiled and undeformed by the Ignorance and the ego.

So when you feel that your actions are all done by the force (শক্তি) of the Mother, that is a true experience. But the will of the Mother (মায়ের ইচ্ছা) is that all you do should be done not by her force in Nature as now, but her own direct force in the Truth of her nature, the higher divine Nature. So also it was correct, what you thought afterwards, that unless there is this change, the experience that all you do is done by her will cannot be altogether true. So it will not be permanent till then. For if it were permanent now, it might keep you in the lower action as it does many and prevent or retard the change. What you need as a permanent experience now is that of the Mother’s Force working in you in all things to change this ignorant consciousness and nature into her divine consciousness and nature.

It is the same with the truth about the instrument. It is true that each being is an instrument of the cosmic Shakti, therefore of the Mother. But the aim of the sadhana is to become a conscious and perfect instrument instead of one that is unconscious and therefore imperfect. You can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when you are no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature, but in surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within you. So here too your intuition was perfectly true.

But all this cannot be done in a day. So you are once more right in not being anxious or uneasy. One must be vigilant, but not anxious and uneasy, ব্যস্ত. The Mother’s Force will act and bring the result in its own time – provided one offers all to her and aspires and is vigilant, calling and remembering her at all times, rejecting quietly all that stands in the way of the action of her transforming Force. Your second view of this was more from the right angle of vision than the first. To say that it is not I who have to act, so I need not mind, is to say too much – one has to act in so far as one has to aspire, offer oneself, assent to the Mother’s working, reject all else, more and more surrender. All else will be done in time; there is no need for anxiety or depression or impatience.

13 July 1935

*

496

What is meant by being an instrument or being used by the Mother’s Force? When one acts on impulse, often it is a wrong movement – how can that be a case of being an instrument? When you wrote to X, “You are being used as an effective instrument”, did you write it as a temporary encouragement?

So long as one is not conscious of the Force working through one, one is moved by the Prakriti. The Prakriti may be used sometimes by the Divine for some work to be done, but that is not what is meant in the Yoga by being an “instrument”. I do not know to what you refer as regards X,– his poetry was inspired by us and he felt it and it certainly helped several people; to that extent he was an effective instrument for the work so long as he was in the right attitude. Naturally, it is for the work that one can be an instrument, not for things like sex which have nothing to do with the Yoga or the work. But the real instrumentality begins when the consciousness of the Force working begins within.

30 October 1935

*

497

In a letter about work Sri Aurobindo says: “As for the dedication make the saṅkalpa always of offering it, remember and pray when you can.... This is to fix a certain attitude. Afterwards, the Force can take advantage of this key to open the deeper dedication within.” May I know in what terms this deeper dedication can be expressed?

One begins to feel a double consciousness, one an inner being within which is always dedicated, spontaneously and silently full of the devotion to the Mother or aware of her Force working or of her presence or all these together and another the outer through which the work is done.

1936

*

498

During work, the consciousness, however high it was before, falls at once into inertia. Is this condition never to change?

It is not necessary to fall into inertia, but one always comes into a less intensity of consciousness during work unless one has established in work the conscious contact with the Mother’s Force and is aware of that during the work or unless one has developed a double consciousness, the inner concentrated, the outer doing the work.

12 April 1936

*

499

You seem to have written to X that there is a special force for the work and, if it is brought down, its action need not remain a separate thing from meditation. What is this special force for work?

It is the Mother’s force, naturally.

16 May 1936

*

500

It is only when work and action are done in that way, without insistence on one’s personal ideas and personal feelings but only for the Divine’s sake without thought of self that work becomes fully a sadhana and the internal and the external nature can arrive at a harmony. It makes it more possible for the inner being to take up and enlighten the outer action and grow conscious of the Mother’s force behind it guiding it in its works.

3 January 1937

*

501

Should one try to put out the Mother’s Force during work, if one is conscious of it?

It is the Mother’s Force that has to work through the sadhak, not the sadhak who has to work through the Mother’s Force.

If one is not yet conscious of her Force, should one put out one’s inner energy in work? How is the inner energy related to the outer energy?

The first stage is when one works with the outer energy, but there is an inner consciousness supporting it which relies wholly on the Mother. The second is when there is an inner consciousness and force which uses the outer instruments – the outer energy being quiescent or else a part only of the inner – while this inner consciousness knows that the force is the Mother’s or feels the Mother’s presence in it: there are different experiences in this respect. The third is when all is the Mother’s Force working.

10 April 1937

*

502

There are two ways of making an offering to the Mother: one is to offer an act at her feet as one might offer a flower; the other is to withdraw one’s personality and feel as though she were doing all the actions. Which of these ways is better for the sadhana?

There is no need to ask which is the better as they are not mutually exclusive. It is the mind that regards them as opposites. The psychic being can offer the act while the nature is passive to the Force (the ego being expunged or having withdrawn) and feels the Mother’s Force doing the act and her Presence in it.

5 November 1938

*

503

Efface the stamp of ego from the heart and let the love of the Mother take its place. Cast from the mind all insistence on your personal ideas and judgments, then you will have the wisdom to understand her. Let there be no obsession of self-will, ego-drive in the action, love of personal authority, attachment to personal preference, then the Mother’s force will be able to act clearly in you and you will get the inexhaustible energy for which you ask and your service will be perfect.

27 November 1940

Work for the Mother in the Integral Yoga

504

To go entirely inside in order to have experiences and to neglect the work, the external consciousness, is to be unbalanced, onesided in the sadhana – for our Yoga is integral; so also to throw oneself outward and live in the external being alone is to be unbalanced, one-sided in the sadhana. One must have the same consciousness in inner experience and outward action and make both full of the Mother.

Undated

*

505

There should be not only a general attitude, but each work should be offered to the Mother so as to keep the attitude a living one all the time. There should be at the time of work no meditation, for that would withdraw the attention from the work, but there should be the constant memory of the One to whom you offer it. This is only a first process; for when you can have constantly the feeling of a calm being within concentrated in the sense of the Divine Presence while the surface mind does the work, or when you can begin to feel always that it is the Mother’s force that is doing the work and you are only a channel or an instrument, then in place of memory there will have begun the automatic constant realisation of Yoga, divine union, in works.

April 1930

*

506

Those who do work for the Mother in all sincerity, are prepared by the work itself for the right consciousness even if they do not sit down for meditation or follow any particular practice of Yoga. It is not necessary to tell you how to meditate; whatever is needful will come of itself if in your work and at all times you are sincere and keep yourself open to the Mother.

15 March 1932

*

507

The Mother does not think that it is good to give up all work and only read and meditate. Work is part of the Yoga and it gives the best opportunity for calling down the Presence, the Light and the Power into the vital and its activities; it increases also the field and the opportunity of surrender.

It is not enough to remember that the work is the Mother’s – and the results also. You must learn to feel the Mother’s force behind you and to open to the inspiration and the guidance. Always to remember by an effort of the mind is too difficult; but if you get into the consciousness in which you feel always the Mother’s force in you or supporting you, that is the true thing.

18 August 1932

*

508

The Mother refuses to relieve you of all work – work is a necessary part of this Yoga. If you do not do work and spend all the time in “meditation”, you and your sadhana will lose all hold of realities; you will lose yourself in uncontrolled subjective imaginations such as those you are now allowing to control you and lead you into actions – like your absenting yourself from Pranam, becoming fanciful and irregular in your taking of food, coming to the Mother at a wrong time and place under the imagination that she has called you – actions dictated by error and false suggestion and not by Truth. It is by doing work for the Mother with surrender to her, with obedience to her expressed will, without fancies and vital self-will that you can remain in touch with the embodied Mother here and progress in the Yoga. Mere subjective experiences without control by us will not lead you to the Truth and may lead you far from it into sheer confusion and error.

If you do not want to do the B.D. [Building Department] account and letter work, you can take up the work of keeping the gate daily from 12 to 2; but it is better if you combine this gate work with the typing of letters whenever needed. If you do not want to do the gate work, then you must go on with the work you now have. If you take the gate work only, you must hand over the typewriter to the B. D. so that it may continue to be used for the work you were doing up till now.

I must warn you that by withdrawing into a one-sided subjective existence within and by pushing away from you all touch with physical realities, you are running into a wrong path and imperilling your sadhana. What happens to sadhaks who do this is that they make a mental Formation and put it in place of the true embodied Mother here, and then under its inspiration they begin to lose touch with her and disobey her and follow the false suggestions of their mental Formation. The first thing it does is to instigate them not to write to her, not to come to Pranam, not to act as regards food, work etc. on the lines laid down by her, to disobey her – as you have disobeyed her with regard to coming to Pranam this morning. Another very bad sign of this false condition is when they feel not in touch with the Mother when they meet her in the body and guided only by some disembodied Mother in their own egoistic consciousness – that is a sure sign that a Falsehood is getting into their sadhana. As regards their way of life, they do not wish to do like the others, but to have a special way of life of their own, governed by some Imagination within them. All this you must stop. You must come to Pranam regularly, take your food regularly, sleep regularly, do the work given you conscientiously, following the lines laid down for this Asram by the Mother, and through a right consciousness in this life you must realise her Truth in the physical existence.

Your unwillingness to come to the Pranam because that would interrupt some subjective experience is altogether out of place. No experience in formal meditation, not a hundred experiences together can be worth the touch of the Mother in the Pranam. If you had the psychic being in front in the physical or even in the heart and the vital, you would feel that at once. Moreover, these experiences are not supramental as you seem to imagine. The supramental Truth could never stand behind such errors as you are making now. Moreover to get the supramental Light is not so easy as you fancy; I have warned again and again the sadhaks against the error of thinking they are already in possession of the supermind or in touch with it. One has to go through a long and patient development through many lower stages of consciousness before one can be even within measurable distance of the supermind.

All attachment and self-indulgence are dangerous – attachment and self-indulgence in subjective experiences and remote “meditations”, pushing aside the Truth in objective life is as dangerous as any other. Draw back from these errors and get back into the true balance of the sadhana. If you want the psychic in the physical, you cannot get it by merely sitting in meditation and having abstract experiences; you can get it only by seeking it in physical life and action, by work for the Mother, obedience and surrender in work to the Mother who is present in her own body here.

15 September 1932

*

509

When I am alone for some time, I feel aspiration in the heart, peace and Samata. I feel as if nothing can disturb me. But when I come out to work or move here and there and mix with others, I lose this feeling. Why does it happen like this?

It is the difficulty of being calm and surrendered in action and movement; when there is no action and one is simply sitting still, it is easy to be quiet.

How can this weakness be rejected from the nature so that I can live in peace and Samata in the midst of work and everywhere?

By rejecting ego and desire and living and working for the Divine alone.

Will those who live in peace and Samata but do not work for the Mother’s sake or do little work be transformed fully?

No; they do not get transformed at all.

7 May 1933

*

510

If one works with an attitude of service and love, but does not meditate, will it not lead to stagnation from an inner standpoint? Many say, “We are doing Mother’s work and that is sufficient.”

If they do it in the right spirit, then it may be sufficient for them, as it will bring the rest – because of the spirit in which they do it. It is a matter of idiosyncrasy – there are some who cannot get anything by meditation, so that work or bhakti is their only resource.

24 May 1933

*

511

People say, “As long as the lower nature is not fully purified, it is dangerous to do a lot of meditation. If one meditates too much before one has become purified by means of work, things might rise up from the lower nature and upset the sadhak. When the higher forces come down into a nature not sufficiently purified through work, it is difficult to bear the descent of the divine forces.”

It is not the descent of the higher or divine forces that upsets a sadhak, it is his acceptance of forces of falsehood through ambition, vanity, desire to be a great Yogi or an attachment to his experiences without regard to their truth or their source.

It is not well to spend the whole time or the greater part of the time in meditation unless one is very strong in mind – for one gets into a habit of living in an inner world entirely and losing touch with external realities – this brings in a one-sided inharmonious movement and may lead to disturbance of balance. To do both meditation and work and dedicate both to the Mother is the best thing.

6 August 1933

*

512

My thoughts, emotions and sensations are all turned towards the Mother. But how can I make them serve her in practical life? I still make mistakes and do not always get the right inspiration.

That depends on the physical mind. It has to learn to stop listening to itself and following its own ideas and to call seriously and persistently for the inspiration of the Mother – your physical mind has to become a portion of hers, answering at once and accurately to whatever comes from her.

27 December 1933

*

513

X says that he cannot feel your presence during work as he can during meditation. He does not understand how work can help him.

He has to learn to consecrate his work and feel the Mother’s power working through it. A purely sedentary subjective realisation is only a half realisation.

23 January 1934

*

514

I pray that I may feel the Mother’s protection while working. I feel happy to work. I am not able to meditate every day, but as long as I am working I feel that the work itself is sadhana.

Work for the Mother done with the right concentration on her is as much a sadhana as meditation and inner experiences.

14 March 1934

*

515

During physical pursuits, I find that the Mother’s Force takes them up. But when I am not working, what should I aspire for?

For the Mother’s power to work and bring down by the proper stages the higher consciousness. Also for the system to be more and more fit – quiet, egoless, surrendered.

5 June 1934

*

516

It is not our experience that by meditation alone it is possible to change the nature, nor has retirement from outward activity and work much profited those who have tried it; in many cases it has been harmful. A certain amount of concentration, an inner aspiration in the heart and an opening of the consciousness to the Mother’s presence there and to the descent from above are needed. But without action, without work the nature does not really change; it is there and by contact with men that there is the test of the change in the nature. As for the work one does, there is no higher or lower work; all work is the same provided it is offered to the Mother and done for her and in her power.

You have probably taken too much work on yourself by adding to the rest accounts, etc. That was not necessary. There is no reason why you should not do a normal amount and have time and energy for meditation as well. If you wish, however, to change, Mother may consider it, though she does not just now see how to arrange.

6 October 1934

*

517

This [experience of the true attitude] happens when the work is always associated with the Mother’s thought, done as an offering to her, with the call to do it through you. All ideas of ego, all association of egoistic feelings with the work must disappear. One begins to feel the Mother’s force doing the work; the psychic grows through a certain inner attitude behind the work and the adhar becomes open both to the psychic intuitions and influences from within and to the descent from above. Then the result of meditation can come through the work itself.

5 May 1936

*

518

Just as you give yourself through work to the Mother doing all for her, so there is an inner giving or consecration. Ordinarily the mind and vital live for themselves, want this or that, seek after it and feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled if they do not get it. But when they give themselves, this ceases. Whatever the Mother does with them that they accept – ask for nothing, rely on her entirely, live for her will and not for their desires. Then they begin to be empty of their old selves and old movements, fill with the presence of the Mother, the will of the Mother, the workings of the Mother – that becomes all their life.

27 July 1936

*

519

Once in an interview the Mother told me, “Why do you make any difference between me and work?” I am not sure if I have been able to reproduce the exact words, but they are almost like that. I pray to you to make the idea a little more explicit.

As it stands, it has no meaning. What Mother must have said is “Why do you make any separation between me and work?” It is she who is doing the work, she is there in it, so it is a mistake to make an opposition between concentration on her and the work. Her presence is there in both.

1936

*

520

This state of mind, described in your letter, must be due to a tension created by an urge in the psychic to make a complete surrender to the Mother and some obstruction in the vital mind and surface intellect. This mind supports the obstruction by an excessive self-depreciation (not well-founded as a sound and just self-examination would be) and a questioning of all you do so that you can see only defects and wrong motives. That creates unrest, doubt and strain and hampers your sadhana and prevents the psychic impulse from acting freely.

You should do your work simply in the confidence that it is accepted and appreciated by the Mother, as indeed it is,– for your work has been very good and helpful to her. Let the psychic movement express itself simply and spontaneously in action without allowing the outer mind to interfere; that would very likely release the tension and then your sadhana could proceed in a quiet cheerfulness, confident of its own truth and the Mother’s loving acceptance.

6 December 1943

Work for the Mother as Karmayoga

521

He should carry on his work and do all things else in the right consciousness, offering all he does to the Mother and keeping in inner touch with her. All work done in that spirit and with that consciousness becomes Karmayoga and can be regarded as part of his sadhana.

10 March 1932

*

522

What you received and kept in the work is indeed the true basic consciousness of Karmayoga – the calm consciousness from above supporting and the strength from above doing the work, with that the Bhakti which feels it to be the Mother’s consciousness present and working. You know now by experience what is the secret of Karmayoga.

15 September 1936

Following the Mother’s Will

523

The conditions for following the Mother’s will are to turn to her for Light and Truth and Strength, to aspire that no other force shall influence or lead you, to make no demands or conditions in the vital, to keep a quiet mind ready to receive the Truth but not insisting on its own ideas and formations,– finally, to keep the psychic awake and in front, so that you may be in constant contact and know truly what her will is; for the mind and vital can mistake other impulsions and suggestions for the Divine Will, but the psychic once awakened makes no mistake.

A perfect perfection in working is only possible after supramentalisation; but a relative good working is possible on the lower planes if one is in contact with the Divine and careful, vigilant and conscious in mind and vital and body. That is a condition, besides, which is preparatory and almost indispensable for the supramentalisation.

23 February 1932

*

524

How can I become master of myself and keep self-discipline?

Observe yourself so that nothing passes without being conscious of it. Do not allow yourself to be moved by the forces of nature without the inner consent. Obey the Mother’s will always; let your consent or refusal to the movement of forces be in consonance with her Truth.

10 June 1933

*

525

How can the will be made one with the Mother’s Will?

The will can be made one with the Mother’s by establishing a constant contact of the consciousness with hers.

24 June 1933

*

526

Does “constant contact of the consciousness” mean mental contact or psychic?

It means the whole – with the psychic as the base.

25 June 1933

*

527

I have been thinking that to change one’s nature first one must restrain one’s desire, then one must act according to the Mother’s will and gradually there will be no will of one’s own any more – all will happen by the Mother’s will. Am I right?

At first one must put one’s will in unison with the Mother’s will knowing that it is an instrument only and that it is the Mother’s will behind that alone can give the result. Afterwards, when one becomes conscious fully of the Mother’s force working within, then the personal will is replaced by the divine.

15 July 1935

The Mother’s Consciousness and the Divine Law

528

What I seek is the total transformation of myself, so that no movement can be outside the Divine Law.

Establish the Divine Consciousness (the Mother’s consciousness) in you and the Divine Law will flow from that.

25 March 1932

Opening to the Mother in Work

529

Demands should not be made. What you receive freely from the Mother helps you; what you demand or try to impose on her is bound to be empty of her force.

The Mother deals with each person differently according to his true need (not what he himself fancies to be his need) and his progress in the sadhana and his nature.

For you the most effective way to get the strength you need would be to do the work conscientiously and scrupulously, allowing nothing to interfere with its exact discharge. If you did that, opening yourself at the same time to the Mother in your work, you would receive more constantly the grace and would come to feel her power doing the work through you; you would thus be able to live constantly with the sense of her presence. If on the contrary you allow your fancies or desires to interfere with your work or are careless and negligent, you interrupt the flow of her grace and give room for sorrow and uneasiness and other foreign forces to enter into you. Yoga through work is the easiest and most effective way to enter into the stream of this sadhana.

8 March 1930

*

530

Even the most purely physical and mechanical work cannot be properly done if one accepts incapacity, inertia and passivity. The remedy is not to confine yourself to mechanical work, but to reject and throw off incapacity, passivity and inertia and open yourself to the Mother’s force. If vanity, ambition and self-conceit stand in your way, cast them from you. You will not get rid of these things by merely waiting for them to disappear. If you merely wait for things to happen, there is no reason why they should happen at all. If it is incapacity and weakness that oppose, still, as one opens oneself truly and more and more to the Mother’s force, the strength and capacity necessary for the work will be given and will grow in the adhar.

11 March 1932

*

531

It is owing to the good psychic condition in which you are that this lightness and power of work comes into you; for then you are open to the Mother’s Force and it is that that works in you, so that there is no fatigue. You felt the fatigue formerly after the work was over because your vital was open and the vital energy was the instrument of the work, but the body consciousness was not quite open and had some strain. This time the physical seems to have opened also.

1932

*

532

In the ordinary condition of the body if you oblige the body to do too much work, it can do with the support of vital force. But as soon as the work is done, the vital force withdraws and then the body feels fatigue. If this is done too much and for too long a time, there may be a breakdown of health and strength under the overstrain. Rest is then needed for recovery.

If however the mind and the vital get the habit of opening to the Mother’s Force, they are then supported by the Force and may even be fully filled with it – the Force does the work and the body feels no strain or fatigue before or after. But even then, unless the body itself is open and can absorb and keep the Force, sufficient rest in between the work is absolutely necessary. Otherwise although the body may go on for a very long time, yet in the end there can be a danger of a collapse.

The body can be sustained for a long time when there is the full influence and there is a single-minded faith and call in the mind and the vital; but if the mind or the vital is disturbed by other influences or opens itself to forces which are not the Mother’s, then there will be a mixed condition and there will be sometimes strength, sometimes fatigue, exhaustion or illness or a mixture of the two at the same time.

Finally, if not only the mind and the vital, but the body also is open and can absorb the Force, it can do extraordinary things in the way of work without breaking down. Still, even then rest is necessary. That is why we insist on those who have the impulse of work keeping a proper balance between rest and labour.

A complete freedom from fatigue is possible, but that comes only when there is a complete transformation of the law of the body by the full descent of a supramental Force into the earth-nature.

Undated

Remembering the Mother in Work

533

It is only by an inner development that you can remember in the midst of work. Meanwhile offer all your work inwardly to the Mother.

21 May 1933

*

534

How to remember the Mother during work? I have tried to follow a mental rule, without success. Perhaps it is the inner consciousness that remembers while the outer is busy?

One starts by a mental effort – afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother because it is always conscious of her.

31 May 1933

*

535

During mental activities my outer being never remembers the Mother. Please show me the way to remain conscious of her in the midst of intellectual pursuits.

It can be done when you become the witness detached from the mental actions and not involved in them, not absorbed in them as the mental doer or thinker.

20 March 1934

*

536

Since yesterday I have always been in touch with the Mother during work. Not only do I remember her but the connection with her remains during work. Her Force constantly flows into the Adhar and the work is done automatically, but swiftly, perfectly, unhesitatingly – without personal anxieties and responsibilities; instead, there is confidence, sureness, strength, calmness. I feel that if I can do work in this attitude, it will be perfect, flawless, the work of the Mother’s child, not of an egoistic man. Kindly let me know if I am correct.

Yes, it is a very good progress and the first step towards the right use of the Power for action.

1 April 1935

*

537

The little experience I have of sadhana through works makes me incline to the view that work as sadhana is the most difficult of all. I don’t remember any experience got through it nor can I remember that I am doing the Mother’s work; whereas in poetry, though I may be unlucky as regards experiences, when one writes a poem one does try to think of her, at least mentally. I can even say that it is only by thinking of her that I can compose the lines.

Many find it easy to think of the Mother when working; but when they read or write, their mind goes off to the thing read or written and they forget everything else. I think that is the case with most. Physical work on the other hand can be done with the most external part of the mind, leaving the rest free to remember or to experience.

10 January 1936

Offering Actions to the Mother

538

Whatever work you do, take it as the Mother’s and offer it to the Mother.

14 November 1933

*

539

After finishing any activity, even eating and drinking, I make an offering of it to the Mother, saying, “I offer this work done by me to Thee.” But now a sense is growing in me that all works are done by the Mother’s Power of Nature through the individual nature. Accordingly, can I substitute the wording in this way, “All the work that is done by the (or my) individual nature is wholeheartedly offered to Thee”? Or what to say?

All that is done in me by Nature, I offer wholeheartedly for transformation to Thee, O Mother.

5 March 1934

*

540

I have read in many places that we should refer all our actions to the Mother. But I don’t know how to refer them and get her answer as to whether the actions should be done or not.

There is no question of getting an answer. It is simply to offer the actions to the Mother and call her Force to guide or do what is necessary.

13 January 1936

Work for the Mother and the Worker’s Ego

541

Is it always necessary for our work to be prompted or initiated by the Mother in an outward way? Could one not feel so intensely that a thing has to be done that it is almost an inner prompting?

It would be dangerous to take every “inner prompting” as if it were a prompting or initiation of action from the Mother. What seems an inner prompting may come from anywhere, any Force good or bad seeking to fulfil itself.

One may have ego about the work even if the work itself comes from the Mother. The ego of the instrument is one of the things against which there must be special care in the Yoga.

When one is doing the work, usually the urge of the force that works and the preoccupation of doing it and getting it done or the pleasure of doing it are sufficient and the mind does not think of anything else. Afterwards the sense of “I did it” comes up. With some however the ego is active during the work itself.

3 November 1935

*

542

In order to separate the being from the constant interference of the ego, I propose to do only those actions that I feel are one with the Mother’s will. I know that the ego will still present itself, but it will be easy to recognise its interference as something coming from outside.

Of course it is a way. But one has still to be careful about the ego. Even people who sincerely think they are doing only the Mother’s will are yet actuated by ego without knowing it.

4 April 1936

The Mother’s Lights

Lights and the Mother

543

Yesterday when the Mother came down in the evening to give Darshan, I saw her face shining with crimson light like the sun when it rises in the morning. What is the meaning of crimson light?

Crimson light indicates the manifestation of love in the material atmosphere.

5 July 1933

*

544

When I write to the Mother I often see flashes of light which are tiny, round and of different colours – white, gold, green, blue and yellow. What are they?

When you write, you put yourself probably in contact with the Mother’s forces – these lights of different colours are the play of her forces.

14 October 1933

*

545

Looking at the Mother on the terrace in the evening, I saw a dark blue light around her like the colour of the flower named “Radha’s consciousness”. Is the light around her of different colours? For I have also seen white light around her many times, and sometimes a pretty pale blue light.

There are various lights around the Mother indicating the forces that come from her. White is her own characteristic light, the pale blue is mine,– the golden, dark blue and others correspond to various other forces.

26 October 1933

*

546

We normally see your force working in us as a pale blue light and the Mother’s force working as a white light. But today I saw a red-coloured force working in me, red like a lotus flower. Was this your force too?

It must have been a special force working. The blue light is the characteristic force as the white is of the Mother, but we are not limited to that, the other forces and therefore the other lights are also ours.

24 November 1933

*

547

Today I saw emerging from the Mother the whitish blue light of Sri Aurobindo. Why did I see it so? Is it because both are the same?

All the lights are put out by the Mother from herself.

6 March 1934

*

548

Today at Pranam while feeling the Mother’s Powers pouring into me, I saw the sacred word মা [Mā] inscribed in dark blue light in the corner of my breast below the right shoulder. Does it have any significance?

It means the impression of the Name with its power in some part of the being – (vital mental).

9 April 1934

*

549

The lights are the Mother’s Powers – many in number. The white light is her own characteristic power, that of the Divine Consciousness in its essence.

15 July 1934

The Mother’s White Light

550

Last night I got contact with the Light and prayed for its descent. But it got lost as soon as my mind began to get into a white peaceful Mother’s consciousness.

That was quite right. The contact with the Light must create peace.

I felt myself in a mind all white, but each time I tried it was impossible to get a rapid downward pull of the Light. After that I got into feelings and nice sensations in the body, but they took me down to a low state.

(1) The Mother’s consciousness (white) is not only peace, but Light and Power.

(2) When one gets into contact with the Light above the mind, the first result should be peace in the mind.

(3) Whatever Power of the Light descends should descend into the peace of the mind without disturbing it.

(4) If you pull down the Light into an active mind, then the action of the Light may get deformed and may be used by the mind in a wrong way, with confusion and disturbance or for purposes and movements that are those of an inferior consciousness and not those of the Truth.

(5) There cannot be any real incompatibility between the Mother’s consciousness and contact with the Light above.

2 June 1932

*

551

What is the colour of the light around the Mother?

The Mother’s special colour is white, but all the other colours are hers also.

7 June 1933

*

552

In the evening when the Mother came out, I saw a huge white light following behind her. At first I thought it was an illusion, but when I kept on looking at it I knew it was no illusion. I was full of joy.

The white light is the Mother’s light and it is always around her.

22 August 1933

*

553

Today at Pranam I saw a pale blue light around the Mother. Is pale blue the colour of her light?

The pale blue light is my light – white light is the Mother’s (sometimes gold also). People generally see either the white or both the white and the pale blue around her.

4 September 1933

*

554

When the Mother comes on the terrace in the evening, I often see white light around her; it is clearly visible around her body and sometimes the top of the whole building seems to emit light. One day I thought that there may be a background of light behind all material things which can be seen physically. Is it true? Is there any systematic process to open oneself to that physical vision?

The white Light around the Mother is the Mother’s own light – that of the Divine Consciousness. Many nowadays are able to see it around her when she is on the roof. One can also see all objects in this light – it means that the light has descended here and is floating around everything.

10 September 1933

*

555

Last night after eight o’clock after returning from work, I sat for meditation. My mind and vital became quiet and opened to the Mother. My heart became vast and opened to her. Then in this quietness something very soothing descended from my chest down to my navel and below it. Then, below the navel, I saw a bright white light penetrating and it filled the whole area with light; then it rose up above the navel till even the head was filled with light. I am unable to express the peace and quietness I felt at that time. The peace was very pure. Now whenever I sit for meditation, I see a very white light coming around me.

The white Light is the Mother’s light. Wherever it descends or enters, it brings peace, purity, silence and the openness to the higher forces. If it comes below the navel, that means that it is working in the lower vital.

31 July 1934

*

556

The Mother’s white light is the light of the Divine Consciousness; you are living more and more under it and it is that that is liberating you.

25 August 1934

*

557

What you saw in vision was a supraphysical body of the Mother made probably of her white light which is the light of the Divine Consciousness and Force that stands behind the universe.

30 January 1935

*

558

I am sending you a letter received from X. She has written her experiences and wants to know their meaning. She says that now she concentrates in the heart. Formerly she felt it was dark, but now, concentrating on the Mother and Sri Aurobindo for a long time, she sees a white ray in which their bodies become more brilliant.

The important experience is that of the white ray in the heart – for that is a ray of the Mother’s light, the white light, and the illumining of the heart by this light is a thing of great power for this sadhana. The intuitions she speaks of are a sign of the inner consciousness growing in her – the consciousness which is necessary for Yoga.

28 July 1937

*

559

It [the Mother’s light] is always there in the inner Purusha.

Undated

*

560

That means the light of the divine consciousness (the Mother’s Consciousness, white light) in the vital. Blue is the higher mind, gold the divine Truth. So it is the vital with the light of the higher mind and the divine Truth in it emanating the Mother’s light.

Undated

The Mother’s Diamond Light

561

(a) It [the diamond light] means the essential Force of the Mother.

(b) The diamond light proceeds from the heart of the Divine Consciousness and it brings the opening of the Divine Consciousness wherever it goes.

(c) The Mother’s descent with the diamond light is the sanction of the Supreme Power to the movement in you.

(d) The Mother’s diamond light is a light of absolute purity and power.

(e) The diamond light is the central consciousness and force of the Divine.

Undated

*

562

The Mother’s light is white – especially diamond white. The Mahakali form is usually golden, of a very bright and strong golden hue.

12 October 1935

*

563

The diamond is the symbol of the intensest light of the Mother’s consciousness, so your visions indicate that you saw her full of that light and radiating it. Other jewels must be symbols of other forces, the ruby indicating power in the physical.

23 February 1936

*

564

The diamond is the symbol of the Mother’s consciousness; the colour depends on the particular force which her consciousness puts forth upon you at the moment.

14 April 1936

*

565

The diamond is the symbol of the Mother’s light and energy – the diamond light is that of her consciousness at its most intense.

13 November 1936

The Golden Light of Mahakali

566

Today at Pranam I saw a light like a golden thread coming from the Mother to me, but it vanished in a short time. Once I saw this light very clearly when she was standing on the terrace, just before coming down the staircase. Is this light from inside or outside? Since I saw it only for a while, I cannot believe my own eyes.

The golden Light is the light of the Divine Truth on the higher planes above the ordinary mind – a light supramental in origin. It is also the light of Mahakali above the mind. The golden light is also often seen emanating from the Mother like the white Light.

17 September 1933

*

567

The line of golden light is a line of the light of the higher Divine Truth encircling the Akash of the heart and the diamond mass is the Mother’s light pressing into that Akash. It is therefore a sign of these powers working on the psychic-emotional centre.

17 December 1936

*

568

One night I found a vast light, yellowish white, cool and peaceful, coming down from above. Is this the light of the higher mind consciousness or of some spiritual consciousness?

It depends on the shade of the yellow. If it is golden white it comes from above the mind and the combination suggests the Maheshwari-Mahakali power. Higher Mind colour is pale blue.

21 March 1938

Seeing Light around the Mother

569

Sometimes I see an outline of white light around Mother. Is it that truly I can see Mother’s Light?

Of course you can see it. Nowadays it is visible to many.

2 July 1933

*

570

Last evening when the Mother was walking on the terrace I saw a light on her body. What was it?

Many see light around the Mother. The light is there always.

26 July 1933

*

571

Today as soon as the Mother took her seat in the Pranam Hall I saw that white light was playing both on her left and right sides. Was there any particular reason why I saw like this?

No. One can always see white Light around the Mother, for it is her light, always there.

8 August 1933

*

572

This evening when the Mother came to give us darshan, I saw Sri Aurobindo’s light around her like a cloud. Was this a formation of the mind or the vital? Was there a mistake in it?

If seeing the Mother’s Light is a mistake or a mental or vital formation, then the realisation of the Divine and all spiritual experience can be questioned as a mental or vital formation or mistake and all Yoga becomes impossible.

6 September 1933

*

573

While watching the Mother walk on the terrace, I saw a light like moonlight around her. How strong and bright it was. Seeing it, my being became quiet and gradually settled into a deep indrawn condition.

People see all kinds of lights around the Mother when she walks on the roof. They are all the flowing out of different forces. If it was like the moonlight in appearance it would be the spiritual force.

1 November 1933

*

574

What people see around the Mother is first her aura, as it is called nowadays, and secondly the forces of Light that pour out from her when she concentrates, as she always does on the roof for instance. (Everybody has an aura – but in most it is weak and not very luminous, in the Mother’s aura there is the full play of lights and powers.) People do not see it usually because it is a subtle physical and not a gross material phenomenon. They can see only on two conditions, first if they develop sufficient subtle sight, secondly if the aura itself begins to become so strong that it affects the sheath of gross matter which conceals it. The Mother has certainly no idea of making people see it – it is of themselves that one after another, some 20 or 30 in the Asram, I believe, have come to see. None of them are big Yogis, some of them are mere beginners. It is certainly one of the signs that the higher Force (call it supramental or not) is beginning to influence Matter.

15 November 1933

*

575

Some people see light etc. around the Mother but I am not able to do so. What is the obstruction in me?

It is not an obstruction – it is simply a question of the growth of the inner senses. It has no indispensable connection with spiritual progress. There are some very far on the path who have very little of this kind of vision if any – on the other hand sometimes it develops enormously in mere beginners who have as yet had only very elementary spiritual experiences.

1 December 1933

*

576

X says that she sees white light streaming out from the Mother when she sees her walking on the terrace. And some days, when the Mother is meditating, she sees some figure behind her.

There is always light around the Mother which the eyes can see if the inner vision opens. There are also many beings that are around her.

4 September 1934

The Mother in Visions, Dreams and Experiences

Seeing the Mother in Visions and Dreams

577

Recently I notice that before the Mother comes down from the terrace in the evening she stands there for a long time. I feel that at that time she gives us something specially, so I concentrate to receive and feel what she gives. But this evening suddenly I saw (while looking at her) that her physical body disappeared – there was no sign of her body, as if she were not there! Then after a few seconds her figure reappeared. I felt at that moment that she mixed with the ether and became one with all things. Why did I see like this?

The Mother makes an invocation or aspiration and stands till the movement is over. Yesterday she passed for some time beyond the sense of the body and it is perhaps this that made you see in that way.

29 August 1932

*

578

The day before yesterday I saw in a dream: The Mother is standing in a high place; before her there is a pillar with the Tulsi plant on it. What does it signify?

That she has brought down and planted Bhakti, I suppose.

Today while meditating in the Pranam hall before the Mother came down, I saw: From a high place the Mother is coming down in us, wearing a rosy coloured sari and having a “Divine Love” flower in her hair. What does this signify?

It is a symbol of the descent of Divine Love.

5 June 1933

*

579

I saw Mother’s form in a dream last night. Was it real or merely an imagination?

What do you mean by real? It was the form of Mother in a dream experience. Imagination applies only to the waking mind.

3 July 1933

*

580

When I asked whether the form of the Mother in my dream was real or not, I meant: Was it the Mother herself or was it some false forces taking the form of the Mother?

If false forces take the form of the Mother, it will be with some bad object. If there is no attack or wrong suggestion, you need not suppose that it is false forces that have done it.

Of course it is always possible that something in your own consciousness has constructed a dream about the Mother or put her figure there when she herself was not there. That happens when it is only a dream, a number of ideas and memories etc. of the mind put together and not an experience on another plane.

5 July 1933

*

581

Today while meditating in the Pranam hall before the Mother came down, I saw in meditation: “ The Mother is absorbed in deep concentration.” Why did I see her like that?

The Mother is always in a concentrated consciousness in her inner being – so it is quite natural that you should see like that.

5 July 1933

*

582

About the dream of which I wrote yesterday, you have written, “It has a reality and a significance”, but you have not written the significance. Will it be wrong if I ask it? The dream in short was that I saw the Mother standing on a high place, as if on a terrace. At first I could not see her because it was dark, but afterwards she held up a torch directing its rays to her face so I could see her smiling. Then the focus of the light was thrown by her on my face and what happened afterwards I did not remember.

The significance is plain – it refers to the difficulty in seeing the Mother within you because of the darkness in Nature and the Mother herself holds the light first so that you can see her and then so that the light can fall on you – a symbol of self-knowledge. It is a sort of promise for the sadhana.

13 July 1933

*

583

The day before yesterday, just before the Mother came down for her evening walk, I saw: The fire of aspiration is rising from my heart and its flame is slowly going upward as I constantly remember the Mother. Then I saw: The Mother, as we see her every day, is descending in the fire and filling my mind, vital and physical with peace and strength. In the second vision why did I see the Mother’s image exactly as we see her every day?

It indicates an aspiration and an action for realisation in the external nature and not only in the inner being. When it is an inner action or action of another plane one can see the Mother in any of her forms, but for realisation in the physical her appropriate form is that which she wears here.

15 July 1933

*

584

Two days back I saw in a dream that I was lying in a bed in a room and the Mother entered with a big rosy coloured horse. Seeing the horse I told the Mother: “Mother, the horse is mad; he will bite me.” The Mother told me: “No, the horse is not mad; he will not bite you.” What is the meaning of this dream?

Rose is the colour of psychic love – the horse is dynamic power. So the rosy coloured horse means that the Mother was bringing with her the dynamic power of psychic love.

3 August 1933

*

585

Today while meditating in the Pranam hall I saw: The sky is filled with blue light. From the sky a long path is coming down on earth. The path is beautifully paved. On this path the Mother is slowly and joyfully coming towards the earth. Her whole body is white and full of golden light and this light is spreading out on all sides. When the Mother has come to the end of the path, her body will get mixed with the soil of the earth. Then I suddenly woke up from meditation. Was this a vision? What plane was it from?

Yes, it is a vision from the plane of mind (not ordinary, but higher mind). It indicates the descent of the Mother with her light of purity and Truth (white and golden) into Matter.

5 August 1933

*

586

This afternoon in a dream I rose up very high and entered a beautiful temple shining with bright white light. In that temple I felt the pressure of the divine consciousness. The Mother and I and others were there. Then at the temple gate I saw red pieces of paper; on each piece was written the name “Mira”. Then X called me and brought me down to Y’s room to learn a new song. After that, I again went up to the temple by a staircase, but it was a difficult climb. Inside the temple there was the full power of the divine consciousness. What is the meaning of my dream?

The temple is the Mother’s consciousness into which you enter by sadhana (as in your other experience described today you entered into the world of the Mother’s consciousness and saw things from there) and you come out of it when you turn to something outward but can ascend again at will once you have been there.

16 September 1933

*

587

I have heard that the colour of Kali is black and she has four hands. But I saw her with only two hands and her colour was bright white. Why did I see her like this?

The black Kali form is a manifestation on the vital plane of Mahakali – but Mahakali herself in the Overmind is golden. What you saw was the Mother herself in her body of light with the Mahakali power in her, but not the actual form of Mahakali.

26 September 1933

*

588

Last night I saw in a dream that Light from the Mother’s body was coming down into my body and transforming it.

Good – it is the opening of the physical consciousness to the Mother.

30 September 1933

*

589

The bodies I wrote about this morning were like shadowy pictures, not distinct, and seemed to be like stones, not white in colour but black. Why was that?

It was probably the subconscient physical that you saw – that would explain the shadowy character; the stone indicates the material Nature.

30 September 1933

*

590

In the afternoon I went to sleep remembering the Mother. After a while I saw that my subtle mind, vital and body had risen up high into a beautiful world, profound and peaceful. Then I saw many saints, sages and Gods tirelessly calling the Mother in their meditations. The joy of that world was truly deep. What a beautiful world! Then I saw the Mother slowly descend into their midst; she had ten arms and a bright white complexion. Suddenly I woke up. But lying quietly on the bed, I realised that my outer mind, life and body were moving inside the Mother’s circle. In this condition I looked at my body and saw that my gross body had a beautiful golden colour. All this time I kept calling the Mother quietly. Is all this true?

You seem to have ascended into a plane of the Higher Spiritualised Mind with a descent into it of Maheshwari bringing the power of the Divine Truth. The result in the physical consciousness was a perception of the One Consciousness and Life in all things and an illumination of the cells of the body with the golden light of the higher Truth.

October 1933

*

591

While looking at the Mother when she came on the terrace, I suddenly saw in her lap a baby whom I took to be Jesus Christ as it resembled his figure. The vision lasted for about a minute and I saw it with open eyes.

It may be so – as Jesus was a child of the Divine Mother.

25 November 1933

*

592

I saw the Mother in the colour of the flower we call “Detachment”. Does it have any meaning?

It must mean that that was the force which she was offering to you or else which you needed from her.

10 January 1934

*

593

Could a vision of the Mother or seeing her in dream or in waking be called a realisation?

That would be an experience rather than a realisation. A realisation would be of the Mother’s presence within, her force doing the work – or of the Peace or Silence everywhere, of universal Love, universal Beauty or Ananda etc. etc. Visions come under the head of experiences, unless they fix themselves and are accompanied by a realisation of which they are as it were the support – e.g. the vision of the Mother always in the heart or above the head etc.

12 March 1934

*

594

Watching the Mother while she was meditating on the terrace, I saw a white light coming down from the sky and passing through the crown of her head. The light was not bright white, but a little blue, like the colour of the flower “Krishna’s Ananda”.

The lights represent forces – I suppose you saw some force of Ananda coming down.

2 April 1934

*

595

Today while offering flowers to the Mother, I concentrated with my eyes shut. I saw the Mother’s bright white form amidst a beautiful dazzling light whose colour I cannot describe.

It was the psychic light, I suppose, and the Mother in it.

6 April 1934

*

596

During my noon nap, I was in the Mother’s lap. She put her transforming palm on my head. With her thumb she was pressing the Brahmic centre at the top of my head and opening it; I felt that something was being received from there. Then suddenly there was a shift of the consciousness into some world other than the terrestrial. A supraphysical light was experienced in the cells of the body, which was already flooded with the light. The physical itself was taken up. Can this experience be explained?

There is nothing to explain. It was what you describe. At once the raising of the consciousness to a higher plane and the descent of that into the physical.

5 September 1934

*

597

X told us today that on the Puja day the Mother was trying to bring down the personality of Durga.

There was no trying – it came down.

When I came for Pranam, the Mother’s grandeur and magnificent appearance made me feel that she was Durga herself. I don’t know whether such a feeling arose out of the association with the Puja on that day, or quite independently of it. But one cannot take such feelings seriously (perhaps you will rebuke me for saying that)...

All that is the silliness of the physical mind which thinks itself very clever in explaining away the inner feeling or perception.

because these feelings are so vague, abstract and momentary!

What else do you expect the first touches to be?

It is difficult to distinguish the borderline between imagination, intuition and feelings unless they are substantiated by something like a concrete vision. To give you one instance: I heard as if the Goddess Bhagawati were telling me, “I am coming” and many other things which I don’t remember now.

These things are at least a proof that the inner mind and vital are trying to open to supraphysical things. But if you belittle it at once the moment it starts how can it ever develop?

26 October 1934

*

598

I had a dream in which the Mother seemed to be ill. Once when she smiled, I imagined that I saw all the worlds in her mouth, as Yashoda saw them in Krishna’s mouth. Immediately after this, I felt myself being lifted up above the world and looking at it as a witness. But the sense of the Mother being ill made me wonder if it was really her or someone else – some other influence.

I don’t think it was another influence. It reads like a very genuine experience.

19 June 1935

*

599

The other day while I was having a nap in the afternoon, I had a vision of a very beautiful woman (pardon me, more than a woman) sitting under the sun. The rays of the sun were either surrounding her or were emanating from her body – I can’t precisely say which. The appearance and dress seemed to be European.

It is not a woman. A woman does not radiate and is not surrounded by rays either. Probably a Sun Goddess or a Shakti of the inner Light, one of the Mother’s Powers.

20 December 1935

*

600

Just yesterday you wrote to me, “The next step is to be conscious in the samadhi” and today it actually took place. A great Holy Woman had come. Several of us went for her darshan. When my turn came, without looking at her face, I threw myself on her lap. She put her hands on my head, caressed me slowly, and gave me two spiritual powers. After a while, I raised my head and looked at the Holy Woman. Her face appeared like the Mother’s. Then I said, “May I ask you a question?” She did not seem to like this, but as she had not refused, I repeated the question. She said, “No, I don’t like questions.” Then we entered into a trance together. After a long time we both came back to consciousness.

This whole thing is beyond my understanding. Please tell me: (1)Who was the Holy Woman? (2)Why did she grant me the gift of higher powers? (3) A trance within a trance?

Obviously the Holy Woman was the Mother herself in a supraphysical form. It was natural that she should not like questions – the Mother does not like mental questions very much at any time and least of all when she is giving meditation as she was doing in this experience. It is rather funny to ask “why” (your eternal why) higher powers should be given. People do not question the gifts of the Shakti or demand reasons for her giving them, they are only too glad to get them. Trance within trance of course, since your sadhana was going on in the trance, according to the ways of trance. It is also in this way that it can go on in conscious sleep.

10 June 1936

*

601

Some months ago in a vision, I offered the Mother three flowers of “Divine Love”. Has this any meaning for my sadhana?

It is not quite clear what this number 3 means in this connection. Possibly it is the aspiration for the Divine’s love in the three parts of the being.

12 July 1936

*

602

The lotus you saw above the Mother’s head was the highest centre of the embodied consciousness (where it communicates with the higher Truth) fully open with the golden light of the divine Truth pouring upon it and filling it. It is that full opening which the Mother was bringing down and which has to happen eventually in the sadhak.

23 July 1936

*

603

Once in a vision I saw the Mother in the physical dressed in a red sari. What does it mean?

Simply the presence of the Mother in the physical consciousness. Red is the colour of the physical.

September 1936

*

604

I see a rough rock. Sunlight falls upon it and the rock changes: in the centre a hollow circle is made and rocks arrange themselves round the circle. In the centre of the circle appears a stone image of Shiva nearly two feet high. Afterwards, out of this image the Mother emerges. She is in meditation. The sunlight falls just behind the Mother’s body. What does it signify?

Rocks = the physical (most material) being.

An opening in the material making room for the formation of the spiritual consciousness there.

Stone image of Shiva = the realisation of the silent Self or Brahman there (peace, silence, wideness of the Infinite, purity of the witness Purusha).

Out of this silence emerges the Divine Shakti concentrated for the transformation of the material.

Sunlight = Light of Truth.

12 October 1936

*

605

Whenever I have seen snakes in dream or anywhere else, I have had to go through many difficulties, so I have always believed that seeing snakes is not very auspicious. Is this true?

Serpents are energies – those of the vital are usually evil forces and it is these that are usually seen by people. But favourable or divine forces are also imaged in that form – e.g., the Kundalini Shakti is imaged in the form of a serpent. Serpents turning over or round the Mother’s head would rather recall the Shivamurti and would mean numberless energies all finally gathered up into one infinite energy of which they are the aspects.

28 October 1936

*

606

Once I saw the Mother sitting on the peak of an icy mountain; a narrow path led there and I was gradually advancing towards that.

This is simply a symbol of the purity and silence of the higher consciousness which has to be reached by the path of sadhana. The narrowness symbolises the difficulty because one has not to slip to one side or the other, but go straight.

7 December 1936

*

607

I saw the Mother sitting on her seat. There was a cobra behind her with many hoods covering the Mother’s head. The cobra was a shining golden colour with a shining red round spot in the centre of each hood. What did it signify?

The cobra is an emblem of Nature-Energy – golden = the higher Truth-Nature – many hoods = many powers. Red is probably a sign of Mahakali power. The cobra covering the head with its hoods is a symbol of sovereignty.

23 January 1937

*

608

Two years before I came here I had a vision one night: High above in the sky I saw two dark blue feet. So far as I remember they were adorned only with anklets. The soles were the colour of the red lotus. I concluded they were the Mother’s lotus feet because that is how I felt and immediately saw a spotted cloth that is used in India in the Mother’s worship descending from Her right side. Who could be this Mother?

There is here a general symbolism in the details of the figure, but it is clearly the same experience [as in the next two visions] at its first stage in the first contact.

The same night or the next, I had another vision. In front of me I saw a pure white staircase; it went up for countless steps until the top of it got lost in the sky. A white figure in a pure white gown (European style) rapidly descended the upper part of the stairs and, taking her stand on the staircase, opened her arms to me. Who was this Mother?

Here and in the next it is obviously the Mother here. The staircase is a very usual symbol seen by many and it meant the acceptance and call to the ascent.

A third experience I had when I came here for the first time. One night I heard something descending with a revolving motion above my head. No sooner did I hear the sound than I saw a smaller image of the above white Lady entering into me from above and stopping somewhere in the heart region. Who is this Power and Personality? How is she related to the second, the second to the first and all the three to you? How can I be true to her and to you?

By self-opening and an increasing self-giving to the Divine.

All these are visions of the Mother and it agrees with what she felt when she first saw you.

22 March 1938

*

609

Yesterday night in a dream I was in a garden – it was night perhaps; there was not much light. I was there with some other sadhaks and we were there to meditate with the Mother. I could not see Mother but I knew she was there, high up, waiting to give us meditation. But some of the sadhaks were careless, some were yawning, some were lying down. I was trying to meditate and I felt Mother’s hand come down and touch my forehead for about a minute. Then I felt something in me being drawn up through my whole body as she slowly drew her hand back, and I felt something being taken away. But when I woke up, I did not know if it was a good or bad thing Mother took away. What was it?

It was certainly a true dream of the lower vital or perhaps subtle physical plane, where the laziness, indifference, frivolity of the sadhaks is a fact and the chief obstacle to the supramental descent into Matter. Because in your inner physical you were sincere and aspiring, the Mother’s blessing came upon you and removed something there that was in the way. There is no indication in the dream as to what it was, but something in the lower vital or physical connected with this general defect.

Undated

Developing the Ability to See the Mother

610

Mother said she would try to make you see her because it is not always easy for people to see her even when she is near them. It is also easier to see with eyes shut than with eyes open – though this too is possible – because it is a sight within you that has to open in order to see her. It is not necessary to call her for any fixed number of hours. It is enough if you love her always, remember her often, sit every day a little time before her photograph and call her.

You must never doubt that Mother loves you and you need never weep for that, for her feelings towards you cannot and will not change.

Of course you can take the photographs given to you by the Mother and keep them with you there.

7 May 1935

*

611

It is not that because the Mother loves you she can show herself to your physical eyes at a distance. The physical eyes of men are not made so as to see in that way. It becomes possible only after long sadhana. First one sees with the eyes closed, because that is easier. When one is accustomed to see with the eyes closed, then afterwards it becomes more possible to see with the eyes open. So you should not be too eager to see at once in the more difficult way. It will come in the end, if you want it, but it does not come at once. Don’t mind if it takes time. You must grow first more and more able to feel the Mother near you; that you can do by thinking of her and calling her often. Then seeing will be more easy.

8 May 1935

*

612

Do not mind about the time that it will take – one can’t fix the time of these things beforehand. When you feel the Mother’s presence more and more, when you begin to see her with the inner sight, then it can come.

It is better not to speak of the Mother to your friends – they do not know her, therefore they can take no interest in her. The more you live close to the Mother in yourself, the less you will need to speak of her to others.

9 May 1935

*

613

To see you must be more quiet within – then after a little the sight begins to come. An inner sight opens, one begins to see what the outward senses cannot see – and it is then possible to see the Mother there.

Undated

Experiences of the Mother and Her Powers

614

In the morning I was feeling that the mind is quite empty. In the afternoon I saw an intense compact golden light there in front, at some distance outside the mind.

The golden light is the promise of the higher knowledge. For the coming of that knowledge the silence of the frontal exterior mind is necessary.

Today I felt that a part of the mind is or can be always open to the higher light, but realisation has to depend on what comes from below and accordingly change in its character and intensity. Remaining for some time in this condition is like seeing the Divine, now apparent in so many things and movements. I understood how it is to be done, but a long time is necessary in order to be established in this consciousness which has no end. Rising higher also becomes a part of this movement. I feel that all will be done, only time is needed for fixing the new consciousness.

Very good.

All that you write on this page is entirely sound and accurate; it shows that you are getting the true knowledge. Most in fact of the day’s experiences are signs of the true consciousness coming. The Mother’s consciousness with the wideness of the light, the white light in the vital, the golden light in the silence of the outer mind, the change in the vital, the quiet and natural trust and confidence are all signs and circumstances of this opening to the true consciousness. As you say, there must be established the fixing of this consciousness. The constant openness of part of the mind to the higher light will bring the silence of the whole mind and it is in the silent mind that the true knowledge will come – and indeed it has begun already to come. The change you note in the vital must also continue.

26 March 1930

*

615

I remember that formerly at night I became conscious of the mind rising upward and then I saw many points all around rising up with aspiration, as if each point was aspiring in a different light that was guided by the Mother. Nowadays I think that if there is one aspiration, there will be constant contact.

Yes – one aspiration to live in the Mother’s light and force which bring the true knowledge and the true power. If that aspiration is fulfilled, then all else needed can be fulfilled – all the other lights can be contained in the Divine Light.

17 February 1931

*

616

Today in meditation my entire body opened and spread out infinitely. I felt a slight uneasiness at first, but I could feel the Mother’s force. It carried me deeper and deeper into dense darkness through immense worlds of disgust and depression. Though I felt no peace and joy on this long journey, I continued to walk steadily and swiftly. Someone seemed to say, “Do not be depressed. Walk on, proceed. You have to cross through still darker worlds of disgust and depression, but keep on going.” Along with this experience, I felt a great force. My heart opened wide; peace and profound contentment descended into it and I saw white light playing everywhere. Crossing another dark world, I saw a vibrant golden light. How powerful and beautiful that golden light was! My body, mind and heart were satisfied. I felt a sense of fearlessness. A sadhak’s life is like the life of a warrior. However long the struggle, whatever the obstacles, we will ascend to the Supreme Truth. Is this the right way to observe my problems and difficulties?

Yes, that is the attitude you have to keep. If it is kept, then there will be no disturbance or only a superficial unease. The experience itself was that of the descent of the Mother’s light of Divine Consciousness into domains of being which are ignorant or inconscient and obscure. The Mother herself has descended into these domains and moved through them to bring light there.

10 September 1933

*

617

This morning during my meditation before the Mother, a very tender feeling rose from within me. She was sitting before us with an ocean of compassion and love which she wants to give away unconditionally and without reserve. But we cannot receive it; and instead of reproaching ourselves for our inability, we put the blame on the Mother, pouring our venom on her which she swallows and offers back to us as Amrita in return.

This experience brought me a mixed feeling of peaceful silence, self-reproach and a touch of sadness. It has remained with me all day, but now I apprehend a reaction; for usually my experiences recede, leaving me with depression or emptiness.

What you felt was an opening of the psychic being in your heart and the perceptions that came to you were perfectly true. The reaction you speak of does often come after an experience. But if the depression can be avoided, emptiness does not matter. Up to a certain stage the nature needs after an experience a quiescent period to assimilate experience. One has then not to be depressed but to remain quiet waiting and aspiring for more experience, more opening, a more continuous flow of the truth.

5 September 1934

*

618

Yesterday the whole day I felt an opening far above the head and there the individual Mother became wide and active. I felt the play of various ideas and forces and I felt her assurance that she would manifest in me. But also the intensity led to nervous disturbances. The pressure in my head-nerves was almost unbearable, and even today some disturbance in the physical is there. Is it due to some mistake I have made?

The Mother “manifesting” in you is an ambiguous expression – it is the Mother’s consciousness, the higher consciousness with the light, strength that has to come down in each sadhak, with the Mother’s presence always there. Along with this experience there must have been an attempt at surrender or an initial answer in the lower vital, but as a reaction the nervous disturbance came back – the old lower vital nature not being ready to give up possession reasserted its disturbances which were about to abate.

6 November 1934

*

619

Sometimes when I sit in meditation, I find that instead of myself, the Mother is sitting. Even my body seems to be that. Pray let me know what it means.

Probably you became aware of some part of your being which feels united with the Mother.

24 August 1935

*

620

From the morning I was feeling an intense aspiration to get lost in the Mother’s consciousness. Then I felt my consciousness frequently rising and stationing itself above. Before Pranam I felt as if even the parts near the navel and below were being drawn upwards. After Pranam I experienced for some time a different kind of atmosphere almost concretely around me, so I imagined that the Mother may have put a strong spiritual influence on my subconscient and environmental consciousness.

It is very good. You are right about the subconscient and environmental,– for it is there that the influence must fall so that the consciousness may go upward and spread itself out widely in a free peace, light and joy connecting them down to the subconscient with the higher consciousness. It is then that the loss of the ego in the Mother’s consciousness becomes possible.

25 September 1935

*

621

Over my head I see a plane of infinite and eternal Peace. The Mother is the Queen of this plane. From there I feel a ceaseless flow coming down towards me. It first touches the higher being and then the lower parts. When they are prepared, the Peace or silence descends like a current of water which passes through the Brahmic hole.

That is quite correct. In many however it descends in a mass through the whole head and not in a current through the Brahmic hole.

13 February 1936

*

622

The experience of a concrete presence of the Mother in the photograph and the immediate effect on the health are things of the subtle physical acting on the physical mind and body – such things can happen only when the physical consciousness has begun to open – that is why I said it was a sign. Of course the full effects of the spiritual experiences can only come when the whole consciousness is entirely open and receives and responds to them. The presence of the Mother in all can be felt when one begins to have the widening of the consciousness in which it is not shut up in the personal self and the body but is extended everywhere. That comes usually with the descent of the higher consciousness from above. But one can also feel a beginning of it through the opening of the psychic. Then of course anger and jealousy do not remain – they fall away from the sense of spiritual oneness.

3 May 1936

*

623

X told me that she was in constant touch with the Divine Mother long before she came to Pondicherry. She saw her not only in meditation or vision but before her wide-awake eyes, in a concrete form. She often conversed with her; especially when some difficulty arose, the Mother would come and tell her what to do. If what she says is correct, she must be a very advanced sadhika. How much truth do you find in her experiences and visions?

She has not related them to us. But there is nothing improbable in it. It means simply that she externalised her inner vision and experience so as to see through the physical eyes also, but it was the inner vision that saw and the inner hearing that heard, not the physical sight or hearing. That is common enough. It does not indicate an “advanced” sadhana, whatever that phrase may mean, but only a special faculty.

I have heard that there are people here who feel the Mother’s presence or open directly to her inner knowledge. But this is not the same as seeing her with the physical eyes or having conversations with her.

These things are extremely common among those who practise Yoga everywhere. In the Asram the sadhaks are too intelligent, sceptical and matter of fact to have much of that kind of experience. Even those who might develop it are repressed by the outward-mindedness and physical-mindedness that dominates the atmosphere.

2 July 1936

*

624

The experience you had in your sleep was that of going into the vital world and meeting there one of the hostile vital beings who wished to menace or attack you, but could not attack you because of your call on the Mother. There are two things that must be acquired in these passages through the vital world – first this immediate call on the Mother’s protection and, second, the throwing away of all fear. To those who do not fear them, these beings or forces can do nothing – in any meeting or conflict with them the Mother’s name is a sure protection even if some fear should come.

The other experience was due to your mind dwelling in the state of the Mother’s constant presence and its results. What you say is true, about these results, but it is not easy for the mind or vital or physical consciousness to get or keep the Mother’s conscious presence – it is only the psychic that keeps it easily. So the thought brought down a pressure from above and a concentration within in the heart with a healing there and a pain of the yearning within followed by its sweetness. This pain is that of the psychic sorrow or perhaps rather of the psycho-vital sorrow and yearning – for the psychic sorrow itself is usually sweet and not painful.

2 August 1936

*

625

Nowadays I get an inspiration to see all in the Mother and the Mother in all – to see the Vishwarupa in her as Yashoda saw it in Sri Krishna. Will I ever be able to have this vision?

To see all in the Mother and the Mother in all is a necessary experience in the Yoga. There is no reason why it should not happen.

29 April 1937

*

626

Kindly let me know the significance of my frequently coming to the Mother on the vital plane. I suppose the meeting was sometimes on the supraphysical plane. Did my vital come to the Mother for refreshing its energy, for purification, etc.?

This kind of vital coming to the Mother all the sadhaks have in their sleep and dreams, if they are a little conscious there. Even those who are not sadhaks or others who do not know her come, but they are not aware of it. The vital plane is a supraphysical plane – the vital moves about in its own plane and is not limited by the physical mind or its consciousness or experience.

13 July 1937

*

627

Kindly enlighten me as to what is the object and what the result of my coming to the Mother on the vital plane during sleep or dream.

It may be for any object or without any specific object – there is no rule in such matters.

14 July 1937

*

628

This morning I saw within me a flash of golden light and felt the vivid presence of the Mother. I felt myself to be within her. I felt all to be within me and this “me” was something wider than I as a man.

To have that is very important – to get into something wider than the I as a man – into one’s own cosmic Self and universal consciousness – in the Mother.

Undated

Hearing the Mother’s Voice

629

In the morning at Pranam while putting my head in the Mother’s lap, I heard some voice. I felt it to be the Mother’s. Did she really speak or was it an illusion?

It may have been that the Mother conveyed something to you. At this moment she does not remember.

27 April 1933

*

630

When is one said to be ready to hear the Mother’s voice from within?

When one has equality, discrimination and sufficient Yogic experience – otherwise any voice may be mistaken for the Mother’s.

Can one rely solely upon the voice from within from the beginning?

If it is the Mother’s voice; but you have to be sure of that.

7 July 1933

*

631

Is it true that when one tries to do something which is contrary to the Divine’s Will, the Mother tells him inwardly not to do it?

It is the discriminating mind or the psychic that tells.

Is it true that to hear the Mother’s voice inwardly and to recognise it as hers is not difficult?

No, to hear and recognise the Mother’s voice within is not so easy.

Is one who has gone far on the path able to hear her voice?

There is no rule.

8 July 1933

*

632

In Bases of Yoga one reads: “It is with the Mother who is always with you and in you that you converse.”¹² Could you tell me briefly how a sadhak converses with the Mother?

One hears the voice or the thought speaking inwardly and one answers inwardly. Only it is not always safe for the sadhak if there is any insincerity of ego, desire, vanity, ambition in him – for then he may construct a voice or thought in his mind and ascribe it to the Mother and it will say to him pleasing and flattering things which mislead him. Or he may mistake some other Voice for the Mother’s.

2 July 1936

Visions, Voices and Progress in Sadhana

633

One who can have faith without visions and voices is much farther on the true inner path than one who needs them to have faith.

Visions and voices are not meant for creating faith; they are effective only if one has faith already.

Visions and voices are often indulged in unnecessarily by people. Sometimes they interpret them wrongly or give them too much value. Thus they nourish their egos. But this capacity is by no means a sign of progress.

What do you mean by progress? The Mother spent many years entering the occult worlds and learning all that was to be learnt there. All that time she was making no progress? She sees things always when she goes into trance. Her capacity is a thing of no value? Because a great number of people don’t know how to use these faculties or misuse them or give them excessive value or nourish their ego by them, does it follow that the faculties themselves have no Yogic use or value?

8 July 1936

*

634

When I said, “But this capacity is by no means a sign of progress”, I meant that the capacity by itself is not a sign of spiritual progress. I forgot to write “by itself” and this changed the whole meaning.

Even by itself, it is a progress in the development of the consciousness though it may not carry with it any spiritualisation of the nature.

9 July 1936

*

635

At a certain stage of the sadhana, everybody receives some occult opening or other: visions, voices, subtle smells or touches. I was told that each occult opening helps one, but none of them has helped me in my practical sadhana.

I do not know what you mean by practical sadhana. If one develops the occult faculty and the occult experience and knowledge, these things can be of great use, therefore practical. In themselves they are a proof of opening of the inner consciousness and also help to open it farther – though they are not indispensable for that.

Those who have the faculty of vision may not use it properly or take full advantage of it. Take X. She claims that the Divine Mother comes to her and tells her how to solve her difficulties. But if the Mother ever tried to interfere with those defects and imperfections, I suppose X would not like it.

I don’t suppose she would – the supposition is rather gratuitous and assumes that she is false and insincere. Every sadhak has a good amount of defects and imperfections and the majority of them seem as unable to get rid of them as X.

9 July 1936

The Mother’s Help in Difficulties

Difficulties and the Mother’s Help

636

Not to be disturbed, to remain quiet and confident is the right attitude, but it is necessary also to receive the help of the Mother and not to shrink back for any reason from her solicitude. One ought not to indulge ideas of incapacity, inability to respond, dwelling too much on defects and failures and allowing the mind to be in pain and shame on their account; for these ideas and feelings become in the end weakening things. If there are difficulties, stumblings or failures, one has to look at them quietly and call in tranquilly and persistently the divine help for their removal, but not to allow oneself to be upset or pained or discouraged. Yoga is not an easy path and the total change of the nature cannot be done in a day.

27 May 1931

*

637

Throw aside this weakness. The Mother’s help is there – keep yourself quiet and calm and face the difficulties with the courage a sadhak must have when seeking the Divine.

22 November 1933

*

638

Once one has entered the path of Yoga, there is only one thing to do, to fix oneself in the resolution to go to the end whatever happens, whatever difficulties arise. None really gets the fulfilment in Yoga by his own capacity – it is by the greater Force that stands over you that it will come – and it is the call, persistent through all vicissitudes, to that Force, by which the fulfilment will come. Even when you cannot aspire actively, keep yourself turned to the Mother for the help to come – that is the one thing to do always.

3 January 1934

*

639

X says that while giving us flowers the Mother always says something to us silently about future difficulties, dangers or falls. Is it so?

Mother never thinks of future difficulties, falls or dangers. Her concentration is always on help and uplift, not on difficulty and downfall.

8 January 1934

*

640

All the Mother’s love and help will remain with you unchanged as before. The whole difficulty comes from a vital movement which wants to possess in the wrong way, by comparison with others, instead of living fully in the close relation of your heart and soul with the Mother. It is the same in your relation with X. But this is a defect common in human nature and many here have it. It is not a thing that cannot be removed from the nature. Indeed since your heart and soul want to be free from it, it cannot but go. Do not be discouraged therefore when it returns owing to old habit. With the Mother’s love and help what your heart and soul desire will surely come and the wrong obscuring element disappear.

25 September 1935

*

641

Is it true that the nearer the descent of the Supermind the greater will be the difficulties of those in whom it is to come down?

It is true, unless they are so surrendered to the Mother, so psychic, plastic, free from ego that the difficulties are spared to them.

4 October 1935

*

642

You must not yield to impatience and let it bring thoughts of the old kind that cannot possibly help the working but must impede it. These thoughts that come are not true. Those who left, left because they mingled their own ego with the sadhana – ambition, vanity and other wrong movements – and wanted to use the force that sadhana gave them for these things,– or they had to go because the pull of the old life, family, home, action in the world outside was too strong for them. Also the idea that Mother is leading all others happily along and they are becoming perfect and only you are left out, is the usual delusion that comes when one allows despondency to rise. Almost all have these difficulties to overcome and these difficulties rise again and again till the inner being is sufficiently developed to make them impossible. There is therefore no reason to suppose that others will be able and you will not be able.

The change of the old habitual movements of the nature cannot be done in a single stroke; the inner consciousness has to grow in such a way that finally it occupies the outer being also and renders these things impossible. What I have written to you about these things and the attitude to be taken is the knowledge that we have and the truth of the human nature and of sadhana confirmed by our and by all spiritual experience. It is your outer being that has these reactions and not your inner nature. You have only to trust in the Mother and follow what I say and these difficulties will be worked out of the outer being and return no more; but patience is necessary because it takes time, not in you alone, but in all. Do not allow such thoughts as the idea “what is the use of spiritual experiences, since my nature is not changed” etc., for these are thoughts of the mind’s ignorance. Recover the attitude and the resolution that you had taken and were developing. Keep the will and the faith and in quietude and patience let the Mother work all out in you.

26 March 1936

*

643

Be sure that the Mother will be always with you to carry you upon the path. Difficulties come and difficulties go, but, she being with you, the victory is sure.

18 July 1936

Difficulties and the Mother’s Force

644

What is the means of dealing day by day with difficulties?

Equality, rejection, calling in of the Mother’s force.

1 August 1933

*

645

When difficulties arise, remain quiet within and call down the Mother’s Force to remove them.

26 August 1933

*

646

In my sadhana I have received only what I prayed for. I have yearned greatly for what has come to me. The Divine’s reasonless Mercy is not so important to me as Tapasya, the capacity to open to Him and hold Him. This is my belief.

It was by your personal efforts without guidance that you got into difficulties and into a heated condition in which you could not meditate etc. I asked you to drop the effort and remain quiet and you did so. My intention was that by your remaining quiet, it would be possible for the Mother’s Force to work in you and establish a better starting-point and a course of initial experiences. It was what was beginning to come; but if your mind again becomes active and tries to arrange the sadhana for itself, then disturbances are likely to come. The Divine Guidance works best when the psychic is open and in front (yours was beginning to open), but it can also work even when the sadhak is either not conscious of it or else knows it only by its results.

8 September 1933

*

647

Is there no way for me to follow your path happily? I will not be able to do anything for the Mother in this life, so I simply try to stay away from the defects of previous lives. Why can’t I understand anything? Why can’t the Mother pull me towards her? What is it I feel hurt about and worry about? Can you explain it to me?

All this is of no utility – complainings, questionings etc. of this kind should be put aside. You have to go on quietly, without depression or trouble, receiving the Mother’s forces, allowing them to work, rejecting all that stands in their way, but not troubled by difficulty or defects in yourself or by any delay or slowness in the working.

25 October 1933

*

648

This kind of grief and despondency are the worst obstacles one can raise up in the sadhana – they ought not to be indulged in. What one cannot do oneself one can get done by calling the Mother’s force. To receive that and let it work in you is the true means of success in the sadhana.

1934

*

649

Do not brood over your difficulties. Leave them to the Mother and let her Force work them out of you.

22 March 1935

*

650

In such conditions try to remain as quiet as possible within and, if you cannot call the Mother, think of her and expect the help of the Force.

These attacks are always on the outer part of the consciousness covering up the inner being. One should always try to detach (separate) the inner being and look at the attack as a movement of the surface.

13 June 1935

*

651

We will send you help, so that you may get rid of the obstruction.

Never allow this idea “I am not able” or “I am not doing enough” to come and vex you; it is a tamasic suggestion and brings depression and depression opens the way to the attacks of the wrong forces. Your position should be, “Let me do what I can; the Mother’s Force is there, the Divine is there to see that in due time all will be done.”

4 November 1935

*

652

There has been no letter from you for three nights. Whatever difficulty has come across, keep your faith and reliance on the Mother and lay open whatever opposes from outside or within to the working of the Mother’s Force.

25 March 1936

*

653

Many times I feel hatred towards my own self because I neither have the ability nor the skill in me to do anything. I start doing some work and then leave it undone. I have no perseverance. What is the reason for this?

These come from a certain restlessness in the vital. Most people put a control of the will on these things and try to get rid of them in that way. But they disappear fully only when the inner being is awakened and a new Force (the Mother’s) begins fully to work on the nature.

9 April 1937

*

654

Do not admit these suggestions of despair or impatience. Give time for the Mother’s force to act.

12 June 1937

*

655

Whatever difficulties still remain, be sure that they will be surmounted. There is no need for the outer being to be nervous – the Mother’s Force and the devotion within you will be sufficient to overcome all that stands in the way.

Undated

Difficulties and the Mother’s Grace

656

You must throw all that away. Such depression can only make you shut to what Mother is giving you. There is absolutely no good reason for such an attitude. The existence of difficulties is a known thing in the Yoga. That is no reason for questioning the final victory or the effectivity of the Divine Grace.

4 February 1933

*

657

Can it be believed that the Mother’s Grace is acting even when the difficulties do not disappear?

In that case everybody might say that all my difficulties must disappear at once, I must attain to perfection immediately and without difficulties, otherwise it proves that the Mother’s Grace is not with me.

20 July 1933

*

658

You should not yield to sorrow or despair – there is no reason why you should. The Mother’s grace has not been withdrawn from you for a moment. Do not allow the attacks of others to shake you like this – you know well the motives from which they act – and for the rest they are not going to pursue any farther the course which a fit of passion dictated to them. The protection will be with you and you need not fear or sorrow any longer. Put your trust in the Divine and shake off all this like a nightmare that has passed. Believe that our love and grace are with you.

Undated

Turning to the Mother for Help

659

It is the physical mind that feels too inert – but if some part of the being turns to the Mother, that is enough to bring the help.

25 January 1934

*

660

I feel a sense of tiredness, depression, sadness, but all the same I stick to you. I am quiet sometimes, but still feel sad. What should I do?

Remain firm and turned in the one direction – towards the Mother.

The sense of sadness and depression does not want to go – it comes and goes as it likes. Tell me what to do.

When the habit of these moods (depression or revolt) has been formed, they cannot be got rid of at once. There are three ways of doing it – (1) to strengthen your own will, so that nothing can come or stay as it likes but only as you like; (2) to think of something else, plunge the mind in some healthy activity; (3) to turn to the Mother and call in her force. One can do any of these or all, but even in doing them, it will take a little time to get rid of the habit.

1934

*

661

If meditation brings a headache, you should not meditate. It is a mistake to think that meditation is indispensable to the sadhana. There are so many who do not do it, but they are near to the Mother and progress as well as those who have long meditations.

The one thing necessary is to be turned to the Mother and that is all that is needed. Do not fear or be sad, but let the Mother do quietly her work in you and through you and all will be well.

16 March 1935

Personal Effort and the Mother’s Help

662

The Mother’s help is always there for those who are willing to receive it. But you must be conscious of your vital nature, and the vital nature must consent to change. It is no use merely observing that it is unwilling and that, when thwarted, it creates depression in you. Always the vital nature is not at first willing and always when it is thwarted or asked to change, it creates this depression by its revolt or refusal of consent. You have to insist till it recognises the truth and is willing to be transformed and to accept the Mother’s help and grace. If the mind is sincere and the psychic aspiration complete and true, the vital can always be made to change.

15 July 1932

*

663

As for the feeling of people that there must be something bad in you, it does not arise merely from your relations with X. The Mother and I do not speak of “good” and “bad” in this way; we look only at what helps or hinders the sadhana. There is nothing in you that is not in many other sadhaks. What makes people hesitate to help you is your subjection to vital moods – all this weeping, self-starvation, uncertain temper; your unsteadiness – for today you accept help, tomorrow you reject it; your want of trust in others – which you have often expressed in your letters; your quickness to take offence, your readiness to suspect people’s motives, especially in their behaviour towards you. Others have these faults, but they try to control them. You, when a mood like these comes upon you, seem to yield to it and let it have free course.

If you want to get on in your sadhana and if you want people to feel comfortable with you and ready to help you, you must get rid of these vital moods and defects – you must put a control on yourself and try to change. The Mother’s Force is there to help you, but there must be your active consent and cooperation, your own steady will and endeavour.

1 November 1933

*

664

I cannot do anything myself so long as the inertia in me is so strong. May I ask, what does the Mother mean to do with the inertia in me?

If Mother’s “doing” with the inertia were sufficient, it would have been done long ago and also the supramental down in you. The question is not what the Mother is going to do with it but what you are going to do with it.

29 November 1936

*

665

These ideas are wrong suggestions that you must throw away. There is no reason why you should be able to do nothing in this life or all should be postponed to another. It is in this life that you have been called and are to reach the Divine. The Mother has not left you to yourself. But I think it is advisable that you should spend some time daily in concentration to keep the conscious connection and also write more often; if not every day, yet every second or third day.

17 December 1936

*

666

It is not that I want you to do all by your own strength; the Mother’s force is there. I should like you however to persist in meditation and the endeavour to be quiet within; even if at present there is no definite self-understanding or experience, this is the way to open the nature to them; we will try to do the rest for you.

20 December 1936

Opening to the Mother in Difficulty

667

There is nothing wrong in your experience or insincere in your expression of it; to write is helpful and it is our wish that you should go on doing it. An occasional sinking of the consciousness happens to everybody. The causes are various, some touch from outside, something not yet changed or not sufficiently changed in the vital, especially the lower vital, some inertia or obscurity rising up from the physical parts of nature. When it comes, remain quiet, open yourself to the Mother and call back the true condition, and aspire for a clear and undisturbed discrimination showing you from within yourself the cause or the thing that needs to be set right.

4 March 1932

*

668

The attack of darkness is over, but my body is still restless and my consciousness troubled. I have lost connection with your peace, the peace that used to make the feelings quiet and the body restful. But I can still aspire and I am hopeful to get back your touch again.

However strong the attack may be and even if it overcomes for the time being, still it will rapidly pass away if you have formed the habit of opening to the Mother. The peace will come back, if you remain quiet and keep yourself open to it and to the Force. Once something of the Truth has shown itself within you, it will always, even if for a time heavily clouded over with wrong movements, shine out again like the sun in heaven. Therefore persevere with confidence and never lose courage.

14 March 1932

*

669

You should not allow yourself to get upset by these small things. If when the movements you complain of come, you remain quiet and open to the Mother and call her, after a time you will find a change beginning to come in you. Meditation is not enough; think of the Mother and offer your work and action to her, that will help you better.

7 April 1932

*

670

The play of the mental and vital defects in the human nature which belongs to the Ignorance is allowed – as also the attacks and suggestions of the Asuric forces – so long as there is anything in the nature which responds to these things. If they rise in you in the presence of the Mother, it is because then a strong pressure is put on them so that they have either to go out or to put up a fight for existence. The remedy is to open to the Mother only and to reject entirely and at all times all other forces, and to reject them most when they become most active. Faith, sincerity, perseverance will do the rest.

16 November 1932

*

671

Yesterday I prayed, “O Divine Mother, how can I realise that I am always guided by Thee and that Thy presence is in all things and everywhere. I pray that I may love Thee and be Thy child and an instrument for Thy work.”

Yes. The more one is open to the Mother’s action, the more easily difficulties get solved and the right thing is done.

21 September 1934

The Mother’s Protection

672

The Mother puts her protection round all the sadhakas, but if by their own act or attitude they go out of the circle of the protection there may be undesirable consequences.

1 April 1933

*

673

I think that one observes the rules here either because one feels it is for one’s spiritual good or because it is better, for love of the Mother, not to do otherwise and thus go out of her protection.

It is precisely that – one immediately goes out of the protection.

8 June 1933

*

674

I was invited by friends to go to a restaurant and accepted. Later I learned that you were opposed to the idea. What should we – those of us who live outside the Asram – do?

The Mother has made an arrangement with a view to all the occult forces and the best possible conditions for the protection of the sadhaks from certain forces of death and disease etc. It cannot work perfectly because the sadhaks themselves have not the right attitude towards food and kindred vital-physical things. But still there is a protection. If however the sadhaks go outside her formation, it must be on their own responsibility – the Mother does not and cannot sanction it. But this arrangement is for the Asram and not for those who are outside.

14 July 1933

*

675

When the Mother’s protection is put around a person, how does he go out of it?

By desire, wrong thoughts, wrong actions, wrong feelings – by revolt, pride, ambition, lust or any other vital indulgence.

16 July 1933

*

676

Last night I dreamt that in my native village I entered a house where a madman came to attack me. Being afraid of the madman, I ran away for I have always been afraid of madmen, especially violent ones. My movement was slow, but along the way I found a stick and got rid of the attacker.

It was a dream of the vital plane where all kinds of dangers occur until you get courage to face them. If there is no fear or if there is the protection of the Mother (which becomes manifest by remembering or calling her) then these dangers come to nothing. It is the fear of madmen that brought the thing in the vital; such things as this fear have to be thrown out of the nature.

8 September 1933

*

677

All would like the Mother’s protection to remain with them; but perhaps certain conditions have to be fulfilled to allow her to encircle them fully?

There are very few who allow it. There is a general protection around all, but most go out of it by their attitude, thoughts or actions or open the way to other forces.

24 August 1934

*

678

If a sadhak has the Mother’s circle of protection around him, I don’t think he will have gloom, depression, doubt or anything hostile to the Divine.

These things may try to come but they will not be able to enter or stay.

24 August 1934

*

679

Yesterday I went with X and Y for an outing. We bought plantains from the market and ate them. After our return I began to feel out of sorts and by the time of meditation the body appeared to be weak and a little feverish. Was my going out and eating plantains inadvisable?

It is better to let the Mother know when you go far out like that so that it may be with her protection that you go. The eating of plantains from the bazaar was indeed a mistake – Mother has several times warned against it and X knows that. The body often becomes sensitive at a certain stage of the Yoga, but there should at the same time be the development of a higher Force which will protect and push back all attacks upon it.

1934

*

680

These things that come to frighten you are merely impressions thrown on you by small vital forces which want to prevent you (by making you nervous) pushing on in sadhana. They can really do nothing to you, only you must reject all fear. Keep always this thought when these things come: “The Mother’s protection is with me, nothing bad can happen”; for when there is the psychic opening and one puts one’s faith in the Mother, that is sufficient to ward these things off. Many sadhaks learn, when they have alarming dreams, to call the Mother’s name in the dream itself and then the things that menace them become helpless or cease. You must therefore refuse to be intimidated and reject these impressions with contempt. If there is anything frightening, call down the Mother’s protection.

The heat you felt was probably due to some difficulty in the force coming down below the centre between the eyes where it has been working up till now. When such sensations or the unease you once felt or similar things come, you must not be alarmed, but remain quiet and let the difficulty pass.

What you had before that, the moonlight in the forehead, was this working in the centre there between the eyebrows, the centre of the inner mind, will and vision. The moonlight you saw is the light of spirituality and it was this that was entering into your mind through the centre, with the effect of the widening in the heart like a sky filled with moonlight. Afterwards came some endeavour to prepare the lower part of the mind whose centre is in the throat and join it with the inner mind and make it open; but there was some difficulty, as is very usually the case, which caused the heat. It was probably the fire of tapas, Agni, trying to open the way to this centre.

The experience of being taken up into the sky is a very common one and it means an ascent of the consciousness into a higher world of light and peace.

The idea that you must go more and more within and turn wholly to the Mother is quite right. It is when there is no attachment to outward things for their own sake and all is only for the Mother and the life through the inner psychic being is centred in her that the best condition is created for the spiritual realisation.

11 November 1935

*

681

Fear in these experiences is a thing one must get rid of; if there is any danger, a call to the Mother is sufficient, but in reality there is none – for the protection is there.

29 November 1935

*

682

This morning around eight o’clock I heard a great crash. I ran out and found our X sitting on the footpath with blood coming out of the wound on his forehead. The wheels of his cycle were under the wheel of a car. Could the Mother not have foreseen the possibility of this accident and prevented it? Or could it not be prevented because X had in some manner gone out of the zone of her protection?

It was not possible to prevent the accident. When the danger comes, a call to the Mother is the first thing to be done, that makes the general protection at once effective. X was in too externalised a state to do that and he did the very opposite thing to what should have been done – trying to get away in front of the car instead of behind it. But the true cause was something more internal – one of those choices made by the inner being (not necessarily known to the conscious mind) which bring these things as a response.

27 January 1936

*

683

The experience you had of the power of the Name and the protection is that of everyone who has used it with the same faith and reliance. To those who call from the heart for the protection, it cannot fail. Do not allow any outward circumstance to shake the faith in you; for nothing gives greater strength than this faith to go through and arrive at the goal. Knowledge and tapasya, whatever their force, have a less sustaining power – faith is the strongest staff for the journey.

The protection is there over you and the watchful love of the Mother. Rely upon it and let your being open more and more to it – then it will repel attacks and always uphold you.

8 October 1936

*

684

It is not because the Mother has withdrawn her protection – she has not done that. It is more likely that it [the difficulty] came because you have been going too much out of your inner being and externalising yourself. It is better to draw back within again and recover the inner calm and peace.

Undated

Calling the Mother in Difficulty

685

Why this bad feeling? I am feeling all bad today.

When in difficulties always remain as quiet within as possible and call the Mother.

Surely the Mother’s force is there to transform you and it will prevail.

You must progress to a point at which there is always something within which in spite of any surface disturbance is always quiet, unshaken, holding on to the Mother – then these things will no longer be able to cloud the inner consciousness as now.

Undated

*

686

Plenty of people have this condition (it is human nature) and there is naturally a way of coming out of it – having full faith in the Mother to quiet the inner mind (even if the outer continues to be troublesome) and call in it the Mother’s Peace and Force, which is always there above you, into the Adhar. Once that is there, consciously, to keep yourself open to it and let it go on working with a full adhesion, with a constant support of your consent, with a constant rejection of all that is not that, till all the inner being is tranquillised and filled with the Mother’s Force, Peace, Joy, Presence – then the outer nature will be obliged to follow suit in its turn.

8 May 1933

*

687

In a dream I saw a dull painting with an expanse of water in the background, and in the centre a temple with trees in front. As I was looking at it, I went on calling the Mother and the painting began changing – the waters actually began to move and white light was falling on them here and there until the whole picture was sparkling like silver. Then I woke up. Does this mean that some light will come into the obscurity in me?

Yes, it is a symbol,– the expanse of water means the ordinary outward consciousness which is obscure and dull, the temple is the psychic centre behind it. By calling the Mother her white light comes upon the dark consciousness and begins to change the darkness into lustre.

27 May 1933

*

688

For about a month I have the feeling that devotion, love and aspiration for the Divine have disappeared from me. I feel this way even during the morning pranam. Mother, I pray to Thee to shower Thy Grace and inspire me to have devotion, love and aspiration for Thee once again. What may be the reason for this?

You may have allowed your consciousness to go too much outward and get taken up by ordinary things. It is usually when the outer physical consciousness covers up the inner being that this happens. The aspiration is not gone, but it no longer rises to the surface. If you remain very quiet inwardly and call to the Mother, it should come back.

13 July 1933

*

689

When I awoke this morning, I found the atmosphere surcharged with the Mother’s presence. The air around me, the cot on which I lay, everything was filled with her presence. A burning aspiration was in my heart. The consciousness there was aspiring intensely, flapping its wings like a caged bird, trying to leave the body and unite with the Mother present everywhere. After some time it seemed to me that although I was in the body I was free, free of every limitation, but helpless, strengthless, drifting away and exposed to the hostile forces. Then I saw the red, rolling, frowning eyes of X, threatening me. Helpless in this limitless space, I called the Mother and the atmosphere was clear.

What happened in your experience was that the vital being got free from the body through its desire to unite with the Mother (you met the Mother on the border between the vital and physical) and lived with its own life independent of the body. It entered into the vital world and, not being sheltered any longer in the body, felt helpless at first, till it called the Mother. The appearance of X there might possibly have been some part of the vital of X himself, but was more probably a vital being in his shape, perhaps the very vital being who has been troubling him. When you go into the vital world, you meet many such things,– the one sufficient protection is to call the Mother.

7 September 1933

*

690

This morning after pranam I felt a sudden uprush of impatience, restlessness, uneasiness and a quick, strong beating of the pulse. Confusion was there too. I sat down and after a long time the dark forces began to grow less, bringing a normal state again. My pulse also became normal. Is it due to the Mother’s action? Have I been able to make some place for her in the lower parts of my being?

It is the forces of the Ignorance that begin to lay siege and then make a mass attack. Every time such an attack can be defeated and cast out, there is a clearance in the Adhar, a new field gained for the Mother in the mind, vital or physical or the adjacent parts of the being. That the place in the vital occupied by the Mother is increasing is shown by the fact that you are now offering a strong resistance to these sieges that used formerly to overpower you altogether.

In the afternoon all my problems started coming to the front. I felt that they had become too big a burden for me to bear. Then I felt an opening in the heart, and I opened up a conversation with the Mother. I told her all my joys and sorrows and I got some consolation and strength.

That is good. To be able to call the Mother’s presence or force at such times is the best way to meet the difficulty.

Was all this mere imagination of the heart and mind? Was I in touch with Mother? Did she hear the language of my heart?

It is with the Mother who is always with you and in you that you converse. The only thing is to hear aright, so that no other voice can come in between.

7 December 1933

*

691

To call to the Mother always is the main thing and with that to aspire and assent to the Light when it comes, to reject and detach oneself from desire and any dark movement. But if one cannot do these other things successfully, then call and still call.

The Mother’s force is there with you even when you do not feel it; remain quiet and persevere.

15 September 1934

*

692

When X complained to me about her difficulty, I told her that it could be removed by calling the Mother’s help. But she argued that there was no hope for the calls of a newcomer like herself to be heard by the Mother. There were so many calls coming from the older and advanced sadhaks that fresh calls from a beginner like herself would be but calls in the wilderness and go unheard in that clamour. I replied that if the Mother does not come in answer to our calls she must have her reasons; possibly she has more important work to do than to act according to our bidding. Why should we insist that she should leave that work and attend to us? The Mother has never been known to fail in answering when a real call is sent to her straight from the heart, for the very force in the call presupposes her presence. When I told this to X , I felt a strong pressure and vibrations from the centre of my forehead downwards between the eyebrows. What is the reason for this?

X ’s reasonings are not very sound; yours are better if not altogether flawless. The Mother is not limited by the physical mind, so even if she has “more important” work to do, that would not in the least stand in the way of her listening to a call from the wilderness or anywhere else. Also spiritual things do not go by seniority; so why should the clamour of “older cases” keep her? She can be and is with all who need her. So your “Mother does not come? will not come?” is not quite to the point, but the rest of your answer is. Mother is there even now and working in you, it is only your inner vision and feeling that are not opened so that you cannot see or feel her.

What came down to the centre of the forehead was the answer, let us say the touch of the Mother’s presence,– her consciousness, her force working in you to open the centre of the inner vision. For in the centre of the forehead between the eyebrows is the centre of the inner mind, inner will, the inner vision and when that opens one begins to see and know what is to the physical eye invisible and to the surface mind unknowable.

11 October 1935

*

693

It is an obsession from the subconscient physical bringing back habitual thoughts, “I can’t call rightly – I have no real aspiration” etc.; the depression, the memory etc. are from the same source. It is no use indulging in these ideas. If you cannot call the Mother in what you think the right way, call her in any way – if you can’t call her, think of her with the will to be rid of these things. Don’t worry yourself with the idea whether you have true aspiration or not – the psychic being wants and that is sufficient. The rest is the Divine Grace, on which one must steadfastly rely – one’s own merit, virtue or capacity is not the thing that brings the realisation.

I shall put the force to rid you of this obsession in any case, but if you can abandon these habitual ideas, it will make the disappearance of the attack easier.

4 January 1937

*

694

It is always best in these difficulties to tell the Mother and call for her help. It is probably something in the vital that needs somebody to protect and care for – but you must accustom yourself to the idea that it is not needed and the best thing is to give the person to the care of the Mother – offer the object of your affection to her.

15 January 1937

*

695

As to the experience, certainly X ’s call for help did reach the Mother, even though all the details she relates in her letter might not have been present to the Mother’s physical mind. Always calls of this kind are coming to the Mother, sometimes a hundred close upon each other and always the answer is given. The occasions are of all kinds, but whatever the need that occasions the call, the Force is there to answer it. That is the principle of this action on the occult plane. It is not of the same kind as an ordinary human action and does not need a written or oral communication from the one who calls; an interchange of psychic communication is quite sufficient to set the Force at work. At the same time it is not an impersonal Force and the suggestion of a divine energy that is there ready to answer and satisfy anybody who calls it is not at all relevant here. It is something personal to the Mother and if she had not this power and this kind of action she would not be able to do her work; but this is quite different from the outside practical working on the material plane where the methods must necessarily be different, although the occult working and the material working can and do join and the occult power give to the material working its utmost efficacy. As for the one who is helped not feeling the force at work, his knowing might help very substantially the effective working, but it need not be indispensable; the effect can be there even if he does not know how the thing is done. For instance, in your work in Calcutta and elsewhere my help has been always with you and I do not think it can be said that it was ineffective; but it was of the same occult nature and could have had the same effect even if you had not been conscious in some way that my help was with you.

24 March 1949

Praying to the Mother

696

You say, “When one is a sadhak the prayer should be for the inner things belonging to the sadhana and for outer things only so far as they are necessary for that and for the Divine work.” This latter portion about prayer for outer things is not clear to me. Can you kindly explain?

All depends on whether the outer things are sought for one’s own convenience, pleasure, profit etc., or as part of the spiritual life, necessary for the success of the work, the development and fitness of the instruments etc. It is a question mainly of inner attitude. If for instance you pray for money for buying nice food to please the palate, that is not a proper prayer for a sadhak; if you pray for money to give to the Mother and help her work, then it is legitimate.

I quote several types of prayers which I offer and shall be grateful to know which of them are outer or inner, right or wrong, helpful or hindrance, or what amendment to them can make them pure: 1. In the night-time when I sit to read and an untimely attack of sleep comes, I pray to the Mother to be freed from the attack.

If your reading is part of the sadhana, that is all right.

2. When I go to sleep, I pray to the Mother for her Force to take over my sadhana during the sleep, to make my sleep conscious and luminous, to protect me during the sleep, to keep me conscious of the Mother. 3. When I wake up any time in the sleep, I pray to the Mother to be with me and protect me.

These two are part of the sadhana.

4. While going out for a walk and during it, I pray to the Mother to give me force to take more exercise and to gain more strength and health and I thank the Mother for the help.

If strength and health are requested as being necessary for the sadhana and the development of the perfection of the instrument it is all right.

5. When I see any dog on the way while walking, I at once pray to the Mother to protect me from its attack and remove my fear.

A call for protection is always permissible. The removal of fear is part of the sadhana.

6. When I go for food, I pray for the Mother’s Force to help me to offer every morsel to the Mother, to get everything easily digested, to make a growth of complete equality and detachment in my consciousness enabling me to take any food with equal Rasa of universal Ananda without any insistence or seeking or greed or desire.

This is again part of the sadhana.

7. When I go for work, I pray for the Mother’s Force to take over my work, help me and make me do it well and carefully with love, devotion and pleasure, with the remembrance of the Mother and the feeling of being supported and helped by her without ego or desire.

This also.

8. During the work also when there is a pause, I pray for force, help and constant remembrance.

This also.

9. When any bad or impure thought, seeing or sensation comes into me, I pray for its removal and purity.

This also.

10. When I am reading, I try to pray when possible to understand all quickly, to grasp and absorb completely.

If it is as sadhana or for the development of the instrument, it is all right.

11. When I commit any mistake in the work, I pray to be more conscious, alert and unerring.

This also is part of the sadhana.

12. When I go to the post office to register a parcel of Prasad to my friend, I pray to have the parcel accepted immediately and avoid any delay.

That can be done, if avoidance of waste of time is considered as part of the right regulation of the life of sadhana.

13. When I sit down for meditation, I pray for Mother’s Force to take over my meditation and make it deep, steady, concentrated and free from all attacks of troubling thoughts, vital restlessness, etc.

This is part of the sadhana.

14. In depression, difficulty, wrong suggestions, doubt, inertia, on any occasion or happening I pray to the Mother to have courage, keep faith, face them and overcome them.

This also.

15. At all other times as far as I can, I pray to the Mother to fill me with her peace, power, light etc., or offer any other kind of required prayer, and thank her for supporting, strengthening and sustaining me.

This also.

16 September 1938

The Mother’s Help and the Hostile Forces

697

There are times when I think myself to be a simple vessel and imagine that things coming from the outside have no importance, for the adhar can be purified and what is not wanted can either be thrown out or allowed to end in a natural way. But at other times I feel that every outside contact may have harmful effects, and care and tapasya are needed to avoid confusion. I want to know which view is correct.

It is not possible to make a fixed rule covering all cases and circumstances; sometimes one has to remain quiet waiting for the Mother’s light and force to act, sometimes it is necessary to use an active tapasya. But one thing is always necessary, to refuse to accept the adverse forces and suggestions that try to disorganise and disturb the system; for the basis of the Yoga must be peace, quiet, clarity, self-possession and nothing should be allowed to invade and upset the basis and substitute confusion and disorder.

13 September 1931

*

698

It might be charitable to warnX not to listen to imbecile remarks [about the Mother] of this kind, from whomsoever they may come, and, if he hears them, to do nothing to propagate them. He had been progressing extremely well because he opened himself to the Mother; but if he allows stupidities like that to enter his mind, it may influence him, close him to the Mother and stop his progress.

As for Y, if he said and thought a thing like that, it explains why he has been suffering in health so much lately. If one makes oneself a mouthpiece of the hostile forces and lends oneself to their falsehoods, it is not surprising that something in him should get out of order.

7 January 1932

*

699

I see now the damage I have done by my disobedience in work. I must go about my work consciously, performing it as a service to the Mother. I must work with full concentration and feel a connection with the Mother.

The difficulty this time must have come from this very act of distrust and disobedience. For distrust and disobedience are like falsehood (they are themselves a falsity, based on false ideas and impulses),– they interfere in the action of the Power, prevent it from being felt or working fully and diminish the force of the Protection. It was the same thing that made you lose touch for a while – for the adverse vital Formation always makes use of these wrong movements to cloud the consciousness. Not only in your inward concentration, but in your outward acts and movements you must take the right attitude. If you do that and put everything under the Mother’s guidance, you will find that difficulties begin to diminish or are much more easily got over and things become steadily smoother.

Now that these things have happened you should learn from them and feel the necessity of being, as you say, conscious in your work. In your work and acts you must do the same as in your concentration. Open to the Mother, put them under her guidance, call in the peace, the supporting Power, the protection and, in order that they may work, reject all wrong influences that might come in their way by creating wrong, careless or unconscious movements.

Follow this principle and your whole being will become one, under one rule, in the peace and sheltering Power and Light.

17 March 1932

*

700

At 4.30 in the afternoon, while serving vegetables in the Dining Room, I suddenly fell into a very unhappy condition. My consciousness entered into a world of obscurity and uneasiness and wild vital forces. Innumerable hostile suggestions pierced my helpless consciousness. Then the form of X appeared and he threatened me, saying that my fate would be the same as his – I would have to leave the Asram. Later, while in this condition I passed by Y’s room and felt that the Mahakali forces of the Mother were around me; I also felt that her very name would create fear in the hostile forces. As I thought of her with feeling, suddenly all was clear.

It is the Force that attacks everyone in the Asram who can at all be attacked in this way – the X form is merely an appearance which it took for the sake of having a more concrete effect. It is a vital violence which suggests always a catastrophic breaking of the personal sadhana or of my work. Such a Force is naturally met by the power of Mahakali. You felt it while passing Y’s room because it is always there with Y, and it is by that that he meets the suggestions of this Force when it comes. The Mother’s name called with faith is usually enough to meet it. It disappeared at once because it is a Falsehood which cannot stand once the light of the Truth touches it. It prevailed with X because he welcomed its suggestions of pride, revolt, hostility to the Mother, even clung to them – otherwise it would have had no chance.

2 October 1933

*

701

This hostile force is still trying to attack me and it also wants to harm you and the Mother. When I utter your name and Mother’s name, it tries to finish me and make wrong impressions about Mother and turn me against her. Why is it still troubling me?

This Force is one that is there to break the Yoga if it can – it is not only you it attacks but all who do the sadhana. It hates the Mother and myself because we bring the Light into the consciousness of the physical world and it wants to keep the physical world in darkness. It knows that the only way it can succeed in preventing the success of the sadhak in his sadhana is, first, by turning him against the Mother, or, if it cannot do that, by persuading him that he is unfit and so disturbing him that he gets upset and loses faith and courage. What you have to do is always to remain calm and call in the Mother’s force and to refuse steadily all the suggestions whether against yourself or against the Mother. Preserve your calm always, keep an entire faith in the Mother and in your own spiritual destiny. Reply always that whatever it may say, you are the Mother’s child and cannot fail in the sadhana.

5 November 1933

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702

These suggestions are what we call hostile suggestions – they come from a Force which is wandering about in the atmosphere trying to do harm to the sadhana. Its suggestions are always the same, to whomever they come – the suggestion of going away, the suggestion of unfitness and failure, this suggestion of madness, and a certain fixed number of others with the same purpose. There is only one thing to do with them – never to listen to them; one must reply as you have done and dismiss them summarily from the consciousness. If one takes this simple stand, “I have come for the Yoga – I will allow nothing to divert me from my aim; I have the demand of the soul within and the help and protection of the Mother”, then these things can no longer approach or approach in vain.

I am glad you have the aspiration and the push awake; it is always bound to revive after every interval and to carry you farther. Keep it and progress.

17 March 1934

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703

A few sadhaks here are supposed to be using the occult process. But when it is done to harm a fellow sadhak, is this not an egoistic use of occult power, more like the use of black magic? I told X that when occult power is used, without asking Mother, to satisfy one’s like or dislike, a clash may occur on the vital plane and some disembodied being there may give a dangerous hit. He said it is not really like this – rather it happens naturally as the result of a play of forces on the vital plane.

It is obviously a wholly Asuric thing to do when it is turned to egoistic purposes or against fellow sadhaks. It is certainly not a natural play of forces over which one has no control. Anybody doing that may get a serious back-blow, especially if it is done against people protected by the Mother – for, knocking against a wall of protection the force put out may automatically recoil on the sender.

10 September 1934

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704

It will not do to yield to these attacks which are without reason and obviously are only waves from outside. You should recognise them as such, things not your own but forced on you by a Force from outside and when they come remain still, reject and call the Mother’s force to liberate you.

15 July 1936

Natural Disasters, Adverse Forces and the Mother’s Help

705

Is it true that earthquakes are inevitable phenomena in the process of the Divine Manifestation on the earth and the transformation of matter?

Not at all. The method of the Divine Manifestation is through calm and harmony, not through a catastrophic upheaval. The latter is the sign of a struggle, generally of conflicting vital forces, but at any rate a struggle on the inferior plane.

Have I been kept here, outside the Asram, so that I can, by constant surrender to the Mother, rise above the difficulties of this environment and control the adverse forces that now touch and move and affect my lower nature?

You think too much of adverse forces. That kind of preoccupation causes much unnecessary struggle. Fix your mind on the positive side – open to the Mother’s power, concentrate on her protection, call for light, calm and peace and purity and growth into the divine consciousness and knowledge.

Am I right in thinking that every bad movement in my life is the result of my past karma and takes place with the sanction of the Mother because she is testing me at every moment?

This idea of tests also is not a healthy idea and ought not to be pushed too far. Tests are applied not by the Divine but by the forces of the lower planes – mental, vital, physical – and allowed by the Divine because that is part of the soul’s training and helps it to know itself, its powers and the limitations it has to outgrow. The Mother is not testing you at every moment, but rather helping you at every moment to rise beyond the necessity of tests and difficulties which belong to the inferior consciousness. To be always conscious of that help will be your best safeguard against all attacks whether of adverse powers or of your own lower nature.

23 February 1931

Helping Others and the Mother’s Help

706

The best way to help X is to assist her by your own example and atmosphere to get the right attitude. Instead of the sense that she is very ill, she should be encouraged to have a bright and confident feeling, open to receive strength and health from us, contributing by her own faith to a speedy recovery. These ideas that they do not see the Mother, are outside the atmosphere, at a distance, are just the wrong notions and most likely to come in the way of and block your sisters’ receptivity; it is surprising that you should accept or echo them and not react against them at once. They are here in the Asram (a little nearer or farther makes no difference), in the Mother’s presence and atmosphere; meeting her every day at the Pranam where everyone who is open can receive as much of her touch and her help as they can hold,– that is what they should feel and make the most of their opportunity and not waste it by a negative attitude.

For yourself what you must have with other sadhaks (including your sisters) is a harmonious relation free from any vital attachment (indifference is not asked from you) and free from any indulgence in wrong vital movements of the opposite kind (such as dislike, jealousy or ill-will). It is through the psychic consciousness that you have found it possible to be in a true constant relation with the Mother and your aim is to make that the basis of all your life, action and feelings; all in you, all you feel, say and do should be consistent with that basis. If all proceeds from that psychic union of your consciousness with the Mother’s, dedicating everything to her, then you will develop the right relations with others.

10 February 1932

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707

To think one can help others is a defect in the sadhana. How can one help others who is himself full of imperfection, falsehood and darkness? Those who really assist others must turn themselves into channels through which the Mother can act. Otherwise it is just vital ego trying to show others that one can “help”.

Quite right. One can be a channel for the Mother’s help, but the idea of oneself helping others comes in the way and so long as it is there one cannot be a truly effective channel.

17 April 1935

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708

I believe that I cannot really help others or rightly influence them. Am I right in this?

One can help another truly only when it is the Mother that helps through him and he is aware of it and does not think that it is he who is helping.

6 May 1935

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709

I have observed that someone with a sensitive disposition becomes very prone to the easy admission of forces from the vital world or from persons who are full of lower vital desires, especially when the sensitive person has a highly sympathetic attitude which manifests in nursing others or trying to save others, in lavishing emotional pity, in philanthropy, etc.

That is very interesting – for it agrees with the Mother’s constant insistence that to feel sympathy or any emotion of the weak philanthropic kind with those possessed by vital forces is most dangerous as it may bring an attack upon oneself which may take any form. One must do what is to be done but abstain from all such weakness.

11 October 1936

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710

Mother does not set much value on propaganda, but still work of that kind can be her work. Only it has to come from her impulsion, be done with quietude, with measure, in the way she wants it to be done. It is from the inner being that it should be done in union with the Mother’s will, not from the vital mind’s eager impulse. To concentrate most on one’s own spiritual growth and experience is the first necessity of the sadhak – to be eager to help others draws away from the inner work. To grow in the spirit is the greatest help one can give to others, for then something flows out naturally to those around that helps them.

9 April 1937

The Mother’s Help in Worldly Matters

711

The Mother does not usually give specific advice such as you ask for in regard to the Insurance company. You must learn to get the true inspiration in the mind’s silence.

18 August 1932

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712

X has written me a letter and asked something which I have marked for you to read. Kindly tell me what to answer her.

It is not possible for the Mother to promise to give help in worldly matters. She intervenes only in special cases. There are some of course who by their openness and their faith get her help in any worldly difficulty or trouble but that is a different thing. They simply remember or call the Mother and in due time some result comes.

9 October 1935

¹ Written by Sri Aurobindo to his secretary, who replied to the enquirer. – Ed.

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² Written by Sri Aurobindo to his secretary, who replied to the enquirer. – Ed.

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³ This message of Sri Aurobindo was first hung in the dining hall of the Ashram on 28 March 1928. – Ed.

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⁴ See letter of 8 July 1935 above. – Ed.

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⁵ “As long as my psychic being is not awakened.” – Ed.

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⁶ Written by Sri Aurobindo to his secretary, who replied to the enquirer. – Ed.

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⁷ See letter of 5 June 1936 on pages 118 – 19. – Ed.

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⁸ The Mother,“ Conversations 1929 – 1931” (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2003 ), p. 11.

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⁹ Paul Brunton, “A Search in Secret India” (London: Rider & Company, [1934] 1943), p. 156. The quotation is a paraphrase of Ramana Maharshi’s words by Brunton. – Ed.

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¹⁰ There is a steady drawing of the Force possible which is not what I mean by pulling – drawing of the Force is quite common and helpful.

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¹¹ Written by Sri Aurobindo to his secretary, who replied to the enquirer. – Ed.

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¹² See the letter of 7 December 1933 on pages 311 – 12. That letter was published, in a revised form, in “Bases of Yoga” in 1936. – Ed.

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