SRI AUROBINDO
The Mother
with Letters on the Mother
Section Five
On Three Works of the Mother
On Prières et Méditations de la Mère
General Comments on the Mother’s Prières1
1286
There are some prayers of the Mother written before she came here in 1914 in which there are ideas of transformation and manifestation. Did she have these ideas long before she came here?
The Mother had been spiritually conscious from her youth, even from her childhood, upward and she had done sadhana and developed this knowledge very long before she came to India.
23 December 1933
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1287
In some of the Mother’s prayers which are addressed to “divin Maître” I find the words: “avec notre divine Mère”. How can the Mother and “divin Maître” have a “divine Mère”? It is as if the Mother was not the “divine Mère” and there was some other Mother, and the “divin Maître” was not the Transcendent and had also a “divine Mère”! Or is it that all these are addressed to something impersonal?
The Prayers are mostly written in an identification with the earth-consciousness. It is the Mother in the lower nature addressing the Mother in the higher nature, the Mother herself carrying on the sadhana of the earth-consciousness for the transformation praying to herself above from whom the forces of transformation come. This continues till the identification of the earth-consciousness and the higher consciousness is effected. The word “notre” is general, I believe, referring to all born into the earth-consciousness – it does not mean “the Mother of 
the ‘Divin Maître’ and myself”. It is the Divine who is always referred to as Divin Maître and Seigneur. There is the Mother who is carrying on the sadhana and the Divine Mother, both being one but in different poises, and both turn to the Seigneur or Divine Master. This kind of prayer from the Divine to the Divine you will find also in the Ramayan and the Mahabharat.
21 August 1936
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1288
Mother, I have started reading your prayers in the French original with X . May I get one copy for myself?
The rule is that Mother never gives a copy unless she gets a letter in French written by the person without help asking for it. He must know enough French to do that.
14 September 1936
Comments on Specific Prières
1289
In her prayer of 17 May 1914, the Mother says, “Telles furent les deux phrases que j’écrivis hier par une sorte de nécessité absolue. La première, comme si la puissance de la prière ne serait complète que si elle était tracée sur le papier.” [p. 158]
Is it true that a prayer is less powerful when it is kept within oneself and not expressed in speech or writing? Is its expression necessary to make it completely powerful?
It was not meant as a general rule – it was only a necessity felt with regard to that particular prayer and that experience. It all depends on the person, the condition, the need of the moment or of that stage or phase of the consciousness. These things in spiritual experience are always plastic and variable. In some conditions or in one phase or at one moment expression may be needed to bring out the effectuating force of the prayer or the stability of the experience; in another condition or phase or at another moment it may be the opposite, expression would rather disperse the force or break the stability.
21 June 1936
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1290
Nothing seems more important to me than that “Ta splendeur On veut rayonner” [p. 192], 
as the Mother says in her prayer of 16 June 1914. Ideas of sadhana or of perfection for oneself or of being an instrument seem flat and insipid. After all, the individual does not really exist when considered from the standpoint of the vast universal movement of consciousness.
It is correct. Perfection for oneself is not the true ideal; sadhana and instrumentation are only useful as a means for the “rayonnement”.
22 April 1936
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1291
The passage in the Prières that came up tonight is this: “et le raisonnement est une faculté humaine, c’est-à-dire individuelle” [p. 201]. I am not able to see what it points to.
When the divine consciousness is veiled, one has to fall back on the reason, but the human reason is an individual action quite unreliable. That is the sense.
18 June 1932
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1292
The Mother says in her prayer of 31 July 1914 that spiritual experience is willed (“elle est consciente, voulue” [p. 231]) by the Divine. Am I then to suppose that the dearth or abundance of experiences in any given case is willed by the Divine?
To say so has no value unless you realise all things as coming from the Divine. One who has realised as the Mother had realised in the midst of terrible sufferings and difficulties that even these came from the Divine and were preparing her for her work can make spiritual use of such an attitude. For others it may lead to wrong conclusions.
10 May 1934
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1293
The Mother, in her prayer of 4 August 1914, says: “Les hommes, poussés par le conflit des forces, accomplissent un sublime sacrifice” [p. 235]. Apparently she refers to the great war; but as a result of that war, has any “pure lumière” filled the hearts of men or the “Force Divine” spread on earth as she says later in the same prayer; has anything beneficial come 
out of that chaos? Since the nations are once more preparing for war and are in a state of constant conflict, there seems to be no indication of any change in the inner condition of men. People want war. Even people in a country like India seem to secretly wish for another great war. Hardly anyone seems to require Peace, Light or Love.
There has been a change for the worse – the descent of the vital world into the human. On the other hand except in the “possessed” nations there is a greater longing for peace and feeling that such things ought not to happen. India did not get any real touch of the war. However what the Mother was thinking of was an opening to the spiritual truth. That has at least tried to come. There is a widespread dissatisfaction with the old material civilisation, a seeking for some deeper light and truth – only unfortunately it is being taken advantage of by the old religions and only a very small minority is consciously searching for the new Light.
9 June 1936
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1294
You say that after the great war there was “the descent of the vital world into the human”. But did not the vital world already descend on earth – in Matter – even before human beings came? What other vital world remained yet to descend into the human? And how is it that it decided to come down just at present – to prevent the higher Light from coming down or finding room in the human world?
When there is a pressure on the vital world due to the preparing Descent from above, that world usually precipitates something of itself into the human. The vital world is very large and far exceeds the human in extent. But usually it dominates by influence not by descent. Of course the effort of this part of the vital world is always to maintain humanity under its sway and prevent the higher Light.
9 June 1936
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1295
If, as you say, there has been a “change for the worse” due to the descent of the vital world, would it not make the 
supramental descent in the earth-consciousness impossible or postpone its coming to some distant future instead of here and now? Moreover, the “possessed” nations are endowed with all the possible material power, making it difficult for any movement of peace to be successful. Except for their egoistic plans, nothing will be allowed to succeed.
The vital descent cannot prevent the supramental – still less can the possessed nations do it by their material power, since the supramental descent is primarily a spiritual fact which will bear its necessary outward consequences. What previous vital descents have done is to falsify the Light that came down as in the history of Christianity where it took possession of the teaching and distorted it and deprived it of any widespread fulfilment. But the supermind is by definition a Light that cannot be distorted if it acts in its own right and by its own presence. It is only when it holds itself back and allows inferior Powers of consciousness to use a diminished and already deflected Truth that the knowledge can be seized by the vital Forces and made to serve their own purpose.
12 June 1936
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1296
In her prayer of 16 August 1914, the Mother refers to “chacun des grands êtres Asouriques qui ont résolu d’être Tes serviteurs” [p. 244]. How is it that the Asuras have determined to be the servants of the Divine? Is it exploitation or a “coup de diplomatie”?
It was in reference to Asuras who had taken birth in human bodies – a thing they usually avoid if they can, for they prefer to possess human beings without taking birth – with the claim that they wanted to regenerate themselves by serving the Divine and doing his work. It did not succeed very well.
15 June 1936
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1297
Who are the “grands êtres Asouriques” mentioned by the Mother who had taken birth in human bodies claiming to serve the Divine? Since they are “grands” they must have been well-known persons. I can see only one – Rasputin. Hitler, Stalin and Co. do not claim to serve the Divine.
Mother was not speaking of these but of others met by herself. But “grands” here does not mean great in the worldly sense, that is incarnating in famous people, but powerful in the vital world.
20 June 1936
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1298
In her prayer of 8 October 1914, the Mother says: “La joie contenue dans l’activité est compensée et equilibrée par la joie plus grande peut-être encore contenue dans le retrait de toute activité” [p. 286]. This state of “greater joy” (“la joie plus grande”), Mother explains, is that of Sachchidananda. Does this not suggest that there is a joy in non-activity superseding that of activity? If such be the case, one would naturally aspire for this greater joy, since an ever greater joy is the aim of our sadhana. Is it not so?
Do you think the Mother has a rigid mind like you people and was laying down a hard and fast rule for all time and all people and all conditions? It refers to a certain stage when the consciousness is sometimes in activity and when not in activity is withdrawn in itself. Afterwards comes a stage when the Sachchidananda condition is there in work also. There is a still farther stage when both are as it were one, but that is the supramental. The two states are the silent Brahman and the active Brahman and they can alternate (1st stage), coexist (2d stage), fuse (3d stage). If you reach even the first stage then you can think of applying Mother’s dictum, but why misapply it now?
My question is this: can this state of greater joy, Sachchidananda, be realised while one is actually doing work?
Certainly it is realisable in work. Good Lord! how could the integral Yoga exist if it were not?
22 December 1934
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1299
In her prayer of 3 November 1914, the Mother says that “dans tous les coins du monde une de Tes divines pierres est posée par la puissance de la pensée consciente et formatrice” 
[p. 296]. Is this not similar to the fact that when Rama came he had with him some Devas and other higher beings to assist him in his work on the earth? I believe there are various such “divine stones” (“divines pierres”) now in various countries who will be gradually called to assist in the work of manifestation. Perhaps just now they are not awakened and called.
It is very probable. But at present it is only in France that anyone is awake, with some movement towards it in America. People from other parts have sometimes come and gone, but they were evidently not the stones chosen.
5 September 1936
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1300
The Mother’s prayer of 12 December 1914 begins: “Il faut à chaque instant savoir tout perdre pour tout gagner” [p. 311]. The Isha Upanishad says: “tena tyaktena bhuñjīthāḥ”. To gain all by losing all comes to the same thing as to enjoy by renouncing. Both ideas seem to have the same source in the depths.
Yes, certainly. It is essentially the same truth put in different ways. It might be put in a negative form – “if we cling to things as they are in their imperfection in the Ignorance, we cannot have them in their truth and perfection in the Divine Light, Harmony and Ananda.”
16 August 1935
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1301
[In her prayer of 20 December 1916, the Mother wrote out a long “communication” she received in her evening meditation from Çakya-Mouni (pp. 366 – 67). A disciple asked who this was.]
Çakya-Mouni is a name of Buddha – “the sage of the Çakyas” – the clan to which Buddha belonged by birth and of which his father was the “king”.
Undated
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1302
Last night I was reading the Mother’s prayer of 21 December 1916 and I was struck by this: “Il [mon être] sait que cet état 608 Letters on the Mother d’amour actif doit être constant et impersonnel, c’est-à-dire tout à fait indépendant des circonstances et des personnes, puisqu’il ne peut et ne doit étre concentré sur aucune en particulier” [p. 369]. This gave me a sort of key to the ever-stormy trouble in my own nature. I always expect some sort of return when I do anything for anybody. That should go. I should neither have a clinging for such returns nor any attachment to human contacts, however soothing. Without a repudiation of the human way of approach, I can never establish any harmony within which is “independent of circumstances or persons”. The difficulty, of course, is that Divine Love appears to me too impersonal and cold, that is, lacking in warmth though not a cold harmony. But perhaps Divine Love is not like that.
Love cannot be cold – for there is no such thing as cold love, but the love of which the Mother speaks in that passage is something very pure, fixed and constant; it does not leap like fire and sink for want of fuel, but is steady and all-embracing and self-existent like the light of the sun. There is also a divine love that is personal, but it is not like the ordinary personal human love dependent on any return from the person – it is personal but not egoistic,– it goes from the real being in the one to the real being in the other. But to find that, liberation from the ordinary human way of approach is necessary.
21 November 1936
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1303
X has given me a book, Eveillez-vous, in which there are some ideas similar to our own. For example, there are some lines about “someone coming down”, put in a Theosophical way. And there is the idea that when the Awakening comes, there will be strong resistance from those who are opposed to evolution; in other words the idea of hostile beings is there. Also the sentence, “La Paix régnera sur terre” – has the author not copied these words from the Mother’s prayers?
Not necessarily, as the phrase can easily come to one who has read the Bible and the English are very biblical. The idea of the hostile beings also is not new, in fact it is as old as the Veda. The expectation of the Advent is also pretty widespread, as according 
to the old prophecies it must be when the Advent is due.
16 September 1935
Hearing the Mother Read Her Prières
1304
Today as I sat on the staircase hearing the Mother read from Prières et Méditations, I felt a thrilling sensation, as if all the parts of my being – body, mental, vital and psychic – were aspiring. How did this thrilling sensation come?
When an intense Power is put out, it will naturally give a thrill to those who receive it.
Undated
Reading the Mother’s Prières
1305
While reading Mother’s Prières I feel as if I am not reading the words or thoughts but contacting something quiet, pleasant and formless behind them.
Yes, it is so. The words are only a vehicle. When the consciousness opens one feels all that is behind the words.
11 March 1933
On Conversations with the Mother
Comments on Specific Conversations2
1306
The Mother asks: “What do you want the Yoga for? To get power?” [p. 1] Does “power” here mean the power to communicate one’s own experience to others?
Power is a general term – it is not confined to a power to communicate. The most usual form of power is control over things, persons, events, forces.
“What is required is concentration – concentration upon the Divine with a view to an integral and absolute consecration to its Will and Purpose” [p. 1]. Is the Divine’s Will different from its Purpose?
The two words have not the same meaning. Purpose means the intention, the object in view towards which the Divine is working. Will is a wider term than that.
“Concentrate in the heart” [p. 1]. What is concentration? What is meditation?
Concentration here means gathering of the consciousness into one centre and fixing it on one object or on one idea or in one condition. Meditation is a general term which can include many kinds of inner activity.
1 January 1937
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1307
In Conversations the Mother says: “A fire is burning there, in 
the deep quietude of the heart” [p. 1]. Is this the psychic fire or the psychic being?
A fire is not a being – it is the psychic fire, an intense condition of aspiration.
Undated
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1308
“A fire is burning there.... It is the divinity in you – your true being. Hear its voice, follow its dictates” [p. 1]. I have never seen this fire in me. Yet I feel I know the divinity in me. I feel I hear its voice and I try my utmost to follow its dictates. Should I doubt my feeling?
No, what you feel is probably the intimation from the psychic being through the mind. To be directly conscious of the psychic fire, one must have the subtle vision and subtle sense active or else the direct action of the psychic acting as a manifest power in the consciousness.
“We have all met in previous lives” [p. 3]. Who precisely are “we”? Do both of you remember me? Did I often serve you for this work in the past?
It is a general principle announced which covers all who are called to the work. At the time the Mother was seeing the past (or part of it) of those to whom she spoke and that is why she said this. At present we are too much occupied with the crucial work in the physical consciousness to go into these things. Moreover we find that it encouraged a sort of vital romanticism in the sadhaks which made them attach more importance to these things than to the hard work of sadhana, so we have stopped speaking of past lives and personalities.
2 January 1937
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1309
In Conversations the Mother says: “We have all met in previous lives.... We are of one family and have worked through ages for the victory of the Divine” [p. 3]. Is this true of all people who come and stay here? But there have been many who came and went away.
Those who went away were also of these and still are of that circle. Temporary checks do not make any difference to the essential truth of the soul’s seeking.
In what way have we “worked through ages for the victory of the Divine”? How much has been achieved till now?
By the victory is meant the final emergence of the embodied consciousness on earth from the bondage of the Ignorance. That had to be prepared through the ages by a spiritual evolution. Naturally the work up till now has been a preparation of which the long spiritual effort and experience of the past has been the outcome. It has reached a point at which the decisive effort has become possible.
18 June 1933
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1310
“There are two paths of Yoga, one of tapasyā (discipline) and the other of surrender” [p. 4]. Once you interpreted a vision I had as Agni, the fire of purification and tapasya, producing the Sun of Truth. What path do I follow? What place has tapasya in the path of surrender? Can one do absolutely without tapasya in the path of surrender?
There is a tapasya that takes place automatically as the result of surrender and there is a discipline that one carries out by one’s own unaided effort – it is the latter that is meant in the “two paths of Yoga”. But Agni as the fire of tapasya can burn in either case.
4 January 1937
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1311
The Mother, in her Conversations, says that “the first effect of Yoga... is to take away the mental control” [p. 5] so that the ideas and desires which were so long checked become surprisingly prominent and create difficulties. Would you not call these forces the consequence of yogic pressure?
They were not prominent because they were getting some satisfaction or at least the vital generally was getting indulged in one way or another. When they are no longer indulged then they become obstreperous. But they are not new forces created by the Yoga – they were there all the time.
What is meant by the mental control being removed, is that the mental simply kept them in check but could not remove them. So in Yoga the mental has to be replaced by the psychic or spiritual self-control which could do what the mental cannot. Only many sadhaks do not make this exchange in time and withdraw the mental control merely.
12 May 1933
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1312
“The strength of such impulses as those of sex lies usually in the fact that people take too much notice of them” [p. 5]. What are the other impulses referred to?
It refers to strong vital impulses.
“The whole world is full of the poison. You take it in with every breath. If you exchange a few words with an undesirable man or even if such a man merely passes by you, you may catch the contagion from him” [p. 6]. How long is a sadhak subject to this fear of catching contagion? I feel I won’t catch such a contagion now. Is my feeling trustworthy?
I don’t know that it is. One has to go very far on the path before one is so secure as that.
4 January 1937
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1313
In Conversations the Mother says that if the central being has surrendered, then the chief difficulty is gone [p. 7]. What is this central being? Is it the psychic?
The central being is the Purusha. If it is surrendered, then all the other beings can be offered to the Divine and the psychic being brought in front.
18 April 1933
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1314
In Conversations the Mother says: “One who dances and jumps and screams has the feeling that he is somehow very unusual in his excitement; and his vital nature takes great pleasure in that” [p. 11]. Does she mean that one should be usual instead of unusual in one’s excitement during spiritual experience?
The Mother did not mean that one must be usual in one’s excitement at all – she meant that the man is not only excited but also wants to be unusual (extraordinary) in his excitement. The excitement itself is bad and the desire to seem extraordinary is worse.
7 June 1933
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1315
“But to those who possess the necessary basis and foundation we say, on the contrary, ‘Aspire and draw’ ” [p. 11]. Does this capacity to aspire and draw indicate a great advance already made towards perfection?
No. It is a comparatively elementary stage.
5 January 1937
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1316
In the chapter on dream in the Conversations, I came across the following passage: “In sleep you fell into the grip of these subconscient3 regions and they opened and swallowed all that you had laboriously built up in your conscious hours” [p. 15]. If these regions swallow all one has achieved during the day, is it not necessary to be conscious at night as well as in the day?
At night, when one sinks into the subconscient after being in a good state of consciousness, we find that state gone and we have to labour to get it back again. On the other hand, if the sleep is of the better kind, one may wake up in a good condition. Of course, it is better to be conscious in sleep, if one can.
25 June 1933
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1317
“Spiritual experience means the contact with the Divine in oneself (or without, which comes to the same thing in that domain)” [p. 17]. What is meant by the Divine “without”? Does it mean the cosmic Divine or the transcendental Divine or both?
It means the Divine seen outside in things, beings, events etc. etc.
Was Jeanne d’Arc’s nature transformed even a little because of her relation with the two archangels, the two beings of the Overmind? [pp. 17 – 18]
I don’t see how the question of transformation comes in. Jeanne d’Arc was not practising Yoga or seeking transformation.
5 January 1937
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1318
“You have no longer anything that you can call your own; you feel everything as coming from the Divine, and you have to offer it back to its source. When you can realise that, then even the smallest thing to which you do not usually pay much attention or care, ceases to be trivial and insignificant; it becomes full of meaning and it opens up a vast horizon beyond” [p. 23]. Is this as elementary a stage as the stage of “aspire and draw”?4
Not so elementary.
“But if we want the Divine to reign here we must give all we have and are and do here to the Divine” [p. 25]. If one does this completely, has he anything more to do?
No. But it is not easy to do it completely.
How can we recognise someone who gives all he has and is and does to the Divine?
You can’t, unless you have the inner vision.
14 January 1937
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1319
What does Mother mean by this sentence in Conversations: “When you eat, you must feel that it is the Divine who is eating through you” [p. 23]?
It means an offering of the food not to the ego or desire but to the Divine, who is behind all action.
11 January 1935
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1320
In Chapter 7 of Conversations, there is a paragraph which I quote below: “The condition to be aimed at, the real achievement of Yoga, the final perfection and attainment, for which all else is only a preparation, is a consciousness in which it is impossible to do anything without the Divine; for then if you are without the Divine, the very source of your action disappears; knowledge, power, all are gone. But so long as you feel that the powers you use are your own, you will not miss the Divine support” [p. 26]. I am unable to follow the last line. Will my lord explain it to me?
It means that in the full spiritual consciousness the sense of separate existence and my and mine disappear. All depends on the Divine and exists only by the Divine. The ordinary consciousness does not feel or miss this Divine support because it takes as its own the knowledge and power that are given to it; it is quite satisfied with that and is not aware of the Divine Existence behind it, or the Divine Force and Knowledge.
19 April 1937
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1321
“For there is nothing in the world which has not its ultimate truth and support in the Divine” [p. 27]. To know this perfectly by experience is to have a very great attainment, perhaps the final attainment, I think. Am I right?
Yes.
“Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not have been, if it had not been intended” [p. 28]. Then what is the place of repentance in man’s life? Has it any place in the life of a sadhak?
The place of repentance is in its effect for the future – if it induces the nature to turn from the state of things that brought about the happening. For the sadhak however it is not repentance but recognition of a wrong movement and the necessity of its not recurring that is needed.
“...you are tied to the chain of Karma, and there, in that chain, whatever happens is rigorously the consequence of what has been done before” [p. 30]. Does “before” mean all the past lives, beginning from the very first up to this one?
That is taking things in the mass. In a metaphysical sense whatever happens is the consequence of all that has gone before up to the moment of the action. Practically, particular consequences have particular antecedents in the past and it is these that are said to determine it.
From where are these quotations? In the exact intention of a sentence much sometimes depends on the context.
19 January 1937
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1322
“The intellect that believes too much in its own importance and wants satisfaction for its own sake, is an obstacle to the higher realisation.
But this is true not in any special sense or for the intellect alone, but generally and of other faculties as well. For example, people do not regard an all-engrossing satisfaction of the vital desires or the animal appetites as a virtue; the moral sense is accepted as a mentor to tell one the bounds that one may not transgress. It is only in his intellectual activities that man thinks he can do without any such mentor or censor!” [p. 33]
The subject is too large for any special instances to be usefully given, as an instance can only illustrate one side or field of a very various action. The point is that people take no trouble to see whether their intellect is giving them right thoughts, right conclusions, right views on things and persons, right indications about their conduct or course of action. They have their idea and accept it as truth or follow it simply because it is their idea. 
Even when they recognise that they have made mistakes of the mind, they do not consider it of any importance nor do they try to be more careful mentally than before. In the vital field people know that they must not follow their desires or impulses without check or control, they know that they ought to have a conscience or a moral sense which discriminates what they can or should do and what they cannot or should not do; in the field of intellect no such care is taken. Men are supposed to follow their intellect, to have and assert their own ideas right or wrong without any control; the intellect, it is said, is man’s highest instrument and he must think and act according to its ideas. But this is not true; the intellect needs an inner light to guide, check and control it quite as much as the vital. There is something above the intellect which one has to discover and the intellect should be only an intermediary for the action of that source of true Knowledge.
23 March 1937
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1323
“Many people would tell you wonderful tales of how the world was built and how it will proceed in the future, how and where you were born in the past and what you will be hereafter, the lives you have lived and the lives you will still live. All this has nothing to do with spiritual life” [p. 40]. Is what such people say complete humbug? Is there a process other than the spiritual by which one can know all these things?
Often it is, but even if it is correct, it has nothing spiritual in it. Many mediums, clairvoyants or people with a special faculty, tell you these things. That faculty is no more spiritual than the capacity to build a bridge or to cook a nice dish or to solve a mathematical problem. There are intellectual capacities, there are occult capacities,– that is all.
20 January 1937
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1324
“They [human beings who are like vampires] are not human; there is only a human form or appearance.... Their method is to try first to cast their influence upon a man; then they enter slowly into his atmosphere and in the end may get complete possession of him, driving out entirely the real human soul and personality” [p. 42]. My younger brother has married a girl who, the Mother has said, is vampirelike to some extent. Is he then under all these risks? What precautions should he take? Shall I warn him?
First of all what is meant is not that the vampire or vital being even in possession of a human body tries to possess yet another human being. All that is the description of how a disembodied (vampire) vital being takes possession of a human body without being born into it in the ordinary way – for that is their desire, to possess a human body but not by the way of birth. Once thus humanised, the danger they are for others is that they feed on the vitality of those who are in contact with them – that is all.
Secondly in this case, Mother only said vampirelike to some extent. That does not mean that she is one of these beings, but has to some extent the habit of feeding on the vitality of others. There is no need to say anything to your brother – it would only disturb him and not help in the least.
27 January 1937
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1325
In Conversations the Mother speaks of the power of thought: “Let us say, for instance, that you have a keen desire for a certain person to come and that, along with this vital impulse of desire, a strong imagination accompanies the mental form you have made.... And if there is a sufficient power of will in your thought-form, if it is a well-built formation, it will arrive at its own realisation” [pp. 50 – 51]. In the example given, suppose one has no strong desire that a person should come, but still thoughts or imaginations loosely form in the mind. Would that loose formation go and induce that person to come?
It might; especially if that person were himself desirous of coming, it could give the decisive push. But in most cases desire or will behind the thought-force would be necessary.
26 August 1936
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1326
In Conversations the Mother says about the hostile forces: “If you have overlooked in your own being even a single detail, they will come and put their touch upon that neglected spot and make it so painfully evident that you will be forced to change” [p. 66]. When sadhaks overlook even a single detail on the path of transformation, is it not possible that the Divine will make them conscious of it rather than becoming conscious through a painful wound by the hostile forces?
If they are sufficiently open to the Divine it can be done – but most sadhaks have too much egoism and lack of faith and obscurity and self-will and vital desires,– it is that that shuts them to the Mother and calls in the action of the hostile forces.
Those who cannot reject their lower nature fully are made to suffer at the hands of the hostile forces and get wounded by them. What is the best means for them to go forward?
Faith in the Mother and complete surrender.
“This illusion of action is one of the greatest illusions of human nature. It hurts progress because it brings on you the necessity of rushing always into some excited movement” [p. 67]. What is meant by “illusion of action”?
Illusion means that they think their action is all-important and its egoistic objects are the truth that must be followed.
17 June 1933
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1327
In Conversations the Mother says about the nervous envelope: “Depression and discouragement have a very adverse effect; they cut out holes in it, as it were, in its very stuff, render it weak and unresisting and open to hostile attacks an easy passage” [p. 89]. In one sense this means that a man with goodwill should not discourage anyone from his wrong ideas, impulses or movements. There is also the way of keeping silent when dealing with such a person – but even that sometimes hurts him more than a point-blank discouragement.
The knowledge about the bad effect of depression is meant for the sadhak to learn to avoid these things. He cannot expect people to flatter his failures or mistakes or indulge his foibles merely because he has the silly habit of indulging in depression and hurting his nervous envelope if that is done. To keep himself free from depression is his business, not that of others. For instance some people have the habit of getting into depression if the Mother does not comply with their desires – it does not follow that the Mother must comply with their desires in order to keep them jolly – they must learn to get rid of this habit of mind. So with people’s want of encouragement or praise for all they do. One can be silent or non-intervening, but if even that depresses them, it is their own fault and nobody else’s.
Would the bad effects of depression and discouragement indicated by the Mother happen in ordinary life also?
Of course, it is the same in ordinary life – depression is always hurtful. But in sadhana it is more serious because it becomes a strong obstacle to the smooth and rapid progress towards the goal.
18 July 1936
*
1328
In Conversations the Mother writes: “Surrender will not diminish, but increase; it will not lessen or weaken or destroy your personality, it will fortify and aggrandise it” [p. 114]. Is this meant in an external sense or in an internal sense only?
It is meant in the inner sense only – no outer greatness is meant. All submission is regarded by the ego as lowering and lessening itself, but really submission to the Divine increases and greatens the being, that is what is meant.
25 August 1937
*
1329
It seems difficult to understand when the Mother says that spiritual sacrifice is joyful [p. 114].
She was speaking of the true spiritual sacrifice of self-giving, not the bringing of an unwilling heart to the altar.
17 October 1935
A Translation of Conversations
1330
About the Gujarati translation of the Conversations the Mother had told you she did not want it published or sent outside. In the original or in translation, the book is not one meant to be given or shown to everybody. If X wants to make copies for himself and Y he can do so; but, as it comes from the Asram, it might be taken for an authoritative issue from the Asram. It should be understood that it is your translation, only made for your personal use; we have not seen it and cannot therefore guarantee its correctness.
29 March 1932
Reading the Mother’s Conversations and Prières
1331
I have a friend in Dacca to whom I want to send the Mother’s Conversations and her Prières. This lady knows French, though she knows nothing about the Yoga or about you. If you think I may send the books – after seeing her photo – I shall send them.
The Prayers ought not to be given to anyone who is not practising Yoga. The “Conversations” are for those who are interested in Yoga.
8 December 1933
*
1332
When I read the Mother’s Conversations or her Prières, I often feel as if I come in contact with her consciousness. If one read these two books constantly and thought about them alone, could one not make one’s consciousness more and more intense till it becomes like Mother’s? Of course, it might be only the mental that would be intensified and elevated, but perhaps by that intensity the vital and other parts of the being could pass beyond their usual condition.
It is possible to intensely identify oneself with the Mother’s consciousness through what you read – in that case the result you speak of could come. It could also have an effect on the vital up to a certain point.
21 August 1935
On Entretiens avec la Mère
Comments on Specific Entretiens5
1333
In Entretiens the Mother says: “Même ceux qui ont la volonté de s’enfuir [du monde], quand ils arrivent de l’autre côté, peuvent trouver que la fuite ne sert pas à grand-chose après tout” [p. 28]. What does “arrivent de l’autre côté” mean? Does it mean “when they come into this world” or “when they go into the world of silence which they realised”?
No – “arrivent de l’autre côté” simply means “when they die”. What Mother intended was that when they actually arrive at their Nirvana they find it is not the ultimate solution or largest realisation of the Supreme and they must eventually come back and have their share of the world action to reach that largest realisation.
2 May 1935
*
1334
The Mother says in Entretiens: “En fait, la mort a été attachée à toute vie sur terre” [p. 41]. The words “En fait” and “attachée” tend to give the impression that after all death is inevitable. But the preceding sentence (“Si cette croyance pouvait être rejetée, d’abord de la mentalité consciente,... la mort ne serait plus inévitable”) brings in an ambiguity because it does not make death so inevitable; it introduces a condition, an “if” by which death could be avoided. But the categoricality of the sentence with “En fait” rather decreases one’s expectation of a material immortality. Moreover, the “if” in the other sentence is too formidable to be satisfied.
There is no ambiguity that I can see. “En fait” and “attachée” do not convey any sense of inevitability. “En fait” means simply that in fact, actually, as things are at present all life (on earth) has death attached to it as its end; but it does not in the least convey the idea that it can never be otherwise or that this is the unalterable law of all existence. It is at present a fact for certain reasons which are stated,– due to certain mental and physical circumstances – if these are changed, death is not inevitable any longer. Obviously the alteration can only come “if” certain conditions are satisfied – all progress and change by evolution depends upon an “if” which gets satisfied. If the animal mind had not been pushed to develop speech and reason, mental man would never have come into existence,– but the “if”, a stupendous and formidable one, was satisfied. So with the ifs that condition a farther progress.
31 July 1936
*
1335
There are some lines in Entretiens which I do not find in the English Conversations. For example, in the conversation about hostile forces, the Mother speaks about some “êtres pervers et hostiles de plus grande envergure et d’une plus haute origine que tous ceux dont j’ai parlé jusqu’à présent” [p. 69]. These new hostiles are not of the lower cosmic plane. If they are of a “plus haute origine”, they must belong to the higher worlds. Does this mean that the hostiles exist in the higher worlds up to the Supramental?
I believe the Mother was referring to the mental Asuras as opposed to the vital hostiles. There are no hostiles above the mind and cannot be, for it is with the mind that the opposition begins.
When the Conversations were translated, Mother made certain corrections so as to express the thought better than in the original report.
19 October 1935
*
1336
In Entretiens the Mother speaks of “la marche interne de l’univers” [p. 100]. Is there really an internal progress in the universe? Except in a few individuals there is hardly any change or progress in countries. It seems to me that, internally and externally, the universe is moving in a circle and always crosses the same points on the circle, but essentially the quality of the points is the same.
“Univers” in French usually means not the whole universe but the “world” – the earth. There must be a progress in the earth-consciousness, otherwise there could have been no evolution. The evolution of mankind may go by circles or spirals, but there is all the same an opening of more and more complete possibilities till the possibility of the evolution of a higher race becomes valid.
1 September 1936
1 First published in 1932 as “Prières et Méditations de la Mère”, this book is now published as “Prières et Méditations” (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1990). The page numbers given after phrases quoted from the prayers in this subsection refer to the 1990 edition. Translations of the French words are given in the Note on the Texts. – Ed.
2 These conversations of 1929 were first published in 1931 as “Conversations with the Mother”. They now form the first part of Questions and Answers 1929 – 1931 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2003), volume 3 of the Collected Works of the Mother. The page numbers given after quoted passages in this subsection refer to the 2003 edition. – Ed.
3 In the text of “Conversations”, the word used is “unconscious”, not “subconscient”. – Ed.
4 See the letter of 5 January 1937 on page 614. – Ed.
5 “Entretiens avec la Mère” is the Mother’s translation of her conversations of 1929, which were spoken in English. This translation is now published as the first part of “Entretiens” 1929 – 1931 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1994). The page numbers given after the quoted passages in this subsection refer to the 1994 edition. – Ed.