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THE MOTHER AND THE WORKING OF THE ASHRAM THE MOTHER'S SADHANA IN THE SADHAKS
Naturally, the Mother does the Sadhana in each Sadhak — only it is conditioned by their zeal and their receptivity. 4-1-1935 *
The Mother has her own experience in bringing down the things that have to be brought down — but what the Sadhaks experience she had long ago. The Divine does the Sadhana first for the world and then in others. 12-9-1934 *
I have said that the Divine does the Sadhana first for the world and then gives what is brought down to others. There can be no Sadhana without realisations and experiences. The Prayers (Prayers and Meditations of the Mother. See Part Three) are a record of Mother's experiences. 4-1-1935 PSYCHIC CONTACT IN THE ASHRAM AND OUTSIDE
It is certainly quite true that the psychic contact can exist at a distance and that the Divine is not limited by place but is everywhere. It is not necessary for everybody to be in the Ashram or physically near the Mother in order to lead the spiritual life or to practise the Yoga, especially in its earlier stages. But that is only one side of the truth, there is another. Otherwise the logical conclusion might be that there was no necessity for the Mother to be here at all, or for the existence of the Ashram, or for anyone to come here.
Page - 219 The psychic being is there in all, but in very few is it well developed, well built up in the consciousness or prominent in the front; in most it is veiled, often ineffective or only an influence, not conscious enough or strong enough to support the spiritual life.
It is for this reason that it is necessary for those drawn towards this Truth to come here in order that they may receive the touch which will bring about or prepare the awakening of the psychic being — that is for them the beginning of the effective psychic contact.
It is also for this reason that a stay here is needed for many — if they are ready — in order that under the direct influence and nearness they may have the development or building up of the psychic being in the consciousness or its coming to the front. When the touch has been given or the development effected, so far as the Sadhak is at the moment capable of it, he returns to the outside world and under the protection and guidance even at a distance is able to keep the contact and go on with his spiritual life. But the influences of the outside world are not favourable to the psychic contact and the psychic development and, if the Sadhak is not sufficiently careful or concentrated, the psychic contact may easily be lost after a time or get covered over and the development may become retarded, stationary or even diminished by adverse movements or influences. It is therefore that the necessity exists and is often felt of a return to the place of the central influence in order to fortify or recover the contact or to restore or give a fresh forward impulse to the development. The aspiration for such nearness from time to time is not a vital desire; it becomes a vital desire only when it is egoistically insistent or mixed with a vital motive, but not if it is an aspiration of the psychic being calm, deep and without clamour in it or perturbing insistence.
This for those who are not called upon or are not yet called upon to live in this Ashram under the direct pressure of the central Force and Presence. Those who must so live are those called from the very beginning or who have become ready or who are for some reason or another given a chance to form a part of the work or creation which is being prepared by Yoga. For them the
Page - 220 stay here in the atmosphere, the nearness are indispensable; to depart would be for them a renunciation of the opportunity given them, a turning of the back upon the spiritual destiny. Their difficulties are often in appearance greater than the struggle of those who remain outside because the demand and the pressure are greater; but so also is their opportunity greater and the power and the influence for development poured upon them and that too which they can spiritually become and will become if they are faithful to the choice and the call. 7-10-1931 *
Q: Is there any special effect of physical nearness to the Mother ? A: It is indispensable for the fullness of the Sadhana on the physical plane. Transformation of the physical and external being is not possible otherwise. 18-8-1933 *
Q: Is it possible to receive the Mother's contact and help almost in the same way at a great distance — say Bombay or Calcutta — as here in the Ashram ? A: One can receive everywhere and if there is a strong spiritual consciousness one can make great progress. But experience does not support the idea that it makes no difference or is almost the same. 18-8-1933
DECISION TO JOIN THE ASHRAM
There should be no desire or anxiety in your mind to get these people or others to come here. These things ought to be decided
Page - 221 on one side by their call and fitness and on the other by the will of the Mother. 28-6-1936
CHOICE FROM WITHIN
It is not possible for the Mother to tell you to remain, if you are yourself in your mind and vital eager to go. It is from within yourself that there must come the clear will on one side or the other. 24-2-1932
PERIOD OF PROBATION
Well, it is better not to write anything too positive. Nowadays, especially, the Mother takes people in such circumstances on probation, she does not give them large immediate assurances, but waits to see how they open. If he justifies his aspiration all will be well. 26-2-1943
FULL ACCEPTANCE BY THE MOTHER
Q: When a person begins to do Yoga under the Mothers care, is he not fully taken up by her ? A: Not until he is ready. He has first to accept her and then then give up more and more his ego. There are Sadhaks who at every step revolt, oppose the Mother, contradict her will, criticise her decisions. How can she take them up fully in such conditions ? 21-6-1933 *
Q: Is there really any difference between the Guru, the
Page - 222 Divine and the Truth in our Yoga ? I have been considering that the Mother and yourself are not only the Gurus but also the Divine, and that whatever either of you say is the law of the Truth. Why then are you using (in reply to my question on discipline) these three different words ? A: I wrote the general law of spiritual life and obedience. You have to know that as well as its special application here. Moreover many here are satisfied with saying, "The Mother is divine", but they do not follow her commands — others do not really regard her as Divine — they treat her as if she were an ordinary Guru. 13-6-1933 *
Q: Yesterday you spoke about the Mother's commands. What are they ? I want to try to follow them. A: They are supposed to be known. You have to do the right thing and follow the Yoga sincerely. 14-6-1933 *
Q: We are told the Mother can act best if a Sadhak is sincere. But what is meant by this ? A: 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. 21-4-1936 *
SPIRITUAL POSSIBILITY DUE TO THE MOTHER'S PRESENCE
Certainly very few seem to realise what a possibility has been given them here — all has been turned into an opportunity for
Page - 223 the bubbling of the vital or the Tamas of the physical rather than used for the intended psychic and spiritual purpose. 7-3-1936 *
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. 9-3-1936 *
Because people are living here under the Mother's shelter and saved from the great sufferings and tragedies of human life, they must needs spin despairs and tragedies out of nothing. The vital wants to indulge its sorrow sense and shout and groan and weep and if it can't have a good or big reason for doing it, it will use a bad or small one. 1-3-1936
NECESSITY OF TRANSFORMING THE VITAL FOR SUCCESS IN YOGA
Q: I had a belief that all those who have been called to do this Yoga will realise the Divine in this very birth sooner or later. But I heard from someone: "The Mother has of course chosen only those who have got capacity to do this Yoga, but they will reach the goal only if the vital gets transformed. If not, they will realise in the next birth". Is it so ?
A: Mother has never spoken anything to be done in the next birth. Naturally the vital has to be transformed if one is to succeed.
15-1-1934 Page - 224 REASONS FOR SADHAKS GOING AWAY FROM THE MOTHER
Q: How is it that some who come to the Mother with a clear aspiration and call go away from her after some time ? What is it that takes them away ? A: Through the suggestions of the hostile forces, because of pride, egoism, ambition, sexual desire, vanity, greed or any other vital impulse urged by the hostile Powers.
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Q: Are the vital forces so strong that in spite of a clear aspiration and Divine call in a person they can draw him away from the Mother ? A: Every man is free at every moment to consent to the Divine call or not to consent, to follow the lower nature or to follow his soul.
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Q: Does their leaving the path not mean that they were unable to judge by their knowledge whether their call for the Divine was true or not ? A: All this about judging is nonsense. You feel the call or you do not and if you feel the call, you follow it without calculating or counting risks or asking whether you are fit or not.
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Q: When people strongly feel the urge to leave the Sadhana and go away from the Mother, what is the best way for them to counteract this urge and stick on to the Mother ? A: By understanding that it is the Devil who tempts them and not listening to the Devil.
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Page - 225 Q: Can those Sadhaks, who have lived in the Ashram for many years, forget the Mother's Grace after leaving it ? A: Some of them seem to forget
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Q: Is there any possibility of their returning to do the Sadhana under the Mother ? A: It depends on the person. 6-9-1933 *
When the psychic being has been once fully awake, then it is not possible for the Sadhak to revolt and go away; for if he does, he leaves his soul behind with the Mother and it is only the outer being that lives for a while elsewhere. But that is too painful a condition; one has either to come back or life becomes hardly worth living. 20-11-1935 *
What you have written is quite correct. To say that the Divine is defeated when a Sadhak goes away is an absurdity. If the Sadhak allows his lower nature to get the better of him, it is his defeat, not the Divine's. The Sadhak comes here not because the Divine has need of him, but because he has need of the Divine. If he carries out the conditions of the spiritual life and gives himself to the Mother's leading, he will attain his goal, but if he wants to lay down his own conditions and impose his own ideas and his own desires on the Divine, then all the difficulty comes. That is what happened to X and Y and several others. Because the Divine does not yield to them they go away; but how is that a defeat for the Divine ? 27-5-1937
Page -226 WORKING OF THE CONSCIOUS FORCE IN THE ASHRAM
What seems to me of more importance is to try to explain how things are worked out here. Indeed very few are the people who understand it and still fewer those who realise it.
There has never been, at any time, a mental plan, a fixed programme or an organisation decided beforehand. The whole thing has taken birth, grown and developed as a living being by a movement of consciousness (Chit-Tapas) constantly maintained, increased and fortified. As the Conscious Force descends in matter and radiates, it seeks for fit instruments to express and manifest it. It goes without saying that the more the instrument is open, receptive and plastic, the better are the results. The two obstacles that stand in the way of a smooth and harmonious working in and through the Sadhaks are:
(1) the preconceived ideas and mental constructions which block the way to the influence and the working of the Conscious Force.
(2) the preferences and impulses of the vital which distort and falsify the expression.
Both these things are the natural output of the ego. Without the interference of these two elements my physical intervention would not be necessary.
You are quite right when you do not believe in "Mother likes", "Mother dislikes": it is quite a childish interpretation.
There is a clear precise perception of the Force and the Consciousness at work, and whenever this Force gets distorted or the Consciousness is obscured in their action, I have to interfere and rectify the movement. In most cases things are mixed up and there again I have to intervene to separate the distorted transcription from the pure one.
Otherwise a great freedom of action is left to all, because the Conscious Force can express itself in innumerable ways and for the perfection and integrality of the manifestation no ways are to be a priori excluded, a trial is very often given before the selection is made.
22-8-1939
Page - 227 THE MOTHER AND THE ASHRAM'S DISCIPLINE
... He said, according to X, that the absence of discipline was the great bane in India: neither individuals nor groups had any discipline. Then why did he weep merely because he was not allowed to put his hand - bag in a place not intended for it ? I do not agree myself with him in the idea that there is perfect discipline in the Ashram; on the contrary, there is a great lack of it, much indiscipline, quarrelling and self - assertion. What there is is organisation and order which the Mother has been able to establish and maintain in spite of all that. That organisation and order is necessary for all collective work; it has been an object of admiration and surprise for all from outside who have observed the Ashram; it is the reason why the Ashram has been able to survive and outlive the malignant attacks of many people who would otherwise have got it dissolved long ago. The Mother knew very well what she was doing and what was necessary for the work she has to do.
Discipline itself is not something especially Western; in Oriental countries like Japan, China and India it was at one time all-regulating and supported by severe sanctions in a way that Westerners would not tolerate. Socially whatever objections we may make to it, it is a fact that it preserved Hindu religion and Hindu society through the ages and through all vicissitudes. In the political field there was, on the contrary, indiscipline, individualism and strife; that is one reason why India collapsed and entered into servitude. Organisation and order were attempted but failed to endure. Even in the spiritual life India has had not only the free wandering ascetic, a law to himself, but has felt impelled to create orders of Sannyasins with their rules and governing bodies and there have also been monastic institutions with a strict discipline. Since no work can be done successfully without these things — even the individual worker, the artist for instance, has to go through a severe discipline in order to become efficient — why should the Mother be held to blame if she insists on discipline in the exceedingly difficult work she has put in her charge ?
I don't see on what ground you expect order and organisation
Page - 228 to be carried on without rules and without discipline. You seem to say that people should be allowed complete freedom with only such discipline as they choose to impose upon themselves; that might do if the only thing to be done were for each individual to get some inner realisation and life did not matter or if there were no collective life or work or none that had any importance. But this is not the case here. We have undertaken a work which includes life and action and the physical world. In what I am trying to do, the spiritual realisation is the first necessity, but it cannot be complete without an outer realisation also in life, in men, in this world. Spiritual consciousness within but also spiritual life without. The Ashram as it is now is not that ideal, for that all its members have to live in a spiritual consciousness and not in the ordinary egoistic mind and mainly rajasic vital nature. But, all the same, the Ashram is a first form which our effort has taken, a field in which the preparatory work has to be done. The Mother has to maintain it and for that all this order and organisation has to be there and it cannot be done without rules and discipline. Discipline is even necessary for the overcoming of the ego and the mental preferences and the rajasic vital nature, as a help to it at any rate. If these were overcome outward rules etc. would be less necessary; spontaneous agreement, unity, harmony and spontaneous right action might take its place. But while the present state of things exists, by the abandonment or leaving out of discipline except such as people choose or not choose to impose upon themselves, the result would be failure and disaster .... On that principle the work also would have gone to pot, there would have been nothing but strife, assertion by each worker of his own idea and self-will and constant clashes; even as it is, that has abounded and it is only the Mother's authority, the frame of work she has given and her skill in getting incompatibilities to act together that has kept things going.
I do not find that Mother is a rigid disciplinarian. On the contrary, I have seen with what a constant leniency, tolerant patience and kindness she has met the huge mass of indiscipline, disobedience, self-assertion, revolt that has surrounded her, even revolt to her very face and violent letters overwhelming her with the worst kind of vituperation. A rigid disciplinarian would not
Page - 229 have treated these things like that.
I do not know what ill-treatment visitors have received, apart from the insistence on rules of which you complain; but it cannot be a general complaint, otherwise the number of visitors would not be constantly increasing nor would so many people want to come back again or even come every time or so many want to stay on if the Mother allowed them. After all, they do not come here on the basis of a social occasion but for Darshan of those whom they regard to be spiritually great or, in the case of constant visitors, for a share in the life of the Ashram and for spiritual advantage, and for both of these motives one would expect them to submit willingly to the conditions imposed and not to mind a little inconvenience.
As regards Golconde and its rules — they are not imposed elsewhere — there is a reason for them and they are not imposed or nothing. In Golconde Mother has worked out her own idea through Raymond, Sammer and others. First, Mother believes in beauty as a part of spirituality and divine living; secondly, she believes that physical things have the Divine Consciousness underlying them as much as living things; and thirdly that they have an individuality of their own and ought to be properly treated, used in the right way, not misused or improperly handled or hurt or neglected so that they perish soon and lose their full beauty or value; she feels the consciousness in them and is so much in sympathy with them that what in other hands may be spoilt or wasted in a short time last with her for years or decades. It is on this basis that she planned the Golconde. First, she wanted a high architectural beauty, and in this she succeeded — architects and people with architectural knowledge have admired it with enthusiasm as a remarkable achievement; one spoke of it as the finest building of its kind he had seen, with no equal in all Europe or America; and a French architect, pupil of a great master, said it executed superbly the idea which his master had been seeking for but failed to realise; but also she wanted all the objects in it the rooms, the fitting, the furniture to be individually artistic and to form a harmonious whole. This, too, was done with great care. Moreover, each thing was arranged to have its own use for each thing there was a place, and there should be no mixing
Page - 230 up, or confused or wrong use. But all this had to be kept up and carried out in practice; for it was easy for people living there to create a complete confusion and misuse and to bring everything to disorder and ruination in a short time. That was why the rules were made and for no other purpose. The Mother hoped that if right people were accommodated there or others trained to a less rough and ready living than is common, her idea could be preserved and the wasting of all the labour and expense avoided.
Unfortunately, the crisis of accommodation came and we were forced to house people in Golconde who could not be accommodated elsewhere and a careful choice could not be made. So, often there was damage and misuse and the Mother had to spend 200/300 Rupees after Darshan to repair things and restore what had been realised. Y has taken the responsibility of the house and of keeping things right as much as possible. That was why she interfered in the hand-bag affair — it was as much a tragedy for the table as for the doctor, for it got scratched and spoiled by the hand-bag — and tried to keep both the bag and shaving utensils in the places that had been assigned for them. If I had been in the doctor's place, I would have been grateful to her for her care and solicitude instead of being upset by what ought to have been for him trifles, although, because of her responsibility, they had for her their importance. Anyhow, this is the rationale for the rules and they do not seem to me to be meaningless regulation and discipline.
Finally, about financial arrangements. It has been an arduous and trying work for the Mother and myself to keep up this Ashram, with its ever-increasing numbers, to make both ends meet and at times to prevent deficit budgets and their results; specially in this war time, when the expenses have climbed to a dizzy and fantastic height, only one accustomed to these things or who had similar responsibilities can understand what we have gone through. Carrying on anything of this magnitude without any settled income could not have been done if there had not been the working of a divine Force. Works of charity are not part of our work, there are other people who can see to that. We have to spend all on the work we have taken in hand and what we get is nothing compared to what is needed. We cannot undertake
Page - 231 things that would bring in money in the ordinary ways. We have to use whatever means are possible. There is no general rule that spiritual men must do works of charity or they should receive and care for whatever visitors come or house and feed them. If we do it, it is because it has become part of our work. The Mother charges visitors for accommodation and food because she has expenses to meet and cannot make money out of air; she charges in fact less than her expense. It is quite natural that she should not like people to take advantage of her and allow those who try to take meals in the Dining Room under false pretences; even if they are a few at first, yet if this were allowed, a few would soon become a legion. As for people being allowed to come in freely for Darshan without permission, which would soon convert me into a thing for show and an object of curiosity, often critical or hostile curiosity, it is I who would be the first to cry "stop".
I have tried to explain our standpoint and have gone to some length to do it. Whether it is agreed with or not, at any rate it is a standpoint and I think a rational one. I am writing only on the surface and I do not speak of what is behind or from the Yogic standpoint, the standpoint of the Yogic consciousness from which we act; that would be more difficult to express. This is merely for intellectual satisfaction and there there is always room for dispute. 25-2-1945 *
It is very true that physical things have a consciousness within them which feels and responds to care and is sensitive to careless touch and rough handling. To know or feel that and learn to be careful of them is a great progress of consciousness. It is always so that the Mother has felt and dealt with physical things and they remain with her much longer and in a better condition than with others and give their full use. 16-4-1936
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Page - 232 The Mother has never objected to people who "cannot pay" residing or visiting the Ashram without paying; she expects payment only from visitors who can pay. She did object strongly to the action of some rich visitors (on one occasion) who came here, spent money lavishly on purchases etc. and went off without giving anything to the Ashram or even the smallest offering to the Mother — that is all. 21-10-1943
TWO FOUNDATIONS OF THE ASHRAM'S MATERIAL LIFE
What your vital being seems to have kept all along is the "bargain" or the "mess" attitude in these matters. One gives some kind of commodity which he calls devotion or surrender and in return the Mother is under obligation to supply satisfaction for all demands and desires spiritual, mental, vital and physical, and, if she falls short in her task, she has broken her contract. The Ashram is a sort of communal hotel or mess, the Mother is the hotel-keeper or mess-manager. One gives what one can or chooses to give, or it may be nothing at all except the aforesaid commodity; in return the palate, the stomach and all the physical demands have to be satisfied to the full; if not, one has every right to keep one's money and to abuse the defaulting hotel-keeper or mess-manager. This attitude has nothing whatever to do with Sadhana or Yoga and I absolutely repudiate the right of anyone to impose it as a basis for my work or for the life of the Ashram.
There are only two possible foundations for the material life here. One is that one is a member of an Ashram founded on the principle of self-giving and surrender. One belongs to the Divine and all one has belongs to the Divine; in giving one gives not what is one's own but what already belongs to the Divine. There is no question of payment or return, no bargain, no room for demand and desire. The Mother is in sole charge and arranges things as best they can be arranged within the means at her disposal and the capacities of her instruments. She is under no obligation to act according to the mental standards or vital
Page -233 desires and claims of the Sadhaks; she is not obliged to use a democratic equality in her dealings with them. She is free to deal with each according to what she sees to be his true need or what is best for him in his spiritual progress. No one can be her judge or impose on her his own rule and standard; she alone can make rules, and she can depart from them too if she thinks fit, but no one can demand that she shall do so. Personal demands and desires cannot be imposed on her. If anyone has what he finds to be a real need or a suggestion to make which is within the province assigned to him, he can do so; but if she gives no sanction, he must remain satisfied and drop the matter. This is the spiritual discipline of which the one who represents or embodies the Divine Truth is the centre. Either she is that and all this is the plain common sense of the matter; or she is not and then no one need stay here. Each can go his own way and there is no Ashram and no Yoga.
If on the other hand one is not ready to be a member of the Ashram or bear the discipline and is still admitted to some place in the Yoga, he remains apart and meets his own expenses. There is no discipline for him on the material plane, except the rules necessary for the safety of the work; there is no material responsibility for the Mother. 11-4-1930
THE MOTHER'S PRINCIPLE OF ACTION AND WASTE
I did not consider it necessary to say anything about the question of waste beyond assuring you that the undertaking of useless and unnecessary work only in order to keep the men employed was no part of the Mother's principle of action. The Mother did not know to what pipe you referred and had no time or inclination to make enquiries about it. It is quite true that, so long at least as the Sadhaks are not Siddha Yogis, self-control is the law; they have to learn to refrain from indulgence of excess in any direction — the provision made for them being ample for a Sadhak and much more than is allowed elsewhere — and from negligence, greed or the pursuit of individual fancy. When they
Page - 234 do these things, the Mother does not intervene at every moment to check them; a standard has been set, they have been warned against waste, a framework has been created, for the rest they are expected to learn and grow out of their weaknesses by their own consciousness and will with the Mother's inner force to aid them. In the organisation of work there was formerly a formidable waste due to the workers and Sadhaks following their own fancy almost entirely without respect for the Mother's will; that was largely checked by reorganisation. But waste to a certain extent continues and is almost inevitable so long as the Sadhaks and workers are imperfect in their will and consciousness, do not follow in spirit or detail the Mother's recommendations or think themselves wiser than herself and make undue room for their "independent" ideas. Here too the Mother does not always insist, she watches and observes, intervenes outwardly more than in the individual lives of the Sadhaks, but still leaves room for them to grow by consciousness and experience and the lesson of their own mistakes and often employs an inner in preference to an outer pressure. In these matters she must exercise her own judgment and vision and there is no use in anybody offering his approval or censure — for she works from a different centre of vision than theirs and they have not a superior light by which they can judge or guide her.
As regards waste, I must point out that in our view free expenditure is not always waste, to have a higher standard than is current in this very tamasic and backward place is not necessarily waste. In matters of building and maintenance of buildings as in others of the same order the Mother has from the beginning set up a standard which is not that current here — the usual system being to use the cheapest possible materials, the cheapest labour and to disregard appearance, allowing things to go shabby or making only patchwork to keep them up. I suppose "thrifty" minds would consider the local principle to be sound and a higher standard to be waste. If the higher standard has been kept, it is not for the glory of anyone, the Ashram or the Mother — the principle of glory being foreign to Yoga, but from another point of view which is not mental and can only be fully appreciated when the consciousness is capable of understanding the
Page - 235 vision of things with which the Mother started her work. I do not consider it useful to write about that now, — the general misunderstanding in these subjects can only disappear when the Sadhaks have got rid of the ordinary mind and vital and are able to look at things from the same vision level as that from which the conception of the Yoga and the work took its rise....
For the same reason I refuse to answer criticisms, attacks and questionings directed against the Mother. Whether in work or in Yoga, the Mother acts not from the mind or from the level of consciousness from which these criticisms arise but from quite another vision and consciousness. It is perfectly useless therefore and it is inconsistent with the position she ought to occupy to accept the ordinary mind and consciousness as judge and tribunal and allow her to appear before it and defend her. Such a procedure is itself illogical and inconsequent and can lead nowhere; it can only create or prolong a false atmosphere wholly inimical to success in the Sadhana. For that reason if these doubts are raised, I no longer answer them or answer in such a way as to discourage a repetition of any such challenge. If people want to understand why the Mother does things, let them get into the same inner consciousness from which she sees and acts. As to what she is, that also can only be seen either with the eye of faith or of a deeper vision. That too is the reason why we keep here people who have not yet acquired the necessary faith or vision; we leave them to acquire it from within as they will do if their will of Sadhana is sincere.
I have written at length on this question once for all; I do not propose to repeat it. People no longer expect it from me; even those who did expect it formerly have ceased to do so. On other questions, so far as they are not connected or mixed up with these things, I may answer hereafter as I find time. 26-12-1936
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The Mother does not provide the Sadhaks with comforts because she thinks that the desires, fancies, likings, preferences should be satisfied — in Yoga people have to overcome these things. In
Page - 236 any other Ashram they would not get one tenth of what they get here, they would have to put up with all possible discomforts, privations, hard and rigorous austerities, and if they complained, they would be told they were not fit for Yoga. If there is a different rule here, it is not because the desires have to be indulged, but because they have to be overcome in the presence of the objects of desire and not in their absence. The first rule of Yoga is that the Sadhak must be content with what comes to him, much or little; if things are there, he must be able to use them without attachment or desire; if they are not he must be indifferent to their absence. 7-1-1937
DEMAND AND DESIRE
Q: What sort of things can come under the category of "demand and desire" ? What is the exact form of "demand and desire" ? A: There are no special sort of things — demand and desire can cover all things whatsoever — they are subjective, not objective and have no special form. Demand is when you claim something to get or possess, desire is a general term. If one expects that the Mother shall smile at him at the Pranam and feels wronged if one does not get it, that is a demand. If one wants it and grieves at not getting it, but without revolt or sense of an unjust deprivation that shows desire. If one feels joy at her smile, but remains calm in its absence knowing that all the Mother does is good, then there is no demand or desire.
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Q: You have said about the Divine: "He may give all that is truly needed — but people usually interpret this idea in the sense that He gives all that they think or feel they need. He may do that — but also He may not". But it is said that He supplies all our psychic needs.
Page - 237 A: In the end, yes; but here too people expect Him to supply them constantly, which does not always happen. 30-1-1936 *
Q: If our desires are to be rejected, why does Mother sometimes satisfy them ? A: It is you who have to get rid of them. If the Mother does not satisfy at all and the Sadhak keeps them, they will get stronger by suggestion from outside. Each one has to deal with them from within. 4-9-1933 *
Q: X told me that if anything comes to us without our asking for it we should not reject it. For example, someone offers us sweetmeat: we may accept it. But we should not be depressed when things desired by us are not given to us. What do you say about that ? A: How can such a rule stand ? Supposing someone comes and offers you meat or wine, can you accept it ? Obviously not. A hundred other instances could be given where the rule would not stand. What the Mother gives or allows you, you can take. 24-3-1933
THE MOTHER'S SOLE AUTHORITY OVER THE ASHRAM WORK
If anybody in the Ashram tries to establish a supremacy or dominating influence over others, he is in the wrong. For it is bound to be a wrong vital influence and come in the way of the Mother's work.
All the work should be done under the Mother's sole authority. All must be arranged according to her free decision. She
Page - 238 must be free to use the capacities of each separately or together according to what is best for the work and best for the worker.
None should regard or treat another member of the Ashram as his subordinate. If he is in charge, he should regard the others as his associates and helpers in the work, and he should not try to dominate or impose on them his own ideas and personal fancies, but only see to the execution of the will of the Mother. None should regard himself as a subordinate, even if he has to carry out instructions given through another or to execute under supervision the work he has to do.
All should try to work in harmony, thinking only of how best to make the work a success; personal feelings should not be allowed to interfere, for this is a most frequent cause of disturbance in the work, failure or disorder.
If you keep this truth of the work in mind and always abide by it, difficulties are likely to disappear; for others will be influenced by the rightness of your attitude and work smoothly with you or, if through any weakness or perversity in them, they create difficulties, the effects will fall back on them and you will feel no disturbance or trouble.
*
There is one thing everybody should remember that everything should be done from the point of view of Yoga, of Sadhana, of growing into a divine life in the Mother's consciousness. To insist upon one's own mind and its ideas, to allow oneself to be governed by one's own vital feelings and reactions should not be the rule of life here. One has to stand back from these, to be detached, to get in their place the true knowledge from above, the true feelings from the psychic within. This cannot be done if the mind and vital do not surrender, if they do not renounce their attachment to their own ignorance which they call truth, right, justice. All the trouble rises from that; if that were overcome, the true basis of life, of work, of harmony of all in the union with the Divine would more and more replace the trouble and difficulty of the present.
*
Page - 239 In your letter to the Mother I note that you profess to be writing a confession, but the tone of it is rather a justification of your faultless self accompanied by an accusation against the Mother of favouritism, bad temper, and injustice. I observe also that your statement of facts is incorrect and as far as it concerns the Mother, grotesque. You lay stress too on a point in which you can justify yourself, and you ignore all the rest in which you were in fault. I will assume, however, that all this was unintentional and that, in writing such a letter, you were unconscious of the movements of your vital being which inspired its spirit and tone.
I would suggest that in your relations with others, — which seem always to have been full of disharmony, — when incidents occur, it would be much better for you not to take the standpoint that you are all in the right and they are all in the wrong. It would be wiser to be fair and just in reflection, seeing where you have gone astray, and even laying stress on your own fault and not on theirs. This would probably lead to more harmony in your relations with others; at any rate, it would be more conducive to your inner progress, which is more important than to be the top-dog in a quarrel. Neither is it well to cherish a spirit of self-justification and self-righteousness and a wish to conceal either from yourself or from the Mother your faults or your errors.
As for your doubts about the Mother, they are not likely to disappear so long as you think you can read the Mother's mind by the light of your own and pass your mental judgments on her and her action from those erroneous data. Nor can they easily disappear if your faith breaks down every time that she does something which your limited intelligence cannot understand or which is displeasing to the feelings and demands of your vital nature. If you do not believe that she has a consciousness greater and wider than yours and not measurable by ordinary standards and judgments, at the very least a Yogic consciousness, I do not see on what ground you are practising Yoga here under her guidance. Those who constantly doubt and criticise and blame or attribute her actions to the most common and vulgar human feelings and motives and yet pretend to accept her or to accept myself and my Yoga, are guilty of a stupid and irrational inconsequence.
Page -240 As for understanding, that is another matter. I would suggest that you must grow out of the ordinary mind and become conscious with the true consciousness before you can hope to do it. And for that faith and surrender and fidelity and openness are conditions of some importance. 6-11-1929 *
How can you do like the Mother or do the work that she can do ? That is the ambition and vanity coming up. 5-11-1932 *
There is no reason for your seeing the Mother nor is this the time for it. Nor is there any room for discussion in this matter.
There are two things that must be clearly understood. The work here is the Mother's and she has the right to give her orders in whatever way she pleases and they must be obeyed. No one can be allowed to flout her orders, however conveyed, or insist on his own ideas, will or fancies. If you are prepared to respect and obey her orders without making conditions, you can be allowed to continue the work, otherwise you must discontinue.
Secondly, all violence must stop. If you want to remain in the Ashram, this kind of conduct must cease. 18-7-1937
THE MOTHER'S WORK IN THE VITAL PLANE
Your dream was evidently a symbolic representation of some part of the vital plane (corresponding to a part of human nature also) in which the Mother had made her house (established something of her consciousness). The village represented some formation of human life in which there is outward beauty and harmony as in certain parts of European life, but no touch of the Divine. The jungle represented the surroundings in which this formation
Page - 241 has been made — it is made in the midst of a vital nature which is wild and savage and full of dangerous things — the village, the formation is therefore something quite insecure and artificial. That is indeed the nature of much of human civilisation, an artificial construction in the midst of a dangerously unregenerated vital nature, and it can collapse at any moment. The sea is the vital consciousness itself, for water is often a symbol of the vital. The footpath seems to indicate something the Mother wants the Sadhaks to build, to form in that part of the vital, but which is not easy to make and only can be made by constant perseverance which will finally prevail against the instability of the vital. Vital dreams of this kind are often very interesting and instructive if one can get the clue to their symbols, but to get the clue is not always easy. 13-2-1936 *
My description of the vital applied to that part of it which you saw in dream — it does not describe the vital in the Ashram but of certain sides of ordinary human existence. Nevertheless the human vital everywhere, in the Ashram also, is full of unruly and violent forces — anger, pride, jealousy, desire to dominate, selfishness, insistence on one's own will, ideas, preferences, indiscipline — and it is these things that are the cause of the disorder and difficulty in the Ashram work. The rule established in order to control or combat these tendencies is that the Mother's will and the rule and discipline established by her shall be followed and not each worker be led by his own ego. But there are many who insist on their own ego and resent discipline. They are ready to follow the Mother's will and rule and discipline only in name and so far as it agrees with their own ideas and preferences. There is no cure for this except by an inner change. In outside life discipline is enforced because refusal of discipline is visited by severe penalties or else results in so much discomfort of various kinds that the indisciplined man has either to submit or to go. But here in the Ashram it is not possible to enforce the rule in this way. An inner obedience has to be given as the
Page -242 source of the outer obedience. The only remedy is the descent into the consciousness of that golden lotus which you saw in your vision. Everyone in whom it is established or even who feels its influence will become a centre of the true consciousness and true action which will change life in the Ashram. 14-2-1936 NECESSITY OF DEPARTMENTAL HEADS
It is not physically possible for the Mother to give the work direct to each worker and exercise a direct control, so that physically as well as inwardly he may offer it to her. For every department there must be a head who consults her in all important matters and reports everything to her, but in minor matters he need not always come for a previous decision — that is not possible. X is there in the Building Department as the head because he is a qualified engineer. That is a necessity of outward organisation which is unavoidable here as elsewhere and has to be accepted if the work is to be done. But it does not mean that X or any other head is to be considered as a superior person or .that one has to surrender to his ego. One has to get rid of his own ego as far as possible and regard the work done under whatever conditions as an offering to the Mother. 20-8-1936
*
It is quite impossible for the Mother to see to every detail of the organisation of the Ashram in person; even as it is, she has no time free at all. It is understood that you can have ..., but it is with those who have charge that you must insist on the execution of any arrangement. 20-7-1933
*
It was the Mother who selected the heads [of departments] for her purpose in order to organise the whole; all the lines of the work, all the details were arranged by her and the heads trained
Page - 243 to observe her methods and it was only afterwards that she stepped back and let the whole thing go on on her lines but with a watchful eye always. The heads are carrying out her policy and instructions and report everything to her and she often modifies what they do when she thinks fit. Their action is not perfect, because they themselves are not yet perfect and they are also hampered by the ego of the workers and the Sadhaks. But nothing can be perfect so long as the Sadhaks and workers do not come to the realisation that they are not here for their ego and self-indulgence of their vital and physical demands but for a high and exacting Yoga of which the first aim is the destruction of desire and the substitution for it of the Divine Truth and the Divine Will. 9-1-1936
*
What I meant in my letter was that the Mother does not usually think about these things herself, take the initiative and direct each one in each instance what they shall do or how, unless there is some special occasion for doing so. This she does not do, in fact, in any department of work. She keeps her eye generally on the work, sanctions or corrects or refuses sanction, intervenes when she thinks necessary. It is only a few matters in which she takes the initiative, plans and designs, gives special and detailed orders. In the line of embroidery, X refers to her anything necessary or any of the workers undertakes something and informs the Mother that she would like to do something for her, handkerchief, apron, cover or sari. The Mother approves or disapproves what is suggested or suggests something herself or changes what is proposed. Work done in this way is as much work done according to the Mother's will as anything initiated, thought of and planned in whole and detail by her alone. I do not quite understand why you should consider that this way of work implies an absence of unity with the Mother's will or of surrender on your part. It is the offering within you that is important and brings in time the full completeness of surrender. 17-9-1936
Page - 244 I do not quite understand on what you want the anumati. If it is about embroidery, I have said that to follow the existing arrangement, viz., when you have the will or the inspiration to do some work of embroidery, then to put it before the Mother and take her sanction or ask for her decision, is quite a right way to work according to the Mother's will; it is not at all inconsistent with surrender. But if you prefer to leave everything to the Mother and not suggest or propose anything yourself, you can do that.
Mother only asked me to write to you about the way things are usually done, because as she is not in the habit of thinking herself about these things, it is not as easy for her to remember and think out something as to decide upon suggestions put before her. 18-9-1936
NEED OF LEARNING SUBORDINATION AND CO-OPERATION
The Mother has her own reasons for her decisions; she has to look at the work as a whole without regard to one department or branch alone and with a view to the necessities of the work and the management. Whatever work is done here, one has always to learn to subordinate or put aside one's own ideas and preferences about things concerning it and work for the best under the conditions and decisions laid down by her. This is one of the main difficulties throughout the Ashram, as each worker wants to do according to his own ideas, on his own lines according to what he thinks to be the right or convenient thing and expects that to be sanctioned. It is one of the principal reasons of difficulty, clash or disorder in the work, creating conflict between the workers themselves, conflict between the workers and the heads of departments, conflict between the idea of the Sadhaks and the will of the Mother. Harmony can only exist if all accept the will of the Mother without grudge and personal reaction.
Independent work does not exist in the Ashram. All is organised and interrelated, neither the heads of departments
Page - 245 nor the workers are independent. To learn subordination and co-operation is necessary for all collective work; without it there will be chaos. 10-3-1936
*
It is impossible for the Mother to arrange the work according to personal considerations as then all work would become impossible. 25-7-1934 IMPORTANT POINTS FOR WORKING IN THE RIGHT SPIRIT
There are certain things that A must fix in his mind and feel and act in their spirit, if he is to get rid of his depression and unrest and feel happy and at home. You will explain clearly to him what I write here.
1. He is not here as B's nephew, but as a child of the Mother. 2. He is not here under the care, guardianship and control of B, but under the Mother's control and care and he owes allegiance to her alone. 3. The work given to him in the stores is the Mother's work and not B's; he must do it with that idea, as the Mother's work, and no other. 4. B is at the head of the stores, garden, granary and receives his directions from the Mother or reports his arrangements to her for approval —just as C in the B.D. (Building Department) or D in the Dining Room or E or F in their departments. Others in these departments are supposed to receive their directions from the head and act in accordance. But this is because it is necessary for the discipline and good order of the work; it does not mean that the work is B's or the building work is C's or the Dining Room work is D's — all is the Mother's work and must be done by each, by the head as by the others, for her. It would not be possible to
Page - 246 get the work done if each and every worker insisted on being independent and directly responsible to her or on doing things in his own way; there is too much of this spirit and it is the cause of much confusion and disorder. The Mother cannot see to the whole work herself physically and give orders direct to each worker; therefore the arrangement made is indispensable. On the other hand, the head of a department is also supposed to act according to the Mother's directions — or in their spirit when he is left free — and not otherwise; if he does according to his mere fancy or obeys his own personal likes and dislikes or misuses his trust for his personal satisfaction or convenience, he is answerable for any failure in the work that may result or wrong spirit or clash or confusion or false atmosphere. 5. Any work done personally for B or another (not for the Ashram) is not part of the Mother's work and the Mother has nothing to do with that; if such work is asked, A may do it if he likes or not do it if he thinks it improper. 6. A has been given one work at least by the Mother direct — that is the cleaning of the kitchen vessels. Let him do it according to the Mother's directions and with scrupulousness and perfection; it will be an opportunity for him to show what he can do and the rest can be seen to hereafter. 7. He is not bound to accept food from G and B or presents etc.; if he does not like it, why does he receive these things ? He is perfectly free to refuse. His staying here and everything else does not depend on B, but on the Mother alone — so he has no reason to fear. 8. Finally, he should clear his vital of restlessness and desires — for that in him as in everybody is the root cause of depression and, if he were elsewhere and under other circumstances, the depression would still come because the root cause would still be there. Here if he turns entirely to the Mother, opens to her and works and lives turning towards her, he will get release and happiness and grow into light and peace and become in all his being a child of the Divine. 19-3-1932
Page - 247 It is very good that you have spoken and cleared up things. Certainly, it is quite true that the inner being should be turned to the Mother and to her alone.
As for the work, the inner development, psychic and spiritual, is surely of the first importance and work merely as work is something quite minor. But work done as an offering to the Mother becomes itself a part of Sadhana and a means and a part of the inner development. That you will see more as the psychic grows within you. Apart from that the work is important because necessary to the maintenance of the Ashram, which is the frame of the Mother's action here.
A is not wrong in giving importance to persons. It is quite true that the work would go on if the persons now in charge were not there and others were in their place, but in most cases it would go on badly or at least worse than now and there would be no certainty that those others would be adequate instruments of the Mother's will. For the work of the charge of departments for instance done by men like A, B, C, there is needed a combination of qualities, a special capacity, a personality and the power of control called organisation and above all fidelity and obedience to the Mother's will, the faith in her perceptions and the desire to carry them out. It is not many in the Ashram who have that combination. Before the Mother took up directly through A the work, now concentrated in Aroumé and the granaries, all was confusion, disorder, waste, self-indulgence, disregard of the Mother's will. Now though things are far from perfect, because the workers are not at all perfect, still all that is changed. In that change your presence in the kitchen and D's in the granary has counted for much; without you there it would have been far more difficult to realise the organisation of things the Mother wanted and in these two parts of the work it might even have been impossible. The Divine Will is there but it works through persons and there is a great difference between one instrument and another — that is why the person can be of so much importance.
*
Certainly, I cannot say that the ideas you put forward in this Page - 248 letter are true. They are errors of the physical mind which seldom gets hold of the real truth of things. It is not a fact that the Mother got displeased and frowned on you every time you wrote about A. That is the kind of thing the Sadhaks are always thinking and saying about the Mother, that she is frowning on them in displeasure for this reason or smiling on them for that, and the reasons they assign are those suggested by their own physical minds, but have nothing to do with anything in the consciousness of the Mother which is not in a constant bubbling of human pleasure and displeasure. I have tried to explain that to the Sadhaks again and again but they prefer to believe that their own minds are infallible and that what I say is untrue. So I will only say that your idea is mistaken.
It is also not a fact that you cannot do Sadhana, for you were doing it for a time and doing it very well. But your physical mind came across and took you outside and is trying to keep you outside instead of allowing you to go and remain within. That is why I have been trying to persuade you to go within and not live in these outside ideas and reactions of the physical being which prevent Sadhana and only give trouble.
It is not a fact that the Mother wants you to be a puppet of A. As regards the work it is not at all clear that all you think is right and all A does is wrong. You speak of your personality and what you seem to say is that A is in the work trying to impose his personality and that you want to affirm yours against it and the Mother ought to have supported you, but she does not regard your personality at all but insists on your subordinating it to A's. But the Mother does not at all look at it from that standpoint or regard anybody's personality. In her view people's personalities which means their ego ought to have no place in the work. It is not your work or A's work, but the Divine work, the Mother's work and it is not to be governed by your ideas or feelings or A's ideas or feelings or B's or C's or D's or anybody else's, but by the vision, perception and will of the Mother which does not express any human personality (if it did there would be no justification for the existence of this Ashram) but proceeds from a deeper consciousness. It has been the great obstacle to the full success and harmony of the work that everybody almost has had
Page - 249 this idea of his own personality, ideas, feelings etc. and more or less tried to insist on them — this has been the cause of most of the difficulties and of all the disharmony and quarrel. We want all this to stop; for when it stops altogether then there will be some possibility of the differences and turmoil ceasing and the work will better serve the purpose for which the Mother created it. That is why I have been trying to explain to you about the necessity of subordinating the personality and doing the work for the Divine, not insisting on one's own personality, ego, ideas, feelings as the important thing. There remains the question what is to be the relation between A and yourself in the work — this, as there is no more time today, I will write in another letter. 4-7-1937
P.S. When I say that you are mistaken or do not agree with you, you
seem to think my letters show displeasure and that my disagreeing with you means
that I am vexed with you for writing your views; but that is not so. If I
answer what you write, it must be to tell you what seems to myself and to the
Mother the true way of seeing things and acting. That does not imply any
displeasure. *
I do not think I said anywhere you had done anything contrary to A's instructions in your work. I was speaking of what you had written in criticism of his way of doing things, and especially I wanted to remove your idea that the necessity of acting under his instructions meant a disregard of your personality or a desire on the Mother's part to make you a puppet of A. Where there is a big work with several people working together for a purpose which is common to all and not personal to any, it cannot be done unless there is a fixed arrangement involving subordination and discipline in each worker. That is so everywhere, not here alone. A has to act under the Mother, carry out her instructions, work according to ideas she has given him. She has laid down the lines on which he must work, and whatever he does must be on those lines. He is not free to change them or do anything contrary to the ideas given him. Where he makes decisions in details
Page - 250 of the work, they must be in consonance with these lines and ideas. He has to report to the Mother, to take her sanction and accept her decisions on all matters. If the Mother's decisions are contrary to his proposals or contradict his own ideas of what should be done, he has still to accept them and carry them out. The idea that the D.R. work is done according to his ideas and not the Mother's is an error. But all that is simply the necessity of the work, it is not a disregard of A's personality. In the same way you have to carry out A's instructions because he is charged by the Mother with the work and given authority by her. All the D.R. workers are in the same position and are supposed to carry out his instructions and keep him informed, because he is directly responsible to the Mother for everything and unless he has this authority he cannot carry out his responsibility. In the same way B has been asked to carry out your instructions in the kitchen because you are at the head of the kitchen. All that is not a disregard of your personality or of B's personality or an assertion of A's — it is the necessity of the work which cannot be smoothly done if there is not this arrangement. That is what I wanted you to understand so that you might see why the Mother wanted you to do like that, not for any other reason, but for the necessity of the work and so that it may be smoothly done.
On the other hand as you are at the head of the work and the practical working is in your hands, you have every right to put any difficulties before A and ask for a solution. He on his side will often need information from you and may need also to know what you think should be done. But if even after knowing, he thinks it right to follow his own idea of what should be done and not yours, you should not mind that. He has the responsibility and must act according to his lights subject to the sanction of the Mother. Your responsibility finishes when you have informed him and told him your idea. If his decision is wrong, it is for the Mother to change it.
I hope I have made the conditions clear. There is no necessity for you to agree with A's ideas nor outside the work are you under any obligation to do what he wants you to do. There you are quite free. It is only in the work that there is this necessity in action — for the sake of the work.
Page - 251 I have written so much because you wanted to know what the Mother expected you to do. It is not meant as a pressure upon you, but only to explain things and show you the way and the reason for which they have to be done. 5-7-1937
*
For the Sadhana, it is not true that some are here only because they give money and others because they are workers only. What is true is that there are many who can prepare themselves only by work, their consciousness not being yet ready for meditation of the more intense kind. But even for those who can do intense meditation from the beginning, Sadhana by work is also necessary in this Yoga. One cannot arrive at its goal by meditation alone. As for your own capacity, it was evident when for a fairly long period an active Sadhana was proceeding within you. Everybody's capacity however is limited — little can be done by one's own strength alone. It is reliance on the Divine Force, the Mother's Force and Light and openness to it that is the real capacity. This you had for a time, but as with many others it got clouded over by the coming up of the physical nature in its full force. This clouding happens to almost everybody at that stage, but it need not be lasting. If the physical consciousness resolves to open itself, then nothing more is needed for progress in the Sadhana. 10-7-1937
*
If you leave it to the Mother entirely, then what the Mother would want you to do is to go on with the work as best you can without allowing yourself to be disturbed or troubled by these things which you enumerate in your letters, without insisting on your own ideas or vital feelings. That is indeed the rule that all ought to follow, to do their work here as the Mother's work, not their own; the worker must not insist on the work being done according to his own ideas; for that is to treat it as his own work,
Page - 252 not the Mother's. If there are inconveniences, troubles, things done not as he would like them to be, still he should go on doing his work as best he can under the circumstances. That is a rule of the Sadhana, to remain unconcerned by outward circumstances and quietly do what one has to do, what one can do, leaving the rest to the Mother. It is not possible to have everything perfect at present, even supposing that what one thinks to be right is the best. There is much in the Ashram and the work that is not as perfect as the Mother would like it to be, but she knows that the perfection she would like is not yet possible because of circumstances and the imperfection of her instruments; she arranges all for the best according to what is now possible. The worker should do his work in this spirit according to the Mother's arrangements and he should use his work as a means for growing spiritually in devotion, obedience, self-offering to the Mother, not insisting on himself, his ideas, his feelings and preferences. To be able to do that makes the consciousness ready for inner experience and progress in Sadhana.
I have tried to explain what the Mother wants and why she wants it. She wants you to do her work quietly, taking all inconveniences, defects and difficulties quietly, and doing your best; what X does or arranges should not disturb you — if he makes mistakes he is responsible for it to the Mother and it is for the Mother to see what is to be done. That is what she wants from you — if you can do it, then things will go more smoothly and she will be able more easily to lead things in the direction she wants. It is also, as I have tried to explain to you, the best thing for your own Sadhana. 5-7-1937
*
Page - 253 THE MOTHER AND THE WORKING OF THE ASHRAM
You must remember what I wrote to you before that the Mother wants you to remain quiet and do your work as well as you can under the circumstances without allowing yourself to be upset by these things. Any improvement in the conditions of life and work in the Ashram depends on each one trying to progress and open within to the true consciousness, growing spiritually within and not minding about the faults or conduct of others. No change can come by outer means; for this reason the Mother has long ceased to intervene outwardly in the clashes and disagreements between Sadhaks. Let each progress inwardly and then only the outer difficulties will disappear or become negligible. 21-4-1938 *
It is quite impossible to take you away from the kitchen and leave the others to work in your place. Such a solution would be very bad for you; for it would mean your losing a work in which the Mother's force has been long with you and sitting in your room with your thoughts which will not be helpful or according to your active nature. It would be very bad too for the kitchen; your place cannot be filled by anyone else there however well they may work in their own limits — none of them could be trusted with the responsibility the Mother has given to you.
The difficulties you have are the difficulties which are met in each department and office of the Ashram. It is due to the imperfections of the Sadhaks, to their vital nature. You are mistaken in thinking that it is due to your presence there and that if you withdrew all would go smoothly. The same state of things would go on among themselves, disagreements, quarrels, jealousies, hard words, harsh criticisms of each other. A's or any other's complaints against you are because you are firm and careful in your management; there are the same or similar complaints against B and others who discharge their trust given to them by the Mother scrupulously and well. There are against them the same murmurs and jealousies as are directed against you in the kitchen because of their position and their exercise of it. It would be no solution for B or others trusted by the Mother to withdraw and leave the place to those who would discharge the duty less scrupulously and less well. It is the same with you and the kitchen work; it is not the way out. The way out can only come by a change in the character of the Sadhaks brought about by the process of the Sadhana. Till then you should understand and be patient and not allow yourself to be disturbed by the
Page - 254 wrong behaviour of the others, but remain quietly doing your best, sustaining yourself on the trust and support given you by B and the Mother. It is the Mother's work and the Mother is there to support you in doing it; put your reliance on that and do not allow the rest to affect you. 14-7-1935
*
I am rather surprised at your description of the people who show contempt towards you. Leaving aside A who is not in question, there is nobody working with you who is far advanced in Sadhana or is regarded by the Mother as more specially her own than are others. You are certainly as much her own as anybody else in the kitchen; she has always owned you as her child and little star and what can anybody be more than that ? I see no reason therefore why you should care so much if anybody is not behaving well with you. I have told you already that people in the Ashram — it is true even of those who have inner experiences and some opening — are not yet free in their outer selves from ego and wrong ideas and wrong movements. It is no use getting distressed or depressed by that. What you must do is to be turned only to the Mother and relying on her go forward quietly with your work and Sadhana until the time when the Sadhaks are sufficiently awakened and changed to feel the need of greater harmony and union with each other. Let only your spiritual change and progress matter for you and for that trust wholly in the Mother's force and her grace which is with you — do not let things or people disturb you, — for compared with the truth within and the journey to the full Light of the Mother's Consciousness these things have no importance. 6-12-1935
*
I do not know why you suppose that the Mother was displeased with you for your letter. I think my answer was quite kind and without any touch of displeasure in it. I was silent about most
Page - 255 of what you had written, because when there are letters of this kind I take it as an unburdening of the mind and always either remain silent in so far as it concerns others or else I say that we must rely on the growth of inner consciousness to get rid of the faults and deficiencies and mistakes of the Sadhaks. Silence does not imply that these defects and mistakes do not exist. But all have defects in various forms and make mistakes and the best Sadhaks are not exempt. The human way is to get angry and rebuke and condemn and, if the Mother does not do the same or is not severe, to think she is unjust or partial or unseeing or wilfully blind to the defects of her favourites. But the Mother is not blind; she knows very well the nature of all the Sadhaks, their faults as well as their merits; she knows too what human nature is and how these things come and that the human way of dealing with them is not the true way and changes nothing. It is why she has patience and love and charity for all, not for some alone, who are sincere in their work or their Sadhana.
It is strange also that you should conclude that she puts no value on you. From the first the Mother has had a special kindness for you; she has appreciated and supported you so steadily that people have accused her of blind partiality towards you just as they accuse her with regard to A. When you were in trouble and difficulty with suggestions and revolts, she was love and patience itself and helped and supported you through all. Afterwards since your Sadhana opened, we have been watching solicitously over it, — I have been spending time daily writing answers, giving you knowledge of what you should know, trying to lead you forward with love and care. Why should all this have been done, if we had no value for you ?
You know these things but your physical mind has become too active and clouded your perception for a time. You must get back from it into your inner self.
30-8-1936
I wrote that your letter showed an attack of the old consciousness because of its tone "I will not bear these things — it is better for
Page - 256 me to go away from here etc". These are the old suggestions, not the attitude of your inner being which was to give yourself and leave all to the Mother. The attitude of your inner being must also extend to your attitude to these outer things — knowing that whatever imperfections there are have to be worked out from within by each one, just as your own imperfections have to be worked out from within yourself by the Mother's aid and working in you. That is with regard to your former letter. As to the present — to say what you see is all right but there is also in what you write a judgment passed upon what you see. These judgments you have expressed in a statement of what you think to be X's wrong motives, actions and mistakes. You put these statements and judgments before the Mother — for what ? That she may take some action ? But for that she must form her own judgment, and this she cannot do without facts, precise facts — she cannot act on a general statement by anyone. It is only if the person whom X blindly trusts is named that she can judge whether X is making a mistake in trusting him. If he listens to certain people and not to others, she must know who these people are and what are the circumstances in which he did that; then only can she judge whether he is right or wrong in doing so. So with everything. Many general statements have been made against X by others, but whenever it has come to particulars in dispute, the Mother has seen that it is only sometimes in details that she had to change what he decided, his general management was in accordance with what she had laid down for him as the lines to follow. Ways of speech, defects of character, errors of judgment in particulars, these are a different matter. Each one has them and, as I have often said, they must be changed from within; but I am speaking of outer things, particular actions, particular ways of doing things. There she must be told with precise facts what is complained of in his action.
If it is not a general complaint you make about the D.R. and Aroumé work but in regard to yourself and your work particularly, there too you must give the precise facts of what he has done or failed to do before the Mother can judge or say or do anything. What is it that he has not reported to her or has
Page - 257 stated wrongly to her about your work or you ? What are the conveniences that he has not conceded to you ?
I write all that because you seem to expect the Mother to do something. But she must know what it is, what it is based on and whether she can do it or not with benefit to the work. Quarrels and clashes of ego there have been plenty in the D.R. and Aroumé, but that she cannot accept as a base of her action; she does not side with one or against another in these things. What is proper or necessary for the work is the thing she has to consider. 3-10-1936
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All that has happened between you and X, as described by you, are trifles and a little good sense and good will on both sides should be enough to deprive them of importance and to get over any slight disturbance they may create. Quarrels take place and endure because both sides think the other is in the wrong and has behaved ill; but neither side can be in the right in a vital quarrel. The very fact of quarrelling like that puts both in the wrong. Moreover, it is not right to be so sensitive about being dominated or controlled. In the work especially one must accept the control of anyone whom the Mother puts in charge, so far as the work goes. In other matters, one can keep one's due independence without breaking off relations or any kind of quarrel.
There would be no use in changing your work or your residence, even if it were possible under the circumstances. It is the inner attitude that has to be kept right, the will to harmony must be fully established. A change of work is not the remedy. The idea of a good atmosphere or bad atmosphere in the house is also a thing not to be indulged. One must create one's own atmosphere not penetrable by other influences and one can always do that by union and closeness to the Mother.
2-10-1935 *
What you write is no doubt correct. These are very wrong ideas in the minds of the workers and not at all the right attitude. But
Page- 258 we have not to do the work for the satisfaction of the Sadhaks, but rather because it is the Mother's work, the divine work and it has to be done well and in the right way. If the workers or others are not satisfied, it has still to be done well and in the right way. When their nature changes and they see their mistake, then they will recognise the truth and change their attitude. Some have good will and have only to learn to see more clearly and get free from their mental misjudgments. Others are more obscure and egoistic and will take more time to get the right poise. Till that happens we must go on with a quiet firmness and resolution and a great patience.
WORK IN THE ASHRAM AND THE MOTHER'S WORK
Whose work is it if it is not the Mother's work ? All that you do, you have to do as the Mother's work. All the work done in the Ashram is the Mother's.
All those works, meditation, reading Conversations, studying English, etc. are good. You can do any of them dedicating them to the Mother.
Meditation means opening yourself to the Mother, concentrating on aspiration and calling in her force to work and transform you.
18-9-1932 REASONS FOR ALLOWING WORK
Yes, that is correct. Mother does not care for the food for itself; but she allows X to do it as an offering. So with the work — although the work has its own importance. Y and Z are not given physical or practical external work because their energy cannot run in that direction and they cannot do it — not because training in physical and practical work is not good for all. In ideal circumstances a many-sided activity of the being would be the best — but as yet it is not always practicable. 26-9-1933
Page - 259 KARTAVYAM KARMA AND WORK SANCTIONED BY THE MOTHER
Q: Can it be said that all the work sanctioned by the Mother is "kartavyam karma" ? A: If the Sadhak has a strong insistence or a strong desire, the Mother may say "Yes" or "Do as you like" or give her sanction to the thing requested or demanded. That does not make it a "kartavyam karma", but simply a thing which the Sadhak can do. Again if a thing is indifferent or unobjectionable and the Mother is asked by somebody if he can do it, and she agrees, that does not exalt it into a "kartavyam karma". 31-7-1937 *
Q: So far I had the belief that all work sanctioned by the Mother was her work and work done for her is our "kartavyam karma". Is this not so ? If a person gives up all duties to the family, country and society and sincerely does work only for the Divine, as a offering to the Mother, is he not doing the Mother's work and is it not his "kartavyam karma" ? Outside it ma by difficult to decide this, but here, under the living Presence of the Mother, is this not an assured fact ? If not, then what is really meant by "kartavyam karma" ?
A: I was asked whether everything done that had the Mother's permission was not a "kartavyam karma". People ask for permission to a host of things dictated by various reasons — it does not follow that the Mother's permission to all these things are her dictates. What work is given by the Mother is her work — also whatever work is done with sincerity as an offering to the Mother is her work also — that goes without saying. But Karma covers all kinds of actions and not work only. 31-7-1937
Page - 260 PROPAGANDA WORK FOR THE MOTHER
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. 9-4-1937
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THE MOTHER'S APPROVAL AND POSSIBILITIES OF SUCCESS
Approval or permission ! People get it into their heads that they would like to do some music, because it is the fashion or because they like it so much and the Mother may tolerate it and say "All right, try". That does not mean they are predestined or doomed to be musicians — or poets or painters according to the case. Perhaps one of them who try may bloom, others drop off. X starts painting and shows only a fanciful dash at first, after a time he brings out remarkable work. Y does clever facile things; one day he begins to deepen and a possible painter in the making outlines; others — well, they don't. But they can try — they will learn something about painting at least. May, 1935
THE MOTHER'S ATTITUDE TO ERRORS IN WORK
Q: From what Mother said yesterday it seems that one should attach little importance to one's errors in work and not mind or correct those of others. Also, since
Page - 261 the material world is only one of the several worlds, only a small portion of the total manifestation, should we not attach very little importance to material things, material work and its details ?
A: What Mother said was that she was perfectly aware of errors done in the work, but as she had to work out a certain Force in these things looking at them from an inner viewpoint, not with the external intellect, she found it often necesary to pass over imperfections and errors. This does not at all mean that the Sadhak-worker has not to care whether there are errors in his work where he is responsible. If other Sadhaks commit errors that is their responsibility, one can observe and avoid similar mistakes in oneself, but one Sadhak cannot correct the errors of others unless that comes within his responsibility — each has to correct himself and his own defects and mistakes.
We are here in this material world and not in the others except by an inner connection. Also our life and action lie here, so it will not do to neglect the material world and things, though we should not be attached and bound to them by āsakti and desire. We have to acquire a knowledge of the nature and powers of other worlds (planes) so far as they are connected with this one and we can use them to help and uplift the action here. But still the field of action is here and not elsewhere. 21-8-1936
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EXTERNAL ORGANISATION AND INNER HARMONY
Mistakes come from people bringing their ego, their personal feeling (likes and dislikes), their sense of prestige or their convenience, pride, sense of possession, etc. into the work. The right way is to feel that the work is the Mother's — not only yours, but the work of others — and to carry it out in such a spirit that there shall be general harmony. Harmony cannot be brought about by external organisation only, though a more and more perfect external organisation is necessary; inner harmony there
Page - 262 must be or else there will always be clash and disorder.
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Q: You have written "Harmony cannot be brought about by external organisation only ... inner harmony there must be or else there will always be clash and disorder". What is that inner harmony ? A: Union in the Mother. 21-4-1933 *
The Mother's victory is essentially a victory of each Sadhak over himself. It can only be then that any external form of work can come to a harmonious perfection. 12-11-1937 *
The remedy for these things is to think more and more of the Mother and less and less of the relations of others with yourself apart from the Mother. As X is trying, so you should try to meet others in the Mother, in your consciousness of unity with the Mother and not in a separate personal relation. Then these difficulties disappear and harmony can be established — for then it is not necessary to try and please others — but both or all meet in their love for the Mother and their work for her.
THE MOST NEEDED THING
The one thing that is most needed for this Sadhana is peace, calm, especially in the vital — a peace which depends not on circumstances or surroundings but on the inner contact with a higher consciousness which is the consciousness of the Divine, of the Mother. Those who have not that or do not aspire to get it can come here and live in the Ashram for ten or twenty years and yet
Page - 263 be as restless and full of struggle as ever, — those who open their mind and vital to the Mother's strength and peace get it even in the hardest and most unpleasant work and the worst circumstances. October, 1933
ORDINARY FELLOWSHIP AND UNITY IN THE NEW CONSCIOUSNESS
The Mother has not laid stress on human fellowship of the ordinary kind between the inmates (though good feeling, consideration and courtesy should always be there), because that is not the aim; it is a unity in a new consciousness that is the aim, and the first thing is for each to do his Sadhana to arrive at that new consciousness and realise oneness there. 31-10-1935
NO PLACE FOR VITAL RELATIONS IN YOGA
The whole principle of this Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody and nothing else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother-Power all the transcendent light, force, wideness, peace, purity, Truth-Consciousness and Ananda of the supramental Divine. In this Yoga, therefore, there can be no place for vital relations or interchanges with others; any such relation or interchange immediately ties down the soul to the lower consciousness and its lower nature, prevents the true and full union with the Divine and hampers both the ascent to the supramental Truth-Consciousness and the descent of the supramental Ishwari Shakti.
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The Mother is pressing for the sex-trouble to go out of the Sadhaks — as it is a great obstacle. So it must go.
29-10-1934 Page - 264 LEARNING TO LIVE WITHIN
You have to learn to live in yourself with the Mother, in contact with her consciousness, and meet others only with your exterior surface.
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If it is like that, it is probably because you are living outside, allowing yourself to be disturbed by outward contacts. One cannot find happiness of a lasting character unless one lives within. Work, action must be offered to the Mother, done for her sake only, without any thought for yourself, your own ideas, preferences, feelings, likes, dislikes. If one's eyes are fixed on these latter things, then at every step one gets some friction either in the mind or vital or if these are comparatively quiet on the body and nerves. Peace and joy can only become stable if one lives within with the Mother. 2-1-1937
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That is all right. But what I wrote was not put down as a rule for you alone. It is one which everyone ought to follow, X and everybody else. For 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.
3-1-1937 *
To fix times is not possible or desirable — you must yourself organise your day in such a manner as to make the best use of it and let the Mother know how you do it.
Page - 265 The most important thing is to be turned inwardly towards the Mother and to Her alone, to avoid too many outward contacts is necessary only to help in this — but it is not necessary nor desirable to avoid all contact with people. What is necessary is to meet these contacts with the right mind and consciousness, not throwing yourself out — treating them as things of the surface, not getting attached to them or absorbed by them in any way. Yes, of course, it was an inner concentrated condition in which you could come, in contact with the Mother. The flowers indicate always an opening (usually psychic) in some part of the consciousness. 28-10-1933
MOTHER'S DISAPPROVAL OF COMPLETE RETIREMENT
Mother does not at all approve of the idea of a complete retirement. It does not bring the control, only an illusion of a control because the untoward causes are removed for a time. It is a control established while in contact with the outward things that is alone genuine. You must establish that from within by a fixed resolution and practice. Too much mixing and too much talk should be avoided, but a complete retirement is not the thing. It has not had the required result with anyone so far. 27-11-1936
DIFFERENCES IN THE MOTHER'S WAY OF DEALING WITH SADHAKS
You have spoken of your singing. You know well that we approve of it, and I have constantly stressed its necessity for you as well as that of your poetry. But the Mother absolutely forbade A's singing. So you see that to music for some she is indifferent or even discourages it, for others she approves as for B, C and others. For some time she encouraged the concerts, afterwards she stopped them. You drew from the prohibition to A and the
Page - 266 stopping of the concerts the conclusion that the Mother did not like music or did not like Indian music or considered music bad for Sadhana, and all sorts of strange mental reasons like that. Mother prohibited A because while music was good for you, it was spiritual poison to A — the moment he began to think of it and of audiences, all the vulgarity and unspirituality in his nature rose to the surface. You can see what he is doing with it now. So, again, with concerts though in a different way: she stopped them because she had seen that wrong forces were coming into the atmosphere, which had nothing to do with music in itself: her motives were not mental. It was for similar reasons that she drew back from big public displays like D's. On the other hand, she favoured and herself planned the exhibition of painting at the Town Hall. So you will see that there is no mental rule, but in each case the guidance is determined by spiritual reasons which are of a flexible character. There is no other consideration, no rule; music, painting, poetry and many other activities which are of the mind and vital can be used as part of spiritual development or of the work and for a spiritual purpose: "it depends on the spirit in which they are done".
That being established, these things depend on the spirit, the nature of the person, its needs, the conditions and circumstances.
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The Sadhana is done by the Mother according to the Truth and necessity of each nature and of each plane of Nature. It is not one fixed process. 13-9-1933
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Concern yourself with your own progress and follow there the lead the Mother gives you. Leave others to do the same; the Mother is there to guide and help them according to their need and their nature. It does not in the least matter if the way she follows with him seems different or the opposite of that which
Page - 267 she takes with you. That is the right one for him, as this is the right one for you. 25-10-1932
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The Mother speaks or writes much more pointedly and sharply to those whom she wishes to push rapidly on the way because they are capable of it, and they do not resent or suffer but are glad of the pressure and the plainness because they know by experience that it helps them to see their obstacles and change. If you wish to progress rapidly you must get rid of this vital reaction of abhimāna, suffering, wounded feeling, seeking for argument of self-justification, outcry against the touch that is intended to liberate — for so long as you have these, it is difficult for us to deal openly and firmly with the obstacles created by the vital nature.
In regard to the difference between you and X: The Mother's warning to you against the undesirability of too much talk, loose chat and gossip, social self-dispersion was entirely meant and stands; when you indulge in these things, you throw yourself out into a very small and ignorant consciousness in which your vital defects get free play and this is likely to bring you out of what you have developed in your inner consciousness. That was why we said that if you felt a reaction against these things when you went to X's, it was a sign of your (psychic) sensitiveness coming into you — into your vital and nervous being, and we meant that it was all for the good. But in dealing with others, in withdrawing from these things you should not allow any sense of superiority to creep in, or force on them by your manner or spirit a sense of disapproval or condemnation or pressure on them to change. It is for your personal inward need that you draw back from these things, that is all. As for them, what they do in these matters, right or wrong, is their affair, and ours; we will deal with them according to what we see as necessary and possible for them at the moment, and for that purpose we can not only deal quite differently with different people, allowing for one what we forbid for another, but we may deal
Page - 268 differently with the same person at different times, allowing or even encouraging today what we shall forbid tomorrow .... A human soul and nature cannot be dealt with by a set of mental rules applicable to everybody in the same way; if it were so, there would be no need of a Guru, each could set his chart of Yogic rules before him like the rules of Sandow's exercise and follow them till he became the perfect Siddha ! 25-10-1932
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Q: The Mother does not seem to turn away from people who are not faithful. She often allows them to do what they like. A: It is the Mother's business. She alone can say what is the right way to deal with people. If she were to deal with people only according to their defects, there would be hardly half a dozen people left in the Ashram. 26-3-1933 *
Whatever is done by the Mother is for the good of the Sadhak and the Sadhana. 9-12-1935 *
Q: How can one make the vital being understand that the Mother is never partial ? A: One way is to have entire faith in the Mother — the other is to believe that she is wiser than yourself and must have reasons for everything she does which are better than your mind's judgments. 22-3-1934 *
Q: I am sure that for everything the Mother does there is a reason, and that what she does is according to the
Page - 269 need of each one, but the vital das not believe it, and it is not yet well established in the mental. How can this be firmly established in the mental so that it does not yield to any temptation ?
A: It should be established — that is all. So long as the vital or mental think themselves wiser than the Mother and able to judge her how do you expect these stupidities to disappear ? 22-3-1934 *
Q: Can the physical mind have a correct understanding of the Mother's dealings ? A: Not until it is enlightened by the true consciousness and knowledge from above. 4-7-1936
THE MOTHER'S USE OF THE MAHAKALI METHOD
All these things depend on the person, the condition, the circumstances. The Mother uses the method you speak of, the Mahakali method,
(1) with those in whom there is a great eagerness and a fundamental sincerity somewhere even in the vital, (2) with those whom she meets intimately and who, she knows, will not resent or misunderstand her severity or take it for a withdrawal of kindness or grace, but will regard it as a true grace and a help to their Sadhana.
There are others who cannot bear this method — if it was continued they would run a thousand miles away in misunderstanding and revolt and despair. What the Mother wants is for people to have their full chance for their souls, be the method short and swift or long and tortuous. Each she must treat according to his nature. 9-5-1933
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Page - 270 If you are afraid of the Mother's scoldings, how will you progress ? Those who want to progress quickly, welcome even the blows of Mahakali, because that pushes them more rapidly on the way.
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Q: Is it possible to have that relation with the Mother in which she would feel free to correct me and tell me, without any kind of consideration for my feelings, what I must do and must not do ?
A: Certainly, when the Divine Consciousness is fully realised, there will be no difference between the Mother's will and the Sadhak's.
For a relation to exist in which Mother can do as you say, the Sadhak must not be afraid of the Mahakali aspect and ask only for sweetness. He must be able to take the blows of Mahakali as a blessing. He must also believe in her vision and judgment and word, otherwise when she says or does something unpleasant to his ego that ego will go sulking, justifying itself, calling her names etc. as is the habit with so many in the Ashram when she does not do what they like. There are very few here who can take this attitude even imperfectly, but it is with them that the Mother has this relation. With others who have a different nature, she cannot but behave differently — for she has to act with each according to his nature.
THE MOTHER'S WAY OF WORKING
The difficulty about meeting you demand that the Mother should plan out and fix a routine for you in everything which you must follow is that this is quite contrary to the Mother's way of working in most matters. In the most physical things you have to fix a programme in order deal with time, otherwise all becomes a sea of confusion and haphazard. Fixed rules have also to be made for the management of material things so
Page - 271 long as people are not sufficiently developed to deal with them in the right way without rules. But these things of which you write are different; they are concerned with your inner development, your Sadhana. In fact, even in outward things the Mother does not plan with her mind and make a mental map and rule of what is to be done; she sees what is to be done in each case and organises and develops it according to the nature of each case. In matters of the inner development and the Sadhana it is still more impossible to map out a plan fixed in every detail and say, "Every time you shall step here, there, in this way, or that line and no other". Things would become so tied up and rigid that nothing could be done; there would be no true and effective movement.
If the Mother asked you to tell her everything, it was not in order that she might give you directions in every detail which you must obey. It was in order, first, that there might grow up the complete intimacy in which you would be entirely open to her, so that she might pour more and more and continuously and at every point the Divine Force into you which would increase the Light in you, perfect your action, deliver and develop your nature. It is this that was important; all else is secondary, important only so far as it helps this or hinders. In addition, it would help her to give whenever needed the necessary direction, the necessary help or warning, not always by words, more often by a silent intervention and pressure. This is her way of dealing with those who are open to her; it is not necessary to give express orders at every moment and in every detail. Especially, if the psychic consciousness is open and one lives fully in that, it gets the intimation at once and sees things clearly and receives the help, the intervention, the necessary direction or warning. That was what was happening to a great extent when your psychic consciousness was very active, but there was a vital part in which you were not open and which was coming up repeatedly, and it is this that has created the confusion and the trouble.
Everything depends on the inner condition, and the outward action is only useful as a means and a help for expressing or confirming the inner condition and making it dynamic and effective. If you do or say a thing with the psychic uppermost or with
Page - 272 the right inner touch, it will be effective; if you do or say the same thing out of the mind or the vital or with a wrong or mixed atmosphere, it may be quite ineffective. To do the right thing in the right way in each case and at each moment one must be in the right consciousness — it can't be done by following a fixed mental rule which under some circumstances might fit in and under others might not fit in at all. A general principle can be laid down if it is in consonance with the Truth, but its application must be determined by the inner consciousness seeing at each step what is to be done or not done. If the psychic is uppermost, if the being is entirely turned towards the Mother and follows the psychic, this can be increasingly done.
All depends therefore not on a mental rule to follow in practice, but in getting the psychic consciousness back and putting its light into this vital part and making that part turn wholly to the Mother. It is not that the question of your going too much to X is of no importance, — it is of considerable importance — but to limit the contact is effective only as a means of helping your vital part to withdraw from this servitude to old movements. It is the same everywhere.
The kind of outward obedience you lay stress on, asking for a direction in every detail, is not the essence of surrender, although obedience is the natural fruit and outward body of surrender. Surrender is from within, opening and giving the mind, vital, physical, all to the Mother for her to take them as her own and re-create them in their true being which is a portion of the Divine; all the rest follows as a consequence. It would not then be necessary to ask her word and order outwardly in every detail, the being would feel and act according to her will; her sanction would be sought as the seal of that inner unity, receptiveness of her will and obedience. 11-6-1932 THE MOTHER'S REGARD FOR TRUTH
Mother heard that X had objected to your working in her room, but she brushed it aside at once saying that that could have no
Page - 273 importance. It has nothing to do with her decision which was made on other grounds quite independently of it.
P.S. A lie is a lie whoever speaks it. If you give credit to what someone or another thinks or says as Mother's motive in an action, take her statement of her motive as untrue and somebody else's who cannot know as sound and true and on that challenge Mother for want of frankness, is the resulting upset our fault ? It is a question of greater confidence in the Mother than in the statements or interpretations of Sadhaks or the hasty assumptions or inferences of your mind or the feelings of your vital made without having the needed information. If you could get rid of that movement, things would be easier.
15-5-1936
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Q: How can the maxim "a lie is a lie" apply to all ? It can apply only to those who are bound by moral and social codes, or as a principle only if the intention behind is wrong. If a higher motive demands a concealing or misrepresenting something by words I would hardly call it a lie. The motive, the basis, are all superhuman and cannot fall in the same category. I think Krishna did not always speak the exact truth and his half-lies always provoke an understanding smile in all who listen to his stories.
A: If the Mother did a thing for one reason and said that she did it for quite another she did not have, I fail to see how it can be anything but a falsehood. No superhuman motive can make a falsehood not a falsehood. Moreover, if you really believe that the Divine can speak what is not true without being untrue and that that is a part of divinity, why do you resent when you think the Mother has done it and grow sorrowful and indignant over her supposed unfair and uncandid treatment of you and cry she ought to have been frank, etc. ? You ought rather to think she is acting from superhuman motives and accept gladly whatever
Page - 274 she does. At least that seems to be the logic of such a position.
You base yourself evidently on the position that the Divine Consciousness is above good and evil. But that does not mean that it does evil and good impartially. It can only mean that it acts from a light that is beyond that level of human consciousness which makes the human standard of these things. It acts for and from a greater good than the apparent good men follow after. It acts also according to a greater truth than men conceive. It is for this reason that the human mind cannot understand the divine action and its motives — he must first rise into a higher consciousness and be in spiritual contact or union with the Divine. But if anyone recognises that, he can no longer judge the divine action with his human mind and from his human point of view. The two things would be quite incompatible.
But this does not fall under any such explanation. To allege a false motive cannot be a movement of a greater Truth and consciousness. To keep silence and not reveal one's motive is one thing — to say I did not act from that motive when I actually did so, is not silence, it is falsehood. It is a matter not of moral, but spiritual importance. The Mother cares for the Truth and she has always said that lying and falsehood create a serious obstacle to realisation. How then can she herself do that ?
I do not remember any lies or half-lies told by Krishna, so I can say nothing on that point. But if he did according to the Mahabharata or the Bhagawata, we are not bound either by that record or by that example. I think Rama and Buddha told none. 17-5-1936
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It is good if you have freed yourself from this bondage. Love of Truth is divine, but this kind of truth is a very mixed product accompanied as it is by hardness or a fierce anger. Truth does not insist on a blind adherence to the spoken word — as for instance, if a man says that he will kill another under the impression that that other has done him a grievous wrong and afterwards carries out his word even when he has found out the other was innocent
Page - 275 and no wrong done. That is what literal adhesion to the spoken word would come to, if scrupulously held as a principle. Truth, on the contrary demands that a man shall cleave to the principle of Truth in things only, and in the case above the principle of Truth would demand that he should break his vow and not keep it. If a man pledges himself to something that is against the principle of Love and Compassion, or against that of obedience and surrender to the Divine, it is not Truth to keep that pledge — for it would be a pledge to follow falsehood — and how can Truth be held in allegiance to falsehood ? That would be an Asuric, not a divine Truthfulness.
As for the Mother, one will not find in her this blind adherence to an arrangement once made. If, for instance, she told someone, next time you yield to sex-passion in any way, you will have to leave the Ashram, and if the man did it and repented, she too might relent and not insist in following out her menace. These matters or interviews are not promises, contracts or engagements, — they are arrangements only and can be altered. If she has arranged for half an hour she can make it instead three-quarters of an hour — or diminish it to twenty minutes. There is a plasticity needed in the movement of time and the habit of life cannot afford to be rigid in its movements, otherwise life would either be turned into a mere mechanism or break to pieces. But in this case there was no intention; it was a pure accident; by some oversight your name had not been written in the morning list and Mother came to the door when those on the list were finished. She could not go back because it was extremely late and it had been a long and exhausting morning spent in a continual struggle with adverse forces and she had to come in, do what still she had to do and come to me to report what had happened.
But even if she had intended it for some reason not known to you, your reaction was not the right one. For the basis you have taken for your Yoga is to obey the Will whatever it may be. These things — seemingly accidental — happen when they are predestined and they come in as an ordeal for something in the vital which has by this painful process to accept change. 28-9-1933
Page - 276 FUTILITY OF JUDGING MOTHER'S ACTIONS BY MIND
Obviously. Neither Nature nor Destiny nor the Divine work in the mental way or by the law of the mind or according to its standards — that is why even to the scientist and the philosopher Nature, Destiny, the way of the Divine all seem a mystery. The Mother does not act by the mind, so to judge her action with the mind is futile. 5-5-1936
*
The Mother does not discuss these mental problems with her disciples. It is quite useless trying to reconcile these things with the intellect. For there are two things, the Ignorance from which the struggle and discord comes and the secret Light, Unity, Bliss and Harmony. The Intellect belongs to the Ignorance. It is only by getting into a better consciousness that one can live in the Light and Bliss and Unity and not be touched by the outward discord and struggle. That change of consciousness therefore is the only thing that matters, to reconcile with the intellect would make no difference.
MISREPRESENTATION OF THE MOTHER'S WORDS
It is not X alone, but many or most who turn things [spoken by the Mother] in that way — the tendency is almost universal in human nature. It is not from dishonesty that he or others do it — it is because when they listen, their minds are not silent but active and the thought of their minds mixes with what they have heard and gives it another turn or shape or colour. Often also the vital interferes and exaggerates or reshapes according to the desire or the convenience. This is much more often unconsciously than consciously done.
In the present instance, the Mother spoke quite generally, not about Y or what had happened in Z's case, and she meant that what ought to be remembered is not remembered because of
Page - 277 some strong immediate desire which pushes the memory behind until the desire is fulfilled and then only, if at all, the recollection comes. X evidently added his own ideas, applied it specially to Y's action and thought that the Mother had said it was consciously done — that Y remembered and yet went against her conscious sense of right in order to fulfil her desire. That was not what the Mother said or meant by her general statement.
30-3-1933
It is only when the Mother speaks directly that you can say "The Mother has said". 9-7-1933
DANGERS OF "ALL FROM THE MOTHER" THEORY
What you write is in itself unexceptionable — it is indeed what was offered to the Sadhaks at the beginning — but the difficulty is precisely there, in the complete sincerity of the nature. Few have been able to rise to it and only a distant approximation (if the phrase can be accepted) has been attained by some. Apart from incomplete sincerity, there is the difficulty that the brain is clouded by egoism and desire and imagines it is doing the very thing when it is doing something else. That is why I spoke of the danger of the theory of all from the Mother. There are people who have taken it that all that comes from the ego or the vital comes from the Mother, is her inspiration or what she has given them. There are others who have taken it as an excuse for going on in the old rut independently, saying that when the Mother wants she will change things ! There were even some who on this basis created a subjective Mother in themselves whose dictates, flattering to their ego and desire, they pitted against the contrary dictates of the Mother here, and came to think that this external Mother is after all new and the real thing is the inner one or that she was putting them through an ordeal by contradicting the inner dictates and seeing what they would do ! The
Page - 278 truth remains the truth, but this power of twisting by the mind and other parts of the nature has to be kept in sight also. 17-10-1936
THE MOTHER'S WORK AND TIME
It is not because your French is full of mistakes that Mother does not correct it, but because I will not allow her to take more work on herself so far as I can help it. Already she has no time to rest sufficiently at night and most of the night she is working at the books, reports and letters that pour on her in masses. Even so she cannot finish in time in the morning. If she has to correct all the letters of the people who have just begun writing in French as well as the others, it means another hour or two of work — she will be able to finish only at nine in the morning and come down at 10-30. I am therefore trying to stop it.
*
Mother never avoids opening letters or any other work because of absence of time: she deals with all the work that comes to her even if she is ill or if she has no time for rest.
15-2-1936
*
Mother prefers that when she walks on the terrace people should not be looking at her because it is the only time when she can concentrate a little on herself—apart from the necessity of taking some fresh air and movement for the health of the body. If she has to attend to the pull of so many people, that cannot be done. The interview she gives you is a different matter; she has to arrange it herself and it is part of her work, so there is no need to change. What was said was only for the walk on the terrace.
*
Mother has a very limited time for seeing people — she has so
Page - 279 much to do. So it is only when there is a strong necessity that she sees except for those who have work to do with her. 1933
THE RIGHT WAY OF MEETING THE MOTHER
The right attitude to approach the Mother when she sees one is to keep the being perfectly quiet and open to receive, without any activity of the mind or desire in the vital, with only the surrender and the psychic readiness to accept whatever is given. 23-2-1932
*
When one comes to the Mother, one must not come with these things in the mind — but in quietude and light solely to receive from her what one can assimilate. 10-4-1934
*
The Mother does not usually speak with those who come for an interview before starting. If she had to speak, she would not give an interview at all to most, for she would have no time. Moreover it is not by speech or instruction or answering questions that Mother works on the consciousness of the Sadhaks, it is by a silent influence to which they have to learn to open themselves.
As for your readiness for the Ashram life, it should be evident to yourself from your reactions especially about your family that you are not ready — you would have been pulled away by these feelings and it would have been a serious fall for you. To be told the truth about themselves and get the guidance unasked — that is a grace which Sadhaks accept with gladness — to weep and feel hurt is a reaction of the vital which must be got over. Psychic weeping, a weeping from the soul deep within, tears of the soul's yearning, of sorrow for the resistance of Nature, of joy or love or Bhakti does not cause a fall, it can help and open up the inner soul from its veils; but this weeping has no strain or
Page - 280 suffering in it, it is something very deep and quiet and brings a sense of purification and release. That is not so with the weeping which comes from the vital and is born of hurt or abhimāna or disappointment or shakes or disturbs the nature. 16-3-1937
*
Q: I intend to sweep out the lower forces before meeting the Mother tomorrow. Failing it I do not like to show my face to her. A: That is the suggestion of the lower forces. They want to create an excuse for your remaining aloof like that.
*
Q: It seems I have learnt a lot about myself during yesterday, my birthday, on which Mother had given me an interview. It may be perhaps a kind of experienced knowledge aided by Her Force. I no more feel myself so weak, helpless or a slave to my defects and imperfections. Rather there is a growing surety that I shall be able to get rid of my whole lower nature.
A: It is what we call growing conscious — a perception of which the base is the psychic though it may take place in the mind or vital or physical. No doubt the Force that woke it up came from the Mother. 9-9-1937
*
Why should you decide beforehand that your birthday is spoiled ? You have only to throw off all these undesirable ideas and feelings which proceed from a still imperfectly purified part of the external being and take the right attitude which you should always have when you come to the Mother. There should be no
Page - 281 idea of what others have or have not — your relation is between the Mother and yourself and has nothing to do with others. Nothing should exist for you but yourself and the Divine — yourself receiving her Force flowing into you.
To secure that better, do not spend your time at your disposal in speech — especially if anything of the depression remains with you, it will waste the time in discussing things which cannot help the true consciousness to predominate. Concentrate, open yourself and let the Mother bring you back to the psychic condition by what she will pour into you in meditation and silence. 16-5-1933
SIGNIFICANCE OF BIRTHDAY MEETING
Q: Is there any special significance in the Mother's seeing the Sadhaks on their birthdays ?
A: About the birthdays. There is a rhythm (one among many) in the play of the world-forces which is connected with the sun and the planets. That makes the birthday a day of possible renewal when the being is likely to be more plastic. It is for this reason that Mother sees people on their birthdays. 18-5-1934 *
Q: You wrote once that on birthdays the physical is more open and receptive to the Mother than on other days. Is that why she gives special blessings to us on our birthdays ?
A: It is not a question of a physical birthday or of the body — it is taken as an occasion for opening, a new year of life with a growing new birth within. That is the meaning in which the Mother takes the birthday. 7-10-1936
Page - 282 MEETING THE MOTHER IN DREAM
Q: For a long time 1 was thinking of meeting the Mother but was hesitating to ask for an interview. Last night in dream I met her and had a talk with her. Was it the real Mother I met or some constructed figure of my dream-mind ? A: Of course, it was the Mother you met and the meeting must have been due to your thought about meeting her. 9-6-1935
*
Q: Kindly let me know the significance of my frequently coming to the Mother on the supraphysical plane. Did my vital come to the Mother for refreshing its energy, for purification, etc. ? A: This kind of vital coming to the Mother all the Sadhaks have in their sleep and dream, 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. 13-7-1937
*
It [coming to the Mother on a supraphysical plane] may be for any object or without any specific object — there is no rule in such matters. 14-7-1937
*
Q: I saw twice in dream that the Mother was giving me soup with her hand and I was bowing down at her feet.
Page - 283 Why did I see like this ? What is the spiritual meaning of the soup which the Mother was giving us ?
A: The soup was instituted in order to establish a means by which the Sadhak might receive something from the Mother by an interchange in the material consciousness. Owing to the past association probably you see like that when your material consciousness in dream receives something from the Mother. 27-7-1933 THE MOTHER'S ACTION IN MEDITATION
When I spoke of the inner mind of the Ashram, I was only using a succinct expression for the "minds of the members of the Ashram" and I was not thinking of the collective mind of the group. But the action of the Mother in the meditation is at once collective and individual. She is trying to bring down the right consciousness in the atmosphere of the Ashram — for the action of the minds and vital of the Sadhaks does create a general atmosphere. She has taken this meditation in the evening as a brief period in which all is concentrated in the sole force of the descending Power. The Sadhaks must feel that they are there only to concentrate, only to receive, only to be open to the Mother and nothing else matters. November, 1934
*
About the meditation and the seat, the Mother gives this meditation only for bringing down the true light and consciousness into the Sadhaks. She does not want it to be turned into a formality and she does not want any personal questions to arise there. It should solely be a meditation and concentration without personal or other desires or claims or ideas rising there and interfering with her object. 2-11-1934
*
Page - 284 It is not by the physical presence but the Mother's concentration at the time of meditation which brings the quiet to those who can receive it. 6-3-1937
*
It is only Mother who can give orders here. What Mother would like you to do is to come to the Meditation and Pranam putting aside all feelings of ego, anger, quarrel with others, demand for this or that, thinking only of your Sadhana and making yourself quiet to receive from her the only things that are really precious and needful. 22-9-1936
*
Q: When I try to meditate in the presence of the Mother, there is always a disturbing rush of thoughts as to what she is bringing down etc. A: It is simply a bad habit of the mind, a wrong activity. It is not in the least useful for the mind to ask or try to determine what the Mother wills or is bringing — that only interferes. It has simply to remain quiet and concentrated and leave the Power to act. 11-1-1934
*
Q: During the period of concentration I get all sorts of useless thoughts and desires, which I forget afterwards. How am I to remember them and open them to the Mother ?
A: Aspire at the time — they will of themselves be open to the Mother. 26-6-1933
*
Page - 285 Q: During the general meditation with the Mother, my consciousness rose upwards in an utter passivity. I became unaware of my body up to the neck. A: It means the whole mind was liberated for a while from imprisonment in the body sense and became free in the passivity of the wider self. 16-8-1834
*
Q: I feel that when the Mother comes down to give meditation in the Meditation Hall, the atmosphere of the Hall extends to all the Ashram houses. Am I right in my feeling ? A: It is natural that it should be so as the Mother, when she concentrates on the inner work, is accustomed spontaneously to spread her consciousness over the whole Ashram. So to anyone who is sensitive, it must be felt anywhere in the Ashram, though perhaps more strongly in the nearer houses on an occasion like he evening meditation. 7-11-1934
THE MOTHER'S ACTION DURING PRANAM
Q: During Pranam does Mother work from Overmind ? A: Not from the ordinary Overmind, but from the Power above it. Naturally the Overmind has to be used as a channel. 22-11-1933
RIGHT USE OF DARSHAN AND PRANAM
Physical means [like Darshan and touch in the Pranam] can be and are used in the approach to divine love and worship; they
Page - 286 have not been allowed merely as a concession to human weakness, nor is it the fact that in the psychic way there is no place for such things. On the contrary, they are one means of approaching the Divine and receiving the Light and materialising the psychic contact, and so long as it is done in the right spirit and they are used for the true purpose they have their place. It is only if they are misused or the approach is not right because tainted by indifference and inertia, or revolt or hostility, or some gross desire, that they are out of place and can have a contrary effect — as the Mother has always warned people and has assigned it as the reason why she does not like lightly to open them to everyone.
*
No one should look upon the Pranam either as a formal routine or an obligatory ceremony or think himself under any compulsion to come there. The object of the Pranam is not that Sadhaks should offer a formal or ritual daily homage to the Mother, but that the Sadhaks may receive along with the Mother's blessings whatever spiritual help or influence they are in a condition to receive or assimilate. It is important to maintain a quiet and collected atmosphere for that purpose.
*
If you attach any value to the Darshan it is better to be recueilli. If her coming is only one incident of the day's routine like taking dinner, then of course it does not matter.
Recueilli means drawn back, quiet and collected in oneself. 24-7-1933 *
The best way for Darshan is to keep oneself very collected and quiet and open to receive whatever the Mother gives. 12-2-1937
Page - 287 INADVISABILITY OF BRINGING SICK AND INSANE PEOPLE FOR DARSHAN
Mother cannot see her. The most we can concede is that she may be brought for Darshan in the way proposed, but she must simply take the blessing and pass, there must be no lingering. It is a mistake to bring sick people or the insane to the Darshan for cure — the Darshan is not meant for that. If anything is to be done or can be done for them, it can be done at a distance. The Force that acts at the time of Darshan is of another kind and one deranged or feeble in mind cannot receive or cannot assimilate it — it may produce a contrary effect owing to this incapacity if received at all. If the Force is withheld, the Darshan is useless, if received by such people it is unsafe. It is similar reasons which dictate the rule prohibiting children of tender years to be brought to the Darshan. 13-8-1937 WRONG SUGGESTION OF MAKING PRANAM TO OTHERS
It [the wish to make Pranam to others] is a wrong suggestion from somewhere. It is very necessary not to take the attitude of Pranam to others or to give even in though a place at all approaching or similar to the Mother's. 27-7-1934
PRANAM AND THE MOTHER'S CONTACT
Mother's contact is there all the day and the night also. If one keeps the right contact with her inwardly all day, the Pranam will bear its right fruit, for you will be in the right condition to receive. To make the whole day depend upon the Pranam, the whole inner attitude depend on the most outer aspect of the outer contact is to turn the whole thing topsy-turvy. It is the fundamental mistake made by the physical mind and vital which is the cause of the whole trouble. 16-3-1935
*
Page - 288 It is only if one can feel the inward touch of the Mother without the necessity of the physical contact that the true value of the latter can be really active. Otherwise there is a danger of its becoming like a mere artificial stimulant or a pulling of vital force from her for one's own benefit. 2-3-1937
*
If they are so dependent on the physical touch that they cannot feel anything when it is not there, this means that they have not used it at all for developing the inner connection; if they had, the inner connection after so many years would already be there. The inner connection can only be developed by an inner concentration and aspiration, not by a mere outward Pranam every day. What most people do is simply to pull vital force from the Mother and live on it — but that is not the object of the Pranam. 4-3-1937
*
Yes, but the vital's test is very foolish. If the Sadhana goes on whether you see the Mother or not, that would rather show that the psychic connection is permanently there and active always and does not depend on the physical contact. The vital seems to think the Sadhana ought to cease if you do not see the Mother but that would only mean that the love and devotion need the stimulus of physical contact. The greatest test of love and devotion is on the contrary when it burns as strongly in long absence as in the presence. If your Sadhana went on as well on non-Pranam as on Pranam days it would not prove that love and devotion are not there, but that they are so strong as to be selfexistent in all circumstances.
8-6-1936 *
Q: It is curious that I feel Mother nearer at Pranam
Page - 289 time than when she meets us and speaks to us familiarly. Is it because of a defect of the physical mind ? A: Yes — or at least of some part of the physical consciousness. 30-4-1934
*
Q: Just after making my Pranam to the Mother I experienced an unimaginable depth in the heart and a fire bursting out. A: That is of course the psychic depth and the psychic fire. 5-5-1936
*
Q: When the Mother pressed her hand on X's head to bless, I felt her touch concretely on my head ! How does this happen ? A: It shows that the subtle physical is growing conscious and felt the touch and blessings of the Mother which is always there. 20-3-1935
*
There is always a touch coming from Mother at Pranam, one has to be conscious and open to receive it. 14-11-1933 *
Q: Is it possible to receive the Mother's influence at a distance in the Ashram in the same way as we receive it at Pranam ?
Page - 290 A: It is possible to receive, but not in the same way. There is an element, a touch on the physical consciousness that is wanting. 30-5-1933 *
Q: In the evening when I am late and miss the Mother, do I receive Her Light as I would if I were present ? A: You can receive the Light at all times—even if less concretely than in the physical presence. 1-9-1933 *
Q: You wrote: "Without the inner touch the inner being cannot work". I do not understand how this explained my question. The Mother's inner or subtle touch felt before had not the same effect as her physical touch during the Pranam. The former came and disappeared within a few seconds, leaving practically no effect, whilst the latter left its impress for a long time even in spite of depression and resistance. A: It is because you lived in your outer and not in your inner being that it is like that. But unless you open to the inner touch, the inner being cannot develop. 3-2-1937 *
The inner touch is the Mother's influence felt in the inner being. 6-2-1936 *
Q: When I had experiences and realisations why did I not feel the inner touch., since it is said that none can
Page - 291 have experiences (which are the fruits of the inner being's development) without it ?
A: You did not feel it because the inner being was not awake to it — it felt only the results — and these results were not experiences in the inner being itself but the self above. 6-2-1937
THE INNER AND THE OUTER CONTACT
Let the inner contact with the Mother increase — unless that is there, the outer contacts if too much multiplied easily degenerate into a routine.
*
I mean the inner contact in which one either feels one with her or in contact with her or aware of her presence or at the very least turned towards her always. 16-3-1935
*
Q: Today I had an intense desire to go in the Mother's rooms upstairs so as to be near and close to her. A: But the coming near to the Mother should be in the inner rooms, not the outer. For in the inner rooms one can always enter and even arrange to stay there permanently. 8-3-1935 *
Q: How is it that in writing a letter to you the higher things increase and become stronger ? A: I suppose it is because in the act of writing or rather in its
Page - 292 beginning you enter into contact with the Mother and the Force. 10-5-1936 TWO WAYS OF THE MOTHER'S GIVING
The Mother gives in both ways. Through the eyes it is to the psychic, through the hand to the material. 29-9-1932
*
Obviously, the time has nothing to do with it. One hour's touch or a moment's touch — as much can be given by the one as by the other. 18-4-1935 *
It was not because of any fault of yours that the Mother gave only a short blessing; she has to do that for all who come at the beginning because they need to go quickly to their work. If you want a longer blessing, you must come afterwards. But, when you have to come early, you can get as much out of the Mother's short blessing, if you are quiet and open.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MOTHER'S GIVING OF FLOWERS
Q: What is the significance of the Mother's giving us flowers at Pranam every day ? A: It is meant to help the realisation of the thing the flower stands for. 28-4-1933
*
Q: Are flowers mere symbols and nothing more ? Can Page - 293 the flower symbolizing silence, for example, help in the realisation of silence ?
A: It is when the Mother puts her force into the flower that it becomes more than a symbol. It then can become very effective if there is receptivity in the one who receives. 19-7-1937
*
Q: We do not get from the Mother the flowers which our mind thinks we should get. A: Obviously not — the mind chooses according to likings or fancies or else to some mental idea of what should be; the Mother chooses by intuitive observation of what is needed. 9-7-1934
PHYSICAL NEARNESS TO THE MOTHER AND PROGRESS IN SADHANA
It is a mistake to think that those who meet the Mother physically are any nearer the goal of perfection than those who do not meet her except at Pranam and meditation. All depends on the inner being and how it can meet her from within and receive her force and profit by it. Of course, if people meet her with their psychic prominent, and not with the outer consciousness only, it should be different, but— 29-7-1936
*
Q: Many people believe that those whom the Mother gives frequent interviews and sends things often are very near to her and are progressing rapidly while those whom she does not see often or to whom she does not send things are only given a chance to do their Sadhana. Is this belief true ?
Page - 294 A: It is all nonsense. Some of the best Sadhaks are among those whom the Mother seldom or never calls and she sends them nothing. Nor do they expect it — they feel the Mother always with them and are satisfied and ask for nothing else. 27-7-1933 *
Q: You have said that those who do Sadhana outside the Ashram cannot do it fully because the physical nearness to the Mother in the Ashram alone can bring a possibility of transformation. Carrying this idea a little further, it naturally follows that even in the Ashram, those who live physically nearer to the Mother and meet her more often are of the inner circle, more intimate even outwardly, and therefore nearer transformation. Q.E.D. ?
A: Living in the Ashram is one thing, living with the Mother in close proximity is another. Your Q.E.D. like most mental logic is contradicted by the facts of life. One could argue on that basis that A who lives in the same house as the Mother is nearer perfection than B and much nearer than C or D who live outside. E never meets the Mother except at Pranam and on her birthday, so she must be an utterly backward person and F who meets the Mother daily for five, ten, fifteen or twenty minutes must be far ahead of her, well on towards perfection. But these things are not so. So the argument breaks down at every point. Progress in Sadhana or superior capacity is not dependent on one's being near the Mother or meeting her more often. Q.E.D. 30-7-1936 *
Q: People who approach the Mother often must be very fortunate, is it not so ? A: If one has the desire or the claim, one brings in all sorts of demands, angers, jealousies, despairs, revolts, etc. which spoil
Page - 295 the Sadhana and do not help it. To others the nearness of the Mother becomes a mixture.
*
The Mother was giving freely of her physical contact in former years. If the Sadhaks had had the right reactions, do you think she would have drawn back and reduced it to a minimum ? Of course if people know in what spirit to receive from her the physical touch is a great thing, but for that the constant physical nearness is not necessary. That rather creates a pressure of the highest forces which how many can meet ? 22-4-1933 *
It is the ego that wants the satisfaction of being the first or specially singled out. It is this egoistic vital demand with all its consequent results and disturbances that made it necessary for Mother to limit the physical manifestation of nearness to a minimum. 17-4-1935 *
The one thing important is to keep the inner attitude and establish the inner connection with the Mother independent of all outward circumstances. It is that that brings all that is needed. Those who are most deep in the Yoga are not those who physically see most of the Mother. There are some who are in constant nearness or union with her, who apart from the Pranam and the evening meditation come to her only once a year. 13-11-1934 *
There is more profit to be had by being open to the Mother than by coming physically to her at the present stage. Some even who make a point of her calling them go backward rather than forward —
Page - 296 because they make a point of it, introducing thus a basis of vital demand which makes a very shaky foundation for relations with the Mother.
*
Q: Is it not true that one who sees the Mother more often and talks with her receives more Light by being in her presence ? A: No. It depends entirely on the condition of the person and his attitude. Especially, if they insist on seeing her or on remaining when she wants them to go or are in a bad mood and throw it on her, it is very harmful for them to see her. Each should be contented with what the Mother gives them, for she alone feels what they can or cannot receive. Mental constructions of this kind and vital demands are always false. 3-4-1933
*
There is a confusion here. The Mother's grace is one thing, the call to change another, the pressure of nearness to her is yet another. Those who are physically near to her are not so by any special grace or favour, but by the necessity of their work, — that is what everybody here refuses to understand or believe, but it is the fact: that nearness acts automatically as a pressure, if for nothing else, to adapt their consciousness to hers which means change, but it is difficult for them because the difference between the two consciousnesses is enormous especially on the physical level and it is on the physical level that they are meeting her in the work. 27-4-1944 *
Q: Is it not true that those who are bodily nearest to the Mother are those who are open to her, one with her Page - 297 will and close to her in their inner being ? Is it not also a fact that there are certain special advantages in being bodily near to the Mother ? A: It is not so easy to be "one with the will" of the Mother or to be entirely open. To be bodily close imposes a constant pressure for progress, for perfection, which no one yet has been able to meet. People have romantic ideas in this matter which are not true.
The demand [of A] was to live inside or have free access (to the Mother's rooms) at all times (which is not allowed to anybody, neither to B or C nor anyone else) and to be on an equality with or superiority over those who were admitted. Such a demand shows a total ignorance of the reasons which are behind the admission (it has nothing to do with special grace or favour) and also of the fitness of things. If she had been allowed, she would not have been able to bear it even for a few days .... B and C are different — they have special work to do which makes it necessary for them to come close to the Mother or see her often. It has nothing at all to do with any superiority in Sadhana, as you have yourself pointed out by quoting the examples of D etc. 7-3-1935
*
What I meant was not that bodily closeness is important but that it is not easily bearable. The touch at Pranam and bodily closeness do not mean the same thing. By bodily closeness I meant living with the Mother or in continued and frequent physical contact with her .... As for bearing the closeness, most people do that usually by shutting themselves as much as possible to the pressure, — when they can't do that they get upset by it. That is the whole fact of the matter. 5-8-1935
*
I am afraid all these are mental constructions. You are constructing in your mind what X ought to feel. But as a matter of fact
Page - 298 neither X's nor anybody's difficulties are removed by their coming to Mother or by their sitting one hour or two hours or even three hours with her. Plenty of people have done that and gone away as glum, desperate and revolted as they came. Among the people who see the Mother like Y are some who have crises as bad as yours...and as frequent .... It is also not true that those who have talked much with Mother (about houses, repairs, servants, etc.) understood her better. In former days some people used to see much of Mother in another way, i.e., to talk with her on all sorts of subjects — but even those did not really understand her. I repeat that all that is mental building and constructed inference and does not square with the facts. It is only when one is inwardly open to her that one profits by the "contact" with her, not the physical but the spiritual or inner contact, and then the mere thought of her or a mere thought from her can set right anything wrong; then the physical contact also can help, but it is not indispensable. And as for understanding her, it is only by entering into the spiritual consciousness that one can understand her, or if not understand in the mind, at least feel and respond to what she is through an increasing oneness. 4-8-1935 *
It would be most foolish to call back this meaningless delusion — for nothing can be farther from the actual and practical truth than to suppose that those who are in physical nearness to the Mother or have frequent physical approach are happier or more satisfied than others — it is not in the least true — or to allow it to prevent the progress of the inner peace. If you would only get rid of this delusion, nothing would be able to prevent the growth of the Peace and that inner nearness which alone makes people in this Ashram divinely happy. Happiness comes from the soul's satisfaction, not from the vital's or the body's. The vital is never satisfied; the body soon ceases to be moved at all by what it easily or always has. Only the psychic being brings the real joy and felicity. 8-9-1934
*
Page - 299 Quite so. None need be jealous of anything or anybody, since each has his own point of contact [with the Mother] which nobody else has — apart from what all have. 4-1-1934 WRONG IDEAS ABOUT THE MOTHER'S SMILE AND TOUCH AT PRANAM
The Mother deals with each one in a different way, according to their need and their nature, not according to any fixed mental rule. It would be absurd for her to do the same thing with everybody as if all were machines which had to be touched and handled in the same way. I t does not at all mean that she has more affection for one than for another, or those she touches in a particular way are better Sadhaks or less so. The Sadhaks think in that way because they are full of ignorance and ego. Instead of thinking whether the Mother favours one more or the other less, comparing and watching what she does, they ought to be concerned at Pranam with only their own spiritual reception of her influence. Pranam is for that and not for these other things which have nothing to do with Sadhana.
Jealousy and envy are things common to human nature, but these are the very things that a Sadhak ought to throw out of himself. Otherwise why is he a Sadhak at all ? He is supposed to be here for seeking the Divine — but in the seeking for the Divine jealousy, envy, anger, etc., have no place. They are movements of the ego and can only create obstacles to the union with the Divine.
It is much better to remember that one is seeking for the Divine and make that the whole governing idea and aim of the life. It is that which pleases the Mother more than anything else; these jealousies and envies and competitions for her favour can only displease and distress her. 31-10-1935
*
Q: At the Pranam ceremony I am not able to fathom
Page - 300 the
mystery of the Mother's working: what she gives and how I
receive it. What is the inner meaning of
her touch on my head or her look into my eyes. 10-7-1936
*
All this idea about the Mother's looks and her hand in the blessing which is current in the Ashram is perfectly irrational, false, even imbecile. I have a hundred times written to people that the whole thing is wrong and rests on a false suggestion of the adverse forces made in order to create a disturbance. The Mother does not refrain from smiling or vary her smile or her manner of blessing in order to show displeasure or because of anything the Sadhak has done. She does not, as certain people annoyingly believe, dose out her smiles or blessings in such a way as to assign a number of marks for each Sadhak according to his good behaviour or bad behaviour. These variations are not intended to assign a competitive place to each Sadhak, as to schoolboys in a class. All these ideas are absolutely absurd, trivial and unspiritual. The Ashram is not a schoolboys class nor is the Yoga a competitive examination. All this is the creation of the narrow physical mind and vital ego and desire. If the Sadhaks want to get a true basis and make true progress, they must get these ideas out of their minds altogether. Yet they cling obstinately to it in spite of all I can write, so dear is this falsehood to their mind. You must get rid of it altogether. At the Pranam the Mother puts her force to help the Sadhak — what he ought to do is to receive quietly and simply, not to spoil the occasion by these foolish ideas and by watching who gets more of her hand and smile and who gets less. All that must go. 8-12-1936
*
Page - 301 Q: During Pranam what does the Mother want to show us by her special expression ? Does it express her liking or disliking any action of the persons concerned ?
A: She wants to show you nothing; it has nothing to do with the doings or misdoings of the Sadhaks. Pranam is not intended for watching the Mother's expression or what she does with this one or that one or in what way she smiles or with how much of her hand she blesses — the Sadhaks' preoccupation with these things is childish and for the most part full of mistaken inferences, imaginations, often curiosity, desire for gossip, criticism etc. Such a state of mind is a hindrance, not a help to Sadhana. The proper attitude is one of self-dedication and simple and straightforward receptivity to what the Mother wishes to give, an undisturbed and undisturbing openness to her working in the being.
*
Understand once for all that the Mother is not using the Pranam to show her pleasure and displeasure; it is not meant for that purpose. The only circumstance under which the Mother's attitude at Pranam is likely to be influenced by the actions of the Sadhak is when there is some great betrayal or a violent breach of the main rules of spiritual life .... or when the Sadhak has become positively hostile to the Mother and the Yoga. But then it is not a special show of displeasure at Pranam, but a withdrawal of the gift of grace which is quite a different matter.
*
Many of the Sadhaks are in the habit of thinking the Mother is displeased, not smiling at them, angry when it is quite otherwise. This usually happens when their own consciousness is not at peace or when they are thinking or conscious of faults or wrong movements or wrong acts that they may have done. The idea that the Mother is angry is an imagination; if there is anything not as usual, it is in the Sadhak himself and not in the Mother.
*
Page - 302 The Mother's force can come down quite nicely and gently — there is no need of palpitations, giddiness or nausea for that.
The Mother was not at all angry with you. I suppose you expected her to be angry and see like that ?
All the Sadhaks do that — and I have not yet been able to cure them of this seeing their own imaginations in the Mother's face or manner.
*
Q: We depend very much on finding in the Mother's ways a manifestation of her love for us. We feel we can progress when we get it. A: This demand for physical manifestation of love must go. It is a dangerous stumbling-block on the way of Sadhana. A progress made by indulgence of this demand is an insecure progress which may any moment be thrown down by the same force that produced it. 8-10-1935
*
Q: I have heard that many Sadhikas love the Mother so much that they are ready to die for her. But if there is no physical expression of the Mother's love for them, they can't love her and some go so far as to revolt, weep or fast.
A: It is self-love that makes them do it. It is just the same kind of vital love that people have outside (loving someone for one's own sake, not for the sake of the beloved). What is the use of that in the Sadhana here ? It can only be an obstacle. 15-10-1935
*
It is not the mind but the lower vital that gets troubled after Pranam — all the rest comes in as suggestions because the gate has been opened to them by this trouble. There are certain stock
Page - 303 tricks of the adverse Force to disturb the Sadhana and one of them is this notion in the lower vital of not having been perfectly blessed at Pranam or not having got a smile or not the proper kind of smile or of the Mother's face being serious and severe. Whoever lets in that feeling, immediately suggestions of revolt, depression or dissatisfaction pour in into his mind. The only thing to be done for that is to cast off patiently all acceptance of this feeling, knowing that it is a drop of poison from the Adversary. 28-7-1936
*
It is certainly your imagination which makes you think that the Mother was "indifferent" or "hard" to you at Pranam. The Mother, on the contrary, made a special concentration in her blessing to help you. There are a certain number of Sadhaks who, when she does that, invariably ask, "Why were you displeased and hard with me today ?", while there are others who cry out if there is the slightest departure from the ordinary movements, assuming that the Mother must have had a deliberate intention in it and that intention necessarily unfavourable to them, an intention of indifference or displeasure, and very often when she smiles more than usual in order to give them courage, they write to her that she was very serious that day and did not smile at all. Do not allow yourself to catch the infection and become one of them; for it creates a great obstacle to the help given and opens the door to serious vital troubles. Open yourself simply to the Mother's help with trust and confidence, that is the best way of not feeling far from her.
The Mother did not know at that time of your having spoken to X. So your conjecture of that being the cause of her fancied displeasure is quite groundless. It is quite wrong to think that the Mother gets displeased and angry with the Sadhaks and shows it with her actions at Pranam. This kind of idea of the Divine or of the Mother is a very mistaken one and you should not allow it to get hold of you. 5-7-1935
*
Page - 304 When the Mother does not smile at Pranam, it is not from displeasure but in almost every case from some reason not connected with any action of the Sadhak, — either from absorption or concentration on something that is being done. As you say, it does not matter — what is important is to receive what has to be received. 4-11-1934
*
It is a mistake to think that the Mother's not smiling means either displeasure or disapproval of something wrong in the Sadhak. It is very often merely a sign of absorption or of inner concentration. On this occasion the Mother was putting a question to your soul. 31-7-1938
*
It is a great pity you allowed the thought that the Mother was severe with you to come in and throw you down. These thoughts are never true and whenever a Sadhak indulges it, he is always invaded by the old movements. The Mother's love and kindness have always been the same and will always remain the same to you, so you should never accept this idea that she is displeased or severe. But whatever the mistakes or difficulties, our help will be with you and the Mother's force will work to bring you out and get you back the psychic openness and peace which you had for many days this time and which is bound to return and become permanent after a while. 19-11-1935
*
Q: People get troubled when they see the Mother looking serious instead of smiling. They find it difficult not to feel that they have displeased her in some way or other.
Page - 305 A: The whole foundation of the difficulty is erroneous. It is the wrong idea that if Mother is serious it must be because of some personal displeasure against "me" — each Sadhak who complains of being the "me". I have repeated a hundred times to complaints that it is not so, but nobody will give up this idea — it is too precious to the ego. The Mother's seriousness is due to some absorption in some work she is doing or, very often, to some strong attack of hostile forces in the atmosphere. 19-4-1935
*
Q: Sometimes the Mother looks at us with a smile as if she were pleased; at other times quite differently, in a rather serious way. A: Why not ? The Mother cannot be serious, absorbed in herself ? Or do you think it is only displeasure against the Sadhaks that can make her so ? 18-6-1933
*
Q: One sometimes catches from the atmosphere a depression when people are passing before the Mother for Pranam; it is chiefly connected with her smiling or not smiling. A: That is because many Sadhaks are full of this idea. They are looking to see if the Mother smiles or how she smiles or what she does, instead of being quiet and concentrated to receive from her. So the atmosphere is full of that. 6-10-1933 *
Q: The physical being feels the need of the Mothers smile when it meets her look. Is it a kind of desire ?
Page - 306 A: Yes. There has to be no disturbance when it does not come (knowing that its absence is not a sign of displeasure or anything of the kind) — then the Ananda of receiving it will be purer. 11-12-1933
*
You should certainly throw away the vital demand and the disturbance which it creates in your Sadhana. Mother gives her smile to all and she does not withhold it from some and give it to others. When people think otherwise, it is because some vital disturbance, depression or demand or some movement of jealousy, envy or competition distorts their vision. 27-2-1933
*
On that day the Mother did not smile at anybody. It was not personal to you. A particular Power was acting in her which did not act in the ordinary way. 10-4-1934 *
If the Mother does not put her hand on the head in Pranam, it does not mean that she is displeased — it may have quite other causes. People have this idea but they are quite mistaken. Sometime ago the Mother failed to put her hand on the head of a Sadhika at Pranam for two days. People mocked at her and looked down at her. As a matter of fact she was having remarkable realisations and getting more power from the Mother at Pranam than on ordinary days. The whole idea is an error. 2-8-1933 *
Q: If the ego determines its revolt according to the Mother's failing to smile or to put her hand on our head,
Page - 307 how is it that at times it can remain quiescent in spite of her failing to do so ?
A: The ego acts according to these things when it dominates; when it does not dominate or is not present then these motives can have no effect. The whole question is whether the ego leads or something else leads. If the higher consciousness leads, then even if the Mother does not smile or put her hand at all, there will be no egoistic reaction. Once the Mother did that with a Sadhika, being herself in trance — the result was that the Sadhika got a greater force and Ananda than she had ever got when the Mother put her hand fully. 11-11-1935
*
Q: Yesterday it happened that the Mother did not bless me with her hand during Pranam. But I was more delighted and cheerful than usual. Why did this bring me more happiness ? Why does it take place with me alone ?
A: That is not so. It has taken place with others. One of them at least found that she felt on such an occasion even more force of the Mother than usual flowing through her than on ordinary occasions.
*
It is not true. There are instances in which Mother did not smile or put her hand at all (being in trance) but the Sadhak being in a right and receptive attitude received far more than ever before.
*
Your idea about Mother's mysterious smile is your own imagination — Mother says that she smiled with the utmost kindness and took the most helpful attitude possible towards you. I had written to you already that you must not put these imaginations
Page - 308 between yourself and the Mother; for they push the help given away from you. These imaginations and their effect on you are suggested by the same vital forces that are disturbing you so that you may not get free from the disturbance.
My help and the Mother's help are there — you have only to keep yourself open to it to recover. 27-3-1933
*
Why should you think that the Mother will be angry ? We have ourselves told you to write everything frankly and conceal nothing — so there is not the least likelihood that she will resent what you write. Moreover, she knows perfectly well the difficulties of the Sadhana and of human nature and if there is a goodwill and a sincere aspiration such as you have, any stumblings or falterings of the moment will not make any difference in her attitude to the Sadhak. The Mother thinks you must have had a wrong impression about her putting her hand just a little only — for she was just the same with you as always and there has been no reason why there should be any change. 17-4-1933
*
I do not at all understand why you should think that the Mother was displeased with you for any reason whatever. She was just as she is always with you. Even if you had made any mistake, the Mother now is disposed to overlook mistakes and leave it to the pressure of the Light and the psychic being of the Sadhak to set things right. But why on earth should she be displeased because you wanted to stop the French lessons with X or for any such trivial reason ! Whether you continue or suspend your lessons is a detail which has to be settled in accordance with the condition of your mind and the needs of your Sadhana and it can be settled either way. It is surprising that you should think Mother could show displeasure over so slight a matter. You must get over a nervousness of this kind and not disturb your good condition by
Page - 309 imaginations — for it is an imagination since it had no reality behind it. Have a more perfect confidence and do not let your mind create difficulties where there are none.
*
Mother was not in the least displeased about the tea, why should she be ? Nor was she angry with you at all. She smiled at you as usual — you must have been thinking of something else and not observed it. There is no reason at all for your sadness therefore — you should throw these ideas aside, Mother does not get displeased about such trifles. 30-11-1933
*
Exactly, I say "the Mother's smiling or not smiling has nothing to do with anything in you". I say also "It is yourself becoming conscious, it is not any displeasure of the Mother that makes you conscious — it is her mere presence that makes it possible for you to become conscious of yourself, it is not any displeasure, it is not any sad looking that does it".
*
There is no chance of the Mother giving you the "look" you fear. On your side do not imagine one when it is not there — any number of people are still doing that !
*
It is, of course, the resistance of the old vital in the past that is being redeemed which creates this irritation and these imaginations about the Mother's displeasure. For, as a matter of fact, there was no dissatisfaction against you in the Mother's mind and this idea is usually a suggestion to the Sadhak's mind from the Force that wants to create the wish to go or any other kind of discontent or depression. It is a curious form of delusion that has taken root, as it were, in the Ashram atmosphere and is cherished
Page - 310 not so much by the individual vital as by the forces that work upon it to break, if possible, the Sadhana. You must not allow any harbourage to that or else it will create any amount of trouble. The absence of proper sleep naturally brings a state of fatigue in the nerves which helps these things to come — for it is through the physical consciousness that they attack and if it can make that consciousness tamasic in any way, their entry is more easy. 15-9-1936
*
The Mother has in no way changed towards you nor is she disappointed with you — that is the suggestion drawn from your own state of mind and putting its wrong sense of disappointment and unfitness on to the Mother. She has no reason to change or be disappointed, as she has always been aware of the vital obstacles in you and still expected and expects you to overcome them. The call to change certain things that seem to be in the grain of character is proving difficult even for the best Sadhaks, but the difficulty is no proof of incompetence. It is precisely this impulse to go that you must refuse to admit — for so long as these forces think they can bring it about, they will press as much as they can on this point. You must also open yourself more to the Mother's Force in that part and for that it is necessary to get rid of this suggestion about the Mother's disappointment or lack of love, for it is this which creates the reaction at the time of Pranam. Our help, support, love are there always as before — keep yourself open to them and with their aid drive out these suggestions. 26-1-1937
*
Mother put her hand just as usual. Not only so, but as she saw your condition needed special help, she tried to give it. But when you are in this condition, it is unfortunate that you are so much occupied with the feeling of misery as to feel nothing else,
Page - 311 nothing that does not minister to or increase the misery. Support you always have; there is absolutely no reason why we should withhold it. If anyone is in serious trouble in the Ashram, that falls on us and most on the Mother — so it is absurd to suppose that we can take pleasure in anyone suffering. Suffering, illness, vital storms (lusts, revolts, angers) are so many contradictions of what we are striving for and therefore obstacles to our work. To end them as soon as possible is the only will we can have, not to keep them in existence.
If you could only acquire the power to detach yourself somewhere in you when these storms come, not to be swept away by the push or the thoughts that rise ! Then there would be something that could feel the support and be able to react against these forces.
28-6-1935 *
It is entirely untrue that Mother was pushing you away today. There may be days when she is absorbed and therefore physically inattentive to what her hand is doing. But today she was specially attentive to you and at the Pranam she was putting force on you for peace, tranquillity and the removal of difficulty. If she at all acted by the palm or anything else, it was for that she was acting. About this there can be no mistake, for she was specially conscious of her action and purpose today. What must have happened was that something must have felt the pressure and intervened and persuaded your physical mind by suggestion that it was you she was pushing away, not the difficulty. This is a very clear instance of how easy it is for the Sadhaks to make a wrong inference and think that the Mother is doing the very opposite of what she is doing. Very often when she has concentrated most to help them by pressing out their difficulties, they have written to her "You were very severe and displeased with me this morning". The only way to avoid these wrong reactions is to have full psychic confidence in the Mother, believing that all she does is for their good and out of the Divine Mother's care for them and not against them. Then nothing of this kind will happen. Those who
Page - 312 do that, can get the full help of her concentration even if in her absorption she does not touch the hand or smile. That is why I have constantly told the Sadhaks not to put their own interpretations on the Mother's appearance or actions at the Pranam — because these interpretations may always be wrong and make an opening for an unfounded depression and an attack. 23-1-1935
*
The obsession about the smile and touch has to be overcome and rejected because it has become an instrument of the contrary Forces to upset the Sadhaks and hamper their progress. I have seen any number of cases in which the Sadhak is going on well or even having high experiences and change of consciousness and suddenly this imagination comes across and all is confusion, revolt, sorrow, despair and the inner work is interrupted and endangered. In most cases this attack brings with it a sensory delusion so that even if the Mother smiles more than usual or gives the blessing with all her force she is told "you did not smile, you did not touch" or "you hardly touched". There have been any number of instances of that also — the Mother telling me, "I saw X disturbed or else a suggestion coming towards him and I gave him my kindest smile and blessing", and yet afterwards we get a letter affirming just the contrary, "you did not smile, etc". And you are all ready to give the Mother the lie, because you felt you saw and your senses cannot be deceived ! as if a mind disturbed does not twist the sense observation also ! as if it were not a common fact of psychology that one constantly gets an impression according to his mood or thought ! Even if the smile or touch were less, it should not be the cause of such reproaches, if there is not an intention in it and there is no intention at all as we have constantly warned all of you. Of course, the cause is that the Sadhaks apply the movements of a vital human love to the Mother and the ordinary vital human love is full of contrary movements of distrust, misunderstanding, jealousy, anger, despair. But in Yoga this is most undesirable — for here trust in the Mother, faith in her divine Love is of great importance;
Page - 313 anything that denies or disturbs it opens the door to obstacles and wrong reactions. It is not that there should be no love in the vital, but it must purify itself of these reactions and fix itself on the psychic being's trust and confident self-giving. Then there can be the full progress. 30-6-1935
*
These things ought to be entirely rejected. When they rise they often twist the consciousness so much as to falsify sometimes the vision itself and always the feeling. The Mother has observed constantly that the people on whom she has smiled tell her she has been glowering and severe or that she has been displeased when there was no displeasure in her and then on the strength of that they go wrong altogether. 10-4-1933 *
Q: I see that every evening some being throws false suggestions upon me, saying, "The Divine does not like you". Lately their force of insistence has increased. I try my best to reject them but without any success. May the Mother prevent this being from approaching me ever ! What is that being ? From some vital world ?
A: Yes, it is a being of falsehood from the vital world which tries to make one take its false suggestions for the truth and disturb the consciousness, and get it to leave the straight path and either get depressed or turned against the Mother. If you reject and refuse to listen or believe always, it will disappear. 30-3-1933
INADVISABILITY OF LISTENING TO FALSE CRITICISM OF THE MOTHER
It might be charitable to warn X not to listen to imbecile remarks
Page - 314 of this kind [against the Mother] 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 [about the Mother] 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. 7-1-1932
CAUSES OF THE MOTHER'S ILLNESS
The Mother has had a very severe attack and she must absolutely husband her forces in view of the strain the 24 th November will mean for her. It is quite out of the question for her to begin seeing everybody and receiving them meanwhile — a single morning of that kind of thing would exhaust her altogether. You must remember that for her a physical contact of this kind with others is not a mere social or domestic meeting with a few superficial movements which make no great difference one way or the other. It means for her an interchange, a pouring out of her forces and a receiving of things good, bad and mixed from them which often involves a great labour of adjustment and elimination and in many cases, though not in all, a severe strain on the body. If it had been only a question of two or three people, it would have been a different matter; but there is the whole Ashram here ready to enforce each, one his claim the moment she opens her doors. You surely do not want to put all that upon her before she has recovered her health and strength ! In the interests of the work itself — the Mother has never cared in the least for her body or her health for its own sake and that indifference has been one reason, though only an outward one, for the damage done — I must insist on her going slowly in the resumption of the work and doing only so much at first as her health can bear.
Page - 315 It seems to me that all who care for her ought to feel in the way I do. 12-11-1931
I had hoped to write shortly, but I have not been able to do so. Therefore, for the moment, since I have promised you this letter in the morning, I can only repeat, on the other matter, that I have not said that you in any degree or the Sadhaks generally were the cause of the Mother's illness. To another who wrote something of the kind from the same personal standpoint, I replied that the Mother's illness was due to a struggle with universal forces which far overpassed the scope of any individual or group of individuals. What I wrote about the strain thrown on the Mother by the physical contact was in connection with her resumption of work — and it concerns the conditions under which the work can best be done, so that these forces may not in future have the advantage. Conditions have been particularly arduous in the past owing to the perhaps inevitable development of things, for which I do not hold anyone responsible; but now that the Sadhana has come down to the most material plane on which blows can still be given by the adverse forces, it is necessary to make a change which can best be done by a change in the inner attitude of the Sadhaks; for that alone now can make — until the decisive descent of the supramental Light and Force — the external conditions easier. But of this I cannot write at the tail-end of a letter. 16-11-1931
*
I have not yet said anything about the Mother's illness because to do so would have needed a long consideration of what those who are at the centre of a work like this have to be, what they have to take upon themselves of human or terrestrial nature and its limitations and how much they have to bear of the difficulties of transformation. All that is not only difficult in itself for the
Page - 316 mind to understand but difficult for me to write in such a way as to bring it home to those who have not our consciousness or our experience. I suppose it has to be written but I have not yet found the necessary form or the necessary leisure. 19-11-1931
*
It is much easier for the Sadhak by faith in the Mother to get free from illness than for the Mother to keep free — because the Mother by the very nature of her work had to identify herself with the Sadhaks, to support all their difficulties, to receive into herself all the poison in their nature, to take up besides all the difficulties of the universal earth-Nature, including the possibility of death and disease in order to fight them out. If she had not done that, not a single Sadhak would have been able to practise this Yoga. The Divine has to put on humanity in order that the human being may rise to the Divine. It is a simple truth, but nobody in the Ashram seems able to understand that the Divine can do that and yet remain different from them — can still remain the Divine. 8-5-1933
*
Q: People in the Ashram believe that their difficulties and illnesses are taken by the Mother on herself and therefore she has sometimes to suffer. But at that rate there would be too much onrush of these things on her from many Sadhaks. An idea comes to me of taking upon myself some of these difficulties and illnesses so that I can also suffer with her pleasantly ?
A: Pleasantly ? It would be anything but pleasant either for you or for us.
It is rather a crude statement of a fact. The Mother in order to do her work had to take all the Sadhaks inside her personal being and consciousness; thus personally (not merely impersonally)
Page - 317 taken inside, all the disturbances and difficulties in them including illnesses could throw themselves upon her in a way that could not have happened if she had not renounced the self-protection of separateness. Not only illnesses of others could translate themselves into attacks on her body — these she could generally throw off as soon as she knew from what quarter and why it came — but their inner difficulties, revolts, outbursts of anger and hatred against her could have the same and a worse effect. That was the only danger for her (because inner difficulties are easily surmountable), but matter and the body are the weak point or crucial point of our Yoga, since this province has never been conquered by the spiritual Power, the old Yogas having either left it alone or used on it only a detail mental and vital force, not the general spiritual force. It was the reason why after a serious illness caused by a terribly bad state of the Ashram atmosphere, I had to insist on her partial retirement so as to minimise the most concrete part of the pressure upon her. Naturally, the full conquest of the physical would revolutionise matters, but as yet it is the struggle. 31-3-1934
*
Q: Is it not inevitable that in the process of conversion and transformation all these resistances, disturbances, revolts should arise in every Sadhak ? Could they be eliminated by anyone from the very beginning of his Sadhana so that there would be less of these things for the Mother to take upon her own self ?
A: The nature of the terrestrial consciousness and of humanity being what it is, these things were to some extent inevitable. It is only a very few who escape with the slighter adverse movements only. But after a time these things should disappear. It does so disappear in individuals — but there seems to be a great difficulty in getting it to disappear from the atmosphere of the Ashram — somebody or other always takes it up and from him it tries to spread to others. It is, of course, because there is behind it one of
Page - 318 the principles of life according to
the Ignorance — a deeply rooted tendency of vital Nature. But it is the
very aim of Sadhana to overcome that and
substitute a truer and diviner vital Force. 1-4-1934
*
What you saw is correct, but if the attitude of the Sadhak is the true psychic attitude, then the Mother has not to suffer; she can act on them without anything falling on her. 22-1-1937
*
It is due to the impurities of the Sadhaks thrown on the Mother.
There seems to be no remedy possible before the physical change. If the Mother puts an inner wall between her and the Sadhaks, it would not happen, but then they would be unable to receive anything from her. If all were more careful to come to her with their deepest and highest consciousness, then there would be less chance of these things happening.
The danger of helping others is the danger of taking upon oneself their difficulties. If one can keep oneself separate and help, this does not occur. But the tendency in helping is to take the person partially or completely into one's larger self. This is what the Mother has had to do with the Sadhaks and the reason why she has sometimes to suffer — for one cannot always be on guard against any backwash when one is absorbed or in action. There is also the difficulty that the persons helped get the habit of drawing and pulling on your forces instead of leaving it to you to give just what you can and ought to give. And many other smaller possibilities one who helps others has to face. 29-1-1935
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Page - 319 There are many who did that in the past. I don't know that he does it now. But all bad thoughts upon the Mother or throwing of impurities on her may affect her body as she has taken the Sadhaks into her consciousness nor can she send these things back to them as it might hurt them. 17-3-1936
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There is not the slightest necessity for the Mother drawing impurities into herself — any more than for the Sadhak inviting impurity to come into himself. Impurity has to be thrown away, not drawn in. 18-3-1936
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The idea of unburdening desires, imperfections, impurities, illnesses on the Mother so that she may bear the results instead of the Sadhaks is a curious one. I suppose it is an imitation of the Christian ideal of a Christ suffering on the cross for the sake of humanity. But it has nothing to do with the Yoga of transformation. 1-11-1936
REASONS OF THE MOTHER'S TEMPORARY RETIREMENT
There will always be doubts, upsettings and confusion of the physical mind and vital, so long as the vital approaches the Mother from the wrong standpoint, — e.g. if it insists on judging her by her response to its demands and ideas of what she ought to give it. Not to impose one's mind or vital will on the Divine but to receive the Divine's Will and follow it, is the true attitude of Sadhana. Not to say "This is my right, want, claim, need, requirement, why do I not get it ?", but to give oneself, to surrender and to receive with joy whatever the Divine gives, not grieving or revolting, is the right way. Then what one receives
Page - 320 will be the right thing for one. All this you know very well; why do you constantly allow your outer vital to forget it and drag you back towards the old wrong attitude ?
As for the Mother drawing back from the old course, routine etc. of her action with regard to the Sadhaks, it was a sheer necessity of the work and the Sadhana. Everything had got into a wrong groove, was full of mixed movements and a mistaken attitude — and consequently things were going on in the same rajaso-tamasic round without any chance of issue — like a squirrel in a cage. The Mother's illness was an emphatic warning that this could not be allowed to go on any longer. A new basis of action and relations has to be built up in which no further sanction will ever seem to be given to the past mistaken movements of the Sadhaks which were standing in the way of the descent of the Truth into the physical (material) nature. The basis cannot be built in a day, but the Mother had to stand back, otherwise to build it at all would be impossible. 7-12-1931
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It is not a fact that the Mother is retiring more and more or that she has any intention of going inside entirely like me. Your remarks about the privileged few are incomprehensible to me; we are not confiding in a few at the expense of others or telling them what is happening while keeping silent to you. This is an old complaint of yours and it has no foundation. If anybody claims to have the special confidence of the Mother, he is making an egoistic claim which is not justifiable. Your real point seems to be about the Mother's not taking up the soup and its accompaniments again. I have told you already why she was compelled by the experience of her illness to stand back from the old routine — which had become for most of the Sadhaks a sort of semi-ecclesiastical routine and nothing more. It was because of the mistaken attitude of the Sadhaks which had brought about an atmosphere full of movements contrary to the Yoga and likely to lead to disaster — as it had already begun to do. To resume the soup on the old footing would be to bring back the old conditions
Page - 321 and end in a repetition of the round and wrong movements and the same results. The Mother has been slowly and carefully taking steps to renew on another footing her control of things after her illness, but she can take no step which will allow the old dark movements to return — movements of same of which I think you yourself were beginning to take notice. The next step is for the Sadhaks themselves to take; they must make it possible (by their change of attitude, by their resolution to rise on the lower vital and physical plane into the true consciousness) for a union with the Mother on that plane in the right way and with the right result to become possible. More I cannot say just now; but I fully intend to be more explicit hereafter — so far as I can without special reference to individuals; for there are things personal to people's Yoga that can often be spoken of only to themselves and not to others.
As for your other questions I shall consider them in another letter. I will only say that what happens is for the "best" in this sense only that the end will be a divine victory in spite of all difficulties — that has been and always will be my seeing, my faith and my assurance — if you are willing to accept it from me. But that does not mean that your sadness and depression are necessary to the movement ! The sooner they disappear never to recur again, the more joyously the Mother and I will advance on the steep road to the summits, and the easier it will be for you to realise what you want, the complete Bhakti and Ananda. 28-12-1931 Page - 322 |