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THE MOTHER
SRI AUROBINDO
Contents
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PART THREE PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS
This collection of the Mother's Prayers and Meditations — Priéres et Méditations — is not complete. It contains only those that were translated by Sri Aurobindo from , the original French. November 2, 1912
Although my whole being is in theory consecrated to Thee, O Sublime Master, who art the life, the light and the love in all things, I still find it hard to carry out this consecration in detail. It has taken me several weeks to learn that the reason for this written meditation, its justification, lies in the very fact of addressing it daily to Thee. In this way I shall put into material shape each day a little of the conversation I have so often with Thee; I shall make my confession to Thee as well as it may be; not because I think I can tell Thee anything — for Thou art Thyself everything, but our artificial and exterior way of seeing and understanding is, if it may be so said, foreign to Thee, opposed to Thy nature. Still by turning towards Thee, by immersing myself in Thy light at the moment when I consider these things, little by little I shall see them more like what they really are, — until the day when, having made myself one in identity with Thee, I shall no more have anything to say to Thee, for then I shall be Thou.
Page - 405 This is the goal that I would reach; towards this victory all my efforts will tend more and more. I aspire for the day when I can no longer say "I", for I shall be Thou.
How many times a day, still, I act without my action being consecrated to Thee; I at once become aware of it by an indefinable uneasiness which is translated in the sensibility of my body by a pang in my heart. I then make my action objective to myself and it seems to me ridiculous, childish or blameworthy; I deplore it, for a moment I am sad, until I dive into Thee and, there losing myself with a child's confidence, await from Thee the inspiration and strength needed to set right the error in me and around me, — two things that are one; for I have now a constant and precise perception of the universal unity determining an absolute interdependence of all actions.
Page - 406 November 3, 1912
Let Thy Light be in me like a Fire that makes all alive; let Thy divine Love penetrate me. I aspire with all my being for Thy reign as sovereign and master of my mind and heart and body; let them be Thy docile instruments and Thy faithful servitors.
Page - 407 November 19, 1912
I
said yesterday to that young Englishman who is
seeking for Thee with so sincere a desire, that I had definitively found Thee,
that the Union was constant. Such is indeed the state of which I am
conscious. All my thoughts go towards Thee, all my acts are consecrated to
Thee; Thy Presence is for me an absolute, immutable, invariable fact, and Thy
Peace dwells constantly in my heart. Yet I know that this state of union is
poor and precarious compared with that which it will become possible for me to
realise tomorrow, and I am as yet far, no doubt very far, from that
identification in which I shall totally lose the notion of the "I", of that
"I", which I still use in order to express myself, but which is each time a
constraint, like a term unfit to express the thought that is seeking for
expression. It seems to me indispensable for human communication, but all
depends on what this "I" manifests; and how many times already, when I
pronounce it, it is Thou who speakest in me, for I have lost the sense of
separativity. Page - 408 Thou art all, everywhere, and in all, and this body which acts is Thy own body, just as is the visible universe in its entirety; it is Thou who breathest, thinkest, and lovest in this substance which, being Thyself, desires to be Thy willing servant.
Page - 409 November 26, 1912
What a
hymn of thanksgiving should I not be raising at each moment unto Thee !
Everywhere and in everything around me Thou revealest Thyself and in me Thy
Will and Consciousness express themselves always more and more clearly even to
the point of my having almost entirely lost the gross illusion of "me" and
"mine". If a few shadows, a few flaws can be seen in the great Light which
manifests Thee, how shall they bear for long the marvellous brightness of Thy
resplendent Love ? This morning, the consciousness that I had of the way Thou
art fashioning this being which was "I" can be roughly represented by a
great diamond cut with regular geometrical facets, a diamond in its cohesion,
firmness, pure limpidity, transparency, but a brilliant and radiant flame in
its intense ever-progressive life. But it was something more, something
better than all that, for nearly all sensation inner and outer was exceeded
and that image only presented itself to my mind as I returned to conscious
contact with the outer world.
Page - 410 all its power, Thou who everywhere raisest up matter in
this ardent and wonderful aspiration, in this sublime thirst for Eternity.
Page - 411 November 28, 1912
The outer life, the activity of each day and each instant, is it not the indispensable complement of our hours of meditation and contemplation ? And is not the proportion of time given to each the exact image of the proportion which exists between the amount of effort to be made for the preparation and realisation ? For meditation, contemplation, Union is the result obtained — the flower that blooms; the daily activity is the anvil on which all the elements must pass and repass in order to be purified, refined, made supple and ripe for the illumination which contemplation gives to them. All these elements must be thus passed one after the other through the crucible before outer activity becomes needless for the integral development. Then is this activity turned into the means to manifest Thee so as to awaken the other centres of consciousness to the same dual work of the forge and the illumination. Therefore are pride and satisfaction with oneself the worst of all obstacles. Very modestly we must take advantage of all the minute opportunities offered to knead and purify some of the innumerable elements, to make them supple, to make them impersonal, to teach them forgetfulness of self and abnegation and devotion and kindness and gentleness; and when all these modes of being have become habitual to
Page - 412 them, then are they ready to participate in the
Contemplation, and to identify themselves with Thee in the supreme
Concentration. That is why it seems to me that the work must be long and slow
even for the best and that striking conversions cannot be integral. They
change the orientation of the being, they put it definitively on the straight
path; but truly to attain the goal none can escape the need of innumerable
experiences of every kind and every instant.
Page - 413 December 2, 1912
So long as one element of the being, one movement of the thought is still subjected to outside influences, not solely under Thine, it cannot be said that the true Union is realised; there is still the horrible mixture without order and light, — for that element, that movement is a world, a world of disorder and darkness, as is the entire earth in the material world, as is the material world in the entire universe.
Page - 414 December 3, 1912
Last
night I had the experience of the effectivity of confident surrender to Thy
guidance; when it is needful that something should be known, one knows it,
and the more passive the mind to Thy illumination, the clearer and the more
adequate is its expression.
Page - 415 December 5, 1912
In
Peace and Silence the Eternal manifests; allow nothing to disturb you and
the Eternal will manifest; have perfect equality in face of all and the
Eternal will be there .... Yes, we should not put
too much intensity, too much effort into our seeking for Thee; the effort and
intensity become a veil in front of Thee; we must not desire to see Thee, for
that is still a mental agitation which obscures Thy Eternal Presence; it is
in the most complete Peace, Serenity and Equality that all is Thou even as
Thou art all, and the least vibration in this perfectly pure and calm
atmosphere is an obstacle to Thy manifestation. No haste, no inquietude, no
tension, Thou, nothing but Thou, without any analysis or any objectivising,
and Thou art there without a possible doubt, for all becomes a Holy Peace and
a Sacred Silence.
Page - 416 December 7, 1912
Like a
flame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without
wavering, my love goes to Thee; and like the child who does not reason and
has no care, I trust myself to Thee that Thy Will may be done, that Thy Light
may manifest, Thy Peace radiate, Thy Love cover the world. When Thou willest I
shall be in Thee, Thyself, and there shall be no more any distinction; I
await that blessed hour without impatience of any kind, letting myself flow
irresistibly toward it as a peaceful stream flows toward the boundless ocean.
Page - 417 December 10, 1912
O
Supreme Master, Eternal Teacher, it has been once more granted me to verify
the unequalled effectivity of a full confidence in Thy leading. Thy Light was
manifested through my mouth yesterday and it met no resistance in me; the
instrument was willing, supple, keen of edge.
So let it be. Amen.
Page - 418 December 11, 1912
I
await, without haste, without inquietude, the tearing of another veil, the
Union made more complete. I know that the veil is formed of a whole
mass of small imperfections, of attachments without number
.... How shall all these disappear ? Slowly, as the result
of countless small efforts and a vigilance not faltering even for a moment, or
suddenly, through a great illumination of Thy All-Puissant Love ? I know not,
I do not even put to myself the question; I wait,
keeping watch as best as I can, in the certitude that nothing exists save Thy
Will, that Thou alone art the doer and I am the instrument; and when the
instrument is ready for a completer manifestation, the manifestation will
quite naturally take place.
Page - 419 February 5, 1913
Thy
voice is heard as a melodious chant in the stillness of my heart, and is
translated in my head by words which are inadequate and yet replete
with Thee. And these words are addressed to the Earth and
say to her: — Poor sorrowful Earth, remember that I am present in you and lose
not hope; each effort, each grief, each joy
and each pang, each call of thy heart, each aspiration of thy soul, each
renewal of thy seasons, all, all without exception,
what seems to thee sorrowful and what seems to thee joyous, what seems to thee
ugly and what seems to thee beautiful, all
infallibly lead thee towards me, who am endless Peace, shadowless Light,
perfect Harmony, Certitude, Rest and Supreme Blessedness.
Hearken and take new courage !
Page - 420 February 8, 1913
O
Lord, Thou art my refuge and my blessing, my
strength, my health, my hope, and my courage. Thou art supreme Peace,
unalloyed Joy, perfect Serenity. My whole being prostrates before Thee in a
gratitude beyond measure and a ceaseless worship; and that worship goes up
from my heart and my mind towards Thee like the pure
smoke of incense of the perfumes of India.
Page - 421 February 10, 1913 My
being goes up to Thee in thanksgiving, not because Thou usest this weak and
imperfect body to manifest Thyself, but because Thou dost maniftst Thyself,
and that is the Splendour of splendours, the Joy of joys, the Marvel of
marvels. All who seek Thee with ardour should
understand that Thou art there whenever there is need of Thee;
and if they could have the Supreme faith to give up
seeking Thee, but rather to await Thee, at each
moment putting themselves integrally at Thy service, Thou woulds be
there whenever there was need of Thee; and is there not always need of Thee
with us, whatever may be the different, and often unexpected, forms of
Thy manifestation ? Let Thy glory be proclaimed, And sanctify life; Let it transform men's hearts, And Thy Peace it on earth.
Page - 422 February 12, 1913
As soon as all effort disappears from a manifestation, it becomes very simple, with the simplicity of a flower opening, manifesting its beauty and spreading its fragrance without clamour or vehement gesture. And in this simplicity lies the greatest power, the power which is least mixed and least gives rise to harmful reactions. The power of the vital should be mistrusted, it is a tempter on the path of the work, and there is always a risk of falling into its trap, for it gives you the taste of immediate results; and, in our first eagerness to do the work well, we let ourselves be carried away to make use of this power. But very soon it deflects all our action from the right course and introduces a seed of illusion and death into what we do.
Simplicity, simplicity ! How sweet is the purity of Thy Presence ! ...
Page - 423 March 13, 1913
.... Let the pure perfume of sanctification burn always, rising higher and higher, and straighter and straighter, like the ceaseless prayer of the integral being, desiring to unite with Thee so as to manifest Thee.
Page - 424 May 11, 1913
As soon as I have no longer any material responsibilities, all thoughts about these things flee far away from me, and I am solely and entirely occupied with Thee and Thy service. Then, in that perfect peace and serenity, I unite my will to Thine, and in that integral silence I listen to Thy truth and hear its expression. It is by becoming conscious of Thy Will and identifying ours with Thine that there is found the secret of true liberty and all-puissance, the secret of the regeneration of forces and the transfiguration of the being.
To be constantly and integrally at one with Thee is to have the assurance that we shall overcome every obstacle and triumph over all difficulties, both within and without.
O Lord, Lord, a boundless joy fills my heart, songs of gladness surge through my head in marvellous waves, and in the full confidence of Thy certain triumph I find a sovereign Peace and an invincible Power. Thou fillest my being, Thou animatest it, Thou settest in motion its hidden springs, Thou illuminest its understanding, Thou intensifiest its life, Thou increasest tenfold its love; and I no longer know whether the universe is I or I the
Page - 425 universe, whether Thou art in me or I in Thee; Thou
alone art and all is Thou; and the streams of Thy infiuite
grace fill and overflow the world. The Divine Harmony is there.
Page - 426 June 18, 1913
To turn towards Thee, unite with Thee, live in Thee and for Thee, is supreme happiness, unmixed joy, immutable peace; it is to breathe infinity, to soar in eternity, no longer feel one's limits, escape from time and space. Why do men flee from these boons as though they fear them ? What a strange thing is ignorance, that source of all suffering ! How miserable that obscurity which keeps men away from the very thing which would bring them happiness and subjects them to this painful school of ordinary existence fashioned entirely from struggle and suffering !
Page - 427 July 21, 1913
....Yet what patience is needed ! How imperceptible the stages of progress ! ...
Oh! how I call Thee from the very depths of my heart, True Light, Sublime Love, Divine Master who art the source of our light and of our living, our guide and our protector, the Soul of our soul and the Life of our life, the Reason of our being, the supreme Knowledge, the immutable Peace !
Page - 428 November 28, 1913
Mother Divine, grant that today may bring to us a completer consecration to Thy Will, a more integral gift of ourselves to Thy work, a more total forgetfulness of self, a greater illumination, a purer love. Grant that in a communion growing ever deeper, more constant and entire, we may be united always more and more closely to Thee and become Thy servitors worthy of Thee. Remove from us all egoism, root out all petty vanity, greed and obscurity. May we be all ablaze with Thy divine Love; make us Thy torches in the world.
Page - 429 January 24, 1914
O Thou who art the sole reality of our being, O sublime Master of love, Redeemer of life, let me have no longer any other consciousness than of Thee at every instant and in each being. When I do not live solely with Thy life, I agonise, I sink slowly towards extinction; for Thou art my only reason for existence, my one goal, my single support. I am like a timid bird not yet sure of its wings and hesitating to take its flight; let me soar to reach definitive identity with Thee.
Page - 430 February 1, 1914
I turn towards Thee who art everywhere and within all and outside all, intimate essence of all and remote from all, centre of condensation for all energies, creator of conscious individualities: I turn towards Thee and salute Thee, O liberator of the worlds, and, identified with Thy divine love, I contemplate the earth and its creatures, this mass of substance put into forms perpetually destroyed and renewed, this swarming mass of aggregates which are dissolved as soon as constituted, of beings who imagine that they are conscient and permanent individualities and who are as ephemeral as a breath, always alike or almost the same, in their diversity, repeating indefinitely the same desires, the same tendencies, the same appetites, the same ignorant errors.
But from time to time Thy sublime light shines in a being and radiates through him over the world, and then a little wisdom, a little knowledge, a little disinterested faith, heroism and compassion penetrates men's hearts, transforms their minds and sets free a few elements from that sorrowful and implacable wheel of existence to which their blind ignorance subjects them.
But how much greater a splendour than all that have gone
Page - 431 before, how marvellous a glory and light would be needed
to draw these beings out of the horrible aberration in which they are plunged
by the life of cities and so-called civilisations ! What a formidable and, at
the same time, divinely sweet puissance would be needed to turn aside all
these wills from the bitter struggle for their
selfish, mean and foolish satisfactions, to snatch them from this vortex which
hides death behind its treacherous glitter, and turn them towards Thy
conquering harmony !
O Lord, eternal Master, enlighten us, guide Our steps, show us the way towards
the realisation of Thy law, towards the accomplishment of Thy work. I adore Thee in silence and listen to Thee in a religious concentration.
Page - 432 February 14,1914 Peace,
peace upon all the earth !
May all escape from the ordinary consciousness and be delivered from the
attachment for material things; may they awake to the knowledge of Thy divine
presence, unite themselves with Thy supreme consciousness and taste the
plenitude of peace that springs from it.
Lord, Thou art the sovereign Master of our being. Thy law is our law, and
with all our strength we aspire to identify our consciousness with Thy eternal
consciousness, that we may accomplish Thy sublime work in each thing and at
every moment.
Lord, deliver us from all care for contingencies, deliver us from the ordinary
outlook on things. Grant that we may henceforth see only with Thy eyes and
act only by Thy will. Transform us into living torches of Thy divine love. With reverence, with devotion, in a joyful consecration of
Page - 433 my whole being I give myself,
O Lord, to the fulfilment
of Thy law.
Page - 434 February 15, 1914
O
Thou, sole Reality, Light of our light and Life of our life, Love supreme,
Saviour of the world, grant that more and more I may be perfectly awakened to
the awareness of Thy constant presence. Let all my acts conform to Thy law;
let there be no difference between my will and Thine. Extricate me from the
illusory consciousness of my mind, from its world of fantasies; let me
identify my consciousness with the Absolute Consciousness, for that art Thou. Give me constancy in the will to attain the end, give me firmness and energy and the courage which shakes off all torpor and lassitude.
Give me the peace of perfect disinterestedness, the peace that makes Thy presence felt and Thy intervention effective, the peace that is ever victorious over all bad will and every obscurity.
Grant, I implore Thee, that all in my being may be identified with Thee. May I be nothing else any more than a flame of love utterly awakened to a supreme realisation of Thee.
Page - 435 March 7, 1914
On board the Kaga Maru
This
morning my prayer rises to Thee, always with the same aspiration: to live Thy
love, to radiate Thy love, with such potency and effectiveness that all may
feel fortified, regenerated and illumined by our contact. To have power to
heal life, to relieve suffering, to generate peace and calm confidence, to
efface anguish and replace it by the sense of the one true happiness, the
happiness that is founded in Thee and never fades
.... O Lord, O marvellous Friend, O all-powerful Master, penetrate all our being, transfigure it till Thou alone livest in us and through us.
Page - 436 March 8, 1914
In
front of this calm sunrise which turned all within me into silence and
peace, at the moment when I grew conscious of Thee and Thou alone wast living
in me, O Lord, it seemed to me that I adopted all the inhabitants of this
ship, and enveloped them in an equal love, and that so in each one of them
something of Thy consciousness would awake. Not often had I felt so strongly
Thy divine power, and Thy invincible light, and once again total was my
confidence and unmixed my joyful surrender.
Page - 437 March 9, 1914
Those
who live for Thee and in Thee may change their physical surroundings, their
habits, climate, "milieu", but everywhere they find the same atmosphere;
they carry that atmosphere in themselves, in their thought constantly fixed on
Thee. Everywhere they feel at home, for everywhere they are in Thy house. No
longer do they marvel at the novelty, unexpectedness, picturesqueness of
things and countries; for them, it is Thy presence that is manifest in all
and Thy unchangeable splen dour, which never leaves them, is apparent in the
least grain of sand. The whole earth chants Thy praises; in spite of the
obscurity, misery, ignorance, through it all, it is still the glory of Thy
love which we perceive and with which we can commune ceaselessly everywhere.
Page - 438 Blessed was the day when I came to know Thee,
O
Ineffable Eternity.
Page - 439 March 25, 1914
Silent
and unseen as always, but all-powerful, Thy action has made itself felt and,
in these souls that seemed to be so closed a perception of Thy divine light is
awake. I knew well that none could invoke Thy presence in vain and if in the
sincerity of our hearts we commune with Thee through no matter what organism,
body or human collectivity, this organism in spite of its ignorance finds its
unconsciousness wholly transformed. But when in one or several elements there
is the conscious transformation, when the flame that smoulders under the ashes
leaps out suddenly illumining all the being, then with joy we salute Thy
sovereign action, testify once more to Thy invincible puissance and can hope
that a new possibility of true happiness has been added to the others in
mankind. O Lord, an ardent thanksgiving mounts from me towards Thee expressing the gratitude of this sorrowing humanity which Thou illuminest, transformest and glorifiest and givest to it the peace of Knowledge.
Page - 440 April 10, 1914
Suddenly the veil was rent, the horizon was disclosed — and before the clear vision my whole being threw itself at Thy feet in a great outburst of gratitude. Yet in spite of this deep and integral joy all was calm, all was peaceful with the peace of eternity.
I seem to have no more limits; there is no longer the
perception of the body, no sensations, no feelings, no thoughts
— a
clear, pure, tranquil immensity penetrated with love
and light, filled with an unspeakable beatitude is all that is there and that
alone seems now to be myself, and this
"myself" is so little the former "I", selfish
and limited, that I cannot tell if it is I or Thou, O Lord, sublime Master of
our destinies.
It is as though all were energy, courage, force, will, infinite sweetness,
incomparable compassion .... Even more forcibly than during these last days the past is dead and as though buried under the rays of a new life. The last glance that I have just thrown backward as I read a few pages of this book definitely convinced me of this death, and lightened of
Page - 441 a great weight I present myself before Thee,
O my divine
Master, with all the simplicity, all the nudity of a child
.... And still the one only thing I perceive is that calm
and pure immensity ....
Lord, Thou hast answered my prayer, Thou hast granted me what I have asked
from Thee; the "I" has disappeared, there is only a docile
instrument put at Thy service, a centre of concentration
and manifestation of Thy infinite and eternal rays;
Thou hast taken my life and made it
Thine; Thou hast taken my
will and hast united it to Thine; Thou hast taken my love and identified it
with Thine; Thou hast taken my thought and replaced
it by Thy absolute consciousness.
The body, marvelling, bows its forehead in the dust in mute and submissive
adoration. And nothing else exists but Thou alone in the splendour of Thy immutable peace.
Page - 442
April 17, 1914
O
Lord, O almighty Master, sole Reality, grant that no error, no obscurity, no
fatal ignorance may creep into my heart and my thought.
In action, the personality is the inevitable and indispensable intermediary of
Thy will and Thy forces. The stronger, the more complex, powerful, individualised and conscious is the personality, the more powerfully and usefully can the instrument serve. But, by reason of the very character of personality, it easily tends to be drawn into the fatal illusion of its separate existence an become little by little a screen between Thee and that on which Thou willest to act. Not at the beginning, in the manifestation, but in the transmission of the return; that is to say, instead of being, as a faithful servant, an intermediary who brings back to Thee exactly what is Thy due — the forces sent forth in reply to Thy action, — there is a tendency in the personality to want to keep for itself a part of the forces, with this idea: "It is I who have done this or that, I who am thanked .... " Pernicious illusion, obscure falsehood, now are you discovered and unmasked. That is the maleficent canker
Page - 443 corroding the fruit of the action, falsifying all its results.
O Lord, O my sweet Master, sole Reality, dispel this
feeling of the "I". I have now understood that so long as there will be a
manifested universe, the "I"
will remain necessary for Thy manifestation; to dissolve,
or even to diminish or weaken the "I", is to deprive Thee of the means of
manifestation, in whole or part. But what must be
radically and definitively suppressed is the illusory thought, the illusory
feeling, the illusory sensation of the separate
"I". At no
moment, in no circumstances must we forget that our "I"
has no reality outside Thee. O my sweet Master, my divine Lord, tear out from my heart this illusion so that Thy servant may become pure and faithful and faithfully and integrally bring back to Thee all that is Thy due. In silence let me contemplate and understand this supreme ignorance and dispel it for ever. Chase the shadow from my heart, and let Thy light reign in it, its uncontested sovereign.
Page - 444 May 12, 1914
More and more it seems to me that we are in one of those periods of activity in which the fruit of past efforts becomes apparent, ― a period in which we act according to Thy law in the measure in which it is the sovereign controller of our being, with- out having even the leisure to become conscious of the law.
This morning passing by a rapid experience from depth to depth, I was able, once again, as always, to identify my consciousness with Thine and to live no longer in aught but Thee; — indeed, it was Thou alone that was living, but immediately Thy will pulled my consciousness towards the exterior, towards the work to be done, and Thou saidst to me, "Be the instrument of which I have need". And is not this the last renunciation, to renounce identification with Thee, to renounce the sweet and pure joy of no longer distinguishing between Thee and me, the joy of knowing at each moment, not only with the intellect but by an integral experience, that Thou art the unique Reality and that all the rest is but appearance and illusion. That the exterior being should be the docile instrument which does not even need to be conscious of the will which moves it, is not doubtful; but why must I be almost entirely identified with the instrument and why
Page - 445 should not the "I" be entirely merged in Thee and live
Thy full and absolute consciousness ?
I ask, but I am not anxious about it. I know that all is according to Thy
will, and with a pure adoration I trust myself joyously to Thy will. I shall
be what Thou wouldst have me be, O Lord, conscient or inconscient, a simple
instrument as is the body or a supreme knowledge as art Thou. O the sweet and
peaceful joy when one can say "All is good" and feel Thee at work in the
world through all the elements which lend themselves to that transmission.
Thou art the sovereign Master of all, Thou art the Inaccessible, the
Unknowable, the eternal and sublime Reality. O marvellous Unity, I disappear in Thee.
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