ON EDUCATION

The Mother

 

Contents

 

PRE CONTENT

 

Part One:

 

Articles

 

Articles

The Science of Living

Education

Physical Education

Vital Education

Mental Education

Psychic Education and Spiritual Education

An International University Centre

The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations

To the Students, Young and Old

Foresight

Transformation

The Fear of Death and the Four Methods of  Conquering It

A Dream

Helping Humanity

The Problem of Woman

 

 

Part Two:

 

Messages, Letters and Conversations

 

I

 

SRI AUROBINDO INTERNATIONAL CENTRE OF EDUCATION

 

Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education

Messages

Aims

Students

Study

Reading

Conduct

Holidays

Studies Elsewhere

Teachers

Teaching

Discipline

Homework

Tests

Curriculum

Languages

Facsimilies of the Mother's Handwriting in Various Language

Arts

Other Subject

National Education

 

II

 

SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION

 

Sri Aurobindo Ashram Department of Physical Education

Youth

Concentration and Dispersion

Our Flag and Our Cover

Energy Inexhaustible

Correct Judgment

The Olympic Rings

The Championship Badge

Tournaments

Replies to Prayers of the Physical Education Groups

Messages for Competitions

Messages for the Annual Demonstration of Physical Culture

General Messages and Letters

To Women about Their Body

 

III

 

THE NEW AGE ASSOCIATION

 

The New Age Association

 

IV

 

A GLIMPSE OF THE MOTHER'S WORK IN THE SCHOOL

 

French in the Ashram and the School

The Organisation of Work in French Class

Teaching French to Indian Teachers Who Teach in French

Teaching French to Students

The "Bibliotheque Choisie"

Mother's Action in a Class of Children Aged ten to Eleven

Mother's Action in a Class  of Children Aged Seven to Nine

Mother's Action in a Class of Children Aged Sixteen to Eighteen

 

V

 

ANSWERS TO A MONITRESS

 

Sutras

Correspondence-(a)

Correspondence-(b)

 

VI

 

ANSWERS TO A MONITOR

 

Answers to a Monitor

 

VII

 

CONVERSATIONS

 

5 April 1967

11 November 1967

8 February 1973

14 February 1973

18 February 1973

24 February 1973

26 February 1973

14 March 1973

 

Part Three:

 

Dramas

 

TOWARDS THE FUTURE

 

Towards the futures

 

THE GREAT SECRET

 

The great Secret (a)

The Great Secret (b)

 

THE ASCENT TO TRUTH

 

The Ascent to truth

Students 

 

You who are young, are the hope of the country. Prepare yourselves to be worthy of this expectation.

Blessings.

 

 Of one thing you can be sure – your future is in your hands. You will become the man you want to be and the higher your ideal and your aspiration, the higher will be your realisation, but you must keep a firm resolution and never forget your true aim in life.  

 2 April 1963

 

To be young is to live in the future.

To be young is to be always ready to give up what we are in order to become what we must be.

To be young is never to accept the irreparable.  

28 March 1967  

 

Only those years that are passed uselessly make you grow old.

A year spent uselessly is a year during which no progress has been accomplished, no growth in consciousness has been achieved, no further step has been taken towards perfection.

Consecrate your life to the realisation of something higher and broader than yourself and you will never feel the weight of the passing years.  

 21 February 1958  

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It is not the number of years you have lived that makes you grow old. You become old when you stop progressing.

As soon as you feel you have done what you had to do, as soon as you think you know what you ought to know, as soon as you want to sit and enjoy the results of your effort, with the feeling you have worked enough in life, then at once you become old and begin to decline.

When, on the contrary, you are convinced that what you know is nothing compared to all which remains to be known, when you feel that what you have done is just the starting-point of what remains to be done, when you see the future like an attractive sun shining with the innumerable possibilities yet to be achieved, then you are young, however many are the years you have passed upon earth, young and rich with all the realisations of tomorrow.

And if you do not want your body to fail you, avoid wasting your energies in useless agitation. Whatever you do, do it in a quiet and composed poise. In peace and silence is the greatest strength.  

 21 February 1968 

 

For a happy and effective life, the essentials are sincerity, humility, perseverance and an insatiable thirst for progress. Above all, one must be convinced of a limitless possibility of progress. Progress is youth; at a hundred years of age one can be young.  

14 January 1972  

 

If the growth of consciousness were considered as the principal goal of life, many difficulties would find their solution.

The best way of not becoming old is to make progress the goal of our life.  

 18 January 1972 

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To know how to be reborn into a new life at every moment is the secret of eternal youth.  

 

One must learn always not only intellectually but also psychologically, one must progress in regard to character, one must cultivate the qualities and correct the defects; everything should be made an occasion to cure ourselves of ignorance and incapacity; life becomes then tremendously interesting and worth the trouble of living it.  

 27 January 1972 

The child does not worry about his growth, he simply grows.  

 

 There is a great power in the simple confidence of a child.  

 17 November 1954  

 

When a child lives in normal conditions, it has a spontaneous confidence that all it needs will be given to it.

This confidence should persist, unshaken, throughout life; but the limited idea, ignorant and superficial, of its needs which a child has, must be replaced progressively by a wider, deeper and truer conception which culminates in the perfect conception of needs in accordance with the supreme wisdom, until we realise that the Divine alone knows what our true needs are and rely upon Him for everything.  

 19 November 1954

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The most important condition is trust, a child-like trust, the candid feeling that knows that needed things will come, that there is no question about it. When the child has need of anything he is certain that it is coming. This kind of simple trust or reliance is the most important condition.

 

Why do children have fear? Because they are weak.

Physically they are weaker than the grown-ups around them and, generally, they are also weaker vitally and mentally.

Fear stems from a sense of inferiority.

However, there is a way to be free from it: it is to have faith in the Divine Grace and to rely on It to protect you in all circumstances.

The more you grow up, the more will you get over your fear if you let the contact with your soul develop in you that is to say, with the truth of your being and if you always strive that all you think, all you speak, all you do should be more and more the expression of this deep truth.

            When you will consciously live in it, you will fear nothing any longer, in any domain of your being, because you will be united with the universal Truth which governs the world.

 8 August 1964  

Sweet Mother,

 How can a child know without the help of his parents or teachers, what he is?

 

You must find it out yourself, but not with your mind.

It is only the psychic that can tell you.  

 

Divine Mother,

When we are children, we are told what is good 

Page – 125


 and what is bad. That's why we repeat the same all our life, “This is good! That is bad”. How should one know, in fact, what is good and what is bad?

 

You can know the truth only when you are conscious of the Divine.

 

How can I abstain from error?

 

By knowing what is true.

 

Lord, we pray to Thee:

 May we understand better why we are here,

 May we do better what we have to do here,

 May we be what we ought to become here,

 So that Thy will may be fulfilled harmoniously.

 15 January 1962  

 

Let our effort of every day and all time be to know You better and to serve You better.  

 1 January 1973

 

Permit, Sweet Mother, that we be,

 Now and for ever more,

 Thy simple children, loving thee

More and still more.

Page – 126


I have a sweet little mother sitting close in my heart.

We are so happy together; never will we part.

 

Sweet Mother,

                        Can you hear me whenever I call you?  

 

My dear child,

 Be sure that I hear you each time you call and my help and force go straight to you.

With my blessings.  

 1 June 1960  

 

 Bonne Fête.

 I embrace you with all my heart and give you my blessings for the fulfilment of your highest aspiration.

With my love.  

 30 August 1963  

Bonne Fête. 

 With a whole bunch of roses (surrender) so that your aspiration may be fulfilled and you become my ideal child aware of your soul and the true goal of your life.

 With my blessings and my love.  

 30 August 1964  

Messages to Student Boarding Houses 

 

Prayer Given to the Children of Dortoir Boarding

 

We all want to be the true children of our Divine Mother.  

Page – 127


But for that, sweet Mother, give us patience and courage, obedience, goodwill, generosity and unselfishness, and all the necessary virtues.

This is our prayer and aspiration.  

 15 January 1947  

 To Big Boys' Boarding

 

May this day be for you the beginning of a new life in which you will strive to understand better and better why you are here and what is expected of you.

Live always in the aspiration of realising your most complete and most true perfection.

And for a beginning take care to be honest, sincere, straightforward, noble and pure in a rigorous discipline that you will impose on yourselves.

I shall always be present to help you and to guide you.

My blessings.

1963 

To Dortoir Boarding Annex

 

Today, we who are united in a common remembrance aspire that this intensity may be the symbol of a true oneness based on a common effort towards ever truer and more perfect realisations.  

 15 January 1968  

Young Man's Boarding 

Be always faithful to your Ideal and sincere in your action.  

Page – 128