{"id":2961,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:55","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2961"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:55","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:55","slug":"01-the-mother-vol-32-the-mother-with-letters-on-the-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/32-the-mother-with-letters-on-the-mother\/01-the-mother-vol-32-the-mother-with-letters-on-the-mother","title":{"rendered":"-01_The Mother.html"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Mother and Sri Aurobindo <\/p>\n

giving darshan on 24 April 1950<\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPart One<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Mother<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n\t<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet
\nso many \u2014sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence.
\nThe Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and
\nfelt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms
\nin whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Passage from the opening paragraph <\/p>\n

of chapter 6 of The Mother  
\n<\/i> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n

 I
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour,
\na fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers. <\/p>\n

But the supreme Grace will act only in the conditions of the Light and the Truth; it will not act in conditions laid upon it by
\nthe Falsehood and the Ignorance. For if it were to yield to the demands of the Falsehood, it would defeat its own purpose. <\/p>\n

These are the conditions of the Light and Truth, the sole conditions under which the highest Force will descend; and it is
\nonly the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties . . . There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self
\n\u2014opening to
\nthe divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending, a constant and integral rejection
\nof the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth
\n\u2014Nature. <\/p>\n

The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the
\nhigher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be in no
\npart of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and
\nsubterfuges, anything that revolts or refuses. <\/p>\n

If part of the being surrenders, but another part reserves
\nitself, follows its own way or makes its own conditions, then each time that that happens, you are yourself pushing the divine
\nGrace away from you. <\/p>\n

If behind your devotion and surrender you make a cover for
\nyour desires, egoistic demands and vital insistences, if you put   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 3<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

these things in place of the true aspiration or mix them with it and try to impose them on the Divine Shakti, then it is idle to
\ninvoke the divine Grace to transform you. <\/p>\n

If you open yourself on one side or in one part to the Truth
\nand on another side are constantly opening the gates to hostile forces, it is vain to expect that the divine Grace will abide with
\nyou. You must keep the temple clean if you wish to instal there the living Presence. <\/p>\n

If each time the Power intervenes and brings in the Truth, you turn your back on it and call in again the falsehood that has
\nbeen expelled, it is not the divine Grace that you must blame for failing you, but the falsity of your own will and the imperfection
\nof your own surrender. <\/p>\n

If you call for the Truth and yet something in you chooses
\nwhat is false, ignorant and undivine or even simply is unwilling to reject it altogether, then always you will be open to attack
\nand the Grace will recede from you. Detect first what is false or obscure in you and persistently reject it, then alone can you
\nrightly call for the divine Power to transform you. <\/p>\n

Do not imagine that truth and falsehood, light and darkness,
\nsurrender and selfishness can be allowed to dwell together in the house consecrated to the Divine. The transformation must be integral, and integral therefore the rejection of all that withstands it. <\/p>\n

Reject the false notion that the divine Power will do and is bound to do everything for you at your demand and even though
\nyou do not satisfy the conditions laid down by the Supreme. Make your surrender true and complete, then only will all else
\nbe done for you. <\/p>\n

Reject too the false and indolent expectation that the divine
\nPower will do even the surrender for you. The Supreme demands your surrender to her, but does not impose it: you are free at
\nevery moment, till the irrevocable transformation comes, to deny and to reject the Divine or to recall your self
\n\u2014giving, if you are
\nwilling to suffer the spiritual consequence. Your surrender must be self \u2014made and free; it must be the surrender of a living being,
\nnot of an inert automaton or mechanical tool.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 4<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

An inert passivity is constantly confused with the real surrender, but out of an inert passivity nothing true and powerful
\ncan come. It is the inert passivity of physical Nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivine influence. A glad
\nand strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of
\nthe Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine. <\/p>\n

\nThis is the true attitude and only those who can take and keep it, preserve a
\nfaith unshaken by disappointments and difficulties and shall pass through the
\nordeal to the supreme victory and the great transmutation.   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 5<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

II <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works
\nthrough the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature. <\/p>\n

In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the
\nSadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the adhara and, when it
\nis opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is
\nactive the personal effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary. <\/p>\n

The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration,
\nrejection and surrender, \u2014<\/font><\/p>\n

an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing 
\n\u2014the mind’s will, the
\nheart’s seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature; <\/p>\n

rejection of the movements of the lower nature  <\/p>\n

rejection of the mind’s ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions,
\nso that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind,  \u2014rejection of the vital nature’s desires, demands,
\ncravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that
\nthe true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, 
\n\u2014rejection of the
\nphysical nature’s stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so
\nthat the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine; <\/p>\n

surrender of oneself and all one is and has and every plane of the consciousness and every movement to the Divine and
\nthe Shakti. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t**<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 6<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

In proportion as the surrender and self
\n\u2014consecration progress the Sadhaka becomes conscious of the Divine Shakti doing the
\nSadhana, pouring into him more and more of herself, founding in him the freedom and perfection of the Divine Nature. The
\nmore this conscious process replaces his own effort, the more rapid and true becomes his progress. But it cannot completely
\nreplace the necessity of personal effort until the surrender and consecration are pure and complete from top to bottom. <\/p>\n

Note that a tamasic surrender refusing to fulfil
\nthe conditions and calling on God to do everything and save one all the trouble
\nand struggle is a deception and does not lead to freedom and perfection.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 7<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

III <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together 
\n\u2014the
\nGrace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender. Let your faith be pure,
\ncandid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital
\nself \u2014will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke
\n\u2014obscured flame that cannot
\nburn upwards to heaven. Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the divine manifestation. Desire
\nnothing but the purity, force, light, wideness, calm, Ananda of the divine consciousness and its insistence to transform and perfect your mind, life and body. Ask for nothing but the divine, spiritual and supramental Truth, its realisation on earth and in
\nyou and in all who are called and chosen and the conditions needed for its creation and its victory over all opposing forces. <\/p>\n

Let your sincerity and surrender be genuine and entire. When you give yourself, give completely, without demand, without condition, without reservation so that all in you shall belong to the Divine Mother and nothing be left to the ego or given to
\nany other power. <\/p>\n

The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender, the
\nmore will grace and protection be with you. And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with you, what is there
\nthat can touch you or whom need you fear? A little of it even will carry you through all difficulties, obstacles and dangers;
\nsurrounded by its full presence you can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any
\nhostility however powerful, whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch can turn difficulties into opportunities,
\nfailure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength. For   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 8<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or
\ntomorrow its effect is sure, a thing decreed, inevitable and irresistible.   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 9<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

IV <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical
\nplanes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other
\npowers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or
\nheld by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose. This is indeed one of the three forces 
\n\u2014power, wealth, sex  \u2014that
\nhave the strongest attraction for the human ego and the Asura and are most generally misheld and misused by those who retain
\nthem. The seekers or keepers of wealth are more often possessed rather than its possessors; few escape entirely a certain distorting
\ninfluence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion by the Asura. For this reason most spiritual disciplines insist on a complete self
\n\u2014control, detachment and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and of all personal and egoistic desire for its possession.
\nSome even put a ban on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition. But this is an
\nerror; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile forces. To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs and use it divinely
\nfor the divine life is the supramental way for the Sadhaka. <\/p>\n

You must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the
\nmoney power, the means it gives and the objects it brings, nor cherish a rajasic attachment to them or a spirit of enslaving
\nself \u2014indulgence in their gratifications. Regard wealth simply as a power to be won back for the Mother and placed at her service. <\/p>\n

All wealth belongs to the Divine and those who hold it are trustees, not possessors. It is with them today, tomorrow it may
\nbe elsewhere. All depends on the way they discharge their trust while it is with them, in what spirit, with what consciousness in
\ntheir use of it, to what purpose.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 10<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

In your personal use of money look on all you have or get or bring as the Mother’s. Make no demand but accept what you
\nreceive from her and use it for the purposes for which it is given to you. Be entirely selfless, entirely scrupulous, exact, careful in
\ndetail, a good trustee; always consider that it is her possessions and not your own that you are handling. On the other hand,
\nwhat you receive for her, lay religiously before her; turn nothing to your own or anybody else’s purpose. <\/p>\n

Do not look up to men because of their riches or allow yourself to be impressed by the show, the power or the influence.
\nWhen you ask for the Mother, you must feel that it is she who is demanding through you a very little of what belongs to her and
\nthe man from whom you ask will be judged by his response. <\/p>\n

If you are free from the money
\n\u2014taint but without any ascetic
\nwithdrawal, you will have a greater power to command the money \u2014force for the divine work. Equality of mind, absence of
\ndemand and the full dedication of all you possess and receive and all your power of acquisition to the Divine Shakti and her
\nwork are the signs of this freedom. Any perturbation of mind with regard to money and its use, any claim, any grudging is a
\nsure index of some imperfection or bondage. <\/p>\n

The ideal Sadhaka in this kind is one who if required to
\nlive poorly can so live and no sense of want will affect him or interfere with the full inner play of the divine consciousness, and
\nif he is required to live richly, can so live and never for a moment fall into desire or attachment to his wealth or to the things that
\nhe uses or servitude to self \u2014indulgence or a weak bondage to the habits that the possession of riches creates. The divine Will is all
\nfor him and the divine Ananda. <\/p>\n

In the supramental creation the money
\n\u2014force has to be restored to the Divine Power and used for a true and beautiful and harmonious equipment and ordering of a new divinised
\n\tvital and physical existence in whatever way the Divine Mother herself
\n\tdecides in her creative vision. But first it must be conquered back for her
\n\tand those will be strongest for the conquest who are in this part of their
\n\tnature strong and large and free from ego and surrendered without any claim
\n\tor withholding or hesitation, pure and powerful channels for the Supreme
\n\tPuissance.  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 11<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

V <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you want to be a true doer of divine works, your first aim must be to be totally free from all desire and self
\n\u2014regarding ego.
\nAll your life must be an offering and a sacrifice to the Supreme; your only object in action shall be to serve, to receive, to fulfil,
\nto become a manifesting instrument of the Divine Shakti in her works. You must grow in the divine consciousness till there is
\nno difference between your will and hers, no motive except her impulsion in you, no action that is not her conscious action in
\nyou and through you. <\/p>\n

Until you are capable of this complete dynamic identification, you have to regard yourself as a soul and body created for her service, one who does all for her sake. Even if the idea of
\nthe separate worker is strong in you and you feel that it is you who do the act, yet it must be done for her. All stress of egoistic
\nchoice, all hankering after personal profit, all stipulation of self regarding desire must be extirpated from the nature. There must
\nbe no demand for fruit and no seeking for reward; the only fruit for you is the pleasure of the Divine Mother and the fulfilment
\nof her work, your only reward a constant progression in divine consciousness and calm and strength and bliss. The joy of service and the joy of inner growth through works is the sufficient recompense of the selfless worker. <\/p>\n

But a time will come when you will feel more and more that you are the instrument and not the worker. For first by
\nthe force of your devotion your contact with the Divine Mother will become so intimate that at all times you will have only
\nto concentrate and to put everything into her hands to have her present guidance, her direct command or impulse, the sure
\nindication of the thing to be done and the way to do it and the result. And afterwards you will realise that the divine Shakti not
\nonly inspires and guides, but initiates and carries out your works; all your movements are originated by her, all your powers are
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u201312<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

hers, mind, life and body are conscious and joyful instruments of her action, means for her play, moulds for her manifestation
\nin the physical universe. There can be no more happy condition than this union and dependence; for this step carries you back
\nbeyond the border \u2014line from the life of stress and suffering in the ignorance into the truth of your spiritual being, into its deep
\npeace and its intense Ananda. <\/p>\n

While this transformation is being done it is more than ever
\nnecessary to keep yourself free from all taint of the perversions of the ego. Let no demand or insistence creep in to stain the purity
\nof the self \u2014giving and the sacrifice. There must be no attachment to the work or the result, no laying down of conditions, no claim
\nto possess the Power that should possess you, no pride of the instrument, no vanity or arrogance. Nothing in the mind or in
\nthe vital or physical parts should be suffered to distort to its own use or seize for its own personal and separate satisfaction
\nthe greatness of the forces that are acting through you. Let your faith, your sincerity, your purity of aspiration be absolute and
\npervasive of all the planes and layers of the being; then every disturbing element and distorting influence will progressively
\nfall away from your nature. <\/p>\n

The last stage of this perfection will come when you are
\ncompletely identified with the Divine Mother and feel yourself to be no longer another and separate being, instrument, servant
\nor worker but truly a child and eternal portion of her consciousness and force. Always she will be in you and you in her; it will
\nbe your constant, simple and natural experience that all your thought and seeing and action, your very breathing and moving
\ncome from her and are hers. You will know and see and feel that you are a person and power formed by her out of herself,
\nput out from her for the play and yet always safe in her, being of her being, consciousness of her consciousness, force of her
\nforce, ananda of her Ananda. When this condition is entire and her supramental
\n\tenergies can freely move you, then you will be perfect in divine works;
\n\tknowledge, will, action will become sure, simple, luminous, spontaneous,
\n\tflawless, an outflow from the Supreme, a divine movement of the Eternal.   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 13<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

VI <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The four Powers of the Mother are four of her outstanding Personalities, portions and embodiments of her divinity through
\nwhom she acts on her creatures, orders and harmonises her creations in the worlds and directs the working out of her thousand forces. For the Mother is one but she comes before us with differing aspects; many are her powers and personalities, many
\nher emanations and Vibhutis that do her work in the universe. The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious
\nForce that dominates all existence, one and yet so many \u2014sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest
\nmind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she
\ncreates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined
\nand limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures. <\/p>\n

There are three ways of being of the Mother of which you can become aware when you enter into touch of oneness
\nwith the Conscious Force that upholds us and the universe. Transcendent, the original supreme Shakti, she stands above the
\nworlds and links the creation to the ever unmanifest mystery of the Supreme. Universal, the cosmic Mahashakti, she creates
\nall these beings and contains and enters, supports and conducts all these million processes and forces. Individual, she embodies
\nthe power of these two vaster ways of her existence, makes them living and near to us and mediates between the human
\npersonality and the divine Nature. <\/p>\n

The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands
\nabove all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the
\nineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 14<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and
\ngives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe. The Supreme is manifest in her for ever as the everlasting Sachchidananda, manifested through her in the worlds as the one and dual consciousness
\nof Ishwara \u2014Shakti and the dual principle of Purusha \u2014Prakriti, embodied by her in the Worlds and the Planes and the Gods
\nand their Energies and figured because of her as all that is in the known worlds and in unknown others. All is her play with the
\nSupreme; all is her manifestation of the mysteries of the Eternal, the miracles of the Infinite. All is she, for all are parcel and portion of the divine Conscious
\n\u2014Force. Nothing can be here or elsewhere but what she decides and the Supreme sanctions; nothing
\ncan take shape except what she moved by the Supreme perceives and forms after casting it into seed in her creating Ananda. <\/p>\n

The Mahashakti, the universal Mother, works out whatever is transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the
\nSupreme and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and supports them with the divine spirit and the
\ndivine all \u2014sustaining force and delight without which they could not exist. That which we call Nature or Prakriti is only her
\nmost outward executive aspect; she marshals and arranges the harmony of her forces and processes, impels the operations of
\nNature and moves among them secret or manifest in all that can be seen or experienced or put into motion of life. Each of
\nthe worlds is nothing but one play of the Mahashakti of that system of worlds or universe, who is there as the cosmic Soul
\nand Personality of the transcendent Mother. Each is something that she has seen in her vision, gathered into her heart of beauty
\nand power and created in her Ananda. <\/p>\n

But there are many planes of her creation, many steps of the
\nDivine Shakti. At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness,
\nforce and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power. All beings there live and move in an ineffable
\ncompleteness and unalterable oneness, because she carries them   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 15<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

safe in her arms for ever. Nearer to us are the worlds of a perfect supramental creation in which the Mother is the supramental
\nMahashakti, a Power of divine omniscient Will and omnipotent Knowledge always apparent in its unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. There all movements are the steps of the Truth; there all beings are souls and powers and
\nbodies of the divine Light; there all experiences are seas and floods and waves of an intense and absolute Ananda. But here
\nwhere we dwell are the worlds of the Ignorance, worlds of mind and life and body separated in consciousness from their source,
\nof which this earth is a significant centre and its evolution a crucial process. This too with all its obscurity and struggle
\nand imperfection is upheld by the Universal Mother; this too is impelled and guided to its secret aim by the Mahashakti. <\/p>\n

The Mother as the Mahashakti of this triple world of the Ignorance stands in an intermediate plane between the supramental Light, the Truth life, the Truth creation which has to be brought down here and this mounting and descending hierarchy
\nof planes of consciousness that like a double ladder lapse into the nescience of Matter and climb back again through the flowering
\nof life and soul and mind into the infinity of the Spirit. Determining all that shall be in this universe and in the terrestrial evolution
\nby what she sees and feels and pours from her, she stands there above the Gods and all her Powers and Personalities are put out
\nin front of her for the action and she sends down emanations of them into these lower worlds to intervene, to govern, to battle
\nand conquer, to lead and turn their cycles, to direct the total and the individual lines of their forces. These Emanations are
\nthe many divine forms and personalities in which men have worshipped her under different names throughout the ages. But
\nalso she prepares and shapes through these Powers and their emanations the minds and bodies of her Vibhutis, even as she
\nprepares and shapes minds and bodies for the Vibhutis of the Ishwara, that she may manifest in the physical world and in the
\ndisguise of the human consciousness some ray of her power and quality and presence. All the scenes of the earth
\n\u2014play have been
\nlike a drama arranged and planned and staged by her with the   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 16<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

cosmic Gods for her assistants and herself as a veiled actor. <\/p>\n

The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled
\npower and her creations in diminished substance, her Naturebody and Nature \u2014force, and they exist because, moved by the
\nmysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the
\ngreat sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend
\nhere into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth,
\ninto this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world \u2014pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may
\nend it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put
\non herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness
\nand the Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and
\nsufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is
\nthe great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of
\nthe Divine Mother. <\/p>\n

Four great Aspects of the Mother, four of her leading Powers
\nand Personalities have stood in front in her guidance of this universe and in her dealings with the terrestrial play. One is her
\npersonality of calm wideness and comprehending wisdom and tranquil benignity and inexhaustible compassion and sovereign
\nand surpassing majesty and all \u2014ruling greatness. Another embodies her power of splendid strength and irresistible passion,
\nher warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous swiftness and world \u2014shaking force. A third is vivid and sweet and
\nwonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling
\nattraction and captivating grace. The fourth is equipped with her   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 17<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

close and profound capacity of intimate knowledge and careful flawless work and quiet and exact perfection in all things. Wisdom, Strength, Harmony, Perfection are their several attributes and it is these powers that they bring with them into the world,
\nmanifest in a human disguise in their Vibhutis and shall found in the divine degree of their ascension in those who can open their
\nearthly nature to the direct and living influence of the Mother. To the four we give the four great names, Maheshwari, Mahakali,
\nMahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati. <\/p>\n

Imperial MAHESHWARI is seated in the wideness above the
\nthinking mind and will and sublimates and greatens them into wisdom and largeness or floods with a splendour beyond them.
\nFor she is the mighty and wise One who opens us to the supramental infinities and the cosmic vastness, to the grandeur of the
\nsupreme Light, to a treasure \u2014house of miraculous knowledge, to the measureless movement of the Mother’s eternal forces.
\nTranquil is she and wonderful, great and calm for ever. Nothing can move her because all wisdom is in her; nothing is hidden
\nfrom her that she chooses to know; she comprehends all things and all beings and their nature and what moves them and the
\nlaw of the world and its times and how all was and is and must be. A strength is in her that meets everything and masters and
\nnone can prevail in the end against her vast intangible wisdom and high tranquil power. Equal, patient and unalterable in her
\nwill she deals with men according to their nature and with things and happenings according to their force and the truth that is in
\nthem. Partiality she has none, but she follows the decrees of the Supreme and some she raises up and some she casts down or puts
\naway from her into the darkness. To the wise she gives a greater and more luminous wisdom; those that have vision she admits to
\nher counsels; on the hostile she imposes the consequence of their hostility; the ignorant and foolish she leads according to their
\nblindness. In each man she answers and handles the different elements of his nature according to their need and their urge and the
\nreturn they call for, puts on them the required pressure or leaves them to their cherished liberty to prosper in the ways of the
\nIgnorance or to perish. For she is above all, bound by nothing,   <\/p>\n

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attached to nothing in the universe. Yet has she more than any other the heart of the universal Mother. For her compassion is
\nendless and inexhaustible; all are to her eyes her children and portions of the One, even the Asura and Rakshasa and Pisacha
\nand those that are revolted and hostile. Even her rejections are only a postponement, even her punishments are a grace. But her
\ncompassion does not blind her wisdom or turn her action from the course decreed; for the Truth of things is her one concern,
\nknowledge her centre of power and to build our soul and our nature into the divine Truth her mission and her labour. <\/p>\n

MAHAKALI is of another nature. Not wideness but height, not wisdom but force and strength are her peculiar power. There
\nis in her an overwhelming intensity, a mighty passion of force to achieve, a divine violence rushing to shatter every limit and
\nobstacle. All her divinity leaps out in a splendour of tempestuous action; she is there for swiftness, for the immediately effective
\nprocess, the rapid and direct stroke, the frontal assault that carries everything before it. Terrible is her face to the Asura, dangerous and ruthless her mood against the haters of the Divine; for she is the Warrior of the Worlds who never shrinks from the
\nbattle. Intolerant of imperfection, she deals roughly with all in man that is unwilling and she is severe to all that is obstinately
\nignorant and obscure; her wrath is immediate and dire against treachery and falsehood and malignity, ill
\n\u2014will is smitten at once
\nby her scourge. Indifference, negligence and sloth in the divine work she cannot bear and she smites awake at once with sharp
\npain, if need be, the untimely slumberer and the loiterer. The impulses that are swift and straight and frank, the movements that
\nare unreserved and absolute, the aspiration that mounts in flame are the motion of Mahakali. Her spirit is tameless, her vision
\nand will are high and far \u2014reaching like the flight of an eagle, her feet are rapid on the upward way and her hands are outstretched
\nto strike and to succour. For she too is the Mother and her love is as intense as her wrath and she has a deep and passionate
\nkindness. When she is allowed to intervene in her strength, then in one moment are broken like things without consistence the
\nobstacles that immobilise or the enemies that assail the seeker.  <\/p>\n

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If her anger is dreadful to the hostile and the vehemence of her pressure painful to the weak and timid, she is loved and worshipped by the great, the strong and the noble; for they feel that her blows beat what is rebellious in their material into strength
\nand perfect truth, hammer straight what is wry and perverse and expel what is impure or defective. But for her what is done in a
\nday might have taken centuries; without her Ananda might be wide and grave or soft and sweet and beautiful but would lose
\nthe flaming joy of its most absolute intensities. To knowledge she gives a conquering might, brings to beauty and harmony a high
\nand mounting movement and imparts to the slow and difficult labour after perfection an impetus that multiplies the power and
\nshortens the long way. Nothing can satisfy her that falls short of the supreme ecstasies, the highest heights, the noblest aims, the
\nlargest vistas. Therefore with her is the victorious force of the Divine and it is by grace of her fire and passion and speed if the
\ngreat achievement can be done now rather than hereafter. <\/p>\n

Wisdom and Force are not the only manifestations of the
\nsupreme Mother; there is a subtler mystery of her nature and without it Wisdom and Force would be incomplete things and
\nwithout it perfection would not be perfect. Above them is the miracle of eternal beauty, an unseizable secret of divine harmonies, the compelling magic of an irresistible universal charm and attraction that draws and holds things and forces and beings together and obliges them to meet and unite that a hidden Ananda may play from behind the veil and make of them its
\nrhythms and its figures. This is the power of MAHALAKSHMI and there is no aspect of the Divine Shakti more attractive to the heart
\nof embodied beings. Maheshwari can appear too calm and great and distant for the littleness of earthly nature to approach or
\ncontain her, Mahakali too swift and formidable for its weakness to bear; but all turn with joy and longing to Mahalakshmi. For
\nshe throws the spell of the intoxicating sweetness of the Divine: to be close to her is a profound happiness and to feel her within
\nthe heart is to make existence a rapture and a marvel; grace and charm and tenderness flow out from her like light from the
\nsun and wherever she fixes her wonderful gaze or lets fall the   <\/p>\n

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loveliness of her smile, the soul is seized and made captive and plunged into the depths of an unfathomable bliss. Magnetic is
\nthe touch of her hands and their occult and delicate influence refines mind and life and body and where she presses her feet
\ncourse miraculous streams of an entrancing Ananda. <\/p>\n

And yet it is not easy to meet the demand of this enchanting
\nPower or to keep her presence. Harmony and beauty of the mind and soul, harmony and beauty of the thoughts and feelings, harmony and beauty in every outward act and movement, harmony and beauty of the life and surroundings, this is the
\ndemand of Mahalakshmi. Where there is affinity to the rhythms of the secret world
\n\u2014bliss and response to the call of the All Beautiful and concord and unity and the glad flow of many lives turned towards the Divine, in that atmosphere she consents to
\nabide. But all that is ugly and mean and base, all that is poor and sordid and squalid, all that is brutal and coarse repels her
\nadvent. Where love and beauty are not or are reluctant to be born, she does not come; where they are mixed and disfigured
\nwith baser things, she turns soon to depart or cares little to pour her riches. If she finds herself in men’s hearts surrounded
\nwith selfishness and hatred and jealousy and malignance and envy and strife, if treachery and greed and ingratitude are mixed
\nin the sacred chalice, if grossness of passion and unrefined desire degrade devotion, in such hearts the gracious and beautiful
\nGoddess will not linger. A divine disgust seizes upon her and she withdraws, for she is not one who insists or strives; or, veiling
\nher face, she waits for this bitter and poisonous devil’s stuff to be rejected and disappear before she will found anew her happy
\ninfluence. Ascetic bareness and harshness are not pleasing to her nor the suppression of the heart’s deeper emotions and the rigid
\nrepression of the soul’s and the life’s parts of beauty. For it is through love and beauty that she lays on men the yoke of the
\nDivine. Life is turned in her supreme creations into a rich work of celestial art and all existence into a poem of sacred delight; the
\nworld’s riches are brought together and concerted for a supreme order and even the simplest and commonest things are made
\nwonderful by her intuition of unity and the breath of her spirit.   <\/p>\n

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\n

Admitted to the heart she lifts wisdom to pinnacles of wonder and reveals to it the mystic secrets of the ecstasy that surpasses
\nall knowledge, meets devotion with the passionate attraction of the Divine, teaches to strength and force the rhythm that keeps
\nthe might of their acts harmonious and in measure and casts on perfection the charm that makes it endure for ever. <\/p>\n

MAHASARASWATI is the Mother’s Power of Work and her spirit of perfection and order. The youngest of the Four, she is
\nthe most skilful in executive faculty and the nearest to physical Nature. Maheshwari lays down the large lines of the worldforces, Mahakali drives their energy and impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures, but Mahasaraswati presides over their detail of organisation and execution, relation of parts and effective combination of forces and unfailing exactitude of result and fulfilment. The science and craft and technique of things are Mahasaraswati’s province. Always she holds in
\nher nature and can give to those whom she has chosen the intimate and precise knowledge, the subtlety and patience, the
\naccuracy of intuitive mind and conscious hand and discerning eye of the perfect worker. This Power is the strong, the tireless,
\nthe careful and efficient builder, organiser, administrator, technician, artisan and classifier of the worlds. When she takes up
\nthe transformation and new \u2014building of the nature, her action is laborious and minute and often seems to our impatience slow
\nand interminable, but it is persistent, integral and flawless. For the will in her works is scrupulous, unsleeping, indefatigable;
\nleaning over us she notes and touches every little detail, finds out every minute defect, gap, twist or incompleteness, considers and
\nweighs accurately all that has been done and all that remains still to be done hereafter. Nothing is too small or apparently trivial
\nfor her attention; nothing however impalpable or disguised or latent can escape her. Moulding and remoulding she labours
\neach part till it has attained its true form, is put in its exact place in the whole and fulfils its precise purpose. In her constant and
\ndiligent arrangement and rearrangement of things her eye is on all needs at once and the way to meet them and her intuition
\nknows what is to be chosen and what rejected and successfully   <\/p>\n

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\n

determines the right instrument, the right time, the right conditions and the right process. Carelessness and negligence and
\nindolence she abhors; all scamped and hasty and shuffling work,
\n all clumsiness and \u00e0<\/font> peu pres <\/i>and misfire, all false adaptation
\nand misuse of instruments and faculties and leaving of things undone or half done is offensive and foreign to her temper.
\nWhen her work is finished, nothing has been forgotten, no part has been misplaced or omitted or left in a faulty condition; all is
\nsolid, accurate, complete, admirable. Nothing short of a perfect perfection satisfies her and she is ready to face an eternity of toil
\nif that is needed for the fullness of her creation. Therefore of all the Mother’s powers she is the most long
\n\u2014suffering with man and
\nhis thousand imperfections. Kind, smiling, close and helpful, not easily turned away or discouraged, insistent even after repeated
\nfailure, her hand sustains our every step on condition that we are single in our will and straightforward and sincere; for a double
\nmind she will not tolerate and her revealing irony is merciless to drama and histrionics and self
\n\u2014deceit and pretence. A mother to
\nour wants, a friend in our difficulties, a persistent and tranquil counsellor and mentor, chasing away with her radiant smile
\nthe clouds of gloom and fretfulness and depression, reminding always of the ever
\n\u2014present help, pointing to the eternal sunshine,
\nshe is firm, quiet and persevering in the deep and continuous urge that drives us towards the integrality of the higher nature. All
\nthe work of the other Powers leans on her for its completeness; for she assures the material foundation, elaborates the stuff of
\ndetail and erects and rivets the armour of the structure. <\/p>\n

There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother,
\nbut they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the
\nearth \u2014spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realisation, 
\n\u2014most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone
\ncan heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda that holds
\nthe key of a wonderful divinest Life and even now supports from   <\/p>\n

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\n

its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe. But human nature bounded, egoistic and obscure is inapt to receive
\nthese great Presences or to support their mighty action. Only when the Four have founded their harmony and freedom of
\nmovement in the transformed mind and life and body, can those other rarer Powers manifest in the earth movement and the
\nsupramental action become possible. For when her Personalities are all gathered in her and manifested and their separate working has been turned into a harmonious unity and they rise in her to their supramental godheads, then is the Mother revealed
\nas the supramental Mahashakti and brings pouring down her luminous transcendences from their ineffable ether. Then can
\nhuman nature change into dynamic divine nature because all the elemental lines of the supramental Truth
\n\u2014consciousness and
\nTruth \u2014force are strung together and the harp of life is fitted for the rhythms of the Eternal. <\/p>\n

If you desire this transformation, put yourself in the hands of the Mother and her Powers without cavil or resistance and let
\nher do unhindered her work within you. Three things you must have, consciousness, plasticity, unreserved surrender. For you
\nmust be conscious in your mind and soul and heart and life and the very cells of your body, aware of the Mother and her Powers
\nand their working; for although she can and does work in you even in your obscurity and your unconscious parts and moments, it is not the same thing as when you are in an awakened and living communion with her. All your nature must be plastic
\nto her touch,  \u2014not questioning as the self \u2014sufficient ignorant mind questions and doubts and disputes and is the enemy of its
\nenlightenment and change; not insisting on its own movements as the vital in man insists and persistently opposes its refractory
\ndesires and ill \u2014will to every divine influence; not obstructing and entrenched in incapacity, inertia and tamas as man’s physical
\nconsciousness obstructs and clinging to its pleasure in smallness and darkness cries out against each touch that disturbs
\nits soulless routine or its dull sloth or its torpid slumber. The unreserved surrender of your inner and outer being will bring
\nthis plasticity into all the parts of your nature; consciousness will   <\/p>\n

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\n

awaken everywhere in you by constant openness to the Wisdom and Light, the Force, the Harmony and Beauty, the Perfection
\nthat come flowing down from above. Even the body will awake and unite at last its consciousness subliminal no longer to the
\nsupramental superconscious Force, feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme
\nLove and Ananda. <\/p>\n

But be on your guard and do not try to understand and
\njudge the Divine Mother by your little earthly mind that loves to subject even the things that are beyond it to its own norms
\nand standards, its narrow reasonings and erring impressions, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self
\n\u2014confident
\nknowledge. The human mind shut in the prison of its half \u2014lit obscurity cannot follow the many
\n\u2014sided freedom of the steps of
\nthe Divine Shakti. The rapidity and complexity of her vision and action outrun its stumbling comprehension; the measures of her
\nmovement are not its measures. Bewildered by the swift alternation of her many different personalities, her making of rhythms
\nand her breaking of rhythms, her accelerations of speed and her retardations, her varied ways of dealing with the problem of
\none and of another, her taking up and dropping now of this line and now of that one and her gathering of them together, it will
\nnot recognise the way of the Supreme Power when it is circling and sweeping upwards through the maze of the Ignorance to
\na supernal Light. Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature and see her with the psychic
\nvision that alone make a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten by their psychic elements your
\nmind and heart and life and physical consciousness and reveal to them too her ways and her nature. <\/p>\n

Avoid also the error of the ignorant mind’s demand on the Divine Power to act always according to our crude surface notions of omniscience and omnipotence. For our mind clamours to be impressed at every turn by miraculous power and easy
\nsuccess and dazzling splendour; otherwise it cannot believe that here is the Divine. The Mother is dealing with the Ignorance in
\nthe fields of the Ignorance; she has descended there and is not   <\/p>\n

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all above. Partly she veils and partly she unveils her knowledge and her power, often holds them back from her instruments and
\npersonalities and follows that she may transform them the way of the seeking mind, the way of the aspiring psychic, the way
\nof the battling vital, the way of the imprisoned and suffering physical nature. There are conditions that have been laid down
\nby a Supreme Will, there are many tangled knots that have to be loosened and cannot be cut abruptly asunder. The Asura
\nand Rakshasa hold this evolving earthly nature and have to be met and conquered on their own terms in their own longconquered fief and province; the human in us has to be led and prepared to transcend its limits and is too weak and obscure
\nto be lifted up suddenly to a form far beyond it. The Divine Consciousness and Force are there and do at each moment the
\nthing that is needed in the conditions of the labour, take always the step that is decreed and shape in the midst of imperfection
\nthe perfection that is to come. But only when the supermind has descended in you can she deal directly as the supramental
\nShakti with supramental natures. If you follow your mind, it will not recognise the Mother even when she is manifest before you.
\nFollow your soul and not your mind, your soul that answers to the Truth, not your mind that leaps at appearances; trust the
\nDivine Power and she will free the godlike elements in you and shape all into an expression of Divine Nature. <\/p>\n

The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth
\n\u2014consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But that the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the
\ncall from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme
\nfrom above. The power that mediates between the sanction and the call is the presence and power of the Divine Mother. The
\nMother’s power and not any human endeavour and tapasya can alone rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the vessel and
\nbring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal’s
\nAnanda.   <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>\u2013 26<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The Mother and Sri Aurobindo giving darshan on 24 April 1950   Part One   The Mother     The One whom we adore…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-32-the-mother-with-letters-on-the-mother","wpcat-56-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}