{"id":4426,"date":"2013-07-13T01:55:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=4426"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:55:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:55:54","slug":"12-14-april-vol-06-questions-and-answers-volume-06","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/02-works-of-the-mother\/01-cwmce\/06-questions-and-answers-volume-06\/12-14-april-vol-06-questions-and-answers-volume-06","title":{"rendered":"-12_14 April.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\n14 April 1954<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

This talk is based upon Mother’s essay
\n\u201cThe Four <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

Austerities and the Four Liberations\u201d, Part
\nIII. <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Mother, I did not understand this: \u201cAt the beginning of this
\nmanifestation, in the purity of its origin, love is composed of two movements,
\ntwo complementary poles of the urge towards complete oneness. On the one hand
\nthere is the supreme power of attraction and on the other the irresistible need
\nfor absolute self-giving.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

There is nothing to understand; it is a
\nfact. You don’t know what \u201cthe power of attraction\u201d means? You don’t know what
\n\u201cthe need for self-giving\u201d means?… Well, you put them face-to-face and when
\nthey unite, that creates love. It is as simple as that. If you wish, it is like
\nthe obverse and reverse of the same medal; but it is not the obverse and
\nreverse. These two things are destined to unite by their very nature and it is
\nthrough this meeting that love in its external manifestation is born. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

After that you have said: \u201cNo other movement could have better bridged
\nthe abyss that was created when in the individual being consciousness was
\nseparated from its origin and became unconsciousness.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, because the moment the individual
\nconsciousness broke off from the divine Consciousness, from its divine source,
\nit created the see of separation. The moment the individual consciousness
\nceased to follow, did not remain identified with the movement of the divine
\nConsciousness, this produced a separation. The divine Consciousness follows its
\nown movement, and if the individual consciousness does not remain united and
\ndoes not follow
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 100<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

or changes the course or slows down on the
\nway, this creates a separation. And it is this separation that is the cause of
\nall misery. All the miseries in the universe are the result of this separation
\nof the individual consciousness, which, for some reason or other, did not
\nremain identified with the primal Consciousness, its origin, and separated from
\nit. Separated… it did not deliberately separate itself, but it did not remain
\nidentified. So, not remaining identified, while the divine Consciousness
\nfollowed one particular movement, it followed another, and naturally this
\ncaused them to move farther and farther away from each other. Let us take an
\nillustration: one goes forward with a certain movement, a certain speed, and
\nthe other, not having remained united, is unable to follow and consequently,
\nlittle by little, falls farther and farther behind, far, far, very far; the
\nfirst one goes ahead and the other is left behind. It goes limping along while
\nthe first one flies; it takes one step while the other leaps. So this brings
\nabout a greater and greater separation. And it is this separation which has
\ncreated all other separations, and it is all these separations which have
\ncaused universal misery \u2013 or in any case the misery on earth, the one we know.
\nIt began by a separation of consciousness and finished with a separation of
\nworlds and of the elements of matter. It began by a division of consciousness
\nand ended with the kind of division we see (Mother
\npoints at those around her<\/i>). There are thousands of things all separated
\nfrom one another and it is due to this that there are all these miseries. If
\nthey had remained united in consciousness, there would have been no misery. But
\nas the consciousness was separated, this separation of consciousness caused the
\nseparation of forms and the separation of forms produced all the miseries. <\/span><\/p>\n

If the sense of unity were re-established,
\nthe miseries would disappear. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Before our nature is transformed, can a person love another truly? <\/span><\/i>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 101<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Love another? I have said there that it is
\nimpossible. I have said that if one wants to know what love is, one must love
\nthe Divine. Then there is a chance of knowing what love is. I have said that
\none grows into the likeness of what one loves. So if one loves the Divine,
\ngradually, through this effort of love, one grows more and more like the
\nDivine, and then one can be identified with the divine love and know what it
\nis, otherwise one can’t. <\/span><\/p>\n

Inevitably, love between two human beings,
\nwhatever it may be, is always made of ignorance, lack of understanding,
\nweakness and that terrible see of separation. It is as though one wanted to
\nenter the presence of a unique Splendour and that the first thing one did was
\nto put a curtain, two curtains, three curtains between oneself and that
\nSplendour, and one is quite surprised to have only a vague impression and not
\nat all the thing itself. The first thing to do is to remove the curtains, to
\ntake them all away, to go through and find oneself in the presence of the
\nSplendour. And then you will know what that Splendour is. But if you put veil
\nafter veil between it and yourself, you will never see it. You may have a sort
\nof vague feeling like \u201cOh! There is something\u201d, but that is all. <\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally, there are all those who don’t
\ncare for the Splendour, who turn their back upon it and live in their instincts,
\nwho are just animals, a little perfected. Let us not speak of these. We have
\nonly to let them do what they like, that is of no importance at all. They don’t
\naffect us. It is not for them that I have written these things. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In order to know how to love truly, should the nature be transformed? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The quality of the love is in proportion
\nto the transformations of your consciousness. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t understand. <\/span><\/i>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 102<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

It is childishly simple. If you have the
\nconsciousness of an animal, you will love like an animal. If you have the
\nconsciousness of an ordinary man, you will love like an ordinary man. If you
\nhave the consciousness of an elite being, you will love like an \u00e9lite being,
\nand if you have a god’s consciousness, you will love like a god. It is simple!
\nThat’s what I have said. And so, if by an effort for progress and inner
\ntransformations, by aspiration and growth, you pass from one consciousness to
\nthe other and your consciousness becomes vaster and vaster, well, the love you
\nexperience will be vaster and vaster. That is quite clear! <\/span><\/p>\n

You take the purest water, water from the
\ncrystalline rocks, you collect it in a fairly large vase, and then, in this
\nvase there is a little mud, or much, or a huge quantity of mud. And you could
\nnot say it is the same water which came down, yet it is the same, only you have
\nmixed it with so many things in your vase that it no longer resembles it at
\nall! Well, love in its essence is an absolutely pure, crystalline, perfect
\nthing. In the human consciousness it gets mixed with a fairly considerable
\namount of mud. So it becomes more and more muddy in proportion to the amount of
\nmud. <\/span><\/p>\n

It has been said that the tiger’s need for
\ndevouring is one of the first expressions of love in the world. I think that
\nlong before the tiger, there must have been primitive creatures in the depths
\nof the sea, which had only this one function: a stomach. They existed only as
\nstomachs. And so they swallowed \u2013 that was their one occupation. Evidently that
\nwas one of the first results of the Power of Love infiltrating into Matter, for
\nbefore this there was nothing: there was perfect inconscience, complete
\nimmobility, nothing stirred. With Love movement began: the awakening of
\nconsciousness and the movement of transformations. Well, the first forms, it
\nmay be said, were the first expression of Love in Matter. So we can go from the
\nneed of swallowing which is the only consciousness \u2013 a need of swallowing, of
\nuniting \u2013 right up to… Excuse me, we say that Love is the power of the world \u2013
\nit is a primitive way of uniting with things,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 103<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

but it is a very direct way: one swallows
\nand absorbs the thing; well, the tiger indeed takes a great joy in it. So there
\nis a joy already, it is already quite a high form of love. You may go higher
\nand end up with one of the highest expressions of love in human beings: the
\ntotal self-giving to what is loved, that is, to die for one’s country or to
\ngive one’s life to defend somebody, and things like that. That indeed is
\nalready…\u00a0 <\/span>fairly high. It is still mixed
\nwith some mud. It is not the highest form but it is already something. And you
\nsee all the steps, don’t you? Well, from this one has still to climb a good
\ndeal to reach the true expression, to reach what I have described, which is at
\nthe summit of the ascent – I would not like to travesty my own words (Mother takes her copy of <\/i>\u201cThe Four
\nAusterities\u201d and reads<\/i>):\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLove is, in its essence, the joy of identity; it finds its expression
\nin the bliss of union.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

At first, before the emanation of love,
\nthere is something, which we may express very clumsily by \u201cthe joy of
\nidentity\u201d. That indeed is very difficult to conceive, for human thought cannot
\nconceive of things except by their opposites, while the supreme phase comes
\nwhen love has gone the whole round of the universe in order to climb back to
\nits origin; then it has the result of all that experience it gained and it
\nreturns to its starting-point. It goes back to its starting-point with
\nsomething more, which it did not have before starting: the experience of the
\nuniverse. And fundamentally, that is the very raison d’\u00eatre<\/i> of creation. It is because the consciousness would not be
\nwhat it is if it had not expressed itself in a creation. Well, the return from
\ncreation \u2013 which, mark it, is not something that takes place in time \u2013 is very
\ndifficult to conceive, for we conceive time and space and for us things are
\nsuccessive, one thing follows another, but if it were possible to conceive a
\ntotal movement which would englobe everything and be at once the beginning and
\nthe end, and which would contain everything, well, this return, which would
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 104<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

not be a return in time, which would be a
\nreturn in consciousness \u2013 how shall I explain that to you? \u2013 the return of love
\nto its origin, instead of being simply the joy of identity, becomes the ecstasy
\nof union \u2013 and obviously, if one sees from the pure psychological point of
\nview, there is an enriching of consciousness which comes from the experience
\ngained in the universe; that is, there is a richness of content and a plenitude
\nof consciousness which would not be there if there had been no manifested
\nuniverse. And that obviously is the most logical explanation, the most logical
\nreason for the creation. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

What does this sentence mean, Sweet Mother: \u201cEach time an individual
\nbreaks the narrow limitations in which he is imprisoned by his ego and emerges
\ninto the open air, through self-giving, whether for the sake of another human
\nbeing or his family, his country or his faith, he finds in this
\nself-forgetfulness a foretaste of the marvellous delight of love, and this
\ngives him the impression that he has come into contact with the Divine. But
\nmost often it is only a fleeting contact, for in the human being love is
\nimmediately mixed with lower egoistic movements, which debase it and rob it of
\nits power of purity. But even if it remained pure, this contact with the divine
\nexistence could not last for ever, for love is only one aspect of the Divine,
\nan aspect which here on earth has suffered the same distortions as the others.\u201d
\n<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

What is it, what haven’t you understood?
\nThat the universe and the world as it is, are a deformations of the Divine? The
\nworld as it is, in the state of consciousness in which it is, is a deformations
\nof the Divine, and love here also is a deformations of the Divine. So, even if
\nyour love remained as pure as it can be in the manifested world, it could not
\nkeep you in constant contact with the Divine unless all the rest was
\ntransformed. For it is de- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 105<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

formed in the same way as the rest. For it
\nshould be said, surely, that purity as conceived on earth has nothing to do
\nwith divine purity. At the best it is an approximation. <\/span><\/p>\n

Haven’t understood? It will come one day. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Sweet Mother, what kind of love do parents have for their children? <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

What kind? A human love, don’t they? Like
\nall human loves: frightfully mixed, with all sorts of things. The need of
\npossession, a formidable egoism. At first, I must tell you that a wonderful
\npicture has been painted… many books written, wonderful things said about a
\nmother’s love for her children. I assure you that except for the capacity of
\nspeaking about the subject in flowery phrases, the love of the higher animals
\nlike the…\u00a0 <\/span>well, the mammals for their
\nchildren is exactly of the same nature: the same devotion, the same
\nself-forgetfulness, the same self-denial, the same care for education, the same
\npatience, the same…\u00a0 <\/span>I have seen
\nabsolutely marvellous things, and if they had been written down and applied to
\na woman instead of to a cat, superb novels would have been made, people would
\nhave said: \u201cWhat a person! How marvellously devoted are these women in their
\nmaternal love!\u201d Exactly the same thing. Only, cats could not use flowery
\nlanguage. That’s all. They could not write books and make speeches, that is the
\nonly difference. But I have seen absolutely astonishing things. And that kind
\nof self-giving and self-oblivion \u2013 as soon as there is the beginning of love,
\nit comes. But men…I sincerely believe, from all that I have studied, that
\nthere is perhaps a greater purity in animals for they do not think, while human
\nbeings with their mental power, their capacity of reflecting, reasoning,
\nanalysing, studying, all that, oh! They spoil the most lovely movement. They
\nbegin to calculate, reason, doubt, organise. <\/span><\/p>\n

Take, for instance, parents. At the risk
\nof removing many illusions in your consciousness, I must tell you something
\nabout
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 106<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the source of a mother’s love for her
\nchild. It is because this child is made of her very own substance, and for
\nquite a long time, relatively long, the material link, the link of substance,
\nbetween mother and child is extremely<\/i>
\nclose \u2013 it is as though a bit of her flesh had been taken out and put apart at
\na distance \u2013 and it is only much later that the tie between the two is
\ncompletely cut. There is a kind of tie, of subtle sensation, such that the
\nmother feels exactly what the child feels, as she would feel it in herself.
\nThat then is the material basis of the mother’s attachment for the child. It is
\na basis of material identity, nothing else but that. Feeling comes much later
\n(it may come earlier, that depends on people), but I am speaking of the
\nmajority: feeling comes only long afterwards, and it is conditioned. There are
\nall kinds of things…\u00a0 <\/span>I could speak to
\nyou for hours on the subject. But still this must not be mixed up with love. It
\nis a material identification which makes the mother\u00a0 <\/span>feel intimately, feel quite concretely and
\ntangibly what the child is feeling: if the child receives a shock, well, the
\nmother feels it. This lasts at least for two months. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is the basis. The rest comes from
\npeople’s nature, their state of development, their consciousness, education and
\ncapacity for feeling. This is added to the first. And then there are all the
\ncollective suggestions which go to the making of novels \u2013 for people are
\nwonderful at constructing novels. They write novels about everything. They have
\nused their minds to build imaginations which circulate in the atmosphere and
\nthen are caught just like that. So some catch a certain type of these, others another
\nkind, and then, as imagination is a force of propulsion, with it one begins to
\nact, and then finally one lives a novel in his life, if he is in the least
\nimaginative…\u00a0 <\/span>This has absolutely
\nnothing to do with the true consciousness, with the psychic being, nothing at
\nall, but people come to speak to you in a florid style and tell you stories \u2013
\nall that is in wandering imaginations. If one could see, that is, if you could
\nsee this mental atmosphere, that of the physical mind, which is circulating every- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 107<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

where, making you move, making you feel,
\nmaking you think, making you act, oh, good heave! You would lose many of your
\nillusions about your personality. But indeed it is like that. Whether one knows
\nit or not, it is like that. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are many souls upon earth, human
\nbeings… Obviously, those who have a certain culture, a certain development, a
\ncertain individualisation gather together usually: instinctively they get
\ntogether, form groups. And so one can find in space and time a number \u2013 not
\nconsiderable but still sufficiently large \u2013 of cultured beings who are united,
\nbut one must not believe that this gives the exact proportion of the culture
\nand development of human beings. It is only like a sort of foam that has been
\nbrought up and is on the surface. But even among these latter, even among these
\nbeings who are already a selection, there is hardly one in a thousand who is a
\ntruly individual being, conscious of himself, united with his psychic being,
\ngoverned by his inner law and, consequently, almost if not totally free from
\nexternal influences; for, being conscious, when these influences come, he sees
\nthem: those that seem to him to harmonise with his inner development and normal
\ngrowth he accepts; those which are opposed he refuses. And so, instead of being
\na chaos \u2013 or in any case a frightful mixture \u2013 they are organised beings,
\nindividual, conscious of themselves, walking through life knowing where they
\nwant to go and how they want to. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of these, if you like, we may say that
\nthey are men. That is, they are what Nature may produce of the best as far as
\nmen go \u2013 they are still men. But this is the summit of man. They are ready to
\nbecome something else. But unless one is that, one is to a great extent an
\nanimal still and a very slight beginning of a man. Only that can be called man.
\nSo there you are, you have only to look into yourselves and know…\u00a0 <\/span>whether you are men or not. <\/span><\/p>\n

Au revoir. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I am saying this in the hope that you will
\nbecome that.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage – 108<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 April 1954   This talk is based upon Mother’s essay \u201cThe Four Austerities and the Four Liberations\u201d, Part III.   Sweet Mother, I did…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-06-questions-and-answers-volume-06","wpcat-125-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426","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=4426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}