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Section Four
The Mother in the Life of the Ashram
The Mother and the Sadhana in the Ashram
In what way does the Mother do the sadhana for the sadhaks? The sadhana is done by the Mother according to the truth and necessity of each nature and of each plane of Nature. It is not one fixed process. 13 September 1933
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I heard from someone: “The Mother has chosen only those who have got capacity to do this Yoga, but they will reach the goal only if the vital gets transformed. If not, they will realise in the next birth.” Is it so? The Mother has never spoken of anything to be done in the next birth. Naturally the vital has to be transformed if one is to succeed. 15 January 1934
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Why do we feel that the Mother is experiencing this or that? Has she still to go on experiencing? Experiencing what? She has her own experiences in bringing down the things that have to be brought down —but what the sadhaks experience she had long ago. The Divine does the sadhana first for the world and then in others. 3 January 1935
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Yesterday you wrote in regard to the Mother, "Experiencing what?" I meant experiencing what we feel. For sometimes we feel that our experiences are felt not only by us but by the Mother in us.
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Naturally, the Mother does sadhana in each sadhak —only it is conditioned by their need and their receptivity. Also I failed to understand your comment: “She has her own experiences in bringing down the things that have to be brought down.” I have said that the Divine does the sadhana first for the world and then gives what is brought down to others. There can be no sadhana without realisations and experiences. Both myself and the Mother have done sadhana. The Prayers are a record of Mother’s experiences. 4 January 1935
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What you write is in itself unexceptionable —it is indeed what was offered to the sadhaks at the beginning —but the difficulty is precisely there, in the complete sincerity of the nature. Few have been able to rise to it and only a distant approximation (if the phrase can be accepted) has been attained by some. Apart from incomplete sincerity, there is the difficulty that the brain is clouded by egoism and desire and imagines it is doing the very thing when it is doing something else. That is why I spoke of the danger of the theory of all from the Mother. There are people who have taken it that all that comes from the ego or the vital, comes from the Mother, is her inspiration or what she has given them. There are others who have taken it as an excuse for going on in the old rut indefinitely, saying that when the Mother wants she will change things! There were even some who on this basis created a subjective Mother in themselves whose dictates, flattering to their ego and desire, they pitted against the contrary dictates of the Mother here and came to think that this external Mother was after all not so much the real thing as the inner one or that she was putting them through an ordeal by contradicting the inner dictates and seeing what they would do!! The truth remains the truth, but this power of twisting by the mind and other parts of the nature has to be kept in sight also. 17 October 1936
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I am confident that in the long run everything will be clear and there will be Mother’s victory. The Mother’s victory is, essentially, the victory of each sadhak over himself. It can only be then that any external form of work can come to harmonious perfection. 12 November 1936
When does the Divine take up the sadhaks fully? When they give up the ego. What is the meaning of “the Divine takes up” a sadhak? When it is the Divine Force that works out all the Yoga and the actions by a direct action of which the sadhak is conscious. When a person begins to do Yoga and comes to live under the shade of the Mother, is he not taken up fully by her? Not until he is ready. He has first to accept her and then to give up more and more his ego. There are sadhaks who at every step revolt, oppose the Mother, contradict her will, criticise her decisions. How can she take them up fully in such conditions? What is the sign that one is taken up by the Divine? One can feel it. 21 June 1933
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My dear Mother, I have heard a good deal about your divine power and supernatural knowledge from X. As I myself am a humble servant of the Goddess, I would request you to instruct me in the development of supernatural force in order to attain the ultimate end —Darshan of the Goddess.
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Reply1 that the Mother is not able to write letters herself, and you are writing on her behalf. What is given by the Mother is not a development of supernatural force, but if someone is accepted to take up this path of Yoga he is led towards a deeper and higher consciousness in which he can attain union with the Divine Mother. This however is a path long and full of difficulties —Sri Aurobindo and the Mother do not admit anyone to it unless they are sure of his call and his capacity to follow it and the person himself is sure of his will to follow it until the goal is reached. 6 March 1937
The basis of life here is wholly spiritual. An inner discipline is given, but it is on broad lines allowing each individual the necessary freedom for his nature and temperament to grow and change spontaneously. Broadly, the sadhana consists of a progressive surrender of oneself —inward and based upon it the outward also —to the Guru, to the Divine; meditation, concentration, work, service —all these are means for a self —gathering in all one’s movements with the sole aim of delivering oneself into the hands of a Higher Power for being worked on and led towards the Goal. The Mother guides, helps each according to his nature and need, and, where necessary, herself intervenes with her Power enabling the sadhak to withstand the rigours and demands of the Path. She has placed herself —with all the Love, Peace, Knowledge and Consciousness that she is —at the disposal of every aspiring soul that looks for help.
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All in me is proceeding towards the Mother’s love, devotion and purity. Why then am I not going up in my consciousness and getting higher experience? The power of experience is not gone —but what is most important now is to develop the psychic condition of surrender,
1 Written by Sri Aurobindo to his secretary, who replied to the enquirer. —Ed.
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devotion, love and cheerful confidence in the Mother, an unshaken faith and a constant inner closeness, and also to bring down from above the peace, wideness, purity etc. of the higher Self which is that of the Mother’s consciousness. It is these things that are the basis of the siddhi in this Yoga —other experiences are only a help, not the basis. 17 January 1934
The Mother and Other Paths of Yoga
The idea of your friend that it is necessary to receive a mantra from here and for that he must come is altogether wrong. There is no mantra given in this Yoga. It is the opening of the consciousness to the Mother from within that is the true initiation and that can only come by aspiration and rejection of restlessness in the mind and vital. To come here is not the way to get it. Many come and get nothing or get their difficulties raised or even fall away from the Yoga. It is no use coming before one is ready, and he does not seem to be ready. Strong desire is not a proof of readiness. When he is inwardly ready, then there will be no difficulty about his coming.
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Before coming here I was attracted to the path of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and sometimes it attracts me still. Occasionally I wonder if I will be able to follow this yoga through all its vicissitudes. I would like the Mother to tell me what I should do. The Mother cannot decide for you, she can only offer to you the Truth she has come here to bring to the world and, if you accept it, guide you towards it. 9 September 1933
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Someone told me that Ramana Maharshi lives on the overmental plane or that his realisation is on the same level as Shankara’s. How is it then that he is not aware of the arrival of the Divine, while others, for instance X‘s Guru, had this awareness?
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I can’t say on what plane the Maharshi is, but his method is that of Adwaita Knowledge and Moksha —so there is no necessity for him to recognise the arrival of the Divine. X‘s Guru was a bhakta of the Divine Mother and believed in the dynamic side of existence, so it was quite natural for him to have the revelation of the coming of the Mother. 23 January 1936
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After reading a chapter in The Synthesis of Yoga I wrote to you the other day about the strong mental realisation of cosmic oneness; now I find that that state has disappeared. Was there anything wrong in writing about it? Is it that the Mother does not like this sort of Yoga of Knowledge? Or is it that one should always write about the darker side and never mention the other side? Why should Mother dislike Yoga of Knowledge? The realisation of self and of the cosmic being (without which the realisation of self is incomplete) are essential steps in our Yoga; it is the end of other Yogas, but it is, as it were, the beginning of ours, that is to say, the point where its own characteristic realisation can commence. The disappearance of a realisation when it is spoken of is an experience some people have, but it is not likely to be the case with you. To write only of the dark side would be to overemphasise it and not to give a chance to the other. It is probable that the realisation comes only as a first touch; it comes often like that and afterwards repeats itself until the consciousness is able to hold it as its normal state. 26 March 1936
Turning Entirely to the Mother
All things are the Divine because the Divine is there, but hidden not manifest; when the mind goes out to things, it is not with the sense of the Divine in them, but for the appearances only which conceal the Divine. It is necessary therefore for you as a sadhak to turn entirely to the Mother in whom the Divine is manifest and not run after the appearances, the desire of which or the
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interest in which prevents you from meeting the Divine. Once the being is consecrated, then it can see the Divine everywhere —and then it can include all things in the one consciousness without a separate interest or desire.
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Is it easily possible for my nature to terminate the remaining journey only with love, joy and happiness? I mean to say, can the transformation of my lower nature go on at the same time that the sadhana proceeds with full love? It is possible if you (1) can get free of vital demand, (2) regard the difficulties of the nature calmly and dispassionately as if some defects of a machine that has to be set right, the being that uses the machine remaining fully dedicated to the Mother. 17 October 1935
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No, Mother was not serious or displeased with you at all. But why attach so much importance to what X or Y do or say. They are still so full of darkness and ego. The path you have now taken —to cleave to the Mother through all circumstances and let nothing shake you from that —will bring the true solution of difficulties for you. For it means that the psychic being has started its work in you. 24 December 1935
There seems to be a lack of harmony or unity of will between you and the Mother. What you write the Mother seems to contradict almost intuitively by exerting her weight on the opposite side. On what grounds do you come to this conclusion? I do not write anything that is not approved by the Mother. My physical is convinced that the right will has not descended
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in the Mother. That is why she finds so many reasons not to support me. I think it is better for the present that I remain in retreat till the Will and love have descended in her, which would make her turn fully towards me. Is it the opinion of your physical that the test of the right will in the Mother is that she must always support you? Does your physical think then that the infallible right will is necessarily in you —that it has descended in you first before it descends in the Mother? Otherwise, what is the basis of such a strange idea, that to disagree with you or suggest something else shows that her will is in the wrong and in error? 8 November 1932
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I feel I have an inner relation with you, but I do not feel the same relation with the Mother. In all probability she has no place in my inner heart. Perhaps it is this consciousness in her that makes her act against the spirit of what she agrees to when you write things. I again repeat that what I write is what the Mother approves or decides; we have not two separate wills. This idea of division or opposition between us is a suggestion of the Ignorance. 10 November 1932
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Even a good devotee and a brilliant student like X finds it difficult to accept Mother. I cannot understand why he cannot see the simple truth about her. If he finds it difficult to accept Mother, how is he a good devotee? A devotee to whom? A brilliant student is another matter; one can be a brilliant student and yet quite incompetent in spiritual matters. If one is a devotee of Vishnu or some other godhead, then it is different —one may see only one’s object of worship and so not be able to accept anything else. 14 November 1934
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Today is really a great day for me. What greater day can there
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be than the one when the Mother is accepted even by the obscure, ignorant, revolting parts of my lower vital nature? Yes, when that has been done, it is one of the biggest steps in the sadhana. 28 March 1935
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The Mother puts energy into all who can receive it; it depends on them whether they use it rightly or not —or waste it. Men are not machines, they have a will —and they can choose whether they accept the Divine or not —whether they do the Divine’s will or not.
Have confidence in the Mother and be sure that the liberation from these things will surely come. What the soul feels is the sign of the spiritual destiny as of the spiritual need. What opposes is a remnant of the nature of the human ignorance. Our help will be there with you fully to overcome it. 27 February 1935 Recognising the Mother’s Divinity
Up till now, I have not recognised the divinity of anyone except Sri Krishna. I have looked on the Mother as a Guru who can take me to him. But now something in me wants to hold the Mother fast as divinity. I can’t keep her out of my mind, nor can I reject Sri Krishna. The more I think, the more I am perplexed. I pray for your help. This struggle in you (between bhakti for Sri Krishna and the sense of the divinity of the Mother) is quite unnecessary; for the two things are one and go perfectly together. It is he who has brought you to the Mother and it is by adoration of her that you will realise him. He is here in the Asram and it is his work that is being done here. 2 March 1932
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This evening when I looked at the Mother, I found in her the utmost beauty. She was glimmering. I felt as if a great Goddess had come down from the heavens. Can I know what this was? It was only that you felt the Divinity with her which is always there. 20 July 1933
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There are people who start at once, others take time. X recognised the Mother as divine at first sight and has been happy ever afterwards; others who rank among Mother’s devotees took years to discover or admit it, but they arrived all the same. There are people who had nothing but difficulties and revolts for the first five, six, seven or more years of the sadhana, yet the psychic ended by awaking. The time taken is a secondary matter: the one thing needful is —soon or late, easily or with difficulty —to get there. circa 22 July 1935
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It seems X has climbed to the top rung of your spiritual ladder in a very short period. In your heavenly Parliament he must have been in charge of a very important portfolio! Otherwise I don’t see how he could, at first sight, have had a vision of the Divine in the Mother, besides other things. What top rung and what Parliament? There is no such thing as a heavenly parliament. X progressed smoothly and rapidly from the beginning in Yoga, first, because he was in dead earnest; secondly, because he had a clear and solid mind and a strong and tenacious will in complete control of the nerves; thirdly, because his vital being was calm, strong and solid; finally, and chiefly, because he had a complete faith and devotion to the Mother. As for seeing the Divine in the Mother at first sight, he is not the only one to do that. Plenty of people have done that who had no chance of any portfolios, e.g. Y‘s cousin, a Musulman girl, who as soon as she met her declared "This is not a woman, she is a goddess" and has been having significant dreams of her ever since and whenever she is in trouble, thinks of her and gets helped out of the trouble. It is not so damnably
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difficult to see the Divine in the Mother as you make it out to be. 23 July 1935
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As for the Divine in the Mother, I know what the Musulman lady exactly saw. From what you say it seems to be a flash of intuition. Not at all, it was a direct sense of the Godhead in her —for I suppose you mean by intuition a sort of idea that comes suddenly? That is what people usually understand by intuition. It was not that in her case nor in X‘s. By seeing the Divine in the Mother, I don’t mean imagination or calm, calculated reasoning. But to see actually the fully flaming, resplendent, effulgent Divine Mother in any one of her Powers —why, that is damnably difficult at least for me who have not even seen the halo around her. I don’t believe X or anybody would have that at first view. That can only come if one has already developed the faculty of vision in the occult planes. What is of more importance is the clear perception or intimate inner feeling or direct sense “This is She.” I think you are inclined to be too romantic and poetic and too little spiritually realistic in these things. 29 July 1935
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I suppose you do not expect me to answer in detail this list of old grievances or try to justify the Mother or explain what you consider to be her indefensible conduct. I do not intend to do these things. It is for each sadhak to discover for himself whether he can take the Mother as divine or accept her government and guidance, or regards her as one like himself or inferior to himself, whose conduct he can see rightly, weigh, condemn and judge. It is not for the Mother to explain or justify herself, nor indeed was it ever the rule for the Guru to stand at the bar for the judgment of the disciple. Each has to see for himself whether he can give that obedience and self —opening to one who has or lives in the Divine Consciousness or has realised the Divine Truth, by which
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alone he can receive what is to be given. 19 December 1936
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I do not have an active faith on every occasion that the Mother is divine or that her dealings with us are divine. How to have a firm conviction of this? It is only if you see the divinity of the Mother that there can be a settled conviction —that is a question of the inner consciousness and vision. 5 June 1937
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It seems to me that the part of my external nature which was not accepting the Mother as divine is now being convinced of her divinity. But why do I forget her divinity when I actually come before her? It is the physical mind in its most external action that sees physical things as only physical. 15 August 1937
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How to convince the mind that the Mother is the Divine and that her workings are not human? It is by opening up the psychic and letting it rule the mind and vital that it can be done —because the psychic knows and can see what the mind cannot.
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Is there some doubting part in me, always doubting that the Mother is divine, or does something in me simply form for the enjoyment of doubt? If something forms for the enjoyment of doubt and if that something is in you, then that part must surely be a doubting part. Or if these formations (which are always busily going about in the atmosphere) present themselves to you and something in you responds, it means that there is a part in you which is still open to the suggestions of doubt.
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There is, I suppose, something in your vital and exterior mind which is still prone to the idea that the Mother cannot be divine because she does not satisfy their desires or act according to their ideas.
In your letter to the Mother I note that you profess to be writing a confession, but the tone of it is rather a justification of your faultless self accompanied by an accusation against the Mother of favouritism, bad temper, and injustice. I observe also that your statement of facts is incorrect and as far as it concerns the Mother, grotesque. You lay stress too on a point in which you can justify yourself, and you ignore all the rest in which you were in fault. I will assume, however, that all this was unintentional and that, in writing such a letter, you were unconscious of the movements of your vital being which inspired its spirit and tone. I would suggest that in your relations with others, —which seem always to have been full of disharmony, —when incidents occur, it would be much better for you not to take the standpoint that you are all in the right and they are all in the wrong. It would be wiser to be fair and just in reflection, seeing where you have gone astray, and even laying stress on your own fault and not on theirs. This would probably lead to more harmony in your relations with others; at any rate, it would be more conducive to your inner progress, which is more important than to be the top —dog in a quarrel. Neither is it well to cherish a spirit of selfjustification and self —righteousness and a wish to conceal either from yourself or from the Mother your faults or your errors. As for your doubts about the Mother, they are not likely to disappear so long as you think you can read the Mother’s mind by the light of your own and pass your mental judgments on her and her action from those erroneous data. Nor can they easily disappear if your faith breaks down every time that she does something which your limited intelligence cannot understand or which is displeasing to the feelings and demands of your vital nature. If you do not believe that she has a consciousness
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greater and wider than yours and not measurable by ordinary standards and judgments, at the very least a Yogic consciousness, I do not see on what ground you are practising Yoga here under her guidance. Those who constantly doubt and criticise and blame or attribute her actions to the most common and vulgar human feelings and motives and yet pretend to accept her or to accept myself and my Yoga, are guilty of a stupid and irrational inconsequence. As for understanding, that is another matter. I would suggest that you must grow out of the ordinary mind and become conscious with the true consciousness before you can hope to do it. And for that faith and surrender and fidelity and openness are conditions of some importance. 6 November 1929
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Are there sadhaks in the Asram who do not understand that “the Divinity acts according to the Consciousness of the Truth above and the Lila below and not according to men’s ideas about what it should or should not do”? There are plenty who do not realise it —they expect the Mother to act according to their ideas and wishes, not according to a higher consciousness. 20 October 1934
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When the Mother pointed out my mistake, I became discontented. Misguided by the suggestions of the refractory parts of my being, I took it as an undeserved reproach. I feel very ashamed. It was simply a statement of fact, not a reproach, and it was not you but your ego that got discontented because it felt scratched by the facts. I had promised you that I would never be discontented with the Mother. I failed to keep that promise. I pray to you again to pull me out of this state and I promise again that I shall never be discontented with the Mother.
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Very well, I take the promise. But the rising of discontent is surely a sufficient indication that the consciousness is going wrong. As soon as you feel it you should immediately draw back and say, “O ego, you are up again against the Mother! Stop that or I will take you by the scruff of the neck and throw you out of the window.” I hope indeed to see that “thrown out” actually happen one day. 21 October 1935
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I have no intention of entering into an explanation, defence or apology for the Mother’s action. I have long ago decided that I would not allow the Mother’s rightful position here to be lowered by the sadhaks putting her as an accused before the tribunal of their ignorant mind or vital ego and demanding that she or I for her should plead her case. The Mother acts from her own knowledge and consciousness which is not that of the sadhaks; their ideas of what she ought to do or ought not to do have no place. Rather they are here to discard such ideas and accept her guidance by which they can themselves enter into a higher consciousness where these mental and vital errors have no right of existence. I have already pointed out to you that your action was entirely mistaken. You had no right to ask for a letter placed there for the Mother’s perusal. You had no right to demand that the Mother should give you the letter. You had no special claim to mend the envelope for X. It is not a question of bad or good desire. The pretension of doing good can contain as much ego and desire as any other personal claim, and that it was egoistic is proved by the violent reaction against the Mother that her not satisfying it raised in you. If it had been pure of ego, you would have had no reaction but quietly accepted the Mother’s action as right because it was the Mother’s. If you want to get rid of the painful inner and physical reactions, you must get rid of their cause in you, the ego of selfesteem, demand and desire. It is only by a complete surrender of yourself, your mind, vital and everything else to the Divine that this ego can go. Your reaction and accusation of injustice against
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the Mother shows that you are still clinging to it in some part of you and you should welcome rather than resent anything that gives you a chance of rejecting it still more from your nature. 7 March 1937
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