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Relation between the Mother and Her Children
What is our true relation with the Mother —the relation of the Mother and her child? The relation of the child to the Mother is that of an entire, sincere and simple trust, love and dependence.
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The relation of the disciple to the Guru in the Guruvada is supposed always to be that of worship, respect, complete happy confidence, unquestioning acceptance of the guidance. It is only in this Asram that another theory has sometimes been advanced and reached its height as a result of the misapplication or wrong extension of the relation with the human Mother (which in itself, rightly understood, was not to be discouraged as a phase) and also of certain other misunderstood notions —not only abhimana, but egoistic unspiritual demand, hostile criticism, revolt, anger and other still more undesirable vital reactions (usually supposed to be foreign to the spiritual consciousness) have been put forward by some, admitted by many in practice, as a part of the Yoga! I do not see how such a method can lead to any good results in the spiritual life. 12 January 1932
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The connection between myself and the Mother is always there, but my vital is interfering, colouring it and making it impure. Yes, the connection is always there, in the self and in the psychic; but if there are obstacles in the mind, vital and physical, then the connection cannot be manifest or, if it is at all manifest, it is
Page – 448 mixed with elements which make it imperfect and unstable. The true connection is the psychic and spiritual relation; the relation in the other parts must be built up on this psychic and spiritual connection and then it can be permanent. 24 April 1932
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One rule for you I can lay down, “Do not do, say or think anything which you would want to conceal from the Mother.” And that answers the objections that rose within you —from your vital, is it not? —against bringing “these petty things” to the Mother’s notice. Why should you think that the Mother would be bothered by these things or regard them as petty? If all the life is to be Yoga, what is there that can be called petty or of no importance? Even if the Mother does not answer, to have brought any matter of your action and self —development before her in the right spirit means to have put it under her protection, in the light of the Truth, under the rays of the Power that is working for the transformation —for immediately those rays begin to play and to act on the thing brought to her notice. Anything within that advises you not to do it when the spirit in you moves you to do it, may very well be a device of the vital to avoid the ray of the Light and the working of the Force. It may also be observed that if you open yourself to the Mother by putting the movements of any part of you under her observation, that of itself creates a relation, a personal closeness with her other than that which her general, silent or not directly invited action maintains with all the sadhaks. All this, of course, if you feel ready for this openness, if the spirit moves you to lay what is in you bare before her. For it is then that it is fruitful —when it comes from within and is spontaneous and true. 18 May 1932
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It was certainly true that you saw the Mother and she was teaching secrets to your inner being —for your inner being is in close relation with her. It is only by your opening yourself that this inner being can come out and change the relations of
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your external self with her, remove from it its sense of not being connected, its misunderstandings, wrong attitudes, confused movements. That is why I am always pressing on you to open and keep in touch with the Force —for it is your inner being that feels naturally in touch with it, —it is only the external and physical mind and vital that feel it is as if it were not real, not truly connected etc. etc. This you have experienced yourself more than once when the inner being came into the front. 3 November 1932
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It is perfectly true that in your inner being there is nothing that stands between you and nearness to the Mother; but in your outer there are many reactions that make it difficult —and the chief cause of these reactions is the readiness with which your outer mind listens to the suggestions and accepts the reasonings and obeys the movements of the obscure ignorant physical Nature. That is why I want you to get rid of this habit of the outer mind and to recognise that it is the inner being which is the real truth of yourself and not this outer consciousness with its confusions which is a present fact but not your true permanent being. 9 December 1932
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This morning I sent a letter to the Mother through X, but I have received no reply. Have I done something wrong? Waiting for a word from her I am suffering greatly. The Mother replied to you through X that you could take the rest you wanted —at any rate she told him to tell you that; I hope he did so. Feelings of this kind ought to be rejected always and there is nothing else to be done with them. The relation with the Divine, the relation with the Mother must be one of love, faith, trust, confidence, surrender —any other relation of the vital ordinary kind brings reactions contrary to the sadhana, —desire, egoistic abhimana, demand, revolt and all the disturbance of ignorant
Page – 450 rajasic human nature from which it is the object of the sadhana to escape. 26 April 1933
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I am afraid you have allowed some old movement of the vital to come up and obstruct the work that was being done. You know perfectly well that your inner being is near to the Mother, can feel her peace and force, can receive her thought, can respond and that that is the one thing that helps you. When you speak of the Mother seeming aloof to your senses, you are referring evidently to the physical nearness. You know very well what was the reason why it could not be for the time. But even there there was a great improvement recently and it was becoming possible and natural for you to approach the Mother physically without the old vital reactions, and the Mother was welcoming the change. This is not a time to allow the old reactions to come up and impede or throw back the progress made. Cast off this invasion, let your consciousness recover the quietness it was more and more gaining, let your soul go on growing as it was growing —throw out this reaction that impedes it. Let the Divine work in you and establish in time the true outward and inward relation which is the only one that can satisfy and endure. 7 September 1933
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Why do I get angry and make myself miserable when Mother proposes something I do not like, such as putting X with me in my house? If Mother herself wants it, why should I object and feel sorry about it? It is desire and jealousy that are the cause of these movements. It prevents you from seeing that each is dealt with according to the needs and possibilities of his case. Your vital wishes on the contrary to impose a rule by which you shall get what the vital wants and if it does not, and if another gets it, you consider it a personal wrong and an injustice. So if something disagreeable to your vital, e.g. putting X, is suggested, you consider that because the Mother’s proposal was disagreeable to you,
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therefore it was wrong. The whole thing is that —that you are putting a personal standard —the standard of your desires and feelings —as the measure of truth and right. Most men do that —almost all practically; but to do Yoga you must free yourself from that altogether. You are concerned only with yourself and the Divine; in your relations with the Divine you are concerned not with the Divine’s satisfaction of your personal desires, but with being pulled out of these things and raised to your highest spiritual possibilities, so that you may become united with the Mother within and as a result in the outer being also. That cannot be done by satisfying your vital desires —to do so would only increase them and give you into the hands of the ignorance and restless confusion of the ordinary Nature. It can be done only by your inner trust and surrender and by the pressure of the Mother’s peace and Force working from within and changing your vital nature. It is when you forget this that you go wrong and suffer; when you remember it you progress and the difficulties become less and less insistent. 13 September 1933
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I have heard that the Mother gives flowers to those waiting for her on the stairs at noon. I feel I should try to be present there, to break my habit of shyness and to recognise her not only as the spiritual Mother but as the loving and compassionate human Mother as well. The Mother is not giving every day, only from time to time. But why do you want to meet her as a “human” mother —if you can see the divine Mother in a human body, that should be enough and a more fruitful attitude. Those who approach her as a human Mother often get into trouble by their conception making all sorts of mistakes in their approach to her. 2 May 1934
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You are the Mother’s child and the Mother’s love to her children is without limit and she bears patiently with the defects of their nature. Try to be the true child of the Mother: it is there within
Page – 452 you, but your outward mind is occupied by little futile things and too often in a violent fuss over them. You must not only see the Mother in dream but learn to see and feel her with you and within you at all times. Then you would find it easier to control yourself and change, —for she being there would be able to do it for you. 30 May 1934
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The sadhak feels alone and suffers when he does not have the Mother’s presence. Does the Mother likewise feel alone in the absence of her child? Is she more miserable than a human mother would be? If that were the case the Mother would have to be in a profound state of million —fold misery all the time —for why should she be miserable only for the sadhak —why not for each soul that is wandering in the Ignorance? The child need not be miserable, but simply come back when the Mother calls. 24 September 1934
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If one looks into his own heart, he cannot fail to find the Mother’s smile there. Why go out of one’s heart, then, and seek for her smile outside? Why are so many here burdened with difficulties, falls, attacks, gloom and despair? Is it not because they seek the external part of the Mother, her physical nearness, touch, etc., instead of going inside? Quite right. To live inside is the first principle of spiritual life and from inside to reshape the physical existence. But so many insist on remaining in the external and their relation with the Mother is governed by the ordinary reactions of the external unspiritualised nature. 21 April 1935
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You have written to some people about “an inner close relation” with the Mother. I want to know what is the truest and most real relation with her. Isn’t the soul relation with her the only true one? What is the soul relation? How am I to recognise it?
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An inner (soul) relation means that one feels the Mother’s presence, is turned to her at all times, is aware of her force moving, guiding, helping, is full of love for her and always feels a great nearness whether one is physically near her or not —this relation takes up the mind, vital and inner physical till one feels one’s mind close to the Mother’s mind, one’s vital in harmony with hers, one’s very physical consciousness full of her. These are all the elements of the inner union, not only in the spirit and self but in the nature. I do not recollect what I had written, but this is the inner close relation as opposed to an outer relation which consists only in how one meets her on the external physical plane. It is quite possible —and actual —to have this inner close relation even if physically one sees her only at pranam and meditation and once a year perhaps on the birthday. 29 June 1935
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I don’t feel any personal relation with the Mother. There lies the whole difficulty of the sadhana. One has to become conscious by the awakening of the inner mind and vital —or best of all by the awakening of the psychic. It is quite possible for two persons to have a relation of which one is conscious and the other is not —his mental blindness or vital misunderstandings coming in the way. That is frequent even in ordinary life. Very often one becomes conscious of it only when he loses it (by the death of the other person or otherwise) and is then full of repinings for his blindness. 20 July 1935
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This thought of yours that Mother cares for all as her children and does not care for you is evidently a quite groundless idea and does not rest on any solid basis. She is as affectionate in her love and care for you and in her way towards you as to any others and more than to most. There is nothing solid or specific that we can see on which the idea can rest. Certainly, it corresponds to no reality in the Mother’s feelings.
Page – 454 But I have noted that this kind of idea always comes up in the minds of sadhaks and sadhikas (especially the latter) when they become despondent or listen to the suggestions from outside them. Always they say the same thing as you, “You love and care for all; only for me you do not love and care. I am evidently unfit for the Yoga or you would not keep me far from you like that. I shall never arrive at anything. What is the use of my remaining here only to trouble you? What have I to live for?” But when the psychic being is well awake, then these thoughts, this despondency, these wrong notions are bound to go away. What you feel therefore is just this despondency and the wrong suggestions it brings; it does not correspond to any reality in the Mother’s feelings or behaviour towards you. It will go with the rest as the inner being, the soul in you comes more and more forward —for the soul in you knows that it loves the Mother and the Mother loves you; it cannot be blinded by the suggestions that deceive the mind and the vital nature. Do not therefore remain in these thoughts that have no foundation but are only a mood of despondency or a suggestion from outside. Let the psychic being in you grow and the Mother’s force work. The relation of the child and the Mother is there in your soul; it will make itself felt in your mind and vital and physical consciousness till it becomes the foundation of the whole consciousness on which all the sadhana can be firm and secure. 26 July 1935
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The connection between you and the Mother is there and has always existed. Inside it is very evident and, when you are in the psychic condition, that which is inside begins to work. It is only the physical mind that suggests the idea to the contrary because outward circumstances are still inharmonious and unfavourable. Do not allow these suggestions to sway you. Seek the connection within you in your psychic being; then even through the outward circumstances it will shine out and change all into oneness. 5 June 1936
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My condition is changing so often; it is as if I were walking on hilly ground with plenty of ditches on the way. I am hardly out of one ditch and able to get a breath of fresh air than I find myself in another ditch. I often feel that I am hopelessly bad. I know that I would not feel this way if I knew myself to be the Mother’s. I pray, make me feel that. Open my eyes to see, or rather give me the eyes to see, for I seem to have lost them. You know now what this depression and the feelings that come with it are —they are the recurrences of the old unconsciousness attempting to prevent the rapid or full flowering of the inner consciousness which was growing in you. You should therefore not accept the suggestions of the depression or the idea of not being the Mother’s. The eye within is growing —it is sure to be full and open after a time. It is why the old consciousness is trying hard to return and keep hold. You must get more and more to say no to its suggestions and efforts —so that the development may go more quickly. July 1936
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If a man feels, “I am the happiest child of the Mother”, is it due to ego —feeling? It depends on the source of the feeling. If it is true happiness, then it is not ego. If it is due to a feeling of superiority, then it is ego.
Let the inner contact with the Mother increase —unless that is there, the outer contacts if too much multiplied easily degenerate into a routine.
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Today while going to the Mother, I felt concentrated in the mind, with a will to get contact with the Mother. Then I found that my mind was opening to the Light. I saw flashes of golden light two or three times. In the morning I remained peaceful and quiet and later I saw the Light many times.
Page – 456 It was the contact with the Mother that originally brought the opening to the Light, the descent of the golden light, the wideness and the knowledge. The two things naturally go together or follow one on the other; it is a mistake to think that there is any incompatibility or opposition between them. 11 September 1931
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On waking up this morning, I felt myself in contact with the Mother’s consciousness; it gave me a good feeling and even Ananda. While meditating this morning, my mind opened up above and the contact deepened and I felt aspiration and peace. I have been able to progress and get experiences by keeping contact with the Mother’s consciousness; but I have the idea that this contact is not enough to give me all the experiences I aspire for. That is your mistake to think the contact is not enough. The contact with the Mother’s consciousness will lead to all necessary realisations and the fulfilment of all true aspirations. 14 January 1932
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In my waking consciousness I feel that I flow always in the stream of sadhana, but in my sleep I am quite a different person. I want to be changed in my sleep also. During sleep I want to keep in constant contact with the Mother. Is there any process or should I simply call her help before I retire to bed? Aspire and want it always —that is the first thing. As for methods, perhaps it is best not to go to sleep straight in the ordinary way, but to meditate and through meditation pass into sleep. At least before going to bed have a meditation. 13 September 1932
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I was feeling very happy alone in my room, with an inner feeling of the Mother’s consciousness. When I went to see X, I felt ill at ease and I lost the inner contact with the Mother. Mixing with people destroys the inner feeling, but I cannot
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always remain secluded. What is the best thing to do? You have to learn to live in yourself with the Mother, in contact with her consciousness, and meet others only with your exterior surface. 9 April 1933
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Today while engaged in work I felt a peaceful energy and something like ice touching my head. Then the knowledge came to me: “The Mother is always near us, though physically we do not see her, and she is removing all kinds of weakness with the touch of her affectionate hand. In every way she stands behind us secretly.” This thing was like a feeling and a vision, almost like a realisation. Was it the psychic feeling of the Mother’s presence in us? It is a realisation attended with vision and feeling. It is the psychic and the mental together that produced it. 9 June 1933
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The one thing that is most needed for this sadhana is peace, calm, especially in the vital —a peace which depends not on circumstances or surroundings but on the inner relation with a higher consciousness which is the consciousness of the Divine, of the Mother. Those who have not that or do not aspire to get it can come here and live in the Asram for ten or twenty years and yet be as restless and full of struggle as ever, —those who open their mind and vital to the Mother’s strength and peace can get it even in the hardest and most unpleasant work and the worst circumstances. October 1933
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I would like the Mother to fix my timings as to what should be done at what time for the whole day. I will abide by whatever she determines for my progress. To fix times is not possible or desirable —you must yourself organise your day in such a manner as to make the best use of it and let the Mother know how you do it.
Page – 458 I am ready to give up all my relations with everyone and be merged in the Mother alone. Please tell me what rules I should follow to overcome all obstacles. May Mother help me both inwardly and outwardly. The most important thing is to be turned inwardly towards the Mother and to her alone. To avoid too many outward contacts is necessary only in order to help in this —but it is not necessary nor desirable to avoid all contacts with people. What is necessary is to meet these contacts with the right inner consciousness, not throwing yourself out —treating them as things of the surface —not getting attached to them or absorbed by them in any way. 28 October 1933
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I wanted to ask you whether what I have said about my inner contact with the Mother is true or not. It may be that my vital mind is deluding me about this. At any rate if you want the Mother’s contact always, you must get rid of depression and the mental imaginations that bring it. Nothing comes more in the way than that. 3 January 1934
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No one need be jealous of anything or anybody, since each has his own point of contact which nobody else has —apart from what all have. 4 January 1934
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You wrote to me that making Pranam to the Mother would bear fruit “if one keeps the right contact with her inwardly all day”.1 What exactly did you mean? I meant the inner contact in which one either feels one with her or in contact with her or aware of her presence or, at the very least, turned towards her always. 18 March 1934
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1 See letter of 16 March 1935 on page 532 33. —Ed
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For a long time I was thinking of meeting the Mother but was hesitating to ask for an interview. Last night in dream I met her and had a talk with her. Was it the real Mother I met or some constructed figure of my dream —mind? Of course, it was the Mother you met and the meeting must have been due to your thought about meeting her. 9 June 1935
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If it is like that, it is probably because you are living outside, allowing yourself to be disturbed by outward contacts. One cannot find happiness of a lasting character unless one lives within. Work, action must be offered to the Mother, done for her sake only, without any thought for yourself, your own ideas, preferences, feelings, likes and dislikes. If one’s eyes are fixed on these latter things, then at every step one gets some friction either in the mind or vital or, if these are comparatively quiet, in the body and nerves. Peace and joy can only become stable if one lives within with the Mother. 2 January 1937 The Right Way of Loving the Mother
The contact between mother and child means not only that the mother should love the child but that the child should love the mother and obey her. You want to be the true child of the Mother, but the first thing for that is to put yourself into her hands and let her guide you and to follow her will —and not disregard it or revolt against her. You know all this perfectly well —why do you ignore it? It is part of the true Mother’s love not to do whatever the vital of the child demands, for she knows that it would be extremely bad for him. Do not obey the impulse of the vital, but follow rather your true perception and make yourself a channel for the will of the Mother —because her will is always that you should grow into your true being.
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The love which is turned towards the Divine ought not to be the usual vital feeling which men call by that name; for that is not love, but only a vital desire, an instinct of appropriation, the impulse to possess and monopolise. Not only is this not the divine Love, but it ought not to be allowed to mix in the least degree in the Yoga. The true love for the Divine is a self —giving, free of demand, full of submission and surrender; it makes no claim, imposes no condition, strikes no bargain, indulges in no violences of jealousy or pride or anger —for these things are not in its composition. In return the Divine Mother also gives herself, but freely —and this represents itself in an inner giving —her presence in your mind, your vital, your physical consciousness, her power re —creating you in the divine nature, taking up all the movements of your being and directing them towards perfection and fulfilment, her love enveloping you and carrying you in its arms Godwards. It is this that you must aspire to feel and possess in all your parts down to the very material, and here there is no limitation either of time or of completeness. If one truly aspires and gets it, there ought to be no room for any other claim or for any disappointed desire. And if one truly aspires, one does unfailingly get it, more and more as the purification proceeds and the nature undergoes its needed change. Keep your love pure of all selfish claim and desire; you will find that you are getting all the love that you can bear and absorb in answer. Realise also that the Realisation must come first, the work to be done, not the satisfaction of claim and desire. It is only when the Divine Consciousness in its supramental Light and Power has descended and transformed the physical that other things can be given a prominent place —and then too it will not be the satisfaction of desire, but the fulfilment of the Divine Truth in each and all and in the new life that is to express it. In the divine life all is for the sake of the Divine and not for the sake of the ego. I should perhaps add one or two things to avoid misapprehensions. First, the love for the Divine of which I speak is not a psychic love only; it is the love of all the being, the vital and vital —physical included, —all are capable of the same
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self —giving. It is a mistake to believe that if the vital loves, it must be a love that demands and imposes the satisfaction of its desire; it is a mistake to think that it must be either that or else the vital, in order to escape from its “attachment”, must draw away altogether from the object of its love. The vital can be as absolute in its unquestioning self —giving as any other part of the nature; nothing can be more generous than its movement when it forgets self for the Beloved. The vital and physical should both give themselves in the true way —the way of true love, not of ego desire. 1 August 1931
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What I want of you is not to love the Mother from a distance, but to become accustomed to feel her presence, her help, the working of her forces even when she is not physically present and this not only in your sleep or inward —drawn condition (which seems to be sufficiently easy for you) but in your waking consciousness whether in meditation or in ordinary hours. And this I want because it would give a great push to your Yoga. It would besides give a deeper meaning and power to your physical contact with her. I am sure that all this will come fully in time. 22 November 1931
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I have been here for one and a half years but I know nothing of the sadhana. I meditate, but nothing happens in the meditation. I feel there is no love in me towards the Mother. What shall I do to feel this love? Become truthful, pure, sincere, straightforward. 1 July 1935
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Parts of my being are insisting on a physical expression of the Mother’s love. Although at present there is no attack or depression, there is only dryness and dullness. Even if the sadhana returns and I get very high or deep experiences, they will be worth little so long as my love for the Mother does not return.
Page – 462 It is a mistake to think like that. The experiences prepare the different parts of the being for loving in the right way, so that it is not the soul alone that loves. So long as they are open to ignorance and ego they cannot receive and hold the love rightly. 23 October 1935
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Both the love for the Mother which you feel so strongly and the other tendency of harmony and affection with those with whom you live or work come from the psychic being. When the psychic intensifies its influence, this love for the Mother becomes strong and is the main mover of the nature. But there is also a feeling of good will, harmony, kindness or affection towards others which also comes up and is not so much personal as the result of the soul’s inmost relation to all souls who are children of the Mother. There is no harm in this psychic feeling, on the contrary it creates happiness and harmony —it is only the vital love between persons that has to be rejected because it draws away from full consecration to the Divine. But this helps the growth of the soul into the Mother’s consciousness and helps the work and helps also the inner life to grow. 10 February 1936 Receiving What the Mother Gives
The Mother gives whatever is necessary for each one; she does not withold what one requires and is capable of receiving. It is we who are not ready to receive what she gives. Yes, Mother is always willing to give and nothing pleases her better than to see her children receiving what she has to give.
The unwillingness to tell the whole truth, the wish to conceal or justify things is another general trait of human nature which is common in the Asram. It is perfectly true that to do that is to stand in the way of one’s own progress, but the lower nature is
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strong and overcomes the buddhi. People also think that Mother will not know if they do not tell or at least she won’t know the physical facts even if she can read the inner movements and they prefer to conceal or else to write in such a way that they may stand well in her eyes. This weakness like others can only go by the growth of the psychic and its taking hold of the mind and vital so that they will not be able to hide from themselves their own wrong movements or try to hide them from the Mother. 30 January 1936 Psychic Relation with the Mother
Your dream was certainly not a mere dream or an imagination, but a true experience. It expressed the relation between your psychic being and the Mother. That relation is always there; it is prevented from filling up the whole vital and physical consciousness by the old habitual movements that return upon the lower vital and physical and by the assent some part of the mind, when it is obscured, gives to these movements. Do not allow your mind to give this assent, and do not allow any demand to rise in your vital, for it is usually some vital demand or disappointment of demand that is the occasion for these returns. The whole mental, vital and physical consciousness will then begin to be filled with the permanent relation which is natural to the psychic part of you. There would then be no serious difficulty or disturbing struggle. 26 April 1932
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Throughout the day my vital has wept. It feels that the Mother is unsympathetic to it and laments that it is deprived of her affection. It stumbles at her silence; it shrinks at her neglect. All that is simply the unregenerated vital which is full of ego and desire and demand and therefore of dissatisfaction, complaint, false ideas and self —made sorrow. But there is another movement in me which wants to avoid all
Page – 464 such sorrows and joys and just depend on the Mother. It does not want anything from her, but wants to give itself to her, and prays to her to come down and uplift it. This movement is in the heart. Its principal feature is surrender. What you write here is an exact description of the psychic being and its relation to the Mother. That is the true relation. If you want to succeed in this Yoga, you must take your stand on the psychic relation and reject the egoistic vital movement. The psychic being coming to the front and staying there is the decisive movement in the Yoga. It is that which happened when you saw the Mother last —the psychic being came in front. But you must keep it in front. You will not be able to do that if you listen to the vital ego and its outcries. It is by faith and surrender and the joy of pure self —giving —the psychic attitude —that one grows into the Truth and becomes united with the Divine. 26 February 1933
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You wrote that when I saw Mother last time my psychic being was in the front. No. I said it came out as the result of your last coming to Mother —I meant by that what Mother put there. It was evident to me afterwards by your condition. Now I remember my inner state at the time, but I do not recall anything special in it. When I met Mother I was simply quiet and a little dependent on her. That was enough to allow Mother to work. It is when the vital demands, complains, becomes sorrowful and tragic that difficulty is created. 27 February 1933
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How can I know the Mother’s will? If I feel that it is inconvenient to do something, does it mean that it is against her will?
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How can your convenience or inconvenience be the indication of the Mother’s will? You have to develop the psychic feeling which distinguishes the truth from the falsehood, the divine from the undivine. 11 April 1933
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Do love and faith have the same meaning? I feel that where there is faith in the Mother, love is also there. Without the faith, there is no love; without the love, there is no faith. Am I right? Not always. There are plenty of people who have some faith without love, though they may have a certain kind of mental bhakti, and plenty who have some love but no faith. But if it is the true psychic love, then faith goes with it, and if there is the entire faith, then the psychic love becomes soon awake. Speaking with X, I said: “Where there is faith in the Mother, there is love as well.” You are right —if it is the soul’s faith, the soul’s love —but in some there is only a vital feeling and that brings, when it is disappointed, revolt and anger and they go away. 8 May 1933
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What kind of feeling is it that gets satisfaction and Ananda only in seeing the Mother? It is psychic. What kind of feeling is it that gets satisfaction and Ananda only in remembering the Mother? Psychic. What kind of feeling is it that gives a wound in the heart on hearing anything against the Mother? Psychic.
Page – 466 What kind of feeling is it that makes one feel the Mother’s presence in the heart, even though one is physically far from her? Psychic. How shall I be able to judge that I am in the full state of psychic love? By the absence of ego, by pure devotion, by submission and surrender to the Divine. 9 May 1933
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When all is calm and quiet I feel a depth in my heart; a sweet feeling wells out constantly, equally for all. It goes up to the Mother continuously. There is a sense of sweet relation with the Divine. It softens all the being —it is calm, quiet, full of sweet peace and satisfaction. That is the psychic love. 26 October 1933
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From the morning there has been a feeling of nearness to the Mother, almost as if there were no difference between us. But how can that be possible, as there is such a great gulf between her and me? I am on the mental plane and she is on the highest Supramental. But the Mother is there not only on the Supramental but on all the planes. And especially she is close to everyone in the psychic part (the inner heart), so when that opens, the feeling of nearness naturally comes. 11 December 1933
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Why do I not feel love and Ananda every time I see the Mother? As for the love and Ananda, it depends on the psychic coming up. 29 July 1934
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For two days there was an intense love for the Mother and for you; the whole being was possessed with this love. Then there was only a partial effect of it —a high and deep reverence for the Master and the Mother and a happiness that no worldly pleasure can give. That was obviously psychic. I often mark that when an inner love springs out for the divinity, tears follow. These are psychic tears of devotion etc. 25 August 1934
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A visitor was leaving the Asram today. When the Mother finished the Pranam ceremony and began to go up the stairs, this lady began to weep. Was it due to her psychic coming in front for a while? It is not a question of the psychic coming in front. She has a psychic being which is awake and has long been in connection with the Mother on the inner plane. 28 August 1934
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During my turn at darshan, the consciousness was simply held in a spell and thrilled. It was quite wonderful and brought my psychic in front. What is this thrill that passes through my whole body and makes the adhar still for a time? Of course it is the thrill of the Mother’s touch coming from above and felt by the psychic and vital together. 28 August 1934
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Can there be a conscious contact with the Mother through the psychic being in the heart before the psychic comes forward fully? Yes. The psychic is always there. 21 September 1934
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Page – 468 That which calls is your own psychic being whose place is deep inside behind the heart —centre. Many people feel at times the call for the Mother going on from there. It comes more easily in sleep or in a half —waking condition because then the surface mind is not active so that what is going on within in the inner being can manifest itself. 29 October 1934
*
When I spoke of “loneliness”, I meant that some part of the being feels that although the Mother loves me very much, I am unable to love her —as if there were no element of love in my nature. It can’t be the psychic in that case. The psychic never feels that it cannot love the Divine. 4 December 1934
*
If the present intensity prolongs itself, I hope that within a few days you will see my whole nature engrossed only in feeling, thinking, acting round the word “Mother”. That would of itself be the psychic state. 5 December 1934
*
I pray: “Dear Mother, either give me psychic love or give me death. Let no third thing come to me. This is my final resolution.” This is altogether the wrong attitude. It is once more the vital coming in —it is not a psychic attitude. If in asking for the psychic love, you take an attitude that is vital not psychic, how do you expect the psychic to come? 2 March 1935
*
My consciousness is concentrated only on the Mother’s heart, as if it were there in her and one with her. It thinks only of oneness with her; it says, "I am there in her and I must be there. I need nothing else —that is enough." It does not allow any other thought, not even higher or spiritual thoughts. How do you look upon this attitude?
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The attitude is good for the awakening of the psychic and the inner being generally. But if higher experience comes, it should not be stopped. 12 March 1935
*
Am I right that for the last four years my psychic is always active and in front? Can the Mother now deal with me without any consideration of upsetting my nature parts? If your psychic is in front and active, i.e. busy changing and controlling the mind, vital and physical, how is it that there is an upsetting of your nature by the Mother’s dealings with you? If the psychic is in front and active, it would immediately tell any part of the nature that wanted to get upset, “Whatever the Mother does or decides must be accepted with surrender and gladness. The mind must not believe that it knows better than the Mother what ought to be done, the vital must not want the Mother to act according to its wants and preferences. For such ideas and desires belong to the old nature and have no place in the psychic and spiritual. They are the errors of the ego.” And if it had the control of the nature, the upsetting would at once cease or fade away. Indeed if it had full control, such upsettings would be impossible. It must be assumed therefore that the psychic may have been exerting some influence on the being, but that its control is far from complete or that the vital has risen up and covered the psychic and suspended its influence. But if the psychic is fully in front, not veiled or not merely emerging, then it would be impossible to cover it up altogether —there could only be at most an upsetting on the surface while within all remained quiet, conscious and devoted. 2 July 1936
*
When I called down the Purity from above, the whole being was filled with Peace and Purity and I felt the Mother’s Presence in the heart. An intense aspiration rose from the heart, from below, in fact, from all parts of the being. The heart was filled with adoration for the Mother; there was devotion and genuine surrender.
Page – 470 That is one of the most important things for the psychic opening and the inner relation to the Mother. I pray for Purity and Peace above all. With these I am sure of union with the Mother. Am I not correct? Yes. I pray for your observations regarding this psychic experience. Was it not psychic? Yes, certainly, it was a psychic opening and at the point emphasised, which is very important —the opening to the higher Purity. 14 July 1937
As for the eagerness to see the Mother, it depends on the nature of the feeling. If there is no demand or claim in it, no dissatisfaction when it is not fulfilled, but only the feeling of the will to see her whenever possible and the joy of seeing her, then it is all right. Of course no trace of anger or jealousy must be there. The vital has also to participate in the sadhana, so the mere fact that there is a vital element does not make the thing wrong, provided it is a vital element of the right kind. 6 December 1931
*
Yesterday I found a picture of a pretty peacock, which I cut out and put on the envelope with my letter to the Mother. But in answer Mother sent me an envelope with a picture that seemed meaningless to me. Then I got confused in my thoughts and feelings. I thought, why did the Mother not understand what I wanted to say? Like this I lost connection with the true attitude and felt all wrong and in confusion. It is again your own misunderstanding that you have erected between yourself and the Mother. The picture —flower which she sent to you in return for your peacock is the pomegranate —flower, the flower of Divine Love and I do not know what better answer you could have expected. Yet merely because you could
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not recognise it in its reduced picture form, you jumped to the conclusion that the Mother had not understood you or else that she refused to make any response to you. This with still worse feelings was what you used to do when she was giving flowers and it was because of this violent and ignorant wrong reaction that she had to stop giving flowers to you. How can you expect any answer to your expression when you meet the answer in this way? It is quite true that there is still behind your reaction or associated with it a measure of vital demand and expectation of return and the old want of confidence. The movement may have come from the psychic but around it there was this vital mixture. You must first learn, therefore, to give yourself without demanding a return and you must learn to accept the Mother’s action, whatever it may be, without judging it, since it is repeatedly proved that in judging you put an ignorant misconstruction upon it. The inmost being, the psychic, accepts without question, because it has faith in the Divine; by that psychic acceptance the soul opens, the mind clarifies, the vital is purified and enlightened and a spiritual change becomes possible. 3 May 1932
*
What you have felt is a revival or return on you of the lower vital with its demands and desires. Its suggestion is, “I am doing the Yoga, but for a price. I have abandoned the life of vital desire and satisfaction, but in order to get intimacy with the Mother —instead of satisfying myself with X and the world, to satisfy myself and get my desires fulfilled by the Divine. If I do not get the intimacy of the Mother and immediately and as I want it, why should I give up the old things?” And as a natural result the old things start again —"X and Y and Y and X and the wrongs of Z.” You must see this machinery of the lower vital and dismiss it. It is only by the full psychic relation of self —giving that unity and closeness with the Divine can be maintained —the other is part of the vital ego movement and can only bring a fall of the consciousness and disturbance. 20 June 1933
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Page – 472 It will not do to indulge this restless vital movement. It is not by that that you can have the union with the Mother. You should aspire calmly —eat, sleep, do your work. Peace is the one thing you have to ask for now —it is only on the basis of peace and calm that the true progress and realisation can come. There must be no vital excitement in your seeking or your aspiration towards the Mother. 20 October 1933
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Though I know the Mother is giving me divine things from deep within, my lower nature wants her love and affection to be expressed outwardly. Help me to get rid of this vital demand for some outer expression by the Mother. That is what you must get rid of —the demand of the vital in the relation with the Mother. It has been the cause of much disturbance and several frictions, for behind it is a claim of the ego. The psychic relation is the true relation, the psychic gives itself without any demand asking only for love and surrender and union with the Divine, and even in that the asking is not a vital demand but an aspiration. 28 November 1933
*
Why does one feel so happy after seeing the Mother? The whole day is filled only with her. Is it because the nature of vital love is to feel happy and satisfied when it gets something? There is no harm in the vital love provided it is purified from all insincerity (e.g. the self —importance etc.) and from all demand. To feel joy in seeing the Mother is all right, but to demand it as a right, to be upset or in revolt or abhiman when it is not given, to be jealous of others who get it —all that is demand and creates an impurity which spoils both the joy and the love. 13 September 1934
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Up to now my effort towards the Self has progressed rapidly, but inside I am dry as an empty coconut shell. When love, emotion, bhakti come, my vital consumes them and leaves my
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heart like a desert. Even when there are no vital demands, I hardly feel the Mother’s love, though my heart is yearning for it. If the Mother approves, let my psychic be in full activity. How do you expect the psychic to be in full activity with these things there and not thoroughly rejected? Moreover if the love comes forward in full, what is to prevent the selfish vital taking hold of it and making demand on demand on the Mother which she will certainly refuse to satisfy —as so many have done and afterwards revolted because “the Mother does not love them” —otherwise she would do whatever they want? 2 March 1935
*
When a physical manifestation of the Mother’s love is absent, I cannot remain unmoved. This demand for a physical manifestation of love must go. It is a dangerous stumbling —block in the way of sadhana. A progress made by indulgence of this demand is an insecure progress which may any moment be thrown down by the same force that produced it. 8 October 1935
*
I have heard that some ladies have so much love for the Mother that they are even ready to die for her! But they can love her only when she makes a manifestation of her love. This is not, then, a self —existent love —for when the physical love is absent, a few go so far as to revolt, to weep or to fast. It is self —love that makes them do it. It is just the same kind of vital love that people have outside (loving someone for one’s own sake, not for the sake of the beloved). What is the use of that in sadhana here? It can only be an obstacle. 15 October 1935
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It is not possible for my sadhana to go on without devotion and love. I am ready to give up desires and demands if that will put me on the side of love and devotion.
Page – 474 Love and devotion depend on the opening of the psychic and for that the desires must go. The vital love offered by many to the Mother instead of the psychic love brings more disturbance than anything else because it is coupled with desire. 8 September 1936
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If you have no abhiman against the Mother, that also is surely very desirable. Abhiman, disturbance, etc. may be signs of life but of a vital, not of the inner life. They must quiet down and give room for the inner life. At first the result may be a neutral quiet, but one has often to pass through that to arrive at a more positive new consciousness. 2 January 1937
*
Why am I suffering? Why am I so far from the Mother? How can I get over this? Reject the suffering. Reject every vital movement that would take you away from the Mother. Cling close to her always with your inner being —without demand or question, in perfect faith.
*
There are always in a sadhak two sides of the nature, one that wants the Divine, the other that wants only its own way and will and expects the Divine to satisfy it. When you were in the first, the Mother was always close to you and you were happy; when you indulged the second, then all went wrong. Your mistake recently has been to indulge this second part too much. But you can always recover the constant closeness of the Mother in your inner being and happiness and progress in the sadhana. But to do so you must make it a point to give your love without asking for anything at all except the inner nearness —for unless you do that very strongly, it will be difficult for you to get rid of the other tendency and change the demanding vital part in you.
* Page – 475
We find that by meeting the Mother or being in her presence we come out of depression and experience the ecstasy of joy. Does this take place by a psychic meeting or a meeting on the inner vital level? It depends on whether it comes by drawing vital force from her or simply by the joy of seeing her or by receiving something from her. In the two latter cases it is usually psychic or psychic —vital, in the former it is vital.
Devotion or Bhakti for the Mother
When the Mother looked at me this evening from the terrace, I felt a deep upsurge of devotion towards her. It is this I have hungered for, and so long as I feel this bhakti I feel as though I have little else to desire. Grant that I may have the ahaitukī bhakti. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that the desire for bhakti is not a desire at all. So I trust I am not making any bargain by desiring it —as bhakti is of the essence of the Divine, to ask for it must be legitimate, no? The desire for the Divine or of bhakti for the Divine is the one desire which can free one from all the others —at the core it is not a desire, but an aspiration, a soul need, the breath of existence of the inmost being and as such it cannot be counted among desires. 28 December 1932
*
How can I have pure bhakti for the Mother? Pure worship, adoration, love for the Divine without claim or demand is what is called suddha bhakti. From which part does it manifest? From the psychic. How can I unravel the confusion I feel between self, mind, vital and physical, and how to distinguish them?
Page – 476 One has to separate oneself in thought from mind and vital and body and look at these as not oneself but only outer instruments or movements of nature. In the end one begins to be aware of something behind them which is the real self, the true being.
*
Is psychic bhakti perfect devotion? It is the basis of perfect devotion. How can I develop psychic bhakti? By sincere aspiration. What is the character of psychic bhakti, mental bhakti and vital bhakti for the Mother? How to recognise them? The psychic is made up of love and self —giving without demand, the vital of the will to be possessed by the Mother and serve her, the mental of faith and unquestioning acceptance of all that the Mother is, says and does. These however are outside signs —it is in inner character quite recognisable but not to be put into words that they differ. Is there no place for mental and vital devotion in this Yoga? Who says there is not? So long as it is real devotion, all bhakti has a place. 28 April 1933
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It is always a mistake to attach importance to what others say —it is enough to have true devotion and the right attitude towards the Mother. You need have no apprehension of this kind at all. 28 April 1933
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How to get pure and complete devotion?
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Get quiet first —then from the quietude aspire and open yourself quietly and sincerely to the Mother. 15 November 1933
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Mother, in spite of my thousand and three imperfections, this one sense remains in me —that you are my mother, that I am born from your heart. It is the only truth I seem to have realised in all these six years, but I thank you very much that I have been enabled to feel this much at least. It is an excellent foundation for the other truths that are to come —for they all result from it. 17 September 1934
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My meetings with the Mother, instead of being occasions for giving and receiving love, joy and happiness, bring fear! There must be something wrong in my nature. It is the old vital with its ego which comes up again and again. It refuses to follow the higher being and be as the true bhaktas are who ask nothing and are content with all that the Mother does or does not do, because whatever she does must be good, since she is the Mother. You must impose the truth on this vital part. 6 May 1935
*
Do not allow mental anxiety to harass you. Wait on the working of the Mother’s force which will open the lotus of the heart. In the light from above devotion will blossom in you. 25 October 1936
Sometimes when I sit in meditation, I say “Ma —Ma —Ma.” Then everything becomes quiet and I feel great peace inside and outside me. Even in the atmosphere around me, I hear “Ma —Ma —Ma.” Is this real or is it only echoes? The atmosphere you carry around you is part of your consciousness as much as the rest that you feel inside you. When you
Page – 478 repeat the name of the Mother, it begins to echo in all your consciousness, outside as well as inside you. What you experience therefore is quite true and it is a good experience.
*
When I asked what attitude I should hold during the silence of the mind, you replied, “Consecration.” Please explain this to me in a wider sense. It means the devoting of all that comes to you, all your experiences and progress to the Mother. What should I do to keep the silence alert and constant while reading, talking and working. The same thing —do all with a quiet mind, not throwing yourself out in what you do, but seeing quietly what is done and what happens. 16 January 1934
There is no need to ask for pardon, for the Mother has not in the least been angry or displeased with you. You may be sure of her love always. 29 September 1933
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No more shall I seek signs of the Mother’s love in an outward way. What difference does it make if she touches me a little or more or does not touch me at all? If the love is received properly within, that alone is the true thing. If it is not received or if it is diffused or dispersed or misdirected after receiving it, that is like throwing pearls before swine. Yes, that is the truth and it is the attitude every sadhak should take. 8 May 1934
*
We all want Mother’s love, but I wonder how many of us truly love the Mother. Where indeed do we see one —pointed,
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ever —sacrificing, never —failing love? Who has love only for the Divine? It does not mean that there is no love, but that the love is mixed up and covered with egoism, demand and vital movements. At least that is the case with many. There are some of course who have no love at all, or “love” —if it can be called so —only for what they get, one or two who love truly —but in a great many there is a psychic spark hidden in much smoke. The smoke has to be got rid of so that the spark may have a chance of growing into a blaze. 9 November 1934
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Do not think whether people agree with you or do not agree with you or whether you are good or bad, but think only that “the Mother loves me and I am the Mother’s.” If you base your life on that thought, everything will soon become easy. 30 April 1935
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It is because of the thoughts about others and your “badness” that you feel far from the Mother. All the time she is very near to you and you to her. If you take the position I told you and make it the basis of your life, “the Mother loves me and I am hers”, the curtain would soon disappear, for it is made of these thoughts and nothing else. 1 May 1935
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The Mother loves because she is Love and cannot but love. Still, we feel that she cannot love as we do, and on our part we cannot bear the constancy and wideness of her Love. Obviously, if people expect the ordinary kind of love from the Mother they must be disappointed —the love based on the vital and its moods. But that is just the kind of love that has to be overpassed in Yoga or transformed into something else. 14 March 1936
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Page – 480 Certainly, it is not necessary for you to become “good” in order that the Mother may give you her love. Her love is always there and the imperfections of human nature do not count against that love. The only thing is that you must become aware of it always there. For that it is necessary for the psychic to come in front —for the psychic knows, while the mind, vital and physical look only at surface appearances and misinterpret them. It is that for which the Mother’s force is working, and whenever the psychic comes near the surface, you have felt love and nearness coming up. But it needs time to prepare the other parts so that they also may know and feel. Therefore the patience is necessary and the confidence that through all the delays and difficulties of the sadhana the Mother is leading you and will surely lead you home to her. 24 June 1936
*
X is probably making two mistakes —first, expecting outward expressions of love from the Mother; second, looking for progress instead of concentrating on openness and surrender without demand of a return. These are two mistakes which sadhaks are constantly making. If one opens, if one surrenders, then as soon as the nature is ready, progress will come of itself; but the personal concentration for progress brings difficulties and resistance and disappointment because the mind is not looking at things from the right angle. The Mother has a special kindness for X and every day at Pranam she is trying to put a sustaining force upon him. He must learn to be very quiet in mind and vital and consecrate himself so that he may become conscious as well as receive. The Divine Love, unlike the human, is deep and vast and silent; one must become quiet and wide to be aware of it and reply to it. He must make it his whole object to be surrendered so that he may become a vessel and instrument —leaving it to the Divine Wisdom and Love to fill him with what is needed. Let him also fix this in the mind not to insist that in a given time he must progress, develop, get realisations and experiences —whatever time it takes, he must be prepared to wait and persevere and make his whole life an
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aspiration and an opening for the one thing only, the Divine. To give oneself is the secret of sadhana, not to demand and acquire a thing. The more one gives oneself, the more the power to receive will grow. But for that all impatience and revolt must go; all suggestions of not getting, not being helped, not being loved, of going away, of abandoning life or the spiritual endeavour must be rejected. 1 September 1936
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As for the feelings about the Mother and that her love is only given for a return in work or to those who can do sadhana well, that is the usual senseless idea of the vital —physical mind and has no value. 17 January 1937
*
It is not Mother who makes you cry. It is forces from the vital Nature that make you sorrowful and think of dying and of the past. What comes from Mother is love and light and peace and joy and the spiritual life of the future.
*
Never mind about the purity of the body. The love of the Mother purifies both heart and body —if the soul’s aspiration is there, the body also is pure. What happened in the past does not in the least matter.
Inner Union and Outer Relation with the Mother
Some part or parts of my being seem to be trying to live in the Mother all the time, and to leave the other parts completely in the hands of the Mother’s Force. That did not succeed in the past. I mean "live" not in an impersonal sense, but live into her very manifested physical form. In such a case, is it still necessary to aspire for bringing down her Force?
Page – 482 I do not know how you are going to live into the manifested physical form. To live in the Mother’s consciousness even to the physical with the manifested form as the centre of this unity is possible. Perhaps you mean that? But how are you going to do that if the other parts are left to remain as they are? They will go on pulling you out of the true consciousness as they do now. And how are they to be changed if the Mother’s Force is not there in them to change them? 14 January 1936
*
It is true that the Mother is one in many forms, but the distinction between the outer and the inner Mother must not be made too trenchant; for she is not only one, but the physical Mother contains all the others in herself and in her is established the communication between the inner and the outer existence. But to know the outer Mother truly one must know what is within her and not look at the outer appearances only. That is only possible if one meets her with the inner being and grows into her consciousness —those who seek an outer relation only cannot do that. 10 August 1936
*
The spiritual union must begin from within and spread out from there; it cannot be based on anything exterior —for, if so based, the union cannot be spiritual or real. That is the great mistake which so many make here: they put the whole emphasis on the external vital or physical relation with the Mother, insist on a vital interchange or else physical contact and when they do not get it to their satisfaction, enter into all kinds of disturbances, revolt, doubt, depression. This is a wrong viewpoint altogether and has caused much obstruction and trouble. The mind, vital, physical can participate and are intended to participate in the union, but for that they must be submitted to the psychic, themselves psychicised; the union must be an essentially psychic and spiritual union spreading out to the mind, vital and physical. Even the physical must be able to feel invisibly the Mother’s closeness, her concrete presence —then alone can the union be truly based
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and completed and then alone can any physical closeness or contact find its true value and fulfil its spiritual purpose. Till then any physical contact is of value only so far as it helps the inner sadhana, but how much can be given and what will help or hinder, the Mother only can judge, the sadhak cannot be the judge —he will be led away by the desires and lower vital ego, as so many have been in fact. Such means of help by physical contact as the Mother had established have been largely spoiled by the sadhaks’ misuse of them, the wrong attitude of which I have spoken. When the vital demand is there with its claims and revolts and takes the desire for the exterior contact or closeness as a cause or occasion for these things, then it becomes a serious hindrance to the development of the inner union, it does not help at all. The sadhaks always imagine in their ignorance that when the Mother sees more of one person than of another, it is because of personal preference and that she is giving more love and help to that person. That is altogether a mistake. Physical closeness and contact can be a severe ordeal for the sadhak; it may raise the vital demands, claims, jealousies etc. to a high pitch; it may on the other hand leave him satisfied with an outer relation without making any serious effort for the inner union; or it becomes for him something mechanical, because ordinary and familiar, and for any inner purpose quite ineffective —these things are not only possible but have happened in many cases. The Mother knows that and her arrangements in this matter are therefore dictated by quite other reasons than those which are attributed to her. The only safe thing is to concentrate on the inner union foremost and altogether, to make that the one thing to be achieved and to leave aside all claims and demands for anything external, remaining satisfied with what the Mother gives and relying wholly on her wisdom and solicitude. It ought to be quite evident that a desire which raises revolt, doubt, depression, desperate struggles cannot be a true part of the spiritual movement. If your mind tells you that it is the right thing, then surely you must distrust the mind’s suggestions. Concentrate entirely on the one thing needful and put away, if they come, all ideas and
Page – 484 forces that want to disturb it or make you deviate. The vital assent to these things has to be overcome, but for that the first thing is to refuse all mental assent, for the mental support gives them a greater force than they would otherwise have. Fix the right attitude in the mind and the deeper emotional being —cling to that when contrary forces arise and by your firmness in that psychic attitude repel them. 14 March 1937 Relation with the Mother and with Others
I feel hurt when somebody tells me I am doing something wrong in my sadhana. I get restless and depressed. But today by the Mother’s compassion, I can see that I have been childish and stupid. Is my experience true? You ought to train yourself not to mind what people say —for what they say is also childish and stupid. Your sadhana —and your life also —lies between you and the Mother; other people do not matter. 23 March 1933
*
I have a deep regard for X and an inner affection for him. Now when I begin to meditate by thinking of the Mother, I sometimes see him meditating with us. This brings a happy feeling, yet I worry lest it should bring any harm in my sadhana. I hope it will not bring trouble. If you bring somebody in between you and the Mother, it is bound to give trouble. 5 April 1933
*
It was your mistake to listen to what people say about you and X and Y and attach any value to their foolish chatter. X did not grow serious with you because of that. He was puzzled by your change of manner, the stiffness of your attitude towards him and your apparently diminished interest in the work. It is what the Mother says that is true and matters and not what people say; if you listen to what people say, you will lose touch with the Mother’s consciousness. It is because of that that these thoughts
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have come back on you about your badness and the rest of it. The Mother had told you to work freely with X; she told you that his influence was good for you, and for many days you had peace and joy and freedom from the restless mind and you had the psychic opening. Now you must go back to that and do as you were doing before. Turn to the Mother only and let her consciousness and her will work in you. Then you will recover what you had got, silence the mind and be free. 29 April 1933
*
X would like to have a “pure” relation with me, a relation of quiet friendliness. But when I look within, I find always the same answer in the heart —no more relation of any kind with anyone, except the one, sole relation with the Mother, an undivided devotion of all of myself solely to the Mother. The vital clamours for relation, but let it. The one who speaks within has only an unmixed aspiration for union with the Mother. I shall follow whatever guidance you give me. To be turned wholly to the Mother and have nothing but friendly relations with the sadhaks, the same for all, is a counsel of perfection; but not many can carry it out —hardly one here and there. Yet to have that in tendency is to have the real turn towards the one —pointedness of sadhana; but people take time to arrive at it. 12 July 1935
*
Yes, it is the thing to be attained —not to receive any other influences than the Divine, as human nature ordinarily does. Then under the sole influence of the Mother’s Light and Force, all that has to be changed in the nature can be quietly and smoothly changed, all that has to be developed can be developed without disturbance or trouble. 3 June 1936
*
The direct relation with the Mother is always open to you and it is there whenever you can feel it; for it is a thing of the inner being. Whenever you go deep within yourself you find it; it has
Page – 486 to come out and govern the outer nature and life. That is why I want you to give time for going inside and for inner progress in the sadhana. The relation with X which the Mother thought of establishing was of two friends and fellow workers in her work, it was never intended that she should be between you and the Mother. In Y‘s case there was a help to be given to you so that you might not be carried away by the attacks from which you suffered and might have time and support till you could reach a point at which you could seek the Mother’s presence within you and with you. That you can do now and there is no reason why anyone should be asked to intervene in any way —our work is directly in you and upon you and not through anyone. 22 December 1936
False Suggestions of the Mother’s Displeasure
It is not surprising that you could not find out what you had done to make the Mother change her attitude towards you, and this for two good reasons, —first, that you had done nothing, and, second, that the Mother's feeling for you and her attitude had not changed at all —not in any smallest respect, not in the least shadow of a degree. She has the same care and love as she always had and during the last few days of which you speak, they were not clouded for a moment. Then you ask, if so, why do I feel like this or like that? I can only answer that, in their origin, these were not your own feelings at all, but rather ideas, impressions, impulses pushed into your lower vital from outside; your mistake has been to admit them and identify them as your own —from want of knowledge and experience in these matters. There are certain vital forces of this lower vital plane that are constantly wandering about the Asram and trying to push their movements now on one, now on another, now on several at a time. The processus is always the same. First, suggestions: the Mother has done this or not done that, she has said this or not said that, she has had this or that thought about me or feeling towards me, she is displeased with me, unfair to me, partial to others etc. etc. etc.;
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next, discouragement, wounded feelings, jealousy, despondency, revolt or any other kindred vital downfall or upheaval; result, the impulse to withdraw from the Mother, not to give her flowers or take flowers, to go away from soup or Pranam, not to come there, to shut oneself away from her altogether, to give up the Yoga, to go away —or worse. I give you the whole round in its ground plan, omitting many variations, so that you may be on your guard the next time these suggestions try to come. If you don’t want to be misled by them and to go through much quite groundless and unnecessary disturbance and trouble, you must recognise them immediately they come, cast them out by the neck or break their backs as you would a snake’s. For they are in their nature not only irrational, but strongly mechanical. Irrational, because they have no true ground in reality. They are ready enough to seize on some (usually trifling) outward appearances and twist them this way or that in order to convince the easily deceived physical mind; they will even create circumstances and make them appear to have that colour. But if they cannot find or create, they will go on just as merrily with no other ground than imaginations or impressions which they persuade their victims to take for realities. And they are mechanical because, once they can make the mind their field, they always recur with the same inevitable round of suggestions, the same ideas, the same feelings, the same impulses, the same actions in consequence. It is like a recurrent illness with always the same series of symptoms and the same “course”. And the object is always the same, to create a distance between the sadhak and the Mother and so to break the sadhana. It is a great mistake to think, as some do, that the Mother in such cases pushes the sadhaka away from her; on the contrary, it is he who pushes her away from him under the influence of these forces and believes all the time —for they have a great power of blinding the mind and clouding the judgment —that she is to blame. To show how these suggestions mislead once one starts listening to them, I may instance the matter of your sister’s letters. The Mother and I have always accepted without reservation your sister’s coming and neither today nor at any other time had
Page – 488 she the least idea in her mind against it. On the contrary, when you came in the midst of a hard and trying morning, she gave you full time, heard all you had to say, made her own suggestions and gave her full acquiescence. What more could she have done? And yet you have this suggestion made to you that she does not really want, that she is not frank, that she is cold to you about the matter. Why? Precisely because there was this predisposing influence at work on the lookout for any pretext to mislead you, —any, even less than a shadow’s shadow. I must ask you therefore to dismiss this kind of suggestion, these feelings and all the cycle in future the moment they try to come. Never mind what circumstances or justifications they may allege. Nothing is more dangerous than the inferences of the physical mind trying to build up conclusions upon outward appearances —they have nine chances out of ten of being false. One must learn to distrust hasty conclusions from surface appearances —is not that the first condition of true knowledge? —and learn to see and know things from within. You ask how to stem these movements? To begin with, observe three rules: (1) Keep always confidence in the Mother’s care and love —trust in them and distrust every suggestion, every appearance that seems to contradict. (2) Reject immediately every feeling, every impulse that makes you draw back from the Mother —such as that about the Pranam —from your true relation with her, from inner nearness, from a simple and straightforward confidence in her. (3) Do not lay too much stress on outward signs —your observation of them may easily mislead you. Keep yourself open to her and feel with your heart —the inner heart, not the surface vital desire, but the heart of true emotion, —then you are more likely to find her and be always near her in your self and receive what constantly she is working to give you. 27 June 1931
*
When I see the Mother in the evening, I notice that some being in me is trying to bring catastrophes, such as the idea, "Mother
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does not look at you”, even though she may be looking at me. This has become very common. I always try my best to reject it, but still it comes constantly and forcibly and makes my consciousness disordered. I pray that the Mother may remove it. What is this being —is it vital? Yes, it is a being of falsehood from the vital world which tries to make one take its false suggestions for the truth and disturb the consciousness, and get it to leave the straight path and either get depressed or turned against the Mother. If you reject and refuse to listen or believe always, it will disappear. 30 March 1933
*
All these [suggestions of ill treatment, severity, lack of support] are the mere ravings of the vital Force that attacks the mind with its lying suggestions until it succeeds in getting the sadhak to turn away from the Mother and against her. There is a part of the vital that accepts it, luxuriates in an exaggerated misery and suggestions of personal tragedy and catastrophe, the blame for which it wants to lay on the Divine. If you want to get rid of these attacks, it is this part of your vital being that you must change, its acceptance of these false suggestions, its want of fortitude in facing the difficulties of the sadhana. If you refused to indulge this vital tamasic tendency and the voices of darkness that come with it, there would be no such violent ups and downs in the sadhana. 24 January 1934
*
It is of course the resistance of the old vital in the past that is being redeemed which creates this irritation and these imaginations about the Mother’s displeasure. For as a matter of fact there was no dissatisfaction against you in the Mother’s mind and this idea is usually a suggestion to the sadhak’s mind from the Force that wants to create the wish to go or any other kind of discontent or depression. It is a curious form of delusion that has taken root, as it were, in the Asram atmosphere and is cherished not so much by the individual vital as by the forces that work upon it to break, if possible, the sadhana. You must not allow any
Page – 490 harbourage to that or else it will create any amount of trouble. The absence of proper sleep naturally brings a state of fatigue in the nerves which helps these things to come —for it is through the physical consciousness that they attack and if it can make that consciousness tamasic in any way, their entry is more easy. 15 September 1936
*
The Mother has in no way changed towards you nor is she disappointed with you —that is the suggestion drawn from your own state of mind and putting its wrong sense of disappointment and unfitness on to the Mother. She has no reason to change or be disappointed, as she has always been aware of the vital obstacles in you and still expected and expects you to overcome them. The call to change certain things that seem to be in the grain of character is proving difficult even for the best sadhaks, but the difficulty is no proof of incompetence. It is precisely this impulse to go that you must refuse to admit —for so long as these forces think they can bring it about, they will press as much as they can on this point. You must also open yourself more to the Mother’s Force in that part and for that it is necessary to get rid of this suggestion about the Mother’s disappointment or lack of love, for it is this which creates the reaction at the time of Pranam. Our help, support, love are there always as before —keep yourself open to them and with their aid drive out these suggestions. 26 January 1937 Nearness to the Mother and Progress in Sadhana
“Early” or “late” has nothing to do with what you call nearness. Some who were “early” —and also some who are “near” to her see the Mother only at “pranam” time —physically; some who are late, have the occasion to see her every day because their work compels it. But they see her because of the work; the work was not given to them in order that they might be near! You have taken the thing by the wrong end —not for the first time. You are mistaken in thinking that you are the only one to
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ask with such persistence —there are others. Each one calls it a need, but when their “need” is freely given to them, they cease to value it —as happened with the soup and the pranam. And this shows that it is not a need, but a desire. The principle of all sadhana is to fix the will not on desires —even if presented to the mind as needs —but on the realisation only. Our object is the supramental realisation and we have to do whatever is necessary for that or towards that under the conditions of each stage. At present the necessity is to prepare the physical consciousness; for that a complete equality and peace and a complete dedication free from personal demand or desire in the physical and the lower vital parts is the thing to be established. Other things can come in their proper time. What is the real need now is not insistence on physical nearness, which is one of those other things, but the psychic opening in the physical consciousness and the constant presence and guidance there. I do not know what you mean by our wanting to use you for all practical purposes. We did not insist on your doing any work for us; it was you who asked for work, and we gave you what could be found for you. But we could not very well invent work with the express purpose of creating an occasion for physically meeting the Mother. That has not been done for anybody. 16 February 1932
*
As usual, all you have written in the letter under the wrong influence is based either on false inferences or a wrong attitude. It is quite false that the Mother gives your letters or X‘s or those of others to Y to read. The letters and books are read and kept not by the Mother, but by me; it is I who read them to the Mother, put by those that are done with in my files and return the books and the answers which are sent immediately I have finished with them through Nolini. Other things like Y seeing your envelopes on a table etc. are mere trifles with no harm in them; if you twist and exaggerate and put a dark meaning on every harmless trifle and erect it into a grievance and a torture, how do you expect to have any quiet or peace or progress in the sadhana?
Page – 492 As for the advantages given to Y by her working here and seeing and speaking with the Mother being an injustice to you and a sacrifice of you to her development, she might equally complain, and most of the people in the Asram might complain that they are not allowed to send a book to Sri Aurobindo every second day and get an answer from him and a constant outward help, but are left out in the cold and an unjust partiality is being shown by him and they are being sacrificed to the development of Z [the correspondent]. These jealous recriminations are foolish and stupid in the extreme. I therefore hope that this is the last time you entertain them and that consequently, as you say, it may be the last time you write them. If you can clear this out of you, there will be some chance of the liberation of your physical consciousness and a straight progress in the sadhana. 4 September 1932
*
People say that the sadhaks whom the Mother calls for interview now and then, and the sadhaks to whom she sends things personally, are those who are very close to her and they progress rapidly in every way. What is the truth in this? It is all nonsense. Some of the best sadhaks are among those whom the Mother seldom or never calls and she sends them nothing. Nor do they expect it —they feel the Mother always with them and are satisfied and ask for nothing else. 27 July 1933
*
Is there any special effect of physical nearness to the Mother? It is indispensable for the fullness of the sadhana on the physical plane. Transformation of the physical and external being is not possible otherwise. Is it not likely that with more outer nearness and familiarity with the Mother, there may be less inner growth of consciousness and perhaps less aspiration?
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It depends on the person. Some profit, some do not. No general statement can be made. Is it possible to receive the Mother’s help at a great distance —say Bombay or Calcutta —almost in the same way as here in the Asram? One can receive everywhere, and if there is a strong spiritual consciousness one can make great progress. But experience does not support the idea that it makes no difference or is almost the same. 18 August 1933
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I want to be close to the Mother. If I was close to her, the hostile forces would not attack me. You are quite mistaken. Among those who are physically near the Mother there are some who have much worse attacks than you have ever had. It is the inner nearness that saves, not the physical nearness. 17 November 1933
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It is the inner nearness that matters. The idea of the mind —quite natural, of course —that the outer closeness is the sign of the relation or a special favour or the means of rapid progress is not borne out by experience. There are some who see the Mother daily and are very little advanced from what they were years ago —there were others who got worse because it fostered the vital demand in them —on the other hand there are some quite close to the Mother and forward on the path and cherished by her who come to her only very occasionally —and I could instance one case in which there is an interview only once a year, yet there is no one who has made more rapid progress or in whom the love relation has grown to a greater intensity and fervour. In all these things it is best to have an entire confidence in the Mother and the light that guides her. 10 December 1933
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Page – 494 One who is called to see the Mother often is fortunate because then one gets a chance to talk with her and to receive more Light in her presence. Is it not so? No. It depends entirely on the condition of the person and his attitude. Especially, if they insist on seeing her or on remaining when she wants them to go or are in a bad mood and throw it on her, it is very harmful for them to see her. Each should be content with what the Mother gives them, for she alone feels what they can or cannot receive. Mental constructions of this kind and vital demands are always false. 3 April 1934
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If one has the close inner relation, one feels the Mother always near and within and round and there is no insistence on the closer physical relation for its own sake. Those who have not this, should aspire for it and not hanker after the other. If they get the outer closeness, they will find that it means nothing without the inner oneness and closeness. One may be physically near the Mother and yet as far from her as the Sahara desert. 11 June 1934
*
My dissatisfaction and inner struggle are constant. My eyes are constantly on the outer nearness of the Mother, of which I have none at the moment, and I am left out completely. And if you had the physical nearness, you would be no happier or calmer so long as the inner being is unchanged. Those who do physically approach her have just the same difficulties and struggles as yourself and some have not even the experiences of peace etc. that you have. Since all this is in me, it has been expressed. Now let it burn into ashes, never to rise again. It would be most foolish to call back this meaningless delusion —for nothing can be farther from the actual and practical truth than to suppose that those who have a physical nearness to the
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Mother or have frequent physical approach are happier or more satisfied than others; it is not in the least true —or to allow it to prevent the progress of the inner peace. If you could only get rid of this delusion, nothing would be able to prevent the growth of the Peace and that inner nearness which alone makes people in this Asram divinely happy. Happiness comes from the soul’s satisfaction, not from the vital’s or the body’s. The vital is never satisfied; the body soon ceases to be moved at all by what it easily or always has. Only the psychic being brings the real joy and felicity. 8 September 1934
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I have completely recovered from the bad effect caused by the suggestion that the Mother was not seeing me enough. Now I am in peace. As you have recovered, I do not write anything about that, for discourse on such matters does not help. The one thing important is to keep the inner attitude and establish the inner connection with the Mother independent of all outward circumstances; it is that that brings all that is needed. Those who are most deep in the Yoga are not those who physically see most of the Mother. There are some who are in constant nearness or union with her who apart from the Pranam and the evening meditation come to her only once a year. 13 November 1934
*
Those are the Mother’s children and closest to her who are open to her, close to her in their inner being, one with her will —not those who come bodily nearest to her. Did coming inside help X or Y? It is impossible for Mother to satisfy the demands of everybody, the external demands —it only wears out her body but helps no one. 25 December 1934
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While at the staircase I got an intense desire to see the Mother’s rooms. X suggested that when one is in difficulty, one should ask to go near to the Mother.
Page – 496 But the coming near to the Mother should be in the inner rooms, not the outer. For in the inner rooms one can always enter and even arrange to stay there permanently. 28 January 1935
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X showed me a copy of your letter to Y in which you say: “Those are the Mother’s children and closest to her who are open to her, close to her in their inner being, one with her will —not those who come bodily nearest to her.” But have not those who are bodily nearest come nearest because they were already “open to her”, “one with her will” and “close to her in their inner being”? And are there not certain special advantages of this bodily nearness? It is not so easy to be “one with the will” of the Mother or to be entirely open. To be bodily close imposes a constant pressure for progress, for perfection, which no one yet has been able to meet. People have romantic ideas in this matter which are not true. 7 March 1935
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If one does not take care of one’s ego from the beginning, it may develop into a strong spiritual ego which says, “I am progressing wonderfully; the Grace is with me. I am the Mother’s instrument more than others.” It may demand that the Mother show some special Grace to it. This ego wants to show others that “Mother loves me more than all of you”, and it wants a physical manifestation of her love. You are quite right. It is the ego that wants the satisfaction of being the first or specially singled out. It is this egoistic vital demand with all its consequent revolts and disturbances that made it necessary for Mother to limit the physical manifestation of nearness to a minimum. 17 April 1935
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Whatever you may say to suppress our desire for the Mother’s nearness . . . If one has the desire or the claim, one brings in all sorts of Page – 497
demands, anger, jealousies, despairs, revolts etc., which spoil the sadhana and do not help it. To others the nearness becomes a mixture. I find that people are greatly fortunate who can approach the Mother often. If they know how to approach her which hardly any do. If you say that there is always an interchange going on between people . . . A vital interchange. But there is a difference between the interchange of “people” and interchange with Mother. surely one who often comes to Mother, will automatically take something precious from her. And what if their condition is such that it merely passes or is spilt or is spoilt by their reactions? And this is the easiest way of receiving. If they know how to receive. The Mother was giving freely of her physical contact in former years. If the sadhaks had had the right reactions, do you think she would have drawn back and reduced it to a minimum? Of course if people know in what spirit to receive from her, the physical touch is a great thing —but for that the constant physical nearness is not necessary. That rather creates a pressure of the highest force which how many can meet and satisfy? 22 April 1935
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Why should X complain when he knows full well that he can have Mother’s contact for an hour and be near her for two hours more? He has no need of writing or receiving letters from her. Or maybe he understands Mother better on account of his long contact with her.
Page – 498 I am afraid all these are mental constructions. You are constructing in your mind what X ought to feel. But as a matter of fact neither X‘s nor anybody’s difficulties are removed by their coming to Mother or by their sitting one hour or two hours or even three hours with her. Plenty of people have done that and gone away as glum, desperate and revolted as they came. Among the people who see the Mother are some who have crises as bad as yours and as frequent. It is also not true that those who have talked much with Mother (about houses, repairs, servants etc.) understand her better. In former days some people used to see much of Mother in another way, i.e. to talk with her on all sorts of subjects —but even those did not really understand her. I repeat that all that is mental building and constructed inference and does not square with the facts. It is only when one is inwardly open to her that one profits by the “contact” with her, not the physical but the spiritual or inner contact, and then the mere thought of her or a mere thought from her can set right anything wrong; then the physical contact also can help, but it is not indispensable. And as for understanding her, it is only by entering into the spiritual consciousness that one can understand her, or if not understand in the mind, at least feel and respond to what she is through an increasing oneness. 4 August 1935
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To come physically to the Mother for getting rid of a disturbance is unnecessary and useless; it is inwardly that you must take refuge in her and throw away the wrong movement, as you have seen on this occasion. To come physically would only create a habit of getting wrong and coming to her to get right and it would also lead to the wrong movement of throwing the difficulty on her instead of inwardly giving it up, making its surrender. But it is the general surrender that is needed which would prevent these useless disturbances over trifling matters, egoisms, insistences on one’s own point of view, anger because one does not have one’s own way or a due recognition of one’s independence or importance. It is these feelings disguised by reasonings and self —justification that are at the bottom of more
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than half of the difficulty in the work of the Asram. 18 May 1936
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Is it true that the Mother is taking away her physical nearness from us because our inner closeness to her is increasing, so there is no need of outer closeness? The Mother has for a long time past been limiting the outer contact with the sadhaks as much as possible. The reason you speak of is one of the reasons, but there are others which it is not necessary to speak of. 27 July 1936
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How is it that X so easily finds defects in Y‘s work and Y seems to be glad when I criticise X? If those who have an opportunity to be with the Mother for half an hour daily have not been able to have a fine, affectionate harmony, what to say of others? X has not the opportunity you speak of; he sees [the Mother] only for a minute or two in the morning when taking back his daily report. But in fact it is a mistake to think that those who meet the Mother physically are any nearer the goal of perfection than those who do not meet her except at Pranam and meditation. All depends on the inner being and how it can meet her from within and receive her force and profit by it. Of course, if people meet her with their psychic prominent, and not with the outer consciousness only, it should be different, but — 29 July 1936
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You have said that those who are doing sadhana outside the Asram cannot do it fully —the daily touch and nearness of the Mother, gained by living in the Asram, alone can bring a possibility of transformation. Carrying this idea a little further, it naturally follows that those who live nearer to the Mother and meet her more often are of the inner circle, and even outwardly are more intimate, that is, nearer transformation. Q.E.D.?
Page – 500 Living in the Asram is one thing, living with the Mother in close proximity is another. Your Q.E.D., like most mental logic, is contradicted by the facts of life. One could argue on that basis that A who lives in the same house as the Mother is nearer perfection than B and much nearer than C or D who live outside. D never meets the Mother except at Pranam and on her birthday, so she must be an utterly backward person and E who meets the Mother daily for 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes must be far ahead of her, well on towards perfection. But these things are not so. So the argument breaks down at every point. Progress in sadhana or superior capacity is not dependent on one’s being near the Mother or meeting her more often. Q.E.D. 30 July 1936
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There is a confusion here. The Mother’s grace is one thing, the call to change another, the pressure of nearness to her is yet another. Those who are physically near to her are not so by any special grace or favour, but by the necessity of their work, —that is what everybody here refuses to understand or believe, but it is the fact: that nearness acts automatically as a pressure, if for nothing else, to adapt their consciousness to hers which means change, but it is difficult for them because the difference between the two consciousnesses is enormous especially on the physical level and it is on the physical level that they are meeting her in the work. 27 April 1944
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I have a great desire to see the Mother. Why is she not allowing me to do so? Please tell me, what is the value of my desire? There is more profit to be had by being open to the Mother than by coming physically to her at the present stage. Some even who make a point of her calling them go backward rather than forward —because they make a point of it, introducing thus a basis of vital demand which makes a very shaky foundation for relations with the Mother.
*
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Although the Mother is looking after me well, I feel that she is keeping me away from her. I feel as if covered in egoism and darkness. I ask her forgiveness for past mistakes. You are mistaken in thinking that the Mother keeps you at a distance; you have only to open yourself to her sincerely and entirely. What has been done in the past does not matter if there is a sincere aspiration and resolution to change. Neither to lament nor to complain or be angry will help; a confident and happy opening of oneself to the Mother without insistence on personal demands and desires is the only thing to do.
Closeness to the Mother and Speaking French
Is it right to say that those who know French will be able to serve the Mother better in the years to come? It is mostly that it brings a certain closeness to one side of the Mother. 3 May 1945 Special Relation with the Mother
I did not agree to your going for the same reasons as the last time. First, there was no good reason why you should go; a fit of quite causeless jealousy and pique could not be considered a sufficient ground for your wanting to leave us. You started your “revolt”, as you call it, because the Mother took X to a private sale to buy things for her: you continued it because the next day (it being the first of the month) and the day after she was too busy with accounts and other affairs to occupy herself with you as you wanted. There could not be more absurd grounds for wanting to go away. What you seem to claim from the Mother is impossible. No one can be given the right to control or question her actions and decisions or to dictate whom she must or must not take with her or what time she shall give to one or another. The Mother can do her work only if she is free always to do what she sees to be right and her decisions are accepted by all concerned.
Page – 502 now generally understood in the Asram and no one makes this kind of demand; it is not possible that you alone out of eighty people should have the right to do it. In fact, you have been given privileges of close daily personal contact with the Mother which very few in the Asram have and which all would be only too glad to have. It is not because you have a greater claim than theirs. If it were a matter of ordinary claim, there are many who would precede you. Some have been here since the beginning; some are more advanced than most in the spiritual life; some occupy a responsible position in the work of the Asram; yet many of them cannot come to the Mother separately every morning or meet her again in the afternoon as you have been allowed to do. This privilege was given you because she felt that you had a special need of her care and of help and support from her. For she does not act for her personal satisfaction or decide out of personal preference, but according to the necessities of the work and the true need of each one in the Asram. And she gave you as much as she could consistently with the call of her work and the time at her disposal. But instead of being satisfied and happy, you create in your mind flimsy grounds for revolt and “quarrel”. You did this once and it was excused as a mistake which you recognised and would try not to repeat. It is discouraging to see you start the same folly all over again as if you had understood and learned nothing. You have not been asked to do any Yoga; you were too young and unripe for that. You have therefore no reason to complain of being asked to do something beyond your power. But, without doing any Yoga, it was quite possible for you, merely by your work and by daily contact with the Mother and her silent influence, to grow quietly and easily and happily in consciousness and character and capacity until you were ready. But if you refuse to learn self —control and discipline, (these are not matters of Yoga, but what everyone has to learn unless he wants to waste his life and bring his capacities to nothing), and if you cannot be content and happy with the much that is given you, you yourself will make your own life here impossible.
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My second reason for not agreeing to your departure was that I did not believe that you really wanted to go or that what spoke of going was the true Y. But if your desire to go is serious and deliberate, if you cannot be happy here with us, then it would not be right for me to keep you against your will. That is a thing which I never do with anyone. My third reason was that I could only sanction your going if I saw that you were too young or otherwise unfit to bear the pressure of the Asram atmosphere. I know that there is in you the capacity if you choose to exercise it. But a certain attitude towards this life and towards the Mother is needed which you seem unwilling to keep. If you cannot be satisfied, if you are constantly revolting and discontented and unhappy, if you again and again violently insist on going away, if you are constantly driven by something in you into these outbreaks which might have been excusable when you were a young child but are no longer proper to your age, it will be difficult for me to avoid coming to the conclusion that, as yet at least, you are not ready, not only for the Yoga, but even for living here. One thing I wish to make clear. Neither myself nor the Mother wishes you to leave us. I do not approve or sanction your going, still less do I decide that you must go. But if your desire to go is real, insistent and imperative, if you cannot be happy here and feel that you would be happier elsewhere, then I shall be obliged to withdraw my refusal. This is the situation. Try to get back to yourself, your real self, the real Y and see if he wants to go, if it is true that he cannot be satisfied by what the Mother gives him. It is upon that that the decision will rest. 3 September 1929
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At times I feel that Mother is not pleased with me. This feeling makes me very uncomfortable and I get the idea of going away from here. If she is not pleased, what is the use of my staying? Mother is not displeased with your work or with you —there was no such thing in her mind. But the progress of no one here is complete —there is, as you know yourself, still much to change
Page – 504 and from time to time the Mother puts a pressure that it may be done. You must not take that pressure for displeasure. As for going away, you must yourself realise that the suggestion can only come from a hostile source and you should not allow it to dwell in you for a moment. Mother is quite ready to tell you in what points more progress is necessary, though I think you must for the most part know it yourself. Especially she wants you to be more guarded in your speech. You are in a special position and one of great trust and whatever you say is taken up and commented on, so you must be careful that nothing should go out from you which ought not to be said or known. To talk less and not be too unguarded in your speech should be part of your discipline of sadhana. Keep yourself open to the Mother and in perfect union with her. Make yourself entirely plastic to her touch and let her mould you swiftly towards perfection. 9 March 1934
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It is certainly true that the Divine has no preferences or dislikes and is equal to all but that does not prevent there being a special relationship with each. This relation however does not depend on the more or less identification or union. The purer soul has an easier access to the Divine. The more developed nature has more lines on which to meet Him. The identification creates a spiritual oneness. But there are other personal relations which are created by other causes. It is too complex for all relations to be determined by one cause. Yes, Yogis whose progress does not depend on the personal intervention of the Mother, need have no personal relation with her —only the spiritual contact in distance. Some may have a special relation, but that is due to special aspects of their sadhana. On the other hand one may have a personal relation with the Mother even though no progress has been made in the sadhana. There are all kinds of possibilities in this matter. There is such a relation with all of those who have come here with a psychic sufficiently developed to admit of the relation. In other cases it is more a possibility than a thing realised.
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There are roughly speaking three parts of the being in manifestation which come into play here —1. the psychic being in evolution which brings with it its past experience of past lives and something of the old personalities, so much as it can make helpful for the present life; 2. the present formation due to this birth and made up of many complex factors; 3. the future being, which in our case means the great lines of higher consciousness above the present manifestation by joining which the transformation becomes more possible and the work attempted can be done. It is the psychic being which brings in the contact through past lives or personalities, i.e. through something essential and still operative in them which it has kept. But, in addition, some psychic beings have come here who are ready to join with great lines of consciousness above, represented often by beings of the higher planes, and are therefore specially fitted to join with the Mother intimately in the great work that has to be done. These have all a special relation with the Mother which adds to the past one. As for the present formation, it may obviously have elements which, not being joined or met with the Mother, may feel themselves strange to her. It is such an element which many feel standing in the way; but it is an exterior formation and does not belong to the past or to the future evolution, at any rate in its present figure. It must either disappear or change. 10 June 1935
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Yesterday we discussed the Divine Love in relation to the sadhaks. My points were these: 1. It is said that the psychic being of each sadhak has a special relation to the Divine; this must mean that the psychic gets from the Divine the response that is proper to it. But does it mean that one sadhak gets more love and another sadhak gets less? 2. If the Divine loves one person more and another person less, this implies partiality on the Divine’s part —but the Divine cannot be partial.
Page – 506 3. People say that the Mother loves those who are physically near her more than those who are not. I think this judgment is apt to be wrong. I hope you will correct me where I am wrong in my understanding. To launch into too many mental subtleties in this connection is not very helpful; for it is a subject which is beyond mental analysis and the constructions of the mind about it are apt to be either very partially true or else erroneous. There is a universal Divine Love which is equal for all. There is also a psychic connection which is individual; it is the same essentially for all, but it admits of a special relation with each which is not the same for all but different in each case. This special relation stands apart in each case and has its own nature, it is, as is said, sui generis, of its own kind and cannot be compared, balanced or measured with other relations, for each of these again is sui generis. The question of less or more is therefore perfectly irrelevant here. It is quite wrong to say that the Mother loves most those who are nearest to her in the physical. I have often said this but people do not wish to believe it, because they imagine that the Mother is a slave of the vital feelings like ordinary people and governed by vital likes and dislikes. “Those she likes she keeps near her, those she likes less she keeps less near, those she dislikes or does not care for she keeps at a distance”, that is their childish reasoning. Many of those who feel the Mother’s presence and love always with them hardly see her except once in six months or once in a year —apart from the Pranam and meditation. On the other hand one near her physically or seeing her often may not feel such a thing at all; he may complain of the absence of the Mother’s help and love altogether or as compared to what she gives to others. If the childishly simple rule of three given above were true, such contrasts would not be possible. Whether one feels the Mother’s love or not depends on whether one is open to it or not, it does not depend on physical nearness. Openness means the removal of all that makes one
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unconscious of the inner relation —nothing can make one more unconscious than the idea that it must be measured only by some outward manifestation instead of being felt within the being; it makes one blind or insensitive to the outward manifestations that are there. Whether one is physically far or near makes no difference; one can feel it, being physically far or seeing her little; one can fail to feel it when it is there, even if one is physically near or often in her physical presence. 11 June 1935
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Sadhaks whom the Mother has accepted have some personal physical relation with her. I want to know if there is any personal relation with me. There is a personal relation with most, but what is a personal physical relation? Suppose a child wants to remain faithful to the Mother and tries to remain faithful, but he sees he is not getting any response. Is it not an illusion for him to try to remain faithful when the Mother never shows him her sweet side? Finally the sadhak will become unfaithful. If the sadhak becomes unfaithful to the Mother, it means he did not want the sadhana or the Mother, but the satisfaction of his desires and his ego. That is not Yoga. There are so many ways the Mother expresses herself physically to some, but it is to some only. Some she never gets tired of meeting for hours; with others she finishes in a few minutes. For example, she has spent a lot of time with X. The Mother meets nobody for “hours” —if anybody stayed for hours she would get very tired. Mother did not meet X more than others because she loved him more than others, but because she was trying to get something done through him for the work which, if done, would have been a great victory for all. But precisely because he took it in the wrong way, grasping at it as a “personal physical” relation
Page – 508 and satisfaction of his egoistic desire, he failed and had to go away. 25 June 1935
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You wrote once: “Those are the Mother’s children and closest to her who are open to her, close to her in their inner being, one with her will —not those who come bodily nearest to her.”2 I do not deny the truth of this. But why then has the Mother taken a body and why are we in Pondicherry? One can have an inner relation anywhere; there is no need of coming here. Mother has taken the body because a work of a physical nature (i.e. including a change in the physical world) had to be done. She has not come to establish a “physical relation” with people. Some have come with her to share in the work, others she has called, others have come seeking for the light. With each she has a personal relation or the possibility of a personal relation; but each is of its own kind and none can say that she must do equally the same thing with each person. No one can claim as a right that she must be physically near to him because she is physically near to others. Some have a close personal relation with her, yet she sees little of them —some have a less close personal relation, yet for one reason or another may see her much oftener or longer. To apply the silly mathematical rules of the physical mind here is absurd —your physical mind cannot understand what the Mother does; its values and standards and ideas are not hers. It is still worse to make your personal vital demand or desire the measure of what she ought to do. That way spiritual ruin lies. She acts in each case for different reasons suitable to that case.
2 See letter of 25 December 1934 on page 496. —Ed.
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