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THE MOTHER
Questions and Answers
Reprinted from The Bulletin of S. A. I. C. of Education November,1959 Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry.
Sutras (i) Have no ambition, above all, pretend nothing, but be at each instant the utmost that you can be. (2) As for your place in the universal manifestation, the Supreme alone will fix it for you. (3) The Supreme Lord has decreed inviolably the place that you occupy in the world concert, but whatever be that place, you have the same right as all others equally to climb the supreme heights up to the supramental realisation. (4) What you are in the truth of your being is decreed in an inviolable manner and nothing and none can prevent you from being that; but the way you will take to reach there is left to your free choice.
(5) On the way of the ascending evolution, everyone is free to choose the direction he will take : the ascent that is swift and
Page-1 steep towards the summits of Truth, the supreme realisation or, turning one’s back to the peaks, the facile descent towards termless meanderings of births without end. (6) In the course of time and even in the course of your present life you can make your choice once for all, irrevocably, and then you have only to confirm it on each new occasion; or you may not take at the beginning the final decision, and then you have to choose again at each instant between falsehood and truth. (7) But even when you have not taken at the beginning the irrevocable decision, if you have the good fortune to live at one of those unprecendented instants in universal history when Grace is present, incarnated on earth, She will give you once again, at certain exceptional moments, the possibility of still making a final choice that will lead you straight to the goal. *
* * Page-2 Sincerity All division in the being is an insincerity. The greatest insincerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being. When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature fills it up immediately with all kinds of adverse suggestion the most formidable of which is fear, and the most pernicious, doubt. Allow nothing anywhere to deny the truth of your being then you will be sincere. *
* * Page-3 Questions and Answers I
Why does one speak of a spiritual hierarchy, for to be identified with the Divine, when one succeeds in it, means to become the Divine ? OF the Divine each one experiences only that which he wishes to contact. What you expect from the Divine, it is that which you find in the Divine; what you want of the Divine, it is that which you discover in the Divine. He will put on that aspect for you which you expect or which you desire. His manifestation always adapts itself to each one’s receptivity and capacity. You may have a true, an essential contact, but the contact will be limited by your own capacity of receptivity and approach. It is only when you are capable of coming out of all limits that you can meet the Divine in His totality, in His integrality. It is this, this capacity of meeting, which perhaps constitutes the true hierarchy of beings. For even though every one carries in himself the Divine and all have therefore an identical possibility of uniting with the Divine, yet the approach will be either partial or total according to each one’s capacity and at bottom according to one’s position in the divine hierarchy. It might be said, although it is words that deform much, that the quality of the contact is identical in everybody, that is to say, at the point where one identifies, the identification is perfect; but the number of points on which the identification is made differs immensely according to persons.
Imagine you are approaching the Divine by a certain way you have chosen : the way of knowledge, for example. As it is generally done, you limit yourself to that way alone and you follow
Page-4 it, eliminating from your consciousness and your life everything that is not that. As you follow only one aspect of the Divine, you advance much more quickly and your approach is much more direct and immediate. But if, instead of limiting yourself to that single way, you advance in what may be called a global way that embraces all possible approaches to the Divine, the result naturally will be much more total, but the advance will be much more difficult, much more slow. And the more you want your approach to be integral, the more, naturally, it becomes difficult, complicated, long, laborious. But even if you follow only one path, at the moment when you reach your goal, that is to say, when you are identified with the Divine, your identification is perfect in itself. Only it is partial, it is partial and perfect at the same time. You are truly identified with the Divine, you have truly found the Divine, but at one point. One who is capable of being identified with the Divine in His totality is necessarily, from the view-point of universal realisation, on a much higher plane in the hierarchy than one who can realise Him only at one point. That is the true sense of spiritual hierarchy, its reason for existence. Otherwise, it would have no basis, because the moment you identify yourself, you identify yourself perfectly. From this point of view, all who are united with the Divine are equally perfect, but they are not equally complete.
When one is identified at only one point, can one perceive that this identification, although perfect, is only partial?
That may happen; everything can happen. But I do not think it is frequent. Generally, you eliminate so perfectly from yourself all that is not the path you follow that nothing remains to make you perceive that the identification is not tota
. You have the experience of the identification, you are lost in the Divine, there is no more master nor disciple, neither the Lord nor the aspirant:
Page-5 all is the Divine. Who will receive the lesson under these conditions ? In spite of the work of elimination one must preserve in one’s consciousness an element that does not participate in the identification, since he has a need of another approach, an element capable of feeling that it is not satisfied. All will depend then on the perfection with which the aspirant eliminates from his being everything that is not the single path he follows. Evidently, if you keep asleep in your being elements of devotion or love, for example, then when you have followed the way of knowledge, you will miss something at the moment of identification and will be in the condition to understand that the experience is not complete. But if you have eliminated them in such a way that they do not exist any more, who will be aware that the union is not perfect except at one point ?
But one has the total felicity in spite of everything? One has the perfect felicity, the eternity, the infinity, everything. Then what is the difference? The difference is only in the manifestation. When you identify yourself you automatically go out of the manifestation, except the point where you are identified. And if the goal pursued is to go out of the manifestation, if what you seek is Nirvana, for example, then you come out of the manifestation, it is finished, and once you are out of the manifestation, there is no more any difference, no hierarchy. But as soon as you enter the manifestation, there comes a hierarchy, that is to say, if, for example, we take the realisation of the supramental world, every one will not be on the same level, made upon the same model, with the same capacities and the same possibilities. It is always the same illusion : people imagine that it is a kind of Page-6 endless repetition of something which is always similar to itself. It is not that. In the realisation, in the manifestation, there is a hierarchy o£> capacity, action and expression. But if the goal is to go out of the manifestation, then, naturally, it matters little by which point you go out, for you go out. All depends on the ideal you have before you. And when you have chosen to go out, to enter into Pralaya, all the rest of the universe is there that continues. But to you that is wholly indifferent. As your goal was to go out, you go out. But that does not mean that the rest also goes out. You alone escape or those who have followed the same goal and the same path as you. It was precisely the problem that was put before Sri Aurobindo here and before me in France : must one limit his path and reach the goal, then afterwards take up again all the rest and begin the work of integral transformation or must one go progressively, leaving nothing aside, eliminating nothing of the way, taking up all the possibilities at the same time and advancing at all the points at the same time ? In other words, must one withdraw from life and action until one has reached the goal—that is to say, become conscious of the Supramental and realised it in oneself—or must one embrace the whole creation and with the whole creation advance progressively towards the Supramental ? It may be conceived that things move by stages : you advance, you take a step forward, then you make all the rest advance as a consequence; then another step, you make the rest advance further and so on. That gives the impression that you do not advance. But the whole advances in that way. * * * Page-7 II What should be done to receive the Divine Love ? The divine Love is there, with all its intensity, all its power, a formidable power, but who is aware of it ? Most people do not feel anything. What they feel is exclusively proportional to what they are, to their receptive capacity. Just imagine ! You are literally bathing in an atmosphere altogether vibrant with divine Love and you are not aware of it ! Sometimes, rarely, for a few seconds, you have the impression of something and you say : "Divine Love came to me !" But it is not that at all. You had an opening, as small sometimes as a pinhead, and the Love rushed into you, because it is like an active atmosphere : whenever there is a possibility of its being received, it rushes in. Not only Love, but all the divine things are there, all of them, constantly in their full intensity. Only you do not receive them, for you are shut up, blocked, occupied most of the time with other things. Most of the time you are full of yourself. The whole universe exists as a function of your ego. You are at the centre and the universe moves around you. If you look closely at yourself, you will see it is like that; your vision of the universe is that you are at the centre and the universe all around. It is not the universe that you see, it is you whom you see in the universe. Then, as you are full of yourself, there is no room for the Divine. But he is there always. And all the wonderful things that are there around you, do you see them ? Sometimes, at a moment when you are a little more receptive or in sleep when you are less exclusively preoccupied with your little affairs, you may have a glimpse of something, and you see and feel something. But generally, the moment you wake up, all that is obliterated by the formidable ego that is full of itself to the brim.
First of all, you must be able to come out of your ego. Then
Page-8 you begin to see things as they are, from a place little higher up. And to see things as they truly are, you must be absolutely like a mirror; silent, peaceful, motionless, impartial, without any preference and in a state of full receptivity. If you are like that, then you will see that many things that you were not aware of, but which existed there begin to be active in you. And you could be in the midst of such things instead of being shut up exclusively within that tiny point that you are in the universe.
What attitude should one take in order to come out of the ego ? It is a will rather than an attitude. You must will for it. And the surest means is to give oneself to the Divine. Not to try to pull the Divine to you, but to give yourself. You are then obliged to come a little out of yourself. Unfortunately when people think of the Divine, the first thing they do is to pull the Divine towards them as much as they can, and most often as they receive nothing, they groan; "I called, I prayed and I had no answer, nothing came !" But if you ask them, "Did you offer yourself ?"—"No, I pulled. Oh, it is for that it did not come 1" It is not that it did not come, but that when you pull, you remain so shut up in your ego that it raises a wall between yourself and what you are to receive. You put yourself in a prison and you are surprised that you perceive nothing within your prison. A prison, and besides, without windows.
Throw yourself outside, give yourself without keeping back anything, simply for the joy of giving. Then there is a chance for you to feel something.
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To try to feel that one does not exist, that the Divine alone exists, is this one of the means to come out of the ego? It is a kind of mental effort. By making mental constructions you come to nothing much. The thing must be spontaneous, intense, a flame that burns in the being, a flame of aspiration. If the thing happens in the head, nothing, nothing can result. And yet the effort that one makes cannot but be mental, it seems to me. What can one do to make it spontaneous ? Why do you assert that the effort can be only mental ? I believe there is a very great difference between an effort for transformation coming from the psychic centre of the being and a kind of mental construction with the object of obtaining something. So long as the effort is mental, it has no strength or very little strength and is extremely limited. And all the while you are being contradicted. You have the impression that you gather with great difficulty a will, somewhat artificial besides, you try to catch at something and the next minute, everything disappears. It seems to me that it is very difficult to do Yoga with the head, unless you are seized by it. The will is not in the head; the will—what I call will—is something which is there in the heart, it is a power for action, for realisation. What one does exclusively by the head is subject to countless fluctuations. It is not possible, for example, to construct a theory, without its being followed immediately by things that cut across and present all the contrary arguments. Then—and that is the great art of the mind—it can prove anything, discuss anything whatsoever. And you do not advance by a single step. * * * Page-10 III The intervention of the higher determinism in the lower determinisms There are many zones, many fields of consciousness superimposed and in each of these fields of consciousness or action, there is a determinism which seems to be absolute. But the intervention in that field of an immediately higher field—as the intervention of the vital in the physical—introduces the vital determinism in the physical determinism and transforms necessarily the physical determinism. And if by your aspiration, inner will, self-giving and true surrender you come in contact with the higher regions, even the highest one, there will come down from there the highest determinism which will transform all the intermediate determinisms and will be able to produce, in almost less than no time, what might have taken years or even lives to do. If, for example, at a time when you are in danger, you can, instead of struggling in the domain where you happen to be, pass through in a great fervour all the domains that range one upon another in the consciousness up to the highest region, if you establish a contact with what Sri Aurobindo calls the Transcendent, in a state of perfect surrender, then it is That that will act and change everything, whatever the circumstances, producing what people call "miracles", because they do not know how such things are produced. The only secret is to know how to climb up to the summit. *
* * Page-11 IV What kind of forces can one call by planchette or automatic writing, and how is one to proceed ? It depends on the people. Sometimes there are no "forces" at all. It is only the mental and vital vibrations of the people that move the planchette; it is their own subconscious ideas that they bring, ninety-eight times out of a hundred. And if they are in relation with some invisible entities, it can be all kinds of things, but nothing very recommendable. You can say, almost in an absolute way, that it is not what people think. Most often they try to invoke what they call the "spirit" of a dead person, a family member, a friend or someone whom they loved and with whom they wish to come in contact, and besides they put to them the most imbecile questions. Fortunately they do not succeed in troubling them. From this point of view, all one can say is as follows : if you had a relation of deep and sincere love with someone who is gone, who has left his body and if you yourself are in a state of calm and sufficient strength, then this person can choose to take refuge vitally, for a more or less long time, in your atmosphere, in the atmosphere of the person he loves. This implies that the relation was very close, very intimate; and if you are not irremediably a materialist to the point of having no direct mental awareness, you can remain in mental contact with the person, be in communication with him. It is a rather rare case, because generally, if your atmosphere is sufficiently calm and strong and it can truly serve as a protection, the person who has left the body, enters there into a deep rest, which it is very bad to disturb; and the best thing that you could do is to surround the person with your love and leave him quiet.
Therefore, even if it were possible to communicate with the person in this way, which I may qualify as crude, it would be unfair to do it. But usually, persons who have in them the necessary capacity and faculty to be able to serve as a shelter for a time
Page-12 —a transitional shelter—for those who are gone, do not fortunately have the queer idea of disturbing the rest of him whom they love by tapping at a planchette. Yet there are exceptions. It happens at times that someone dear to you takes refuge in your atmosphere on leaving his body and continues to be interested in the course of your life, it is he who wishes to keep the contact with you. Thus I know the case of a husband who, after his death, continued to help his wife by his advice through automatic writing and they were very good advices ! But they who are engaged in this exercise out of an improper curiosity, they get what they deserve : the atmosphere in which we live is filled in fact with a large number of small vital beings that are the products of unsatisfied desires, vital movements of a totally lower order, as well as decompositions of more important beings of the vital world; well, all that forms a swarm and it is certainly a protection that most people do not see what happens in their vital atmosphere, for it is not particularly pleasant; but if they go to the length of wanting to have relations with it and if they start doing the automatic writing or turning tables or anything of the kind, out of an unhealthy curiosity, what happens is that one or some of these small entities amuse themselves at their expense and collect from their subconscious mind all necessary indications and supply these to them as evident proofs that they are the dead person who was called. I could write for you a book with all the examples I have had of such stories, for people get very proud when they do such things and they write down giving proofs of the veracity of their experience, proofs that are so ridiculous that they should rather be sufficient to prove that someone was mocking at them. Only recently I had the example of a person who imagined that he had entered into relation with Sri Aurobindo who had made, it seemed, sensational revelations to him. It was comic to perfection.
In any case, in a general way,—indeed, most often—it is your own forces, your subconscious mental and vital forces which you put in the planchette and you yourself make to yourself the sensational revelations. You can do many things like that !…
Page-13 There was a time when I wanted exactly to prove to people that what they invoked was hardly other than themselves, and I amused myself, by a simple concentration of will, in giving knocks on the furniture, moving the tables etc. As for automatic writing, you have only to withdraw your conscious will within yourself, and then be passive, let your hand remain inert, the hand then will begin to make movements; but there is a little corner within you which is interested and would like to give these movements a sense and this little corner sends a call to a subconscious mind which starts giving the revelations. Finally, the whole thing is a booby-trap unless you proceed scientifically, but scientifically you find that it leads to nothing, nothing at all but just spending your time in a way one believes to be interesting. There are cases when some vital entities do come and seize you and that may become dangerous, fortunately such cases are not frequent. Long ago, very long ago, when I was in France, I had the example of a man who by practices of this kind got himself in relation with a vital entity. The man happened to be a gambler and passed his time in speculations. He spent part of the year at Monte-Carlo where he gambled at roulette and the rest of the year he lived in the South of France and used to speculate at the Stock Exchange. There was truly someone who was using him and gave him for years absolutely precise and exact indications through automatic writing. When he was playing on the roulette, he was told : "bet on this number" and he won. Naturally he was doting on the "Spirit" who was making to him such useful revelations. And at the Stock Exchange the "spirit" told him also : "stake upon that" and gave him all the indications. This man became colossally rich. He boasted to all his friends about the method by which he had become rich.
Some person put him on his guard and told him : "Take care, it does not look very honest, you should beware of this spirit"; he quarrelled with the person. A few days after, he was at Monte Carlo and staked heavily every time, for naturally he was always
Page-14 winning. He was breaking the bank, everybody feared him. Then the spirit told him : "Put everything, all that you have on that"., .he did so and at a blow all was lost. He had still left with him the money from his speculations at the Stock Exchange. He said to himself, "it was a bad luck". He received also, as usual, a very precise indication : "Do that", he did—and everything was wiped out. And to conclude the spirit told him—one must make a fun— "now you are going to commit suicide. Just fire a bullet into your head", and he was so obedient that he did what he was told. That is the end of the story. It is an authentic story. So the least that one can say is that it is dangerous; it is much better not to engage oneself in these occupations. No ! either they are amusements that have not much sense or they are unhealthy occupations.
Has not Sri Aurobindo written the book "Yogic Sadhan" in this way ? No and no ! it is not at all that. You must not confuse things. Sri Aurobindo knew with whom he made the contact, he did it of his own will, he himself chose the person; it had nothing to do with the small beings of whom I am speaking here, not at all, not at all. It was something that passed in the mental world directly, you must not make a confusion. It was nothing of the kind.
If you have the knowledge, the control, the strength, if you have the capacity to put yourself into a certain state of passivity, you can very well lend a helping hand to someone, at will, knowing what it is, and in a higher plane; but that demands a large consciousness and a large self-mastery and it is not within the reach of everybody. You must have a considerable inner growth in order to be able to see with whom you are dealing on a particular plane and to lend yourself willingly to the experience, with full consciousness and without losing one’s self-control. It is not everybody who can amuse himself in that way. Whereas to move a planchette, you have only to deceive yourself sufficiently and it moves.
Page-15 Generally, it is not a good way of approach. For in the inner world, in the world of self-development, that corresponds to the need people have to read novels. They who have not a sufficiently developed mind, who are still in a tamasic and half inert state need to read novels to wake them up. It is not the sign of a very recommendable, in any case, a very high condition. Well, in the domain of inner development, that corresponds to the same thing. When a person is in a very rudimentary state and has no intense inner life, he has the need to live romances, or to fabricate romances for himself, and then he engages himself in experiments of this kind and believes that he does very interesting things. It is like novels,—not even literary novels, but newspaper novels. Sri Aurobindo told me that certain people have a need for that, because their mind is so inert that it gives them shakings which awaken them a little,—it is the same thing. There are people who need to do exercises of this kind to awaken their vital a little which is somnolent and inert, and that gives them a little interest in life. But after all you cannot say that it is an occupation of great value. They are pastimes, and amusements. And that has never served to prove anything to anybody. One might say : "oh, it is to make you understand that there is an inner life, an invisible life. These experiences put you in contact with things that you do not see, they give you the proof that another world exists". This is not true.
Unless you have within you a spiritual being, capable of waking up and living its own life, all these things teach you nothing at all. I have known persons, particularly one, who was a man of science, intelligent, a man of worth, who had done higher studies, became an engineer and held an important position; he was a member of one of those societies that they call "spiritist" and he had discovered a medium who had truly quite exceptional capacities. He attended all the meetings with a view to learn so that he might be convinced and have concrete, tangible proofs of the existence of an invisible world. He had seen all that can be seen, under the strictest control, in the most scientific manner—all
Page-16 the controls were checked, down to the smallest detail. He narrated to me the most extraordinary things he had seen. I had in my hand, a bit of something which was like the stuff they prepare today—stuffs in plastic that are not woven—in those times however they were not making plastics, that was not yet discovered, it was so long ago,—I had in my hand just a little bit, torn, having a very pretty design on it. He told me how the thing had happened. When the medium entered into trance, a person appeared, wearing a robe of this stuff; it was a materialisation. The person passed before him and, as he was a little brute, he snatched a bit to have a proof and he kept the bit. The medium yelled and everything, indeed everything, vanished immediately.. .but the bit was there in his hand and he gave it to me. I returned it back to him. So it was a thing quite concrete, wasn’t it, for he still had the bit with him. He could not say that it was a hallucination. Well, in spite of all that, in spite of the most extraordinary stories with which one could write a book, he did not believe. He could not explain anything and he asked himself who was mad, himself or the others or whether…it did not advance his knowledge even by half a step. You can believe only in those things that you carry within yourself. All the external proofs that you may have will never give you the knowledge. When you are yourself internally developed, capable of having a direct and inner relation with things, then you know what they are, but no material proof can give you knowledge if you do not have within you the being that is capable of having this knowledge. They who have an inner being, one day or other. Life will undertake to wake them up and put them in relation with that which is necessary so that they may know. Therefore all that one can say of these occupations is that they are at the least useless.
Page-17 The need for human love, when it is not merely in obedience to the impulse of Nature or to a vital attraction, is the need to have a Divine for oneself alone, at one’s entire and exclusive disposal, a Divine who is one’s personal property and to whom one gives oneself totally only if the gift is reciprocated. Instead of broadening oneself to the size of the Divine, and having a love as vast as the universe, one tries to reduce the Divine to one’s own dimensions and to have His love for oneself alone. Therefore, human love is not a need of the soul, but rather a concession it makes for a time to the ego. * * * Remembrance is a dangerous ally of attachment. * * * They always speak of the rights of love but love’s only right is the right of self-giving.
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