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THE MOTHER
Questions and Answers
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry
August, i960
Questions and Answers I
You said, "The Supramental has come down on earth". What does it mean exactly ? You said also, "The things promised are fulfilled". What are these promised things ? That truly is ignorance ! It has been promised long ago, it has been said long long ago—not only here, since the beginning of the earth ! All kinds of predictions have been made, by all kinds of prophets, in all traditions. It has been said, for example, "There will be a new heaven and a new earth, a new race will be born, the world will be transformed etc, etc." But where is the new race ? The new race ? Wait a few thousand years more and you will see it. Between the moment when the mind manifested itself in the earthly atmosphere and the moment when the first man appeared, almost one million years elapsed. But things will go more quickly now, because man awaits, he has a vague idea, he awaits in some way the coming of the superman. Whereas the monkeys certainly never awaited the birth of man. They had never thought of it; for the good reason that they did not think much. But man has thought of that. He is waiting for it, so it will go more quickly. But more quickly means still thousands of years, probably.
So we shall talk of it after osme thousands of years.
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People who are ready within themselves, who are open and have relation with the higher forces, people who have had a more or less direct contact with the supramental Light and Consciousness are able to feel the difference in the earth’s atmosphere…. The similar alone knows the similar. The supramental consciousness alone in the individual can perceive the Supramental acting in the earthly atmosphere. They who for some reason or other have developed this perception can see it; but they who are not conscious even of what may be a being just a little inside and who would be quite embarrassed to say what is their soul like are certainly not ready to be aware of the change in the earthly atmosphere. They have still a rather long way to go. Because their consciousness is more or less exclusively centred in the external, the mental, vital and physical being and things must have an absurd and unexpected appearance for them to be able to recognise. Then that they call miracles. But the constant miracle of the intervention of the forces that change the circumstances and the characters and which have an effect on the whole world, is not called a miracle, for you see just the appearance only and that appears so natural. But if you reflect a little, you would be obliged to say that the least thing is a miracle ! Simply because you do not think, because you take things as they are, without putting any question; otherwise, everyday you would have a thousand occasions to say : "Yes, but it is quite strange, how did that happen ?" The simple thing is that you are habituated to a purely superficial vision. What should be our attitude towards this new Consciousness ?
That depends upon what you want to do with it. If you want to look at it as a curiosity, you have only to watch and try to understand. If you want that the Consciousness should change you, your own self, then you must open yourself and make an effort for progress.
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Shall one profit individually or collectively by this new manifestation ? Why do you put the question ? Because many people who have come here ask how are they going to profit by it. And why should they profit by it ? What are their titles to the profit ? Simply because they have taken the train to come here ? (After all, it is only that.) I knew people who came here long, long ago (I do not remember when, but it must be more than twenty years ago) and at the death that happened in the Ashram, they showed considerable discontent, "But I thought this Yoga would make us immortal, it is for that I came ! And if one were to die, then why should I have come ?" Well, it is the same thing. People who took the train to come here—and this time some 150 persons more than usual—simply because they wanted to make a profit. But it may be it is because of that that they did not profit. For the thing has not come for the profit of anybody in anything whatsoever. They ask if their inner difficulties would be more easy to overcome? I repeat the same thing; What reasons, what rights have they to ask that things should be easier ? What have they done on their side ? Why should it be easier ? To indulge the laziness and indolence of people or what is it ? Of course, everywhere and always people have the idea of profiting. But that is the best way of getting nothing.
But whom does one want to deceive here ? The Divine ? That is hardly, possible.
Page-4 it is the same thing with all those who ask me for an interview. I try to make them understand that they have come in a large number and there would not be sufficient minutes in the day if I were to see everyone. Then they say, "I have taken so much trouble, I have come from so far, I have come from up there and up there and so many hours of travel…". It is like that, give and take, bargain. We are not a business establishment, we have said we do not do business.
The number of people is increasing day by day, is that a sign of something? It will increase more and more, naturally. And it is for that that I cannot do what I did when there were only 150 people in the Ashram. With a little common sense one should understand that. I cannot have the same relations with 1845 persons (exactly, I believe) as with thirty or even a hundred. It is quite an easily understandable logic. But everyone wants to be the first to have the profit…. Mother, when the mind came down into the earth atmosphere, the monkey did not make any effort to get converted into man, it is Nature that supplied the effort. But now… But it is not man who is going to convert himself into the superman! No ? Just try ! Yes, it is something else that is going to work.
Only—yes, there is an only, I do not wish to be so cruel— now man can collaborate. He can lend himself to the process with his good will, with his aspiration. He can help as best as he can. That
Page-5 is why, as I have said in the beginning, things will go quicker. I hope they will go much quicker.. .but even much quicker will still take a little time. Listen, there is a problem. You who are here, all of you have heard of the supramental manifestation, not once, but hundreds of times perhaps. You have spoken of it yourselves, you have thought of it, you have hoped for it, you wanted it. There are people who have come here for that, with the intention of receiving the supramental Force and getting transformed into supermen—it was their goal. Then how is it that all of you, almost all of you, were strangers to such an extent to that Force when it came that none of you even felt it. Can you solve this problem for me ? If you have the solution of the problem, you will have the solution of the difficulty. And I do not speak of the people outside who never thought of it, never busied themselves with it and do not even know that there might exist something to receive like a Supramental. I speak of people who have founded their life on this aspiration. I do not doubt of their sincerity, not for a minute; they have laboured, some for thirty years, some for thirty five, saying, "when the Supramental will come, when the Supramental will come…". It was their refrain. So they were in the best disposition possible, one cannot dream of a better. Then how is it that the inner preparation was, let us say, so incomplete that when just the vibration came they did not feel it immediately by the shock of identity ? Everyone’s aim, individually, is to prepare himself, to enter into a more or less close individual relation with this Force, to help or if one cannot help, at least to be ready, when the Force would manifest, to recognise it, to open to it. Instead of being somewhat like a foreign element in a world where what you carry within you is not manifested, you enter all on a sudden, straightaway and completely into the very supramental atmosphere itself. It is this Force that is there, that surrounds you, penetrates you. If you had a little inner contact with this Force, you would have immediately recognised it, is it not ?
In any case, that is what has happened to those who had a
Page-6 little inner contact; they recognised, they felt, they said, "Ah, there, it is come". But how is it that so many hundreds of people, not to speak of the handfuls who wanted nothing else than that, thought of nothing else than that, based their whole life on that, how is it that they felt nothing. . .what could it mean ? It is understood, of course, that only the similar knows the similar, that is an evident fact… .It is possible individually to enter into contact with the Force; it is even the necessary process as described by Sri Aurobindo : a certain number of people through their inner effort and aspiration enter into relation with this Force. That is what we used to call ascent towards the Supramental. If then these persons, by their inner ascent, that is to say, by freeing themselves from the material consciousness touched the Supramental, they should have naturally recognised it as soon as it arrived. But it is indispensable that they should have previously a contact; if they had not touched it, how should they recognise it ? The universal movement is like that : some individuals, who are the pioneers, the vanguard, enter into communication with the new Force that is to manifest through an inner effort, an inner progress and they receive it in themselves. It is because there are such calls that the thing becomes possible, that the age, the epoch, the moment of the manifestation comes. That is how things happen, that is how the manifestation has come to pass.
And they who were ready should have recognised it. I make haste to say that some did recognise, but finally.. .essentially there is a gradation beginning with those who knew the supramental vibration and said immediately, "Ah, there it is", ending with those who felt nothing at all. And there are some, quite considerable in number, one must recognise, who did feel something, but their inner sensations were very much dull and they were not accustomed to interiorisationand inner self-observation. They thought what had happened was a thing like many others, not something exceptional and unique. This has happened to some persons. They felt something dazzling within, but they did not connect it with the idea of the supramental, could not identify what it was they felt. And then there are all those who felt nothing whatsoever.
Page-7 They who put questions, who came here, took the train to gulp that as one swallows a glass of syrup, if they had made no preparation before, how can they feel anything whatever ! And they already speak of benefits, "we want to profit by it !" After all it is quite possible that if they had a little sincerity —not much, because that is tiresome—just a little sincerity, it would give them a few good knocks to make them go a little quicker! It is possible, in fact, I think that it is this that will happen. But in the end this attitude is too commercial and generally it is not very profitable. If you aspire, sincerely, and if you have difficulties, perhaps the difficulties will diminish. Let us hope. That is then the answer to give : be sincere, and you will be helped.
You have said recently, "What has happened now with this victory, is not a descent but a manifestation. And it is more than an individual event: the Supramental has burst out into the universal play". But I just explained it quite at length. It is astonishing ! Let us see, you go up, you catch the thing, up there, and you come down with it: that is a descent and it is an individual movement. When this individual event has happened sufficiently enough so as to permit a possibility of a general nature, it is no more a descent, it is a "manifestation". What I call descent is an individual movement, in an individual consciousness. And when it is a new world that manifests in an old world—as the mind spread upon the earth, for example— that I call manifestation.
You may call it in another way if you wish, to me it is all the same, but we must understand each other. I speak of ascent, of descent, but of course there is no ascent—there is neither high nor low nor any directions—it is a way of saying. We speak of ascent when there is an impression that you are rising up towards something and of descent when once the thing is seized, you
Page-8 bring it down within yourself. But when the gates are open and it is inundation, you cannot call that a descent any more. It is a force spreading out, of itself. You have understood ? I do not fundamentally stick to words, but I explain them to you and it is better to understand each other, otherwise there is no end to explanations. Now, to people who put insinuating questions, you may answer thus : the best way of receiving is not to pull, but to give. If they wish to give themselves to the new life, the new life will enter into them. But if they want to pull the new life into them, they will close the door with their egoism. That is all. * * *
To reach the supramental, is it necessary for everyone to pass through all the levels Sri Aurobindo speaks of, namely, Higher Mind, Spiritualised Mind, Universalised Mind etc. ? Sri Aurobindo says explicidy that everyone follows his path in his own way and no two paths are the same. Probably there is always such a succession, but the duration of the stages and their importance vary considerably according to individuals. For some the passage may be very quick, so quick as to seem instantaneous as if it did not exist. For others, it may take years. The length of the stage varies much according to the nature of the resistance in each.
Evidendy, one phenomenon is indispensable, if the realisation is to be stabilised, it is the reversal of the consciousness. For experiences come, touch the consciousness, produce sometimes great illuminations, then fade away, return to the back-
Page-9 ground and externally, in your ordinary consciousness you do not have the impression that there has been a great change. And this can reproduce itself often, be repeated for years : all on a sudden you have a kind of revelation, like an illumination, you find yourself in the true consciousness, you have the impression that you have caught the true thing; then, slowly or suddenly, the experience moves away as it were behind; you search and you do not find any great difference in you. These experiences seem to come as harbingers as promises : "Just see, it will come". They come and tell you, "Have confidence, it will be like that". And this may be repeated very often. There is a progress, evidently but a progress very slow and not much apparent. But one day, quite unexpectedly, perhaps because you have been sufficiently prepared, perhaps simply because the time is come, and it was so decreed that an experience of the kind happens; there occurs, in the part of the being where the experience took place, a complete reversal of the consciousness. It is a phenomenon very precise, very concrete. The best way of describing it is that : a complete reversal, The relation of the consciousness with the other parts of the being and with the external world is completely changed; it is absolutely as it were upside down. And when this reversal happens, the consciousness does not come back to the old position (or status as Sri Aurobindo would say); the part of the being that has been touched by the experience is stabilised.
So long as the reversal does not take place, it comes, it goes, you advance and then you seem to mark time, you advance again and again you mark time and sometimes you have the impression that you are going backward and it is interminable—truly it is interminable. It may last for years and years. But once this reversal of consciousness is effected—whether in the mind or in a part of the mind, hi the vital or in some part of the vital or in the physical consciousness itself, in the body consciousness, it is done, you do not come back again, you do not fall back any more into what you were before. And that is truly the indication that you
Page-10 have made a step forward. Before that, there were only preparations. Those who have had this reversal in them know what I speak of; otherwise it is not understandable. Often people who tried to describe Yoga spoke of this experience and they compared it to the overturning of a prism. Place a prism on one of its sides, the colour is white; turn it round the light is decomposed. That is absolutely what happens, you restore the white. In the ordinary consciousness, it is decomposition and you restore the white. But this is only an image, an analogy, it is not the ding. And the phenomenon is quite concrete, as if you put outside what is within and within what is outside. It is even not that. But if you could turn a ball inside out—you cannot, is it not—if you could put the inside out and the outside within, that would be something like what I want to say.
One cannot say that one feels this reversal; there is no feeling, it is almost a mechanical fact—it is extraordinarily mechanical (Mother here takes an object from the table that was by her side and makes the gesture of turning it upside down)….There are many very interesting things to say on the difference between the moment of the realisation, siddhi (like this reversal of consciousness, for example) and the whole work of the development, tapasyd; to say how it happens.. ..For sadhana or tapasyd is one thing and siddhi is another, quite different. You may have been doing tapasya for centuries and always approaching, like a tangent, nearer and nearer to the realisation, always nearer and nearer, but it is only when the siddhi is given to you that all is changed, all is reversed. And this thing is inexpressible, for as soon as you put it in words, it escapes you. But there is a difference, a total, essential difference between the aspiration, the mental tension, even the tension of the highest, the most luminous mind and the realisation, something that is decided from above for ever and which is absolutely independent of all personal effort and gradations. It is not little by little that you arrive, it is not by a small effort, constant and regular, no, it is not that. It is something that comes all on a sudden, it fixes itself one does not know how, or why, but everything is changed.
Page-11 And it will be like that for the world, for the whole universe. It moves, it comes, it advances very slowly and then at a given moment, all at once, it will be done, finished—not finished, it is the beginning ! Generally, it is at the first contact with the psychic being that the experience comes, but it is partial only, only that part of the consciousness or activity which is united with the psychic has the experience (and this can be in any part of the being whatsoever). At the time of the experience, the position of the part of the consciousness that has the experience is wholly different, it is reversed in relation to the other parts of the consciousness and in relation to the world. And that can no longer be undone. And if you have the will, the care or the capacity to put in contact with this part of your being all the problems of your life, all the activities of your being, all the elements of your consciousness, then they begin to be organised; your being becomes a unity, a unified multiplicity, a multiple, complex unity but organised and centralised around a fixed point. Then the central will or the central consciousness or the central truth has the power to rule over all the parts of your being, because they are put into order and all organised around this central Presence. It seems to me that it is impossible to escape from this necessity if you wish to be or if you have to be a conscious instrument of the divine Force. For you can be moved by the divine Force, driven to action by the divine Force and used as its unconscious instrument, if you have a minimum of good will and sincerity. But to become a conscious instrument, having the capacity for identification and a willed conscious movement, you must have this inner organisation; otherwise, you will meet always a chaos somewhere, a confusion somewhere or an obscurity, an inconscience in some part. And naturally, your action, even if it is guided exclusively by the Divine, will not have all the perfection in expression that it can have when you possess a conscious organisation around the divine Centre.
It is a laborious work. You can do it at any moment and under any circumstances, because you carry in yourself all the ele-
Page-12 merits of the problem. You have no need of any external thing, no external help for doing the work. But that needs a great perseverance and a kind of tenacity, for it happens very often that there are bad habits in the being, habits that may have come from many kinds of things, from an atavistic malformation, also from the education, from the environment in which you have lived, and from many other causes. And these wrong folds, even when you try to make them smooth, re-form themselves. Then you have to begin the work over again, often, many and many a time, without getting discouraged, before you arrive at the final result. But nothing, nobody, no circumstance can prevent you from doing the work. Because you carry in yourself the problem as well as the solution. To say the truth, the most general malady that humanity suffers from is boredom (ennui). The majority of the stupidities that men do are an attempt to escape from this boredom. But I say that no external means are good, none of them, and boredom pursues you and will pursue you whatever you may do to escape from it. Whereas if you begin the work of organising your being and all its movements and all its elements around the central Consciousness and Presence, then the surest, the completest and the most consoling cure of all boredom is possible. That gives to life a tremendous interest and an unheard of diversity. You have no time to be bored ! But you have to be persevering. And what is more interesting is that this work, this harmonisation and this organisation of the being around the divine centre can be done only in a physical body and upon the earth. This is indeed the essential and primary reason of the physical life. Because as soon as you leave the physical body you can no more do the work. And what is still more remarkable is that only human beings have at the centre within them a divine Presence, in the psychic being. This work of self-development and self-organisation and awareness of all the elements of the being is not available to the beings of the vital world, for example, nor to the beings. of the mental world nor even to the beings who are usually called "gods". When these want to do the work, when truly they want to organise themselves Page-13 and become completely conscious, they have to take a human body. So then all human beings come into a body and they do not know why ! The majority of them pass through life without knowing why and they leave their body without knowing why, and they have to begin the same thing indefinitely, until the day when someone happens to tell them : "Take care ! Do you know, that has a reason why it exists. You are here for this work, do not lose your opportunity !" And you waste so many years…. * * * III
Is there any sense in opening a book at random to look for a sign there, and how should one proceed in order to get a true answer ? One must concentrate. And it depends on what you want. If you have an inner problem to solve, you concentrate on the problem. If you want to know your condition, have some fight on the state you are in, you put yourself forward, with simplicity, and ask for the fight. Or quite simply, if you are curious to know what the invisible knowledge has to tell you, you keep quiet for a moment and silent and you open the book. It is good to use a paper-cutter, for it is sharp; as you are concentrated you thrust the paper-cutter into the book and look at the passage shown by the point.
If you know how to concentrate, that is to say, if you do that truly with an aspiration to have an answer, the answer always comes. Because in books like this (the Mother points to the Synthesis of Yoga out of which she had just read a passage), in books of revelation, there is always an accumulation of forces—forces that
Page-14 come from the higher mind, at least, or most often, spiritual forces coming from the highest knowledge. Every book because of the words contained in it, is like a little battery of forces. People do not know it, because they do not know how to make use of it, and yet it is like that. In the same way, in every image, in every photograph, there is an accumulation of forces, a little accumulation representing the force of him whose image it is, his nature and his powers, if he has any. And if you are sincere and have an aspiration, you emanate a certain vibration and the vibration of your aspiration goes and meets the corresponding force in the book or in the photo and it is a higher consciousness that gives you the answer. Every element of a whole contains potentially what is there in the whole. It is a little difficult to explain, but you will understand from an example : when people want to do magic, if they have a bit of nail or hair, that is sufficient for them; for whatever is there in the human being is there in that thing also potentially. And in a book there is potentially (not expressed or manifested) the knowledge which is in the person who has written the book. Now Sri Aurobindo represented a whole understanding, a whole knowledge and a whole power, and so everyone of his books is at once a symbol and a representation. Each book of his contains symbolically, potentially what is there in him. Therefore if you concentrate on the book, you can through the book go back to the origin. And even going through the book, you may receive much more than what is merely in the book.
There is always a way of reading and understanding what one reads that gives the answer to what you seek. It is neither chance nor amusement nor a distraction. You may do that way, of course, and nothing happens at all, you do not get any answer. But if you do it seriously, and seriously if your aspiration tries to concentrate on this instrument which is the book, to enter into relation with the energy which is contained there (it is like a charged battery) and insist upon having a reply, then naturally the energy that is there—or rather the union of the two forces, that which you give out and that that which is accumulated in the
Page-15 book, will direct your hand and your paper-cutter exactly to the thing which will express what you ought to know. But I repeat if you do that without sincerity and conviction, nothing will happen. If it is done sincerely there does come a reply. Some books are more powerfully charged than others; some other books give less clear results. Generally it is from books that contain aphorisms or short sentences, books in which things are said in a precise and condensed way that one gets the best success. Naturally, the value of the answer will depend upon the value of the spiritual force contained in the book. If you take a novel, it will tell you nothing but stupidities. * * *
IV What does Sri Aurobindo mean by a "dynamic meditation" ? (Synthesis of Yoga. Chap. IV) It is a meditation that has the power of transforming your being. It is a meditation which makes you progress, contrary to the static meditation which is immobile and relatively inert and which changes nothing in your consciousness nor in your way of being. A dynamic meditation is a meditation of transformation.
Generally people do not have the dynamic meditation. When they enter into meditation—or at least what they call "meditation"—they enter into a kind of immobihty in which nothing moves. And they come out of it exactly as they entered without any change in their being or in their consciousness and the more they are immobile the more they are happy. They could meditate in this way through eternities, that would change nothing,
Page-17 V The Orange and the Skin I believe one of the greatest difficulties in understanding things comes from an arbitrary complication which puts spirit on one side and matter on the other. It is because of this stupidity that we happen to understand nothing. There is spirit and there is matter, it is very convenient. So if you do not belong to the Spirit, you belong to Matter and if you do not belong to Matter, you belong to the Spirit. But what is it that you call spirit and what is it that you call matter ? Innumerable things, an endless scale. You speak of the spirit, but where does it begin, your spirit ? It begins with what you do not see ? In that case you include in the spirit all the beings of the vital world, for example, because you do not see them in your normal condition. There are also people who say, "while you are in life, you are in matter, and when you are dead you go into the spirit, that is all. So free your spirit from matter, die and you free your spirit." It is because of such nonsense that one understands nothing at all. But it corresponds in no way to the world as it is. For the present human consciousness no doubt infinitely more invisible things exist than things visible. What you know, things visible to you, what you are conscious of, are almost like the skin of an orange in relation to the orange, and furthermore, it is an orange with very thin skin! And if you know only the skin of an orange, you know nothing of the orange. That is nearly how things stand. All that you know of the universe is just the little superficial crust and even that you know badly. And all the rest escapes you. * * * Page-18 VI
It has often been told or foretold that the numbers 2,3,4, 5, 6, (23 April 56) will be of particular importance to the Ashram. Is it exact ? (Talk of 14-3-56) I may reply by a banter if you like, "They speak now of changing the calendar, if it is changed then the numbers will be changed and off the whole story will have gone, vanished ! It is a convention. Evidently, if the convention has been generalised, as is the case with the calendar, then it can make a very powerful formation. But it must be very widespread to become a powerful formation (I call formations those images that one can animate with a force and take as symbols). There are also people who make images for themselves and for themselves use them as symbols ; for them they are very useful, quite valid, like symbols of dream, for example. But they are valid only for themselves, it is a purely subjective thing. Whereas in the case of a calendar, which has been adopted by almost all human beings, your symbol can act upon a much more wide field; still the origin is the same, it is a convention. You started by counting from a certain date—chosen however in quite an arbitrary way—and the numbers became what they are now. Naturally we are accustomed to it since our childhood, but this convention can change according to the country or community in which you are born. There are people who count differently. And for them other numbers, other moments will have a symbolic significance. You have simply to transplant yourself in the midst of a muslim community, for example, to find that their numbers are quite different and if you tell them 2,3,4, 5,6, they will understand nothing at all. But if your formation—that in which you are born and which you have adopted—is recognised by the immense majority of men, you can act on them through this formation. You Page-19 can act through a formation only to the extent it has been adopted by a large body of men. These things can be taken usefully as symbols and as means of establishing a contact between the material world and a more subtle world. You can use them in this way and that is all. If instead of the thousands of persons who use the present calendar there were only three or four, it would be useless to say that these numbers are symbolic. They would be symbolic only for those three or four persons. It is not therefore the thing in itself that counts but the extent of the use made of it. The same error is committed in respect of stars and horoscopes. It is simply a language and a convention, and if this convention is adopted, you can make use of it for some work, but it has a value only relative and proportional to the number of people who have adopted it. Everything is necessarily relative in this relative world. You must not take things literally, because that gives you quite a small, narrow brain. The more primitive you are, the more simplist you become, and the more these things take a superstition-value. Superstitions are only an improper generalisation of a particular case. You know the story of the man who passes under a ladder. At the top of the ladder there is a workman at work and through an unfortunate coincidence, he drops his instrument on the head of the passerby. That is a fact and the man below gets his head broken. But the witnesses of the accident make a general rule and they come and tell you afterwards that passing under a ladder is unlucky. This is a superstition. It is how all such things are formed.
Besides much of our knowledge has exactly the same origin. If, for example, such a medicine, through a concurrence of favourable circumstances has cured a few persons, it is proclaimed immediately that this medicine is infallible for the illness in question. But that is not true. You may administer the same medicine in the same way to hundred persons, the results would not be similar in two cases, perhaps even there would be diametrically
Page-20 opposite results at times. It is not the virtue of the medicine that cures; to believe in that medicine is a superstition. Essentially there is just a little difference between science and superstition. This perhaps lies in the care taken in expressing oneself. If like the scientists you take care to say, "It seems it is like that. . .one might say. ..all tends to make one think. .." then it is no more superstition. But when you say "it is like that", it becomes necessarily a superstition. Therefore, if with 3,4,5,6, or with 2,3,4,5,6, something exceptional happens to you and you have an inner or outer revelation, you may proclaim that it is an exceptional date. And if nothing happens to you it will be no longer for you an exceptional date, it will be a date like all the others ! There was a very old tradition, older than the vedic, which said, "If twelve men of good will meet together to call tlx. Divine, the Divine is compelled to come". Well, perhaps it is a truth, perhaps it is a superstition. Perhaps it depends upon the twelve men of good will and on what they are, perhaps it depends on other things also. To me it seems that the thing happened like that and at the outset twelve men met together (they happened to be twelve, perhaps they did not know why) and they were so united in their aspiration, an aspiration so intense and powerful that they had the answer. But to say that if twelve men of good will unite in a common aspiration that would surely bring down the Divine, is a superstition. Yet, in point of fact, things must have happened like that on the first occasion, and the person who noted it, formulated it in this way, "If twelve men of good will unite their aspiration, the Divine is compelled to come". And I may tell you that since that time quite a quantity of twelve men have united together in the same aspiration and they have never brought down the Divine ! Still the tradition has been left intact. We are much more than twelve here this evening. Let us try and see if that succeeds ! (Meditation)
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All theories, all teachings are, from the ultimate standpoint, nothing but ways of seeing and saying. Even the very highest revelations are worth no more than the power of realisation that comes with them. To live the Supreme Truth, even though for a minute, is worth more than writing or reading hundreds of books on the methods or processes by which to find it. The Mother Page-22
Reprinted from The Bulletin of S. A. I. C. of Education August,1960 Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry
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