Works of Sri Aurobindo

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February 27, 1971

What news do you have?…

(long silence)

The problem is food. The doctors have put restrictions on everything I eat most easily, so it’s….

Basically, I realize more and more that we live in total

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 ignorance. We really don’t know either what should be done or how to do it.

But surely that New Consciousness should make one do what

 is necessary.

I think we don’t know how to listen.

We don’t know how to listen….

(silence)

It’s very difficult to disentangle the old impulse from the….

Yes, exactly.

It’s very difficult.

Very difficult.

You see, our practical knowledge is based on an experience that has become worthless.

(long contemplation

 with her eyes open)

But it’s better to make a mistake listening or trying to listen to the New Consciousness than to make a mistake listening to the doctors, isn’t it?

(Mother smiles) But the Consciousness doesn’t contradict anything.

You mean it’s neutral?

The Consciousness doesn’t argue…. I don’t know how to explain it….

(long silence)

If there were a strong and clear indication, I would certainly listen to it, but that’s not the case…. For instance, the cook is used to doing things a certain way and does them that way; the doctor says to give me such and such a thing and they listen to him…. But when I say, “I would like to have such and such a thing,” they give it to me grudgingly, you know, almost as if it were a concession to gluttony! So….

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I live in such conventionality that it’s very difficult.

And always the idea that I am o-l-d, I am getting o-l-d, and so for them my consciousness must be half dead. They don’t have faith, what can you do!

Not all.

Only don’t go repeating this. There’s no need to say anything because they all do … each one does the best he can and really tries hard — they really try hard.

But I would need someone with vision who could tell me: Now you do this.

So I have taken the attitude of saying: let it be. I make myself as passive as possible — passive to the Divine Will — and I pray for it to guide me. That’s the only way.

Do you hear me?

Yes, of course, Mother!

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March