“If we are to attempt an integral Yoga, it will be as well to start with an idea of the Divine that is itself integral. There should be an aspiration in the heart wide enough for a realisation without any narrow limits. Not only should we avoid a sectarian religious outlook, but also all one-sided philosophical conceptions which try to shut up the Ineffable in a restricting mental formula.”    

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 76 

           Sweet Mother, what does Sri Aurobindo mean by an integral idea of the Divine?

They have no control over themselves.

There is always a moment when everyone has self-control. And if one had not said “Yes” once, if one had not taken the decision, one would not have done it.

There is not one human being who has not the energy and capacity to resist something imposed upon him — if he is left free to do so. People tell you, “I can’t do otherwise” — it is because in the depths of their heart they do not want to do otherwise; they have accepted to be the slaves of their vice. There is a moment when one accepts.

 And I would go even further; I say, there is a moment when one accepts to be ill. If one did not accept to be ill, one would not be ill. Only, people are so unconscious of themselves and their inner movements that they are not even aware of what they do.

 But it all depends on the way one looks at things. From a certain point of view there is nothing that is totally useless in the world. Only, things which were tolerable and admissible at a certain time are no longer so at another. And when they bee no longer admissible, one begins to say they are bad, because then a will awakes to get rid of them. But in the history of the universe — one can even say in the history of the earth, to limit the problem to our little planet — I think everything that exists had its necessity and importance at a given moment. And it is as one advances that these things are rejected or replaced by others which belong to the future instead of the past. So, of things which have no further purpose one says, “They are bad”, because one tries to find within oneself a lever to push them out, to break with the habit. But perhaps at one 

 time they were not bad, and other things were.

There are ways of being, ways of feeling, ways of doing, which you tolerate in yourself for quite a long time, and which don’t trouble you, don’t seem to you at all useless or bad or to be got rid of. And then all of a sudden one day, you don’t know why or what has happened, but the outlook changes, you look at things and say, “But what is this? This is in me! Am I carrying this in myself? But it is intolerable, I don’t want it any longer.” And suddenly it seems bad to you because it is time to reject these things, for they do not harmonise with the attitude you have taken or the progress you have made in your march forward in the world. These things should be elsewhere, they are no longer in their place, therefore you find them bad. But perhaps the same things which seem bad to you would be excellent for other people who are at a lower level.

There is always someone more dull, more unconscious, more ignorant or worse than oneself. So the state which is intolerable for you, which you can no longer keep, which must disappear, would perhaps be very luminous for those who are on the lower rungs. By what right are you going to say, “This is bad”? All you can say is, “I don’t want it any longer. I don’t want it, it’s not in keeping with my present way of being, I want to go where these things have no place any more; they are no longer in their place, let them go and find their place elsewhere!” But one cannot judge. It is impossible to say, “This is bad.” At the most one can say, “This is bad for me, it is no longer in its place with me, it must go.” That’s all. And one drops it on the way.

 And this makes the progress much, much easier, to think and feel like that instead of sitting down in despair and lamenting about things and what you are like, and the misery you endure and the defects you have and the impossibilities which beset you and all that. You say, “No, no, those things are no longer in their place here, let them go elsewhere, where they will be in their place and welcome. As for me, I am going forward, I am going to climb a step, I shall go towards a purer and  

better and more complete light; and so all these things which like the darkness must go away.” But that’s all.

 Each time one sees in oneself something which seems really nasty, well, that proves that one has made progress. So, instead of lamenting and falling into despair, one should be happy; one says, “Ah! that’s good. I am getting on.”

Mother, what does “a powerful Yoga” mean?

A powerful yoga? You don’t know what “powerful” means?

But here Sri Aurobindo says, “This intellectual preparation can indeed be the first stage in a powerful Yoga, but it is not indispensable.”

The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 75

Yes. A powerful yoga is a very complete yoga, which contains many things, takes in many elements. So this element of intellectual knowledge makes the yoga more powerful.

Is it the same as the integral yoga?

Not quite. An integral yoga is one which comprises all the parts of the being and all the activities of the being. But the activities of one being are not as powerful as the activities of another; and the integrality of one being is not as total as the integrality of another. You don’t understand?

 If all your being, as it is, participates in the yoga, it bees for you an integral yoga. But your participation may be very poor and mediocre pared with that of someone else, and the number of elements of consciousness which you contain may be very small pared with the elements of consciousness contained in another person. And yet your yoga is integral for you, that is, it is done in all the parts and all the activities of your being. 

You know, I had a cat which was doing yoga. Well, the yoga of the cat could not be as powerful as the yoga of man, and yet it was as integral, it was quite complete; even its body took part in its yoga. But its way of doing it, naturally, was not human.

Mother, what does “the moving idea-force” mean?

It is an idea which gives you will, enthusiasm and a power of realisation. A “moving” thing is that which tends towards realisation and gives you the impetus towards realisation.

Here Sri Aurobindo writes, “But still the greater and wider the moving idea-force  behind the consecration, the better for the seeker.”

The Synthesis of Yoga, A. 76

Have you never felt the difference between a small idea and a great idea, a narrow idea and a wide one?

But, earlier, Sri Aurobindo has said that if this is accompanied by a self-giving, that is enough. Later he says that if it is wide, it is better.

Listen, I am going to give you quite a concrete and material example. You make an offering of your purse; it contains three rupees. Your neighbour offers his purse which contains fifty. Well, the gift of fifty rupees is larger than the gift of three. That’s all.

 But, from the moral point of view, if you have given  all that you have, you have done the utmost you could have done, nothing more can be asked of you; you understand, from the moral point of view, from the pure spiritual point of view, not from the point of view of realisation. From the purely spiritual point of view the gift of your three rupees has exactly the same value as the gift of fifty. And even he who gave fifty rupees, if he has  

kept back one, his gift is less integral and pure than yours of only three. So, it is not on that plane that the thing must be seen. But from the point of view of the material realisation it is undeniable that fifty is more than three, for all those who know mathematics!

(Silence)

Mother, the message you have given this year, will you explain it a little?¹

The message I have given this year, what’s your objection to it?

Does it imply that there will be great victories this year?

This means perhaps something very simple: that it is better to let things happen without speaking about them. If you ask me, I think this is what it means: that it is much better to say nothing about what will happen before it happens. Otherwise it bees what I call “beat of drum”, what could be called publicity.

 It is like those who ask, “What will it be like?” We shall see! Wait, at least we should get a surprise!… And I reply, “I know nothing about it.” For I put myself immediately in the consciousness of the world as it is, to which is announced that extraordinary things are going to happen, and which is quite incapable of imagining them — for as I told you once, if one begins to imagine them, it means they are already there. Before you can imagine something, it has to exist, otherwise you cannot imagine it.

 Yes, in our higher being we can have a very clear, very exact, very luminous perception of what it is. But if one comes

¹TheNewYear Message of 1956: “The greatest victories are the least noisy. The manifestation of a new world is not proclaimed by beat of drum.”  

down into the material consciousness, one has to say, “Well, I know nothing about it.” When it is there, I shall tell you what it’s like — and probably I won’t even need to tell you, you will be able to see it. I hope you will be among those who are able to see it. For, there again, there are some who won’t be able.

And so, what’s the good of it? What’s the use of going round telling people, “It is there, you know, it is like this”? They will reply, as in that play which was staged here: “But I can see nothing!” Do you remember, it was in Le Sage? Don’t you remember that in Le Sage the messenger says that the Divine is there listening to you, that He is present? And then someone replies, “But I don’t see Him!” It is like that.

 It is like those people who come to visit the Ashram and say, “But there is no spirituality here!’… How could they see it? With what organs?

 But still I do hope that when something manifests, you will be able to see it.

 Naturally, if all of a sudden there were luminous apparitions or if the outer physical forms changed completely, well then, I think even a dog or a cat or anything whatsoever would notice it. But that will take time, it can’t happen right now. It can’t happen right now, it is farther off, for a much later time. Many great things will take place before that, and they will be much more important than that, mark my words.

 For, indeed, that is only the flower which blossoms. But before it blossoms, the principle of its existence must be there in the root of the plant.

If there is some manifestation, will it be purely spiritual, that is, will only those who do yoga be able to perceive it, or will there be any consequences in the world of facts?

My child, why do you put this in the future?

 There have already been, for years, extraordinary, fantastic 

 consequences in the world. But to see this, one must have a little knowledge; otherwise one takes them for quite normal and ordinary things — because one doesn’t even know how they happen.

So perhaps this will be exactly the same thing; there are likely to be tremendous changes, fantastic actions, and, well, people will say, “But this — naturally, it is like that”, because they don’t know how it comes about.

 An action in the world? — It is constant. It is something which spreads and acts everywhere, gives out everywhere new impulsions, new orientations, new ideas, new acts of will — everywhere. But still, as one does not see how it happens, one thinks it “quite natural”, as they say.

 It is quite natural, but with another naturalness than that of ordinary physical Nature.

 Indeed, it is quite logical to say that one must be conscious of the Spirit to be able to perceive the work of the Spirit. If you are not conscious of the Spirit, how will you be able to see it at work? Because the result of what the Spirit does is necessarily material in the material world; and as it is material, you find it quite natural. What do you know of what Nature does, and what do you know of what the Spirit does? All that Nature does — I am speaking of physical Nature — we know very little about it, almost nothing, since we have to constantly learn things which upset all that we thought we knew before. And so, how to distinguish between what is purely the work of Nature and the work of the Spirit through Nature? One should know how to distinguish the one from the other. And how to distinguish them when one’s consciousness is not quite limpid and sure of what the Spirit is? How to recognise It, and how to see Its Work? This seems to me very simple logic.

 The world will go on. Things will happen. And perhaps there will be a handful of men who will know how they were done. That’s all.

 And if today one were suddenly precipitated, without any 

 transition, into the world as it was, let us say, two or three thousand years ago; oh! even less than that perhaps — one or two thousand years ago — it would be such a suffocating contrast that probably very few people would be able to bear it. But as this came about “like that”, with the amiable slowness of Nature, with all her fantasies, one finds it quite natural and doesn’t even notice it.

 It is not an image, it is not just fine words when it is said that if one enters the true consciousness, if one changes one’s consciousness, well, the world itself changes for you. And it is not only an appearance or an impression: one sees differently than one does in the ordinary consciousness; relations are different, causes are different, effects are different. And instead of seeing only something which is not transparent — one cannot see what’s behind, it is a surface, a crust; it is only this one sees and one can’t even see what moves it, what makes it exist — everything is turned inside out, and it is that which appears artificial and unreal, and almost inexistent. And so, when one sees things in this way, normally, you know, without straining oneself, without having to practise meditation and concentration and make strenuous efforts to see things like this, when it is one’s normal, natural vision, then one understands things in a completely different way — naturally, the world is different!

 There is a short preliminary sage which is indispensable, and those who have made this little preliminary journey, well, there are all sorts of things, all sorts of speculations and questions which they can no longer ask themselves.

 But truly, to e back to our point, what I wanted to say very simply is that one day, at the time I was asked for a message — I give it because I am asked — they ask and tell me, “Oh! we want to print it, couldn’t you send it to us?” Then, what do I do? I look at the year that is coming — to be able to speak about it, I must look at it — I look at the coming year, and then, looking at it, I see at the same time all the imaginations of people, all their speculations and all their inventions 

about what is going to happen in this so-called wonderful year. I look at that, and at the same time I look at what it is — what it already is beforehand, it is already like that somewhere — and immediately I know very clearly that the best thing to do is not to say what it will be like. And as people expect a lot of flourish and proclamations, I said what I said, that’s all. Nothing more. That is all I meant to say: “Let us not speak about it, if you please, that is better, that is preferable.” I haven’t said anything but this: “It is better not to speak about it, don’t make a lot of noise about it, because that doesn’t help. Let things happen in accordance with a deeper law, without being bewildered like one who does not understand anything and just looks on.”

 And above all, above all, don’t e and say, “You know, it will be like this.” Because that is what makes the thing most difficult, I don’t say that what has to be will not be, but perhaps there will be many more difficulties if one speaks about it. So it is better to let things happen.

 And, after all, if one wants to be very reasonable — very reasonable — one has only to ask oneself, “Well, in ten thousand years, this realisation we are preparing, what will it be? An imperceptible point in the march of time, a preparation, an attempt towards future realisations.” Oh! it is better not to get so excited. Let us do all that we can and keep quiet. That’s all.

 Now, there are people who need a little whipping, as one whips cream. But they should go to the poets, not e to me. I am not a poet, I am content to act. I would rather act than speak. 

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