THE MOTHER

Questions and Answers

Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Pondicherry

August, 1961

Questions and Answers

I

Mastery over oneself and mastery over the circumstances of one's life, are they independent of each other or are they interdependent ?

THAT depends on the point of view where you put yourself.

^A The police commissioner, for example, has some mastery over circumstances, but generally has not much mastery over himself ! (laughter)

Evidently one must first of all begin by self-mastery, otherwise one can act on life only to increase the confusion.

But Vivekananda, for example, had no mastery over anger, and yet he had a great mastery over the life around him.

This is the first time I hear of that. He had no mastery over anger ? Who has told you the story ?

It is written in his biography.

He himself has said it ? Is it an authentic story ?

Yes, at times he used to lose temper. But he knew it himself ? .

He knew it perfectly well.

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     In any case, it was not a "great mastery" over his surrounding that he had, but a great influence, which is quite different. One cannot master the Matter outside, unless one masters the Matter inside, because it is the same thing.

     Vivekananda had an influence, that is to say, he could, by his influence awaken in others some movements which helped them to master themselves ; but it was not he who mastered but they themselves had to master through the awakening—I say "he", but it is anybody; it is a general rule.

    Mastery means the knowledge of' how to deal with certain vibrations ; if you have the knowledge of handling these vibrations, you have the mastery. And the best field of experimentation is yourself. You have this mastery first of all in yourself, and having it in yourself you can transmit its vibration into others or create this vibration in them to the extent you are able to identify yourself with them. But if you are not able to handle this vibration in yourself, how can you handle it in others ? You can, through a word, through an influence, encourage them to do what is necessary in order to learn self-mastery, but you cannot master them directly.

    To master something, a movement, is simply, by your presence, without a word or explanation, to replace the wrong vibration by the right vibration. It is this which constitutes the power of mastery; not speaking or explaining. With the word and the explanation, and even with a certain emanation of force, you can have an influence over someone, but you cannot master the movement. The mastery over the movement means the capacity to set against the vibration of this movement, a vibration that is stronger and more true and that can put a stop to the other vibration.

     I will give you a very easy example. Two persons are quarrelling before you. Not only are they quarrelling but they are about to come to blows. You explain to them that it is not a thing to be done, you give them good reasons so that they may stop and they do stop. You would have had an influence upon them. But if simply you stand before them, you look at them and put forward

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a vibration of peace, calm, tranquillity without uttering a single word, without any explanation, the other vibration can exist no more, it falls by itself. That is mastery.

It is the same thing for the cure of ignorance. If you need words to explain something, it is not the true knowledge. If I have to utter all that I utter in order to make you understand me, it is not mastery, it is simply an influence that I am able to exercise upon your intelligence and help you to understand, awaken in you the desire to know, to discipline yourself etc. But if I am not able by simply looking at you, without saying a word, to put into you the light that will make you understand, then I would not have mastered the state of ignorance. You understand ? (The questioner makes a sign of yes). Good.

So I may tell you definitely that if it is true historically that Vivekananda had movements of anger and could not master himself, that is to say, he lost control over himself in word and action, then at least in this regard he was not capable of mastery over his surroundings. He could only evoke in them similar vibrations and probably justify in them their weakness in this respect. He could tell them in words, "You must not lose temper in any case", but it would have no effect. It is the eternal, "Do what I say and not what I do".

The problem arises in the class.

Oh ! Oh ! You get angry with your students ?

No, but how to control or discipline them, when one has not the mastery over oneself ?

One cannot !

But if we are to do as you say, have the mastery, that will take the whole life.

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     It is a pity ! (laughter) But how do you propose to do otherwise ? For example, you have a student who is undisciplined, disobedient, insolent; that means a certain vibration in the atmosphere which is moreover, unfortunately, very contagious; but if you do not have, you, in yourself, the contrary vibration, the vibration of discipline, order, humility, a quietness and peace that nothing can upset, then how can you hope to have any influence? Are you going to tell him, that it should not be done? Either he will turn worse or he will make fun of you. And if by any chance you do not have yourself the control and you become angry, then it is finished, you lose for the whole of your life any possibility of having authority over your pupils.

     Teachers who do not possess a perfect calm, an unfailing endurance, an unshakable quietness, who are full of self-conceit will reach nowhere.

    One must be a saint and a hero to become a good teacher.

    One must be a great Yogi to become a good teacher.

    One must have the perfect attitude in order to be able to exact from one's pupils a perfect attitude.

    You cannot ask of a person what you do not do yourself. It is a rule.

    You must then look within you at the difference between what is and what should be, and this difference will give you the measure of your failure in the class.

    That is all I can offer to you.

   And I add, since I have the occasion, this : We ask many students here, when they are grown up and know something, to teach others. Some, I suppose, know why; but there are also those who think that it is because to serve in some way is good and because after all there is need of teachers and you are content to have them. But I tell you—for it is a fact—I have never asked any of those—who were educated here—to give lessons unless I saw that it would be for him the best means of disciplining himself, of learning in the best way what he has to teach and to attain an inner perfection which he would never have if he

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were not a teacher and had not this occasion for disciplining himself, which is exceptionally hard.

     Those who are successful as teachers here—I do not mean an external, artificial or superficial success but they who become truly good teachers—, that would signify that they are capable of making an inner progress of impersonalisation, of eliminating their egoism, and mastering their movements and that they have a clear sight, an understanding of others and a patience that never fails.

     If you go through that discipline and succeed, well, you will not have wasted your time here.

     And I ask everyone who agrees to give lessons, to accept it in that spirit.

     It is very good to be nice, to render service, to become useful. It is fine, naturally, and it is a very fine thing; but it is only one side and perhaps the lesser side of the question. The important side is this that a grace has been granted to you so that you may gain self-mastery, gain an understanding of the subject and of others which you would not have without this occasion.

     If you have not profited by all these years that you have taught others, that would mean that you have wasted your time, at least half of it.

    What you have said just now concerns each professor in particular, his inner attitude, but how to do it for the general, external organisation of the school? For there is at present much dispute among the teachers.

     Dispute ? I hope not too much !

    Discussions... (laughter)

    I can tell you things in general only, but the details of the organisation.... What is your problem, your own ?

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You have given general ideas, but as regards details of execution, opinions differ ; what then is the true way you want us to take ?

But first of all you must tell me from what point of view. Organisation, that is very vague. If it is about the programme of studies, it is quite a formidable subject and cannot be settled in that way. If it is about the way of teaching, it is quite a personal thing (personal in both the cases, besides). The general plan is easy, that is to say, it has been given in a sufficiently clear way; but unless you give me a particular case where there are, say, discussions and differing opinions...

For example, take the one point : you said that full liberty should be given to the student. Some have interpreted it as meaning that there should be no fixed classes, because you are asked to let the student free to do whatever he likes, to come to the class or not to come etc. But if there are no fixed hours the organisation becomes complicated, how to arrange the classes ?

      That is quite impossible ! But when did I say that the student should be left free to come or not to come ? Excuse me, you must not mix up things.

     I have said and I repeat it that if a student feels foreign to a subject and has capacities, say, for literature or poetry and a dislike, at least, indifference for mathematics and if he tells me, "I prefer not to follow the course of mathematics", I cannot tell him, "No, you must absolutely go in for it".

    But if a student has decided to follow a class, it is an absolutely elementary discipline for him to follow it, he must go to the class regularly and behave decently there; otherwise he is quite unfit to go to school. I have never encouraged anybody to lounge about during class hours, to come one day and absent himself another day, never; because, to begin with, if he cannot

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submit himself to this absolutely elementary discipline, he will never gain the least control over himself. He will always be the slave of every impulse and every fancy of his.

      If you do not want to study a certain branch of knowledge, it is well and good, one cannot force you to do it. But if you decide to do something, whatever it may be, in life, you must do it honestly, with discipline, regularity and method. And without fancifulness. I have never approved of a person being the plaything of his impulses and fancies, never. And you can never get that thing out of me, because then one would no longer be a human being, one would be an animal. Therefore, this is a question absolutely settled and without discussion.

     Now, another problem ? (laughter)

    It will be for the next time (laughter).

    All right. Let it be for another occasion. We shall stop here.

II

"Our best friend is he who loves us in our best part, and yet does not ask of us to be other than what we are." (The Mother, "Talks, Aphorisms and Paradoxes")

 Will you comment upon this sentence?

      I feel like strongly telling you all kinds of paradoxical things ! But...

      When I wrote that, I was thinking of one thing which people usually forget. We ask our friends and all who are around us to be not what they are but what we would like them to be; we form

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an ideal and we want to apply it to all. That reminds me of Tolstoy's son whom I met in Japan. He was travelling all over the world in the hope of creating unity among men. His intentions were excellent, but his way of doing seemed less so. He used to say, with a stolid gravity, that if everybody spoke the same language, everybody dressed in the same fashion, ate in the same fashion, acted in the same fashion, that would perforce create a unity ! And when he was asked how he proposed to realise his idea, he answered that it was sufficient to go from country to country and preach a new but universal language, a new but universal dress, new but universal habits. That was all, and it was this that he had the intention to do !

     Well, everyone is like that in his little domain. Everyone has an ideal, everyone has a conception of what is true and beautiful and noble and even divine, and it is this conception which he wants to impose on others. There are even people—and they are quite numerous—who try to impose their own conception of the Divine upon the Divine Himself ! And generally they do not get discouraged until they come to the end of their life.

     It is this attitude, spontaneous and almost unconscious besides, that I had in view when I wrote the sentence. In fact you may be sure that if I had told one of you, "That is what you are trying to do", he would protest indignantly and say with the utmost certainty, "how is it! never in my life!" Yet when you have opinions on people and especially reactions against their way of being, it is because you blame them for not being what you think they should be. If you remember always that there cannot be, there should not be two similar things in the world, because the second one would be useless, because the universe is built up for the harmony of an infinite multiplicity in which two movements and, with greater reason, two consciousnesses cannot be similar, if you never forget this, how can you wish someone else to conform to the ideas or the ideal that you have yourself ! Everyone must be what he is, in accordance with the truth which is his own and not according to your truth, your ideal or your ideas which are yours.

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     What you must Iearn is to harmonise, synthetise, synchronise, combine all disparate things that are in the universe, putting each in its place. The total harmony lies not in an identity, but in an organisation where each thing finds its place.

     That should be the basis of the attitude which one has the right to expect from a true friend : he must not wish that you should be like him, but that you should be, on the contrary, what you are.

    And I wrote, "Our best friend is he who loves us in our best part". In a more positive way, I would say : he who encourages you to descend to the lowest level in you, who drives you to do stupid things with him or become vicious along with him or approves all that is vile in you is not your friend. And yet, very often, much too often, you make a friend of him with whom you do not feel uneasy when you are below your own self. You associate with those who run about instead of going to school, who would steal fruits from gardens, those who poke fun at their teachers and who do all sorts of nasty things. That is why I said, "Such people are not your good friends". But they are the friends who are very comfortable, because they never give you the impression that you arc in the wrong. Whereas if one who comes and tells you, "I say, instead of roaming about doing nothing or doing stupid things, why not go to your class, don't you think it would be better?" To such a person you would generally reply, "you are troublesome, you are not my friend."

    There are children here who were full of promise, who used to be at the top of their classes, who worked seriously and of whom I had great hopes; they were completely spoilt by this kind of friendship. And since it is spoken about I will tell them today that I am very sorry for it. I do not call such persons friends but mortal enemies and one should keep away from them as one should from contagious maladies. You carefully avoid the company of people having a contagious illness, don't you; generally they are even isolated so that the disease may not spread. But the contagion of vice and bad conduct, the contagion of degradation and falsehood and all that is low, is infinitely more dangerous than the contagion

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of an illness and it is that which should be shunned with great care. One should regard him only as his best friend who refuses to take part in a bad or ugly act, who encourages you to resist all lower temptations. He is indeed your friend.

     It is with him that you should associate and not with one who strengthens your bad propensities and takes part in your bad actions.

    In reality, you should take as friends only those persons who are wiser than you, whose company ennobles you, helps you to transcend yourself, to progress, to act better and see clearer. And finally, the best friend that one can have, is it not the Divine ! the Divine to whom one can say everything, disclose everything, because here is the very source of all kindness, of the power that effaces every error when it is no longer repeated,¹ which can open the path to the true realisation; the Divine who can understand everything, cure everything, who helps you on the way not to waver, not to falter, not to fall down and who leads you straight to the goal. He is the true friend, the friend in good and bad days, who never fails you. When you call him sincerely, he is always there to guide you, to sustain you and love you in the true way.

III

"Man seeks at first blindly and does not even know that he is seeking his divine self..." (Sri Aurobindo: "Thoughts and Glimpses".)

How is it that one seeks something without knowing that he is seeking?

     There are so many things you think, you feel, you will and even you do without knowing it. Are you fully conscious of yourself

      ¹ Later on Mother commented on this sentence as follows : "So long as you repeat your faults, nothing can be obliterated, because you recreate them every minute. When someone

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and of all that is happening in you ? Not at all. If, for example, all on a sudden, without your expecting it, I asked you, "What are you thinking of ?", your answer 99 times out of a hundred would be, "I don't know". And if I put you in the same way other questions like that, "what do you want ?"—you would say also, "I don't know at all". And "what do you feel?"—"I don't know". They alone can immediately give answers to such questions who have the habit of looking at themselves while they live, of observing themselves, those who are intent upon the need of knowing what happens in them. In some circumstances of life you are absorbed in what you feel, in what you think, in what you will and then you can say, "yes, I want this, I think that, I feel that", but these are only moments of life, not the whole time.

     To seek what one truly is, to seek why one is upon earth, what is the essential reason for physical existence, for the presence here below, for this formation, the vast majority of people live without even putting to themselves any such question. It is only a small elite who are interested in putting the question. And the number of those who set to work to get the answer is still more restricted, because unless there is a chance of finding someone who knows the answer, it is not easy to find it.

    Suppose, for example, you have never had in your hands a book of Sri Aurobindo's, nor of any other writers or philosophers or sages who consecrated their life to this quest; suppose you are in the ordinary world—like so many millions who arc in the ordinary world and have heard nothing except (and that too not always) of some gods and of some form of religion, which is more a habit than a faith and which besides rarely tells you why you are on earth—well, you would not think even of thinking of it.

commits a mistake, serious or not, this mistake has its consequences in his life, a Karma which he must exhaust, but the Divine Grace, when it is approached, has the power to cut the consequences; but for that it is necessary that the error is not repeated. You must not believe that you can continue to do the same stupid things indefinitely and indefinitely the Divine Grace will annul all the consequences, it is not like that. The past can be completely purified, cleaned so as not to have any effect on the future, provided you do not make of it a perpetual present : you must yourself stop the bad vibration in yourself, you must not reproduce indefinitely the same vibration."

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You live from day to day, through everyday circumstances. When you are young you think of playing, eating and a little later learning; afterwards you think of all the circumstances of life. But to stand face to face with the problem and tell yourself, "But why after all am I here ?" How many do that ? For some the idea comes only when they are in front of a catastrophe; when they see someone dying whom they love or when they are placed in particularly painful and difficult situations, then they turn back upon themselves (if they are sufficiently intelligent) and ask, "But what is this tragedy that we live ? What is the use of it, what is its purpose ?" Only at such a moment you begin to seek, to ask. And only it is much later when you have learnt that you have a divine Self that you look about to know it, but that comes much later. Yet from the very moment of the birth in the physical body, there is in the being, at the very depth of the being this psychic presence which impels the whole being towards self-discovery. But who knows it ? And who knows the psychic being ? This discovery also comes only under special circumstances and unfortunately most often these have to be painful circumstances. Otherwise you go on living without reflecting. And in the core of your being you have this psychic being which seeks and seeks to awaken the consciousness and to reestablish the union. But you know nothing about it.

     When you were ten years old, did you know it ? no, isn't it ? And yet, in the depth of yourself, your psychic being already wanted that and sought to find itself. And it is probably that that has brought you here. But so many things happen and you do not even ask yourself why; "it is like that, because it is like that", that is all.

     It would be interesting to know how many of you, before I told you, had asked themselves how they happened to be here. Most often the answer is very simple, "My parents are here, so I am here". Yet you are not born here. None is born here, and still you are all here. You did not ask yourself why. It was like that because it was like that ! And then between asking oneself the question and giving oneself a sufficiently satisfactory external explanation—to be satisfied with that—and then to tell, "Perhaps

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it is the indication of a destiny, of the very essential reason of my existence"—what a long way to go !

     Everyone finds reasons, more or less external (which besides are not worth much), to explain all things in the most fiat way possible. But there is a profound reason which you do not yet know. Are there many among you who would be interested to know why you are here ? How many among you have put the question, "What is the true reason of my presence here ?"

   You, have you ever put the question to yourself ?

    I do not remember

    And you ? And you ?...

    They alone who have come here after having lived in the world, who came because they wanted to come, because they had a conscious reason to come, can say, "I came here because of this or that" (and this would be partially at least the explanation). But the most true, the most profound reason may still escape them, that is to say, the special thing each one has to realise in the Work. To know that one must have already passed many steps on the way.

    Indeed, it is only when one becomes conscious of one's soul, when one is identified with one's psychic being that one can have at once the whole picture of his individual growth through the ages. Then one begins to know, not before.

    Then I guarantee that the thing becomes very interesting.

    That changes the position in life. There is such a great difference between feeling vaguely, having a groping impression of something, of a force, of a movement, of an attraction, of an impulsion that pushes you in life (but that is yet so vague, so uncertain, so clouded) such a difference between that and having a clear vision, an exact perception, a total understanding of the sense of one's fife. It is only at that moment that one can follGw the thread of one's destiny and perceive clearly the goal and the way to reach it. But that happens through successive inner awakenings, like doors that

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open all on a sudden on new horizons; verily a new birth in a truer, deeper and more durable consciousness.

     Till then you live in a cloud, groping, under the weight of a destiny which at times crushes you and gives you the feeling that it is built up in a certain way and you can do nothing. You are under the load of your life, a load that weighs heavy and forces you to crawl upon earth instead of lifting you up and making you see all the threads, the linking threads that join all things together in a single progressive movement towards a realisation that becomes clear.

    You must get out of this semi-consciousness which is generally considered as altogether natural—it is your "normal" way of being and you do not sufficiently draw back from it to enable you to see and to wonder at this uncertainty, this lack of precise-ness. On the other hand, to know that you are seeking and seeking consciously, deliberately, obstinately, methodically is exactiy the exceptional condition, almost abnormal and yet it is in this way alone that you begin to live truly.

IV

"What I cannot do now is the sign of what I shall do hereafter. The sense of impossibility is the beginning of all possibilities. Because this temporal universe was a paradox and an impossibility, therefore the Eternal created it out of His being." (Sri Aurobindo: "Thoughts and Glimpses")

         At once you land into the greatest difficulty !

        You know why that seems to you paradoxical ? It is simply because Sri Aurobindo has omitted to mention the links of his thought, to take you step by step from one thought to another. Nothing but that. It is an almost elementary simplicity.

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        I will make a simple remark to you : when does a thing appear impossible to you ? Only when you try to do it. If you had never tried to do it, it would never have appeared to you as impossible.

       And how is it that you try to do it ? Because it is somewhere in your consciousness. If it were not in your consciousness, you would never try to do it. And the moment it is in your consciousness, it is quite obvious that it is something you will realise. That alone which is not in your consciousness you cannot realise. It is not more complicated than that !

       Only, instead of saying it in that way, Sri Aurobindo tells it to you in a manner that gives, as it were, a whipping to your thought. That is the virtue of paradoxes, they compel you to think.

      What does then "impossible" mean?

      There is nothing impossible in the world except that which is outside your consciousness. And as your consciousness can grow, as what is not in your consciousness today may be there after some time, because the consciousness increases, there is nothing then in the eternity of time that is impossible.

     At the present time (I have already explained it to you once), at a given moment, in given circumstances, there are impossibilities. But from the viewpoint of the Eternal, in the infinity of time, there is no such thing, there is nothing impossible. And the proof is that everything will be. All things (not only those that are conceivable at the moment, but all those that are for the moment inconceivable) all are not only possible, but will be realised. For what we call the Eternal, the Infinite, the Supreme, the Absolute—we give it many names, but in fact it is eternal, infinite, absolute—contains within it not only all that is, but all that will be, eternally, infinitely; consequently nothing is impossible. Only, for the consciousness of the temporal and objective being, all things are not possible at the same time; it becomes necessary to conceive of time and space to make them possible.

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      But outside the manifestation, all is, simultaneously, eternally, as a possibility, as a potentiality; and it is this All, inconceivable because it is not manifested, that manifests itself to become conceivable.

     This is what Sri Aurobindo says : "Because this temporal universe (that is to say, a universe which is not all at the same time on the same point, outside time and space, a universe which becomes temporal and spatial, which is in succession, which unrolls itself) was a paradox and an impossibility, therefore the Eternal created it out of His being". Indeed, for That which is outside the manifestation, a temporal universe is truly an absurdity and a paradox; it is the very contradiction of Itself. Whereas for the temporal consciousness, on the contrary, it is the un-temporal which is unthinkable and incomprehensible.

    We cannot conceive of a thing which is not in time and in space, because we are ourselves in time and in space. We try an approximation to arrive at understanding, a little, Something which is not expressible and which is all, together, eternally and outside time. We can try and we use all kinds of words, but we do not succeed in understanding unless we come out of time and space. Well, if you turn the problem round, for That which is outside time and space, time and space are something paradoxical and incomprehensible; that does not exist, that is not and because iris a paradox that the Eternal has emanated it from His being, that is to say, He has changed its non-existence into an existence—one may say, playfully, in order to know what it is ! because so long as He did not become time-space, He could not know what it was !

    But to come back to the beginning of this aphorism, we saw that to have a notion of the impossible, to think that something is "impossible", one must have attempted it. It is extremely practical, very concrete and very encouraging, because, for example, if at this moment you have the impression that what I am telling you is impossible to understand, that means you try to understand it; and if you try to- understand it, that means that it is within your consciousness, otherwise you would not be able to try to understand it—even as I am within your consciousness, my

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word is within your consciousness, and what Sri Aurobindo has written is also within your consciousness, otherwise you would not have any contact with it. But for the moment it is impossible for you to understand, because some small cells are missing in your brain, nothing else, it is very simple. And as these cells grow through attention, concentration and effort, when you have listened well and made an effort to understand, after some hours, some days or some months new convolutions will have formed in your brain and everything will become quite easy. You will even wonder that there could be even a moment when you did not understand : "it is so simple !" But so long as these convolutions are not there, you can put an effort, you can even give yourself a headache, but you will not understand.

     It is very encouraging indeed, because the only thing necessary is to will and to have patience. What for you is incomprehensible today will be quite clear after a time.

    And note, it is not necessary for you to get a headache every hour and every minute in trying to understand. One very simple thing is sufficient : to listen as best as you can, have a sort of will or aspiration or even a desire to understand, and that is all. You make a little opening in your consciousness for the new notion to enter; your aspiration makes this opening, just a little notch inside, a small hole somewhere in what is closed and you let the thing enter. The new notion will work and build up in your brain the necessary elements for understanding. You have no longer to think about it. You try to understand some other thing, you work, study, reflect, you think of all kinds of things; and at the end of a few months—perhaps a year, perhaps less, perhaps more—you open the book again, you read the same sentence and it appears clear like rock water, simply because what was needed for understanding has been built up in your brain.

    So do not come to me and say "I am not fit for this study, I won't understand philosophy or that I will never be able to do mathematics;", it is ignorance, it is sheer ignosance, because there is nothing that you are unable to understand, if you give to your brain the time to enlarge itself, complete itself. And you can

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pass from one mental construction to another (which correspond to subjects), from one subject to another (and subjects, that means languages), from one language to another and build one thing after another within you, and contain all that and yet many more things, very harmoniously, if you do it with care and give time to it; because each of these acquisitions corresponds to an inner formation and you can multiply the formations indefinitely if you give time and care for it.

     I do not believe at all in a limit that you cannot cross.

    But I see very well the mental formations of people and then a kind of laziness in front of the necessary effort—this laziness and these limits are like maladies. But they are curable maladies unless you have a thoroughly defective mental construction, unless something is missing in you, something "forgotten" when you were formed—then it is more difficult. It is much more difficult, but it is not impossible. There are individuals like that, who are as it were failures (logically it would be better for them not to continue to exist, but it is not the custom, it is not in the ordinary human ideas). But if you are a normal being, then, provided you take the trouble and know the method. Your capacity for growth is almost unlimited.

     It is said that everyone belongs to a type, that, for example, a fir will never become an oak, that a palm will never be wheat; obviously, but that is another thing. It means that the truth of your being is not the truth of your neighbour's being. But in the truth of your being, according to your own build, your progress is almost unlimited. It is limited only by your conviction that it is limited, and by your ignorance of the true process. Otherwise, there is nothing that one cannot do, if one knows the way of doing it.