Sri Aurobindo: If you want to get rid of these attacks, it is this part of your vital being that you must change, its acceptance of these false suggestions, its want of fortitude in facing the difﬁculties of the sadhana. If you refused to indulge this vital tamasic tendency and the voices of darkness that come with it, there would be no such violent ups and downs in the sadhana.   It is of course the resistance of the old vital in the past that is being redeemed which creates this irritation and these imaginations about the Mother’s displeasure. For as a matter of fact there was no dissatisfaction against you in the Mother’s mind and this idea is usually a suggestion to the sadhak’s mind from the Force that wants to create the wish to go or any other kind of discontent or depression. It is a curious form of delusion that has taken root, as it were, in the Asram atmosphere and is cherished not so much by the individual vital as by the forces that work upon it to break, if possible, the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: You must not allow any harbourage to that or else it will create any amount of trouble.  The absence of proper sleep naturally brings a state of fatigue in the nerves which helps these things to come — for it is through the physical consciousness that they attack and if it can make that consciousness tamasic in any way, their entry is more easy.    The Mother has in no way changed towards you nor is she disappointed with you — that is the suggestion drawn from your own state of mind and putting its wrong sense of disappointment and unﬁtness on to the Mother. She has no reason to change or be disappointed, as she has always been aware of the vital obstacles in you and still expected and expects you to overcome them.


Sri Aurobindo: The call to change certain things that seem to be in the grain of character is proving difﬁcult even for the best sadhaks, but the difﬁculty is no proof of incompetence. It is precisely this impulse to go that you must refuse to admit — for so long as these forces think they can bring it about, they will press as much as they can on this point. You must also open yourself more to the Mother’s Force in that part and for that it is necessary to get rid of this suggestion about the Mother’s disappointment or lack of love, for it is this which creates the reaction at the time of Pranam. Our help, support, love are there always as before — keep yourself open to them and with their aid drive out these suggestions.  “Early” or “late” has nothing to do with what you call nearness.


Sri Aurobindo: Some who were “early” — and also some who are “near” to her see the Mother only at “pranam” time — physically; some who are late, have the occasion to see her every day because their work compels it. But they see her because of the work; the work was not given to them in order that they might be near! You have taken the thing by the wrong end — not for the ﬁrst time.  You are mistaken in thinking that you are the only one to ask with such persistence — there are others. Each one calls it a need, but when their “need” is freely given to them, they cease to value it — as happened with the soup and the pranam.


Sri Aurobindo: And this shows that it is not a need, but a desire. The principle of all sadhana is to ﬁx the will not on desires — even if presented to the mind as needs — but on the realisation only.  Our object is the supramental realisation and we have to do whatever is necessary for that or towards that under the conditions of each stage. At present the necessity is to prepare the physical consciousness; for that a complete equality and peace and a complete dedication free from personal demand or desire in the physical and the lower vital parts is the thing to be established. Other things can come in their proper time.


Sri Aurobindo: What is the real need now is not insistence on physical nearness, which is one of those other things, but the psychic opening in the physical consciousness and the constant presence and guidance there.  I do not know what you mean by our wanting to use you for all practical purposes. We did not insist on your doing any work for us; it was you who asked for work, and we gave you what could be found for you. But we could not very well invent work with the express purpose of creating an occasion for physically meeting the Mother. That has not been done for anybody.


Sri Aurobindo:   As usual, all you have written in the letter under the wrong inﬂuence is based either on false inferences or a wrong attitude.  It is quite false that the Mother gives your letters or’s or those of others to to read. The letters and books are read and kept not by the Mother, but by me; it is I who read them to the Mother, put by those that are done with in my ﬁles and return the books and the answers which are sent immediately I have ﬁnished with them through Nolini. Other things like seeing your envelopes on a table etc. are mere triﬂes with no harm in them; if you twist and exaggerate and put a dark meaning on every harmless triﬂe and erect it into a grievance and a torture, how do you expect to have any quiet or peace or progress in the sadhana?


Sri Aurobindo: As for the advantages given to by her working here and seeing and speaking with the Mother being an injustice to you and a sacriﬁce of you to her development, she might equally complain, and most of the people in the Asram might complain that they are not allowed to send a book to Sri Aurobindo every second day and get an answer from him and a constant outward help, but are left out in the cold and an unjust partiality is being shown by him and they are being sacriﬁced to the development of  []. These jealous recriminations are foolish and stupid in the extreme. I therefore hope that this is the last time you entertain them and that consequently, as you say, it may be the last time you write them. If you can clear this out of you, there will be some chance of the liberation of your physical consciousness and a straight progress in the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: It is all nonsense. Some of the best sadhaks are among those whom the Mother seldom or never calls and she sends them nothing. Nor do they expect it — they feel the Mother always with them and are satisﬁed and ask for nothing else.


Sri Aurobindo: It is indispensable for the fullness of the sadhana on the physical plane. Transformation of the physical and external being is not possible otherwise.  It depends on the person. Some proﬁt, some do not. No general statement can be made.


Sri Aurobindo: One can receive everywhere, and if there is a strong spiritual consciousness one can make great progress. But experience does not support the idea that it makes no difference or is almost the same.     You are quite mistaken.


Sri Aurobindo: Among those who are physically near the Mother there are some who have much worse attacks than you have ever had. It is the inner nearness that saves, not the physical nearness.     It is the inner nearness that matters.


Sri Aurobindo: The idea of the mind — quite natural, of course — that the outer closeness is the sign of the relation or a special favour or the means of rapid progress is not borne out by experience. There are some who see the Mother daily and are very little advanced from what they were years ago — there were others who got worse because it fostered the vital demand in them — on the other hand there are some quite close to the Mother and forward on the path and cherished by her who come to her only very occasionally — and I could instance one case in which there is an interview only once a year, yet there is no one who has made more rapid progress or in whom the love relation has grown to a greater intensity and fervour. In all these things it is best to have an entire conﬁdence in the Mother and the light that guides her.    No.


Sri Aurobindo: It depends entirely on the condition of the person and his attitude. Especially, if they insist on seeing her or on remaining when she wants them to go or are in a bad mood and throw it on her, it is very harmful for them to see her. Each should be content with what the Mother gives them, for she alone feels what they can or cannot receive. Mental constructions of this kind and vital demands are always false.


Sri Aurobindo:   If one has the close inner relation, one feels the Mother always near and within and round and there is no insistence on the closer physical relation for its own sake. Those who have not this, should aspire for it and not hanker after the other. If they get the outer closeness, they will ﬁnd that it means nothing without the inner oneness and closeness. One may be physically near the Mother and yet as far from her as the Sahara desert.


Sri Aurobindo:   And if you had the physical nearness, you would be no happier or calmer so long as the inner being is unchanged. Those who do physically approach her have just the same difﬁculties and struggles as yourself and some have not even the experiences of peace etc. that you have.  It would be most foolish to call back this meaningless delusion — for nothing can be farther from the actual and practical truth than to suppose that those who have a physical nearness to the Mother or have frequent physical approach are happier or more satisﬁed than others; it is not in the least true — or to allow it to prevent the progress of the inner peace. If you could only get rid of this delusion, nothing would be able to prevent the growth of the Peace and that inner nearness which alone makes people in this Asram divinely happy.


Sri Aurobindo: Happiness comes from the soul’s satisfaction, not from the vital’s or the body’s. The vital is never satisﬁed; the body soon ceases to be moved at all by what it easily or always has. Only the psychic being brings the real joy and felicity.    As you have recovered, I do not write anything about that, for discourse on such matters does not help.


Sri Aurobindo: The one thing important is to keep the inner attitude and establish the inner connection with the Mother independent of all outward circumstances; it is that that brings all that is needed. Those who are most deep in the Yoga are not those who physically see most of the Mother. There are some who are in constant nearness or union with her who apart from the Pranam and the evening meditation come to her only once a year.    Those are the Mother’s children and closest to her who are open to her, close to her in their inner being, one with her will — not those who come bodily nearest to her.


Sri Aurobindo: Did coming inside help  or? It is impossible for Mother to satisfy the demands of everybody, the external demands — it only wears out her body but helps no one.     But the coming near to the Mother should be in the inner rooms, not the outer.


Sri Aurobindo: For in the inner rooms one can always enter and even arrange to stay there permanently.    It is not so easy to be “one with the will” of the Mother or to be entirely open. To be bodily close imposes a constant pressure for progress, for perfection, which no one yet has been able to meet. People have romantic ideas in this matter which are not true.


Sri Aurobindo:   You are quite right. It is the ego that wants the satisfaction of being the ﬁrst or specially singled out. It is this egoistic vital demand with all its consequent revolts and disturbances that made it necessary for Mother to limit the physical manifestation of nearness to a minimum.   If one has the desire or the claim, one brings in all sorts of demands, anger, jealousies, despairs, revolts etc., which spoil the sadhana and do not help it.


Sri Aurobindo: To others the nearness becomes a mixture.  If they know how to approach her which hardly any do.  A vital interchange. But there is a difference between the interchange of “people” and interchange with Mother.  And what if their condition is such that it merely passes or is spilt or is spoilt by their reactions?


Sri Aurobindo: If they know how to receive.  The Mother was giving freely of her physical contact in former years. If the sadhaks had had the right reactions, do you think she would have drawn back and reduced it to a minimum?  Of course if people know in what spirit to receive from her, the physical touch is a great thing — but for that the constant physical nearness is not necessary. That rather creates a pressure of the highest force which how many can meet and satisfy?


Sri Aurobindo:   I am afraid all these are mental constructions. You are constructing in your mind what ought to feel. But as a matter of fact neither’s nor anybody’s difﬁculties are removed by their coming to Mother or by their sitting one hour or two hours or even three hours with her. Plenty of people have done that and gone away as glum, desperate and revolted as they came.


Sri Aurobindo: Among the people who see the Mother are some who have crises as bad as yours and as frequent. It is also not true that those who have talked much with Mother (about houses, repairs, servants etc.) understand her better. In former days some people used to see much of Mother in another way, i.e. to talk with her on all sorts of subjects — but even those did not really understand her. I repeat that all that is mental building and constructed inference and does not square with the facts. It is only when one is inwardly open to her that one proﬁts by the “contact” with her, not the physical but the spiritual or inner contact, and then the mere thought of her or a mere thought from her can set right anything wrong; then the physical contact also can help, but it is not indispensable.


Sri Aurobindo: And as for understanding her, it is only by entering into the spiritual consciousness that one can understand her, or if not understand in the mind, at least feel and respond to what she is through an increasing oneness.    To come physically to the Mother for getting rid of a disturbance is unnecessary and useless; it is inwardly that you must take refuge in her and throw away the wrong movement, as you have seen on this occasion. To come physically would only create a habit of getting wrong and coming to her to get right and it would also lead to the wrong movement of throwing the difﬁculty on her instead of inwardly giving it up, making its surrender. But it is the general surrender that is needed which would prevent these useless disturbances over triﬂing matters, egoisms, insistences on one’s own point of view, anger because one does not have one’s own way or a due recognition of one’s independence or importance.


Sri Aurobindo: It is these feelings disguised by reasonings and self-justiﬁcation that are at the bottom of more than half of the difﬁculty in the work of the Asram.     The Mother has for a long time past been limiting the outer contact with the sadhaks as much as possible. The reason you speak of


Sri Aurobindo: is one of the reasons, but there are others which it is not necessary to speak of.    has not the opportunity you speak of; he sees [] only for a minute or two in the morning when taking back his daily report. But in fact it is a mistake to think that those who meet the Mother physically are any nearer the goal of perfection than those who do not meet her except at Pranam and meditation. All depends on the inner being and how it can meet her from within and receive her force and proﬁt by it. Of course, if people meet her with their psychic prominent, and not with the outer consciousness only, it should be different, but —


Sri Aurobindo:   Living in the Asram is one thing, living with the Mother in close proximity is another. Your Q.E.D., like most mental logic, is contradicted by the facts of life. One could argue on that basis that who lives in the same house as the Mother is nearer perfection than and much nearer than or who live outside.   never meets the Mother except at Pranam and on her birthday, so she must be an utterly backward person and who meets the Mother daily for 5, 10, 15 or 20 minutes must be far ahead of her, well on towards perfection.


Sri Aurobindo: But these things are not so. So the argument breaks down at every point. Progress in sadhana or superior capacity is not dependent on one’s being near the Mother or meeting her more often. Q.E.D.


Sri Aurobindo: There is a confusion here. The Mother’s grace is one thing, the call to change another, the pressure of nearness to her is yet another. Those who are physically near to her are not so by any special grace or favour, but by the necessity of their work, — that is what everybody here refuses to understand or believe, but it is the fact: that nearness acts automatically as a pressure, if for nothing else, to adapt their consciousness to hers which means change, but it is difﬁcult for them because the difference between the two consciousnesses is enormous especially on the physical level and it is on the physical level that they are meeting her in the work.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is more proﬁt to be had by being open to the Mother than by coming physically to her at the present stage. Some even who make a point of her calling them go backward rather than forward — because they make a point of it, introducing thus a basis of vital demand which makes a very shaky foundation for relations with the Mother.    You are mistaken in thinking that the Mother keeps you at a distance; you have only to open yourself to her sincerely and entirely.


Sri Aurobindo: What has been done in the past does not matter if there is a sincere aspiration and resolution to change. Neither to lament nor to complain or be angry will help; a conﬁdent and happy opening of oneself to the Mother without insistence on personal demands and desires is the only thing to do.  It is mostly that it brings a certain closeness to one side of the Mother.  I did not agree to your going for the same reasons as the last time. First, there was no good reason why you should go; a ﬁt of quite causeless jealousy and pique could not be considered a sufﬁcient ground for your wanting to leave us.


Sri Aurobindo: You started your “revolt”, as you call it, because the Mother took to a private sale to buy things for her: you continued it because the next day (it being the ﬁrst of the month) and the day after she was too busy with accounts and other affairs to occupy herself with you as you wanted. There could not be more absurd grounds for wanting to go away.  What you seem to claim from the Mother is impossible. No one can be given the right to control or question her actions and decisions or to dictate whom she must or must not take with her or what time she shall give to one or another. The Mother can do her work only if she is free always to do what she sees to be right and her decisions are accepted by all concerned.


Sri Aurobindo: This is now generally understood in the Asram and no one makes this kind of demand; it is not possible that you alone out of eighty people should have the right to do it.  In fact, you have been given privileges of close daily personal contact with the Mother which very few in the Asram have and which all would be only too glad to have. It is not because you have a greater claim than theirs. If it were a matter of ordinary claim, there are many who would precede you. Some have been here since the beginning; some are more advanced than most in the spiritual life; some occupy a responsible position in the work of the Asram; yet many of them cannot come to the Mother separately every morning or meet her again in the afternoon as you have been allowed to do.


Sri Aurobindo: This privilege was given you because she felt that you had a special need of her care and of help and support from her. For she does not act for her personal satisfaction or decide out of personal preference, but according to the necessities of the work and the true need of each one in the Asram. And she gave you as much as she could consistently with the call of her work and the time at her disposal. But instead of being satisﬁed and happy, you create in your mind ﬂimsy grounds for revolt and “quarrel”. You did this once and it was excused as a mistake which you recognised and would try not to repeat.


Sri Aurobindo: It is discouraging to see you start the same folly all over again as if you had understood and learned nothing.  You have not been asked to do any Yoga; you were too young and unripe for that. You have therefore no reason to complain of being asked to do something beyond your power.  But, without doing any Yoga, it was quite possible for you, merely by your work and by daily contact with the Mother and her silent inﬂuence, to grow quietly and easily and happily in consciousness and character and capacity until you were ready.


Sri Aurobindo: But if you refuse to learn self-control and discipline, (these are not matters of Yoga, but what everyone has to learn unless he wants to waste his life and bring his capacities to nothing), and if you cannot be content and happy with the much that is given you, you yourself will make your own life here impossible.  My second reason for not agreeing to your departure was that I did not believe that you really wanted to go or that what spoke of going was the true. But if your desire to go is serious and deliberate, if you cannot be happy here with us, then it would not be right for me to keep you against your will. That is a thing which I never do with anyone.  My third reason was that I could only sanction your going if I saw that you were too young or otherwise unﬁt to bear the pressure of the Asram atmosphere.


Sri Aurobindo: I know that there is in you the capacity if you choose to exercise it. But a certain attitude towards this life and towards the Mother is needed which you seem unwilling to keep. If you cannot be satisﬁed, if you are constantly revolting and discontented and unhappy, if you again and again violently insist on going away, if you are constantly driven by something in you into these outbreaks which might have been excusable when you were a young child but are no longer proper to your age, it will be difﬁcult for me to avoid coming to the conclusion that, as yet at least, you are not ready, not only for the Yoga, but even for living here.  One thing I wish to make clear. Neither myself nor the Mother wishes you to leave us.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not approve or sanction your going, still less do I decide that you must go. But if your desire to go is real, insistent and imperative, if you cannot be happy here and feel that you would be happier elsewhere, then I shall be obliged to withdraw my refusal.  This is the situation. Try to get back to yourself, your real self, the real and see if he wants to go, if it is true that he cannot be satisﬁed by what the Mother gives him. It is upon that that the decision will rest.


Sri Aurobindo:   Mother is not displeased with your work or with you — there was no such thing in her mind. But the progress of no one here is complete — there is, as you know yourself, still much to change and from time to time the Mother puts a pressure that it may be done. You must not take that pressure for displeasure. As for going away, you must yourself realise that the suggestion can only come from a hostile source and you should not allow it to dwell in you for a moment.


Sri Aurobindo: Mother is quite ready to tell you in what points more progress is necessary, though I think you must for the most part know it yourself. Especially she wants you to be more guarded in your speech. You are in a special position and one of great trust and whatever you say is taken up and commented on, so you must be careful that nothing should go out from you which ought not to be said or known .


Sri Aurobindo: To talk less and not be too unguarded in your speech should be part of your discipline of sadhana.  Keep yourself open to the Mother and in perfect union with her. Make yourself entirely plastic to her touch and let her mould you swiftly towards perfection.    It is certainly true that the Divine has no preferences or dislikes and is equal to all


Sri Aurobindo: but that does not prevent there being a special relationship with each. This relation however does not depend on the more or less identiﬁcation or union. The purer soul has an easier access to the Divine. The more developed nature has more lines on which to meet Him. The identiﬁcation creates a spiritual oneness.


Sri Aurobindo: But there are other personal relations which are created by other causes. It is too complex for all relations to be determined by one cause.  Yes, Yogis whose progress does not depend on the personal intervention of the Mother, need have no personal relation with her — only the spiritual contact in distance. Some may have a special relation, but that is due to special aspects of their sadhana. On the other hand one may have a personal relation with the Mother even though no progress has been made in the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: There are all kinds of possibilities in this matter.  There is such a relation with all of those who have come here with a psychic sufﬁciently developed to admit of the relation. In other cases it is more a possibility than a thing realised.   There are roughly speaking three parts of the being in manifestation which come into play here — 1. the psychic being in evolution which brings with it its past experience of past lives and something of the old personalities, so much as it can make helpful for the present life; 2. the present formation due to this birth and made up of many complex factors; 3. the future being, which in our case means the great lines of higher consciousness above the present manifestation by joining which the transformation becomes more possible and the work attempted can be done.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the psychic being which brings in the contact through past lives or personalities, i.e. through something essential and still operative in them which it has kept.  But, in addition, some psychic beings have come here who are ready to join with great lines of consciousness above, represented often by beings of the higher planes, and are therefore specially ﬁtted to join with the Mother intimately in the great work that has to be done. These have all a special relation with the Mother which adds to the past one.  As for the present formation, it may obviously have elements which, not being joined or met with the Mother, may feel themselves strange to her. It is such an element which many feel standing in the way; but it is an exterior formation and does not belong to the past or to the future evolution, at any rate in its present ﬁgure.


Sri Aurobindo: It must either disappear or change.    To launch into too many mental subtleties in this connection is not very helpful; for it is a subject which is beyond mental analysis and the constructions of the mind about it are apt to be either very partially true or else erroneous.  There is a universal Divine Love which is equal for all.  There is also a psychic connection which is individual; it is the same essentially for all, but it admits of a special relation with each which is not the same for all but different in each case.


Sri Aurobindo: This special relation stands apart in each case and has its own nature, it is, as is said,, of its own kind and cannot be compared, balanced or measured with other relations, for each of these again is The question of less or more is therefore perfectly irrelevant here.  It is quite wrong to say that the Mother loves most those who are nearest to her in the physical. I have often said this but people do not wish to believe it, because they imagine that the Mother is a slave of the vital feelings like ordinary people and governed by vital likes and dislikes. “Those she likes she keeps near her, those she likes less she keeps less near, those she dislikes or does not care for she keeps at a distance”, that is their childish reasoning. Many of those who feel the Mother’s presence and love always with them hardly see her except once in six months or once in a year — apart from the Pranam and meditation.


Sri Aurobindo: On the other hand one near her physically or seeing her often may not feel such a thing at all; he may complain of the absence of the Mother’s help and love altogether or as compared to what she gives to others. If the childishly simple rule of three given above were true, such contrasts would not be possible.  Whether one feels the Mother’s love or not depends on whether one is open to it or not, it does not depend on physical nearness. Openness means the removal of all that makes one unconscious of the inner relation — nothing can make one more unconscious than the idea that it must be measured only by some outward manifestation instead of being felt within the being; it makes one blind or insensitive to the outward manifestations that are there. Whether one is physically far or near makes no difference; one can feel it, being physically far or seeing her little; one can fail to feel it when it is there, even if one is physically near or often in her physical presence.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is a personal relation with most, but what is a personal physical relation?  If the sadhak becomes unfaithful to the Mother, it means he did not want the sadhana or the Mother, but the satisfaction of his desires and his ego. That is not Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother meets nobody for “hours” — if anybody stayed for hours she would get very tired.  Mother did not meet more than others because she loved him more than others, but because she was trying to get something done through him for the work which, if done, would have been a great victory for all. But precisely because he took it in the wrong way, grasping at it as a “personal physical” relation and satisfaction of his egoistic desire, he failed and had to go away.    Mother has taken the body because a work of a physical nature (i.e. including a change in the physical world) had to be done.


Sri Aurobindo: She has not come to establish a “physical relation” with people.  Some have come with her to share in the work, others she has called, others have come seeking for the light. With each she has a personal relation or the possibility of a personal relation; but each is of its own kind and none can say that she must do equally the same thing with each person. No one can claim as a right that she must be physically near to him because she is physically near to others. Some have a close personal relation with her, yet she sees little of them — some have a less close personal relation, yet for one reason or another may see her much oftener or longer.


Sri Aurobindo: To apply the silly mathematical rules of the physical mind here is absurd — your physical mind cannot understand what the Mother does; its values and standards and ideas are not hers. It is still worse to make your personal vital demand or desire the measure of what she ought to do. That way spiritual ruin lies. She acts in each case for different reasons suitable to that case.  The right attitude in approaching the Mother when she sees one, is to keep the being perfectly quiet and open to receive, without any activity of the mind or desire in the vital, with only the surrender and the psychic readiness to accept whatever is given.


Sri Aurobindo: Tomorrow, 24th, the Mother sees you — for meditation, so that she may see and do whatever is needed.   This fear is an absurd and irrational feeling in the subconscient physical — there is no reason for its existence — unless it is the fear of the egoistic physical clinging to its own individuality and unwilling to be “swallowed up” in the Mother. Otherwise it can only be a sort of tamasic counterpart to the rajasic revolt and pride — for these two things often go together or alternate.  Mother was and is quite ready to see you. But you must get rid of the fear, distrust and unwillingness, for there should be a trust and openness in you, when you come.


Sri Aurobindo: If you wish she can ﬁx a time — next Thursday at 9.30. In the meantime we can try to get this obstacle out of you.    It is better to be on guard for the struggle is possible, though not inevitable. Something is put in you to develop — usually the hostile forces try to interfere to prevent the inner evolution.


Sri Aurobindo: A little more vigilance is therefore advisable.     When one comes to the Mother, one must not come with these things in the mind — but in quietude and light solely to receive from her what one can assimilate.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Mother is always ready to give you peace. It was for that  Mother called you last time, but you were very restless. Sometimes you can receive very well.


Sri Aurobindo: Try to be like that always, — always with the door of your being open to receive the Mother in you and her peace but shut against any other inﬂuence or pressure. Then you will have the immutable peace and feel the Mother always in you and yourself in her.    You would arrive at nothing real by seeing the Mother when she herself does not think it the right thing. It is not by seeing the Mother that one gets realisation but by doing her will and allowing her true inner working within you.


Sri Aurobindo: You are mistaken. Mother will do what she considers to be the right thing for each. If it is right for you to go away or for anyone to go away she would not ask to stay. She does not think it right for you to go — so she would say No. But on the same ground she would say No to your vital desire.


Sri Aurobindo:  The Mother does not usually speak with those who come for an interview before starting. If she had to speak, she would not give an interview at all to most, for she would have no time. Moreover it is not by speech or instruction or answering questions that Mother works on the consciousness of the sadhaks, it is by a silent inﬂuence to which they have to learn to open themselves.  As for his readiness for the Asram life, it should be evident to himself from his reactions, especially about his family, that he is not ready — he would have been pulled away by these feelings and it would have been a serious fall for him. To be told the truth about themselves and get the guidance unasked — that is a grace which sadhaks should accept with gladness — to weep and feel hurt is a reaction of the vital which he must get over.


Sri Aurobindo: Psychic weeping, a weeping from the soul deep within, tears of the soul’s yearning, of sorrow for the resistance of Nature, of joy or love or bhakti does not cause a fall, it can help and open up the inner soul from its veils; but this weeping has no strain or suffering in it, it is something very deep and quiet and brings a sense of puriﬁcation and release. That is not so with the weeping which comes from the vital and is born of hurt or abhiman or disappointment or shakes or disturbs the nature.    To be conscious of the Force or working in a meditation with the Mother, the consciousness must be still and passive to her. If one is accustomed to be active and make one’s own formations, that stands in the way and must be suspended during the meditation.


Sri Aurobindo: Mother only remembers to have said that there were many things in the exterior consciousness that obscured and veiled the inner being — this was in connection with what you said about the heart not opening. Perhaps she may have said that these things do not always show themselves in their own forms, so that one is not conscious of the obstacle.     That is the suggestion of the lower forces.


Sri Aurobindo: They want to create an excuse for your remaining aloof like that.     But why does this always happen after the Mother calls you?  You must get rid of this reaction, otherwise the Mother will not feel free to call you.


Sri Aurobindo: You must learn to use your will and not be passive to these reactions.    If Mother’s seeing you for a minute cured your vital, she would see you, but will it? does it really help you? Generally such desires in the vital are not stopped by satisfying them.


Sri Aurobindo: All the same at the end of the morning when the others have gone, if you are there, Mother will see you for a minute.  It is not possible for the Mother to give you the ﬁve minutes a day you ask for; her time is already too much taken. There are many others who have asked the same thing; the Mother has had to refuse them all. You are mistaken if you think that any such arrangement is necessary for your sadhana. A daily meditation of the kind would help you perhaps if you kept always the right attitude; but if you keep the right attitude, you will not need any such routine of outward means, the help the Mother is always giving you would be more than sufﬁcient.


Sri Aurobindo: I think it needful at this stage of your sadhana to repeat my previous warning about not allowing any vital mixture. It is the crudity of the unregenerated vital that prevents the psychic from remaining always at the front. You have now seen clearly the two different consciousnesses, — according to what you have written in one of your letters, — the psychic and the vital. To get rid of the old vital nature is now one of the most pressing needs of your sadhana. You are trying to get rid of the vital attachments and to turn entirely to the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: At this juncture you must be careful not to allow the movements of the old vital nature to enter into your relations with the Mother. Take this matter of your wish for more physical nearness to her or contact with her. Take care not to allow this to gain on you or become a desire; for if you do, the vital will begin to play, to create demands and desires, to awake in you jealousy and envy of others and other undesirable movements, and that would push your psychic being into the background and spoil the whole truth of your sadhana. There are some who have suffered much trouble and difﬁculty in their Yoga by making this mistake, and I think it therefore better to put you on your guard.


Sri Aurobindo: If you cherish this attitude and these feelings, how can you progress? they are the very opposite of the needed faith and surrender.  Who are these who have constant outward help from the Mother — you speak as if all but you had it? The Mother sees a small number of people every day because they come here for work in the rooms () or to report work to her ( ). The Mother does not talk with these about Yoga, nor do they have meditations with her; they come for their work, speak about it and some general matters and go.


Sri Aurobindo: There are some like and who get a meditation perhaps once a week, others come for a few minutes perhaps once a fortnight — there is no ﬁxed period for any — or at long intervals, some see the Mother (apart from Pranam) once a year. For the constant outward help, the only way all these get it is by writing to the Mother or myself, just as you do.  If the Mother is not calling you, she has told you why; it is because each time you get upset; why should she call you only for you to be upset? She called you at your request a few days ago and now you are in this condition — worse than you have been for a long time — it has simply revived the old desire, repining, revolt. How is it that this happens if there is not desire, demand, wrong feeling mixed up with your physical approach to the Mother?


Sri Aurobindo: or why else should there be this feeling about others?  I have been trying to make you develop the psychic attitude, bring out the psychic being, look towards the Mother not with the old vital demand, but with the soul’s need, the psychic openness, conﬁdence, so that when you approach her physically it may be with the true openness that receives the light, the strength, the joy she tries to give to everybody. That is what is demanded now of those who approach her; the old vital way is now discouraged not only for you, but for all. Develop the psychic attitude and there will be no difﬁculty for your approaching her or for her calling you when it is needful. You were beginning to develop a capacity for feeling the inﬂuence.


Sri Aurobindo: Instead of falling back to the old mood and the old way, continue to develop that.  It is the only way and there is no other.  P. S. Do not allow any inﬂuences from people you mix with to upset you — I am speaking of any recent inﬂuence — e.g. from people who are dissatisﬁed and complaining that the Mother does not help them. It may be something of this kind has upset you without your noticing it.


Sri Aurobindo:   Do you think the other 120 people here have not the same wish — and what is the use of a non-pranam day if Mother has to see everyone who would like to come to her that day?


Sri Aurobindo: Mother has a very limited time for seeing people — she has so much to do. So it is only when there is a strong necessity that she sees except for those who have work to do with her.    What you propose about seeing the Mother at will is not physically practicable and wherever in a few cases it has been allowed in the past, the results have not been helpful. What you should do is to write every two days or so a few lines until the difﬁculty is over.


Sri Aurobindo: You must especially let me know about the sleep and the nervous condition. In fact you ought to have let me know at once. Although correspondence was stopped and still is till farther notice, I had said that important or necessary communications could be sent.


Sri Aurobindo: It is not because Mother does not care for you that she is not calling you — when she is sure that things are ready she will do it. But it is not possible immediately or soon. First, she does not want to bring up old difﬁculties — secondly, nowadays there are many difﬁculties and she is tired and does not feel like talking with people. You must wait till things are clear on all sides — they are not now.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is not a government and an interview is not pay. If it comes to a question of demand and supply or of interviews as a right and privilege, no sadhak would be satisﬁed with 3 or with 300.  There would be complaints, laments and revolts just as there are now. People would soon ﬁnd some other ground for accusing the Mother of partiality and injustice (the people who get the most interviews are generally those who revolt the most, though there are exceptions).


Sri Aurobindo: It is precisely this treating of the spiritual life as if it were a “government” or a court or a school (with places and marks and rewards and punishments) or a hostel or a mixture of all these and some other human institutions that has been the bane of this Asram. If it is to be a Government with Mother as President dealing out privileges, handshakes, pay, and what not on a principle of democratic equality or any other principle, then her only course would be to abdicate.  The number of interviews has nothing to do, by the way, with smallness or bigness of people, however the size may be reckoned . There are spiritually big people who get no interviews and spiritually small ones who get them.


Sri Aurobindo: The same would turn out to be the fact on any principle of smallness or bigness.  The only place where a satisfactory equality of treatment is possible — satisfactory to the human mind and vital — would be I think Nirvana or the Nihil of Sunyavadins.     All that is quite premature.


Sri Aurobindo: Big scale work can come only when there has been a great inner change in people and things also change.  The sadhana must not depend on physically seeing the Mother.  It is bound to go wrong if there is any such dependence. It is not without a reason that Mother has drawn back from seeing people.


Sri Aurobindo: It is obviously a wrong movement. When you get excited like that and under the sway of a persistent desire, it is already evident that it is a wrong movement — when it leads to a suggestion to go away if the desire is not conceded, then there can be no further doubt about it.  You ought to realise that the Mother knows better than you what is best for you and your sadhana. You must leave it to her to call you or not to call you. To let a desire like this seize you and insist on its satisfaction is not at all a right attitude.


Sri Aurobindo: Especially this strong insistence of a desire to insist on the Mother physically seeing them is a dangerous thing for any sadhak and has done harm to many. It means that some vital demand has got hold of them which wants to satisy itself and, if indulged, would remain dissatisﬁed and ask for more and more and revolt and make things impossible. The very fact that you talk of going home if Mother does not yield to your demand shows that it is such a demand that has awoke in you and is returning again and again — it is not a psychic aspiration, for the psychic aspiration always respects the judgment and will of the Mother. It is after long years of experience of the disastrous result of yielding to these vital demands that Mother has drawn back from them and now no longer sees many people whom she saw before. You must not expect her to go back upon her resolution so long as the vital of the sadhaks is not changed and clear of these demands and insistences.


Sri Aurobindo: You should throw this demand away and go on quietly with your sadhana.  The ﬁrst thing a Yogi should have is a constant inner peace and quiet and no excitement, no clamour of desires which he cannot control. You must arrive at that ﬁrst. Moreover as I have told you, it is the inner reality of the Mother’s presence and not only of her presence but of her control that must be now the aim of the sadhana. Any insistence on the outer thing is a departure from the true line and can only lead astray.


Sri Aurobindo: In all these matters it is the Divine Will that must rule and the will of the Guru.  Respect always the will and decision of the Mother.    What I said was that you should leave it entirely to the Mother to call you or not to call you.  I simply meant that her decision should be accepted whatever it is.


Sri Aurobindo: Since it is her decision not to have a private interview, that will should be accepted and you should not go on insisting on her calling you.     I have already answered often enough that you must not persist in these ideas — you must leave everything to the Mother.  The right path is the path on which the Mother’s will wants you to go, no other.


Sri Aurobindo:   No one is allowed freely inside the upstairs rooms except the few who work there; they can naturally come in within their working hours; but they do not take Mother’s time — they do their work and go away. No one else can enter the upstairs rooms except the meditation room and the small one where she receives people. There too those only can come who are called there and only for the time assigned to them, nor can they go about freely upstairs or do what they like. Everything is according to a strict obedience and discipline.


Sri Aurobindo: Mother did not stop seeing you merely because she had no time — though it is true that she has no time and is outworn and overstrained by excessive work, no rest and the sadhaks’ undue pressure and claims upon her. She stopped seeing you because your vital became entirely uncontrolled. She saw besides that the push to see her was associated with vital desires, impulses, suggestions, confusions and wrong movements and she decided that so long as it was so, so long as you had not freedom and complete control over your vital she could not call you. Not only with you but with others she saw that her freedom in giving interviews was having disastrous effects — for they were feeding their wrong vital movements on it and throwing these occultly upon her in such a way as to give themselves and her inﬁnite trouble and wear her out altogether. So she had to retire more and more and limit the interviews to a minimum, ceasing to see those who had this result from the interviews and admitting only those whom she could not stop altogether, but even they were reduced to a much smaller number of visits.


Sri Aurobindo: This is the present state of things and it will continue till there is a true freedom and vital calm and purity in the Asram atmosphere.  You must be aware yourself that the vital confusions and disturbances continue in you though in a reduced form and that you have not yet freedom and a settled control over your vital.  I had hoped that you would go on increasing the inner contact until you could get the constant inner nearness or presence, for when one has that then the vital becomes quiet and there is no longer the vital pressure and clamour for seeing the Mother; the psychic being rules and is content to leave all to the Mother, claiming nothing but what she permits, asking nothing that is not freely given by her will. Unfortunately the vital claim has risen again in you and this insistent demand. That it is wrong is shown by the very fact that you put before her this alternative, either that she shall see you or you will not stay here any longer.


Sri Aurobindo: There are others who have said that and Mother has always refused them. For she knows by experience that to yield to their demand solves nothing, — for their demands increase and grow more exacting and vehement, as it did with, until ﬁnally they lose their balance and the end is the same, — departure.  If you did not yield to these vital suggestions and if you were content with increasing the inner contact and increasing self-control and peace, then in time you would have the fullness of the sadhana and would ﬁnd life here well worth living. The push to go comes from an adverse Force that is trying to make people depart from the Asram — but none who have gone as yet have found peace or satisfaction outside.


Sri Aurobindo: As usual when this Force seizes you, your statements against the Mother are unfounded. As regards your interview it was understood that you wanted to see her once before the 15th.  Mother had ﬁxed one day, but as you had a cold I suggested to her that you would not enjoy very much coming under such circumstances. After that her days were full, but she had not forgotten, for your name is there in her book put down for the 6th August. As regards — like is called by the Mother alone and for sadhana only once a year for a short time.


Sri Aurobindo: They both come daily to her, not for sadhana, not for personal talk, but for work (sometimes also the explanation of a French sentence) and along with two or three others — not for 2 hours, but for one at the maximum, and that hour, even when it is an hour, is not taken up by him alone but by all those present in turn, each in turn giving his report and receiving his instructions.   might much more justly complain that he gets a word or a letter for his sadhana hardly once a year and a single word or a letter would be of much more value to him than a hundred talks about business — and that we were giving one thousand times more help to [] and others than is given to him. Luckily for us he does not complain nor the others either.  But each is inclined to despise what he gets and demand what he thinks is denied to him and given to another.


Sri Aurobindo:   Mental instructions are not of much use. The condition has to grow in peace and light and clarity till the higher consciousness can act continuously and perfectly.    This method of asking questions and getting solutions in an interview is one of which the Mother does not approve.


Sri Aurobindo: She ﬁnds it useless and it forces her to come down to meet a superﬁcial mental consciousness which she has long left.    The Mother did not say Yes [].  Nothing could be worse for you than your making your condition depend on your physically seeing the Mother whenever you wanted it. It would create altogether a wrong relation.


Sri Aurobindo: It must depend on an inner nearness to the Mother, on your always being able to receive her force so as to throw away both desire and illness. That is the true basis of the union with the Mother.  Otherwise, all the help you can receive you get at Pranam and the evening meditation. For the rest, for the Mother calling you for a personal interview, you must leave that to her. Her time is already ﬁlled up


Sri Aurobindo: and she is overburdened with work day and night , — if she has to make farther time for everybody who wants to see her whenever they want it, things would become quite impossible.  The Mother cannot see him; she is not seeing anyone from outside now. He can be told that he must ﬁrst try to know something about Yoga before anything can be given him; he must know and be in a position to decide with knowledge whether Yoga is really the thing he wants.


Sri Aurobindo: He can read the books and come back for darshan in February.     About these people outside, you must make it a rule not to give them hopes of Yoga or seeing the Mother — it will only raise expectations that have to be disappointed. Even if the Mother were seeing people from outside, what would be the earthly use of her seeing these old ladies on the way to heaven or these young girls on the way to marriage?


Sri Aurobindo: All that is not serious. But even apart from that, Mother does not see people and she has no intention of changing her rule. So you must never say anything without previously asking — and in most cases it is useless even to ask. As for Pranam, Mother has stopped giving permissions — there are too many people already. As owing to these cases you will be meeting many people, you must resist all temptation and remain deaf to requests for interviews, Pranam or Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: About the birthdays. There is a rhythm (one among many) in the play of the world-forces which is connected with the sun and planets. That makes the birthday a day of possible renewal when the physical being is likely more plastic. It is for this reason that Mother sees people on their birthdays.


Sri Aurobindo:  It is not a question of a physical birthday or of the body — it is taken as an occasion for opening a new year of life with a growing new birth within. That is the meaning in which the Mother takes the birthday.  Why should you decide beforehand that your birthday is spoiled? You have only to throw off all these undesirable ideas and feelings which proceed from a still imperfectly puriﬁed part of the external being and take the right attitude which you should always have when you come to the Mother. There should be no idea of what others have or have not — your relation is between the Mother and yourself and has nothing to do with others.


Sri Aurobindo: Nothing should exist for you but yourself and the Divine — yourself receiving, her forces ﬂowing into you.  To secure that better, do not spend the time at your disposal in speech — especially if anything of the depression remains with you, it will waste the time in discussing things which cannot help the true consciousness to predominate. Concentrate, open yourself and let the Mother bring you back to the psychic condition by what she will pour into you in meditation and silence.


Sri Aurobindo: That is all right then. Mother will give what you want.


Sri Aurobindo: If you feel so — but it can be no more than the seed of a new birth, for it has to be realised by a greater inner opening.    It is what we call growing conscious — a perception of which the base is the psychic though it may take place in the mind or vital or physical. No doubt the Force that woke it up came from the Mother.  It shows at least that your contact with the Mother’s consciousness is perfectly spontaneous and genuine.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother puts out her Force on all in the meditation and the intensity of your meditation shows that you receive it — as soon as she ceases, the dynamic pressure lightens and your meditation lightens with it. It is certainly a good sign, a good seed of the responsiveness that is necessary.   Aspire at the time — they will of themselves be open to the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: You can receive the Light at all times — even if less concretely than in the physical presence.    Very good. The Force usually works in that way with interruptions and returns growing each time stronger and fuller.   It means the whole mind was liberated for a while from imprisonment in the body sense and became free in the passivity of the wider Self.


Sri Aurobindo:   When I spoke of the inner mind of the Asram, I was only using a succinct expression for the “minds of the members of the Asram” and I was not thinking of the collective mind of the group. But the action of the Mother in the meditation is at once collective and individual. She is trying to bring down the right consciousness in the atmosphere of the Asram — for the action of the minds and vital of the sadhaks does create a general atmosphere.


Sri Aurobindo: She has taken this meditation in the evening as a brief period in which all is concentrated in the sole force of the descending Power. The sadhaks must feel that they are there only to concentrate, only to receive, only to be open to the Mother and nothing else matters.


Sri Aurobindo: About the meditation and the seat, the Mother gives this meditation for bringing down the true light and consciousness into the sadhaks. She does not want it to be turned into a formality and she does not want any personal questions to arise there. It should be solely a meditation and concentration without personal or other desires or claims or ideas rising there and interfering with her object. That is why there can be no ﬁxing of seats or other considerations having nothing to do with the sadhana.


Sri Aurobindo: It is the pressure of the Force on the physical consciousness which produces that result of inwardness, though the translation of it into sleepiness can only be a transitory failing of the physical consciousness which is accustomed to associate inwardgoing with sleep. There is no reason why you should not do it usually if you ﬁnd that suitable.  It is natural that it should be so as the Mother when she concentrates on the inner work is accustomed spontaneously to spread her consciousness over the whole Asram. So to anyone who is sensitive, it must be felt anywhere in the Asram, though perhaps more strongly in the nearer houses on an occasion like the evening meditation.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is simply a bad habit of the mind, a wrong activity. It is not in the least useful for the mind to ask or try to determine what the Mother wills or is bringing — that only interferes. It has simply to remain quiet and concentrated and leave the Power to act.


Sri Aurobindo:    What Mother would


Sri Aurobindo: like you to do is to come to the Meditation and Pranam putting aside all feelings of ego, anger, quarrel with others, demand for this or that, thinking only of your sadhana and making yourself quiet to receive from her the only things that are really precious and needful.     It is not by the physical presence but by the Mother’s concentration at the time of Meditation which brings the quiet to those who can receive it.


Sri Aurobindo: All that is in place in ordinary meditation, so long as there is not the complete silence of the mind and the automatic action in the silence. But the quiet mind is entirely necessary if you meditate with the Mother. Otherwise the mind goes on with its activities on its own lines and cannot be conscious of or receptive to the Mother’s movement.  No one should look upon the Pranam either as a formal routine or an obligatory ceremony or think himself under any compulsion to come there. The object of the Pranam is not that sadhaks should offer a formal or ritual daily homage to the Mother, but that the sadhaks may receive along with the Mother’s blessings whatever spiritual help or inﬂuence they are in a condition to receive or assimilate.


Sri Aurobindo: It is important to maintain a quiet and collected atmosphere for that purpose.    The Mother wants you to say to that if he feels any reluctance or any other contrary feeling in making Pranam, he must remember that there is no to come — for him or anyone else.  He must feel himself perfectly free not to come, if he does not want.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Mother gives in both ways. Through the eyes it is to the psychic, through the hand to the material.   You are quite right in that. Otherwise the Mother would not be here in a body.


Sri Aurobindo: You have a soul and a beautiful one. Only it was covered up and not looking out through the instruments — now it is coming to the surface and all that will change.    Not from the ordinary overmind, but from the Power above it.  Naturally the overmind has to be used as a channel.


Sri Aurobindo:   You have to develop the inner intuitive response ﬁrst — i.e. to think and perceive less with the mind and more with the inner consciousness. Most people do everything with the mind and how can the mind know? The mind depends on the senses for its knowledge.  Mental.


Sri Aurobindo: The mountain is the symbol of the ascent from the lower to the higher. The white light is the Mother’s light, the light of the Divine Consciousness descending from the heights.     She does so every time, only today you not only received but were consciously receptive.


Sri Aurobindo:   That is of course the psychic depth and the psychic ﬁre.    It was some feeling of aspiration in the vital. But the form is exaggerated.


Sri Aurobindo: The body has not to be crushed to pieces but puriﬁed and made into a body in which the Divine can dwell.  If you wept this time and not on the other occasions, it was because you were more open — more ready for the psychic being to rise to the surface. The Mother has noticed in this respect a great progress in you and what you felt today was the sign of this opening.    Quite a wrong idea.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother’s contact is there all the day and the night also. If one keeps the right contact with her inwardly all day, the Pranam will bear its right fruit, for you will be in the right condition to receive. To make the whole day depend upon the Pranam, the whole inner attitude depend on the most outer aspect of the outer contact is to turn the whole thing topsy-turvy.  It is the fundamental mistake made by the physical mind and vital which is the cause of the whole trouble.


Sri Aurobindo:  Naturally, when there is not the opening they will feel nothing, for the consciousness will not respond — the Force then works behind the veil to prepare things, but gives no immediate visible result.   The Mother deals with each one in a different way, according to their need and their nature, not according to any ﬁxed mental rule. It would be absurd for her to do the same thing with everybody as if all were machines which had to be touched and handled in the same way. It does not at all mean that she has more affection for one than for another or those she touches in a particular way are better sadhaks or less so. The sadhaks think in that way because they are full of ignorance and ego.


Sri Aurobindo: Instead of thinking whether the Mother favours one more or the other less, comparing and watching what she does, they ought to be concerned at Pranam with only their own spiritual reception of her inﬂuence. Pranam is for that and not for these other things which have nothing to do with sadhana.  Jealousy and envy are things common to human nature, but these are the very things that a sadhak ought to throw out of himself. Otherwise why is he a sadhak at all? He is supposed to be here for seeking the Divine — but in the seeking for the Divine, jealousy, envy, anger, etc. have no place.


Sri Aurobindo: They are movements of the ego and can only create obstacles to the union with the Divine.  It is much better to remember that one is seeking for the Divine and make that the whole governing idea and aim of the life. It is that which pleases the Mother more than anything else; these jealousies and envies and competitions for her favour can only displease and distress her.    The reason of the difference in approaching the Mother is that formerly you came to her with your external being, external mind and vital and in your vital there were things it did not want the Mother to see or change or else it felt uncomfortable under the pressure of the Mother’s force at pranam, because that was a pressure on it to change.


Sri Aurobindo: But now you are approaching the Mother with your soul and that brings with it the true feeling and true relation it has always had with the Mother. Besides, your mind and vital — even the outer mind and vital — are now open and willing and glad to share in the true psychic feeling and relation.  The heaviness in the head due to the pressure is pleasant and not harmful because it is due to the higher force pressing down and bringing into the head something of the substance of the higher consciousness.    If there is an obstacle at pranam, it must be something wrong in the attitude — perhaps the old error of expecting some outward sign of love, approval or favour from the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: The pranam is not for that, but for receiving from her inwardly through the meditation and through the pranam itself. Nothing must be demanded — the consciousness must be surrendered and quiet to receive what she thinks best to give.    I think it is better for you not to come to the Mother just now, until you have found the true inner poise. At the present time it is far better for all not to come to her as a routine, but only when the being is open and ready to receive.


Sri Aurobindo: She wants to show you nothing; it has nothing to do with the doings or misdoings of the sadhaks. Pranam is not intended for watching the Mother’s expression or what she does with this one or that one or in what way she smiles or with how much of her hand she blesses — the sadhaks’ preoccupation with these things is childish and for the most part full of mistaken inferences, imaginations, often curiosity, desire for gossip, criticism etc. Such a state of mind is a hindrance, not a help to sadhana.  The proper attitude is one of self-dedication and simple and straightforward receptivity to what the Mother wishes to give, an undisturbed and undisturbing openness to her working in the being.


Sri Aurobindo:  Many of the sadhaks are in the habit of thinking Mother is displeased, not smiling at them, angry when it is quite otherwise.  This usually happens when their own consciousness is not at peace or when they are thinking or conscious of faults or wrong movements or wrong acts that they may have done. The idea that the Mother is angry is an imagination; if there is anything not as usual, it is in the sadhak himself and not in the Mother.


Sri Aurobindo: I suppose the shrinking and repulsion were in yourself? for there was none and could be none in the Mother. It must be some part in yourself (physical consciousness perhaps?) that is not in the Light and may not want to be.


Sri Aurobindo: All fear ought to be cast out. This movement of fear belongs to a still unchanged part of the vital which answers to the old ideas, feelings and reactions. Its only effect is to make you misinterpret the Mother’s attitude or the intention in her words or looks or expression. If the Mother becomes serious or has an ironic smile, that does not in the least mean that she is angry or has withdrawn her affection; on the contrary, it is with those with whom she is most inwardly intimate that she feels most free to become like that — even to give them severe chidings. They in their turn understand her and do not get upset or afraid, — they only turn to look inside themselves and see what it is on which she is putting her pressure.


Sri Aurobindo: That pressure they regard as a privilege and a sign of her grace. Fear stands in the way of this complete intimacy and conﬁdence and creates only misunderstanding; you must cast it out altogether.   There is no chance of the Mother giving you the “look” you fear. On your side do not imagine one when it is not there — any number of people are still doing that.  At the time it so happened that the Mother gave you a smile of welcome and approval, but she felt someone saying, “He will not notice that you have smiled” — it was the hostile formation.


Sri Aurobindo: This is how they work — by this kind of obscuration to blind the mind and senses ﬁrst and on the basis of a wrong observation or failure of observation build up suggestions of a depressing or disturbing character. It happens to many sadhaks at pranam time to make this kind of mistake about the Mother’s smile or expression and to worry themselves thinking she is displeased with them. This is a kind of deception against which one must be on one’s guard and such suggestions must always be rejected.   You should certainly throw away the vital demand and the disturbance which it creates in your sadhana. Mother gives her smile to all and she does not withhold it from some and give it to others.


Sri Aurobindo: When people think otherwise, it is because some vital disturbance, depression or demand or some movement of jealousy, envy or competition distorts their vision.     Don’t start having that idea. It is quite untrue and those who indulge it raise vital reactions and imaginations in themselves and provoke much unnecessary trouble.


Sri Aurobindo: It is in yourself that there is the variation — not of the psychic being which is always all right, but of the rest, mind, vital or body.    Your idea about Mother’s mysterious smile is your own imagination — Mother says that she smiled with the utmost kindness and took the most helpful attitude possible towards you. I had written to you already that you must not put these erroneous imaginations between yourself and the Mother; for they push the help given away from you. These imaginations and their effect on you


Sri Aurobindo: are suggested by the same vital forces that are disturbing you so that you may not get free from the disturbance.  My help and the Mother’s help are there — you have only to keep yourself open to it to recover.   These things ought to be entirely rejected. When they rise they often twist the consciousness so much as to falsify sometimes the vision itself and always the feeling. The Mother has observed constantly that the people on whom she has smiled tell her she has been glowering and severe or that she has been displeased, when there was no displeasure in her and then on the strength of that they go wrong altogether.


Sri Aurobindo:   Your mistake is to ﬁnd a “censorious touch” in the smile where there is none. When the Mother extended her forgiveness — which meant there was something to forgive, her judgment was founded on your own letters. You seem to think that the Mother in some way condemned you and was partial to the others.


Sri Aurobindo: Her view was that all were in the wrong and each had need of forgiveness — and each asked for and had it.  How is it that your mind still returns on these things instead of going forward to the difﬁcult spiritual change? The Mother had put them behind her, for a thing repented is a thing abolished. Be assured that there was no remembrance of them in her smile or her attitude towards you.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a mistake to think that the Mother’s not smiling means either displeasure or disapproval of something wrong in the sadhak. It is very often merely a sign of absorption or inner concentration.  On this occasion Mother was putting a question to your soul.    Yes.


Sri Aurobindo: There has to be no disturbance when it does not come (knowing that its absence is not a sign of displeasure or anything of the kind) — then the Ananda of receiving it will be purer.    On that day Mother did not smile at anybody. It was not personal to you. A particular Power was acting in her which did not act in the ordinary way.


Sri Aurobindo:   It is usually imagination or impression, at least that has been seen in most cases. When the Mother does not smile, it is not from displeasure but in almost every case from some reason not connected with any action of the sadhak, but either from absorption or concentration on something that is being done.  As you say, it does not matter — what is important is to receive what has to be received.


Sri Aurobindo: It is a very strange logic. Even among those who have made the most progress or been always the closest to the Mother, this or similar feelings still recur. It is not that they have not to be overcome, but to argue from their persistence that one is unﬁt to stay here is to make a large conclusion on a very small basis. This is again the kind of suggestion that comes in from the surrounding physical Ignorance. Things like these last so obstinately because they have become habits or recurrent feelings in the external physical being; they will disappear when the external being becomes ﬁlled with the Mother’s light.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Mother has been always specially careful in your case not to show displeasure or censure of any kind to you. To the others also she smiles always in the same way, for she knows the consequences to herself if she does not. But in spite of that, even when she smiles most kindly, they write to her that she has shown displeasure, withheld her smile, smiled in an ironical or blasting way, that they will commit suicide, go away etc. etc. The whole thing has become most intolerable and if the Pranam is to be nothing but an occasion for this kind of thing, it is better the Pranam should cease.


Sri Aurobindo:   There are no special sort of things — demand and desire can cover all things whatsoever — they are subjective, not objective and have no special form. Demand is when you claim something to get or possess, desire is a general term. If one expects that the Mother shall smile at him at the Pranam and feels wronged if one does not get it, that is a demand.


Sri Aurobindo: If one wants it and grieves at not getting it, but without revolt or sense of an unjust deprivation that shows desire. If one feels joy at her smile, but remains calm in its absence knowing that all the Mother does is good, then there is no demand or desire.  Why not? The Mother cannot be serious, absorbed, drawn into herself? Or do you think it is only displeasure against the sadhaks that can make her so?


Sri Aurobindo:   All this about the Mother’s smile and her gravity is simply a trick of the vital. Very often I notice people talk of the Mother’s being grave, stern, displeased, angry at Pranam when there has been nothing of the kind — they have attributed to her something created by their own vital imagination. Apart from that, the Mother’s smiling or not smiling has nothing to do with the sadhak’s merits or demerits, ﬁtness or unﬁtness — it is not deliberately done as a reward or a punishment.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother smiles on all without regard to these things. When she does not smile, it is because she is either in trance, or absorbed, or concentrated on something within the sadhak that needs her attention — something that has to be done for him or brought down or looked at. It does not mean that there is anything bad or wrong in him. I have told this a hundred times to any number of sadhaks — but in many the vital does not want to accept that because it would lose its main source of grievance, revolt, abhiman, desire to go away or give up the Yoga, things which are very precious to it. The very fact that it has these results and leads to nothing but these darknesses ought to be enough to show you that this imagination about Mother’s not smiling as a sign of absence of her grace or love is a device and suggestion of the Adversary.


Sri Aurobindo: You have to drive away these things and give some chance for the psychic with its deeper and truer love and surrender to come forward and take up the Adhar as its kingdom.    The whole foundation of the difﬁculty is erroneous. It is the wrong idea that if Mother is serious it must be because of some personal displeasure against “me” — each sadhak who complains of being the “me”. I have repeated a hundred times to complaints that it is not so, but nobody will give up this idea — it is too precious to the ego.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother’s seriousness is due to some absorption in some work she is doing or, very often, to some strong attack of hostile forces in the atmosphere.   It does not matter whether you feel any attack or not — the attack is there. In fact for the last several months the atmosphere is full of the most violent attacks threatening the very existence of the Yoga and the Asram and the sadhaks personally or the body of the Mother. If you are not touched that is a matter for which you ought to be grateful to the Mother instead of your vital getting upset because she is doing her work.  So long as you do not get rid of this silly illusion about the Mother’s “seriousness”, this kind of thing can always recur.


Sri Aurobindo: I have told everyone the truth about it, that it is their own minds which wrongly think the Mother is serious and displeased with them. It is under the pressure of a Force of Falsehood that wants them to get upset and to destroy their peace and set them against the Mother that these things come. Yet you all go on still listening to the Force of Falsehood. It is only when you reject the falsehood that you will be free from these troubles.


Sri Aurobindo: The idea is absolutely without foundation. It is the constant illusion that the sadhaks are getting that the Mother is displeased with them, that they have done something wrong or said or written something wrong and therefore she is severe or distant, that her expression or her action shows it etc. Very often they think this even when she smiles on them most kindly. It is a purely subjective feeling generated by some difﬁculty in themselves. The Mother is not displeased with people because they have difﬁculties; it is only a reason for giving more of her help and support.


Sri Aurobindo: All these ideas you speak of are suggestions generated by the adverse pressure on you. You can rely always on the Mother’s Grace and you may be perfectly sure that we shall not throw you off — our support will be always with you.    There was certainly no such idea in Mother’s mind. People have that idea because it is an old and rooted one in their minds and it is true that at one time it had some meaning when Mother was dealing with the vital difﬁculties of the sadhaks.


Sri Aurobindo: But now it is different. At the present stage of descent into the physical the Mother is meeting all with a large equanimity, tolerating all the mistakes of the sadhaks and only bringing an inner pressure, supporting all with her force as much as they will allow her. This has been so for a considerable time past — but the physical mind of the sadhaks does not ﬁnd it easy to accept the change and they seek for expressions and interpretations that are not there.


Sri Aurobindo: This is farther complicated by the fact that now the Mother has little time to rest or sleep — and when it is like that she goes easily into trance at Pranam and when in trance she may in her body forget to smile or give the blessing etc. It is why I have had to warn people that they must not misinterpret these things.     Certainly, there is not and cannot be any truth in such suggestions.


Sri Aurobindo: Neither displeasure nor coldness are possible and throwing off is too absurd even to be considered. It is the attempt of the forces to set in vibration certain feelings habitual to the human vital — and it is a phenomenon that is constantly seen in the sadhana that when all substantial or even plausible reason is taken away from these vibrations, they are thrown upon the vital without any apparent cause or justifying reason by mere force of habitual response to some covert or subconscious stimulus. The one thing to do is to detach oneself at once or as soon as possible and see it for what it is and throw it off with decision.


Sri Aurobindo: Certainly they can and the mind can distort still farther. There are any number of people who have written to the Mother that she did not smile and was ﬁerce and severe when she had been most kind and smiling to them, knowing that they were in trouble. There have been hundreds of cases in which people have heard the opposite of what she said and refused to believe otherwise until or unless others who had been present told them they were mistaken. Note that they did not believe the Mother’s denial, but at once believed other sadhaks when they conﬁrmed the Mother. We have singular disciples!


Sri Aurobindo: As for the mind twisting and misinterpreting the Mother’s looks, speech, action, that is so ordinary and everyday that it hardly needs mention, so if you are going to trust your mind and senses so absolutely, you will go on mistaking the Mother to the end of the chapter. It is only the psychic being that can know and understand her.   It is a great pity you allowed the thought that the Mother was severe with you to come in and throw you down. These thoughts are never true and whenever a sadhak indulges them, he is always invaded by the old movements. The Mother’s love and kindness have always been the same and will always remain the same to you, so you should never accept this idea that she is displeased or severe.


Sri Aurobindo: But whatever the mistakes or the difﬁculties, our help will be with you and the Mother’s force will work to bring you out and get you back the psychic openness and peace which you had for many days this time and which is bound to return and become permanent after a while.     I do not at all understand why you should think that the Mother was displeased with you for any reason whatever. She was just as she is always with you.


Sri Aurobindo: Even if you had made any mistake, the Mother now is disposed to overlook mistakes and leave it to the pressure of the Light and the psychic being of the sadhak to set things right. But why on earth should she be displeased because you wanted to stop the French lessons with or for any such trivial reason! Whether you continue or suspend your lessons is a detail which has to be settled in accordance with the condition of your mind and the needs of your sadhana and it can be settled either way. It is surprising that you should think Mother could show displeasure over so slight a matter.  You must get over a nervousness of this kind and not disturb your good condition by imaginations — for it is an imagination, since it had no reality behind it.


Sri Aurobindo: Have a more perfect conﬁdence and do not let your mind create difﬁculties where there are none.     Understand once for all that Mother is not using the Pranam to show her pleasure and displeasure; it is not meant for that purpose. The only circumstance under which Mother’s attitude at Pranam is likely to be inﬂuenced by the actions of the sadhak is when there is some great betrayal or a violent breach of the main rules of spiritual life such as an act of sexual intercourse or when the sadhak has become pointedly hostile to the Mother and the Yoga.


Sri Aurobindo: But then it is not a special show of displeasure at Pranam, but a withdrawal of the gift of grace which is quite a different matter.  It is a great mistake. We are persistently correcting it, but a legend has been formed and people cling to it.


Sri Aurobindo: I do not think your reasoning that you were in the physical consciousness and therefore the observation of the physical fact [] is likely to be correct is very sound. The physical consciousness is full of impressions and that they are not entirely reliable has begun to be more and more recognised  — it is the reason why the statements of different people about the same physical fact differ widely. Especially when there is a depression or a pressure of adverse forces the impression given to the senses is often distorted or modiﬁed in the sense of the depression or of the suggestion made — of that we have had innumerable instances .


Sri Aurobindo: But apart from that it is a mistake to measure the power of the blessing by these details. I have known instances in which the Mother omitted to put her hand at all on the head of a sadhak and yet the force was felt double of what he or she usually received. That was because the Mother was very concentrated and putting a full force out. Even so a ﬁnger on the head with a strong power put out may mean much more than the full hand on the head with less in the touch.   The obsession about the smile and touch has to be overcome and rejected because it has become an instrument of the contrary Forces to upset the sadhaks and hamper their progress.


Sri Aurobindo: I have seen any number of cases in which the sadhak is going on well or even having high experiences and change of consciousness and suddenly this imagination comes across and all is confusion, revolt, sorrow, despair and the inner work is interrupted and endangered. In most cases this attack brings with it a sensory delusion so that even if the Mother smiles more than usual or gives the blessing with all her force, she is told, “You did not smile, you did not touch” or “you hardly touched”. There have been any number of instances of that also — the Mother telling me, “I saw X disturbed or else a suggestion coming towards him and I gave him my kindest smile and blessing”, and yet afterwards we get a letter afﬁrming just the contrary, “You did not smile etc.” And you are all ready to give the Mother the lie, because you felt, you saw and your senses cannot be deceived! As if a mind disturbed does not twist the sense observation also!


Sri Aurobindo: as if it were not a common fact of psychology that one constantly gets an impression according to his mood or thought! Even if the smile or touch were less, it should not be the cause of such upheavals, if there is not an intention in it and there is no intention at all as we have constantly warned all of you. Of course the cause is that the sadhaks apply the movements of a vital human love to the Mother and the ordinary vital human love is full of contrary movements of distrust, misunderstanding, jealousy, anger, despair. But in Yoga this is most undesirable — for here trust in the Mother, faith in her divine Love is of great importance; anything that denies or disturbs it opens the door to obstacles and wrong reactions. It is not that there should be no love in the vital, but it must purify itself of these reactions and ﬁx itself on the psychic being’s trust and conﬁdent self-giving.


Sri Aurobindo: Then there can be the full progress.    Yes, it is the insatiable demand of the vital and when the vital is up reason gets no chance. It was the experience of this insatiable demand that made the Mother draw back and retire from the free outward self-giving she had begun. The more she gave, the more was demanded and the more dissatisﬁed people became and each was jealous of the others — life was becoming impossible and sadhana was certainly not proﬁting!


Sri Aurobindo:   The ego acts according to these things when it dominates; when it does not dominate or is not present, then these motives can have no effect. The whole question is whether ego leads or something else leads. If the higher consciousness leads, then even if the Mother does not smile or put her hand at all, there will be no egoistic reaction. Once the Mother did that with a sadhika, being herself in trance — the result was that the sadhika got a greater force and Ananda than she had ever got when the Mother put her hand fully.


Sri Aurobindo:   All this idea about the Mother’s looks and her hand in the blessing which is current in the Asram is perfectly irrational, false, even imbecile. I have a hundred times written to people that the whole thing is wrong and rests on a false suggestion of the adverse forces made in order to create a disturbance. The Mother does not refrain from smiling or vary her smile or her manner of blessing in order to show displeasure or because of anything the sadhak has done. She does not, as certain people annoyingly believe, dose out her smiles or blessings in such a way as to assign a number of marks for each sadhak according to his good behaviour or bad behaviour.


Sri Aurobindo: These variations are  intended to assign a competitive place to each sadhak, as to schoolboys in a class. All these ideas are absolutely absurd, trivial and unspiritual. The Asram is not a schoolboys’ class nor is the Yoga a competitive examination. All this is the creation of the narrow physical mind and vital ego and desire. If the sadhaks want to get a true basis and make true progress, they must get these ideas out of their minds altogether.


Sri Aurobindo: Yet they cling obstinately to it in spite of all I can write, so dear is this falsehood to their mind. You must get rid of it altogether. At the Pranam the Mother puts her force to help the sadhak — what he ought to do is to receive quietly and simply, not to spoil the occasion by these foolish ideas and by watching who gets more of her hand or smile and who gets less. All that must go.  No, it means only that these days there are nearly 140 people and Mother has to do it quickly — otherwise Pranam would not end.


Sri Aurobindo:   Why should you think that Mother will be angry? We have ourselves told you to write everything frankly and conceal nothing — so there is not the least likelihood that she will resent what you write. Moreover she knows perfectly well the difﬁculties of the sadhana and of human nature and, if there is goodwill and a sincere aspiration such as you have, any stumblings or falterings of the moment will not make any difference in her attitude to the sadhak.


Sri Aurobindo: The Mother thinks you must have had a wrong impression about her putting her hand just a little only — for she was just the same with you inwardly as always and there had been no reason why there should be any change.   If the Mother does not put her hand on the head in Pranam, it does not mean that she is displeased — it may have quite other causes. People have this idea but they are quite mistaken. Some time ago the Mother failed to put her hand on the head of a sadhika at Pranam for two days. People mocked at her and looked down at her.


Sri Aurobindo: As a matter of fact she was having remarkable realisations and getting more power from the Mother at Pranam than on ordinary days. The whole idea is an error.    There was no intention. It has happened with others but always when Mother was in trance or absorbed within.


Sri Aurobindo: It does not in the least depend on the condition of the sadhak and has no meaning against him.     It is true that you take too long in the Pranam — Mother gave you several hints but you did not seem to understand. If it were not for the overlong time taken by the Pranam with so many people, Mother would not mind — but it is becoming impossible because people take so long in coming to make their pranam.


Sri Aurobindo: It is better if you take only a short time. The power of the blessing does not depend on the length of the pranam made.    It is entirely untrue that Mother was pushing you away today.  There may be days when she is absorbed and therefore physically inattentive to what her hand is doing.


Sri Aurobindo: But today she was specially attentive to you and at the Pranam she was putting force on you for peace, tranquillity and the removal of the difﬁculty. If she at all acted by the palm or anything else, it was for that she was acting. About this there can be no mistake, for she was specially conscious of her action and purpose today. What must have happened was that something must have felt the pressure and intervened and persuaded your physical mind by suggestion that it was she was pushing away, not the difﬁculty. This is a very clear instance of how easy it is for the sadhaks to make a wrong inference and think that the Mother is doing the very opposite of what she is doing.


Sri Aurobindo: Very often when she has concentrated most to help them by pressing out their difﬁculties, they have written to her, “You were very severe and displeased with me this morning.” The only way to avoid these wrong reactions is to have full psychic conﬁdence in the Mother, believing that all she does is for their good and out of the Divine Mother’s care for them and not against them. Then nothing of this kind will happen. Those who do that, can get the full help of her concentration even if in her absorption she does not touch the head or smile. That is why I have constantly told the sadhaks not to put their own interpretations on the Mother’s appearance or actions at the Pranam — because these interpretations may always be wrong and make an opening for an unfounded depression and an attack.


Sri Aurobindo:   Too much demand in people’s minds so that the Mother seldom feels free to do what is best. Pranam and the rest have their importance, but they ought not to feel upset or frustrated by the smallest change. Each ought to learn to have a sufﬁcient inner life and inner connection to fall back on that whenever the outer is changed or interrupted.


Sri Aurobindo:   Mother put her hand just as usual. Not only so, but as she saw your condition needed special help, she tried to give it. But when you are in this condition, it is unfortunate that you are so much occupied with the feeling of misery as to feel nothing else, nothing that does not minister to or increase the misery.  Support you always have; there is absolutely no reason why we should withhold it.


Sri Aurobindo: If anyone is in serious trouble in this Asram, that falls on us and most on the Mother — so it is absurd to suppose that we should take pleasure in anyone suffering. Suffering, illness, vital storms (lusts, revolts, angers) are so many contradictions of what we are striving for and therefore obstacles to our work. To end them as soon as possible is the only will we can have, not to keep them in existence.  If you could only acquire the power to detach yourself somewhere in you when these storms come, not to be swept away by the push or the thoughts that rise! Then there would be something that could feel the support and be able to react against these forces.


Sri Aurobindo:   It was not because of any fault of yours that the Mother gave only a short blessing; she has to do that for all who come at the beginning because they need to go quickly to their work. If you want a longer blessing, you must come afterwards. But, when you have to come early, you can get as much out of the Mother’s short blessing, if you are quiet and open.


Sri Aurobindo: It is possible to receive, but not in the same way. There is an element, a touch on the physical consciousness that is wanting.     There is always a touch coming from the Mother at pranam, one has to be conscious and open only to receive it.


Sri Aurobindo:   It shows that the subtle physical is growing conscious and felt the touch and blessings of the Mother which is always there.     Obviously, the time has nothing to do with it.


Sri Aurobindo: One hour’s touch or a moment’s touch — as much can be done by the one as by the other.     It is because you have lived in your outer and not in your inner being that it is like that. But unless you open to the inner touch, the inner being cannot develop.


Sri Aurobindo: I mean by the inner being the inner mind, the inner vital, the inner physical, the inner psychic.     The inner touch is the Mother’s inﬂuence felt in the inner being.  You did not feel it because the inner being was not awake to it — it felt only the results — and these results were not experiences in the inner being itself but of the Self above.


Sri Aurobindo: Simply to put the power indicated upon you if you are willing to receive it. It is a progress suggested and offered.     As regards what you say retrospectively about the giving of ﬂowers, there were there two mistakes, (1) The one you have yourself seen; you should accept what the Mother sees to be best and most helpful, not judging by your own standard, as it is she alone who has the right knowledge about those things.


Sri Aurobindo: (2) Never base yourself or your idea of the Mother and her actions on what others say — as when they told you you had wrong ﬂowers. How can they judge or know? Their utterances may be the result of very wrong judgments and their statements may be misstatements.  Now that you have seen the right thing, go by the way I have indicated to you, the way of conﬁdence and true self-giving.


Sri Aurobindo:   The Divine Help was put inside the ﬂower of faith — when that is done, the two ﬂowers form a single idea = faith in Divine Help.  The meaning was simply that these are the conditions for the realisation in the Yoga — devotion, faith in Divine help, resolution, mental sincerity, peace in the vital — if these are there, the realisation will come.


Sri Aurobindo: It is meant to help the realisation of the thing the ﬂower stands for.     When giving the Bhakti ﬂower, it is the power of Bhakti, the possibility of it that Mother offers to you — if you can open yourself and receive it.


Sri Aurobindo:   There is no ﬁxed rule — sometimes it is the one, sometimes the other. But even when the thing is given, it is given in power — it has to be realised by the sadhak in consciousness and for that aspiration is necessary.    “Vital purity” is also a ﬂower of good signiﬁcance expressing a very high thing.


Sri Aurobindo: When the Mother gives a ﬂower like that, she gives the Force along with it. But you must receive the force, not think about people’s opinion of you or your prestige with them which is a thing not worth a thought.     When the Mother gives a ﬂower, she gives the power of the thing it means — if the sadhak is ready or willing to receive it, he can do so.


Sri Aurobindo:   Obviously not — the mind chooses according to likings or fancies or else to some mental idea of what should be; the Mother chooses by intuitive observation or else an inspiration of what is needed.


Sri Aurobindo: Why on earth do you get these ﬁts of comparison and measurement? They are quite foreign to Mother’s thoughts or intention.  She did not choose at all in giving to the sadhaks, — all were mixed together, whatever came to her hand she gave.


Sri Aurobindo: All these ideas are formations in your own mind and suggestions from a wrong force. It is the usual trick of certain forces to represent the Mother as a sort of malignant and insincere tyrant taking a pleasure in disturbing and torturing people and lying to them at every step. I wonder that a clear mind like yours should get so clouded as not to see the trick or fail to perceive that if she is like that she cannot be the Mother. But the singularity is that such ideas seem to spring up in almost everybody as soon as they get a little disturbed and they never seem to see the sheer illogicality of the thing. This has been a disease, it is true, that has sprung up and stuck in the Asram mind since almost the beginning and if it is somewhat diminished in generality and force, is still there.


Sri Aurobindo: When it disappears altogether, it will be a great day for the collective sadhana.    It is when Mother puts her force into the ﬂower that it becomes more than a symbol. It then can become very effective, if there is receptivity in the one who receives.  It is a hostile suggestion almost always.