The Mother: Which means that all this is not at all a joke, you understand, or just a matter of having fun or something one can do simply to amuse oneself. It must be done in the right way and in the required conditions, and with great care.  And then, one thing is essential, absolutely: you must not touch this occult science if you have the least fear in you.  For instance, if in your dreams you meet terrible things and get frightened, you should not practise occultism. If, on the other hand, the most frightful dreams you have leave you absolutely calm, and even at times amused and very much interested, if you can handle all that and know how to get out of the difﬁculty in every circumstance, then that means you have the ability and can do it.


The Mother: Some people are very brave warriors in their dreams.  When they meet enemies, they know how to ﬁght; they know not only how to defend themselves, but also to conquer; they are full of ardour, energy, courage; these indeed are the true candidates for occultism. But those who rush back into their body as fast as a rat into its hole, they should surely not touch it. And then, you must also have an inﬁnite patience; because just as it takes many years to learn how to handle the different chemical substances, just as you have to work for long periods without getting any visible results when you want to discover the least thing that’s new, so in occultism you may try for years together and not have the least experience. And that becomes very monotonous and hardly interesting; and there is always in man that kind of physical mind, practical and positive, which keeps on telling you, “Why are you trying?


The Mother: You see quite well there is nothing in it, these are all stories people tell you; why are you working for nothing? You are wasting your time. There is nothing at all in it, it is all imagination.” It is very difﬁcult  to keep one’s conviction and faith when there is nothing upon which to found them.  Religious exercises?


The Mother: I don’t know! What do you mean by religious exercises?  Oh, those things! If it helps you, it is all right. If it doesn’t help you, it is just...


The Mother: This is one of those altogether relative things.  It is altogether relative. Its value lies only in the effect it has on you and the extent to which you believe in it. If it helps you to concentrate, it is good. The ordinary consciousness always does it just through superstition, with the idea that “If I do this, if I go to the temple or church once a week, if I offer prayers, something very ﬁne will happen to me.”


The Mother: This is superstition, spread all over the world, but it has no value at all from the spiritual point of view.   That’s because it amuses you, my children!   Yes, because that amuses you!


The Mother: ( ) Eh?  Come now! It pleases you; I said “amuses”; it’s...


The Mother: I was disrespectful; but it’s because it pleases you.   Yes, yes, sometimes Kali comes three days earlier or four days later or at some other time in the year. She is not necessarily there on that very day; at times, to make you happy, I call her a little. ( )


The Mother: In any case, it is not I who believe in these things!  In all religious monuments, in monuments considered the most... well, as belonging to the highest religion, whether in France or any other country or Japan — it was never the same temples or churches nor the same gods, and yet my experience was everywhere almost the same, with very small differences — I saw that whatever concentrated force there was in the church depended exclusively upon the faithful, the faith of the devotees.  And there was still a difference between the force as it really was and the force as they felt it. For instance, I saw in one of the most beautiful cathedrals of France, which, from the artistic point of view, is one of the most magniﬁcent monuments imaginable — in the most sacred spot I saw an black, vital spider which had made its web and spread it over the whole place, and was catching in it and then absorbing all the forces emanating from people’s devotion, their prayers and all that. It was not a very cheering sight; the people who were there and were praying, felt a divine touch, they received all kinds of boons from their prayers, and yet what was there was this, this thing.


The Mother: But they had their faith which could change that evil thing into something good in them; they had their faith. So, truly, if had gone and told them, “Do you think you are praying to God? It is an enormous vital spider that’s feeding upon all your forces!”, that would really not have been very charitable. And that’s how it is most of the time, almost everywhere; it is a vital force which is there, for these vital entities feed upon the vibration of human emotions, and very few people, very few, an insigniﬁcant number, go to church or temple with a true religious feeling, that is, not to pray and beg for something from God but to offer themselves, give  thanks, aspire, give themselves. There is hardly one in a million who does that.


The Mother: So they do not have the power of changing the atmosphere. Perhaps when they are there, they manage to get across, break through and go somewhere and touch something divine. But the large majority of people who go only because of superstition, egoism and self-interest, create an atmosphere of this kind, and that is what you breathe in when you go to a church or temple. Only, as you go there with a very good feeling, you tell yourself, “Oh, what a quiet place for meditation!”  I am sorry, but that’s how it is.


The Mother: I tell you I have deliberately tried this experiment a little everywhere. Maybe I found some very tiny places, like a tiny village church at times, where there was a very quiet little spot for meditation, very still, very silent, where there was some aspiration; but this was so rare! I have seen the beautiful churches of Italy, magniﬁcent places; they were full of these vital beings and full of terror. I remember painting in a basilica of Venice, and while I was working, in the confessional a priest was hearing the confession of a poor woman. Well, it was truly a frightful sight!


The Mother: I don’t know what the priest was like, what his character was, he could not be seen — you know, don’t you, that they are not seen. They are shut up in a box and receive the confession through a grille. There was such a dark and sucking power over him, and that poor woman was in such a state of fearful terror that it was truly painful to see it. And all these people believe this is something holy! But it is a web of the hostile vital forces which use all this to feed upon.


The Mother: Besides, in the invisible world hardly any beings love to be worshipped, except those of the vital. These, as I said, are quite pleased by it. And then, it gives them importance. They are puffed up with pride and feel very happy, and when they can get a herd of people to worship them they are quite satisﬁed.  But if you take real divine beings, this is not at all something they value.


The Mother: They do not like to be worshipped. No, it does not give them any special pleasure at all! Don’t think they are happy, for they have no pride. It is because of pride that a man likes  to be worshipped; if a man has no pride he doesn’t like to be worshipped; and if, for instance, they see a good intention or a ﬁne feeling or a movement of unselﬁshness or enthusiasm, a joy, a spiritual joy, these things have for them an inﬁnitely greater value than prayers and acts of worship and pujas...  I assure you what I am telling you is very serious: if you seat a real god in a chair and oblige him to remain there all the while you are doing puja, he may perhaps have a little fun watching you do it, but it certainly gives him no satisfaction.


The Mother: None at all!  He does not feel either ﬂattered or happy or gloriﬁed by your puja. You must get rid of that idea. There is an entire domain between the spiritual and the material worlds which belongs to vital beings, and it is this domain that is full of all these things, because these beings live upon that, are happy with it, and it immediately gives them importance; and the one who has the greatest number of believers, devotees and worshippers is the happiest and the most puffed up. But how can anyone imagine that the gods could value...


The Mother: The gods — I am speaking of the true gods, even those of the Overmind, though they are still a bit... well, so-so... they seem to have taken on many human defects, but still, despite all that, they really have a higher consciousness — it does not please them at all. An act of true goodness, intelligence, unselﬁshness or a subtle understanding or a very sincere aspiration are for them inﬁnitely higher than a small religious ceremony. Inﬁnitely! There is no comparison.  Religious ceremony!


The Mother: For example, there are so many of these entities called Kali — who are given, besides, quite terrible appearances — so many are even placed in houses as the familygoddess; they are full of a terrible vital force! I knew people who were so frightened of the Kali they had at home that indeed they trembled to make the least mistake, for when catastrophes came they thought it was Kali who sent them! It is a frightful thing, thought. I know them, those entities. I know them very well, but they are vital beings, vital forms which, so to say, are given a form by human thought, and what forms!


The Mother: And to think that  men worship such terrible and monstrous things; and what’s more that these poor gods are given, are paid the compliment of believing that it is...  From this point of view, it is good that for some time men get out of this religious atmosphere, so full of fear, and this sort of blind, superstitious submission of which the hostile forces have taken a dreadful advantage. The period of denial, positivism, is from this viewpoint quite indispensable in order to free men from superstition. It is only when one comes out of that and the abject submission to monstrous vital forces that one can rise to truly spiritual heights and there become the collaborator and true instrument of the forces of Truth, the real Consciousness, the true Power.  One must leave all this far behind before one can climb higher.


The Mother: I act as a policeman!  Do you suppose I can go everywhere and see everything? Unfortunately, I have only one head, two arms and two legs, and all that would take a long time; I would be spending my time running about everywhere.   No, no, they do not come to give me information: they come to ask me for orders. That’s not the same thing.


The Mother: And if I were to give them my orders in the night, they would not hear me, or if by chance they heard something, it would probably be the contrary! They would do any odd thing according to their own fancy. No, no! Information? That’s because it pleases them to say what they have to say.


The Mother: If I were to tell them at once, “It is all right, I know, I know!”... At times I do that, when I am in a great hurry; but they are quite shocked and think, “How can she know? She has not asked me!” They alone can give me the exact information, according to them. If they don’t explain things to me, I don’t know them.


The Mother: That’s what they think, so I have to let them explain. Sometimes, if it takes too long, and I don’t have much time, I tell them, “It’s all right, it’s all right, I know it; come on, come to the point, what do you want to know?” Well, that upsets them a great deal.  Bad.  Sometimes good, eh?


The Mother: Yes. Because here there is... Note that if one has done something bad, if one has done something one knows very well should not be done; for instance, if one tells oneself, “Mother knows about it, I don’t need to tell her”, then one takes that in. One carefully shuts a door upon it and then keeps it in one’s heart, or elsewhere.


The Mother: While if one doesn’t think of all that... one feels  uneasy, something turns there inside, it is not pleasant... “Well, I am going to tell Mother about it.” When you set out you have to make a great effort, eh? There’s a lump in the throat, the tongue goes dry, and then it is so difﬁcult to ﬁnd your words — truly, one doesn’t know how to go about it, eh! But now you have resolved, you make a big effort: you draw out the words one by one, like that, with much effort and ﬁnally speak, and you try to say it as exactly as possible.


The Mother: My child, that opens a door as wide as this, and I can enter straight into the psychic being, just through this effort of sincerity that you have made.  And then, when I enter, I pour in all the light, all the force, the will, the consciousness, all the resolution necessary, so that you cannot repeat what you have done; much... as when too much is poured into a cup, it overﬂows — there is much that overﬂows, but all the same a little remains and this little works. And if you repeat this effort once again, until you feel — well, that you have nothing more to say, for there is now nothing more to hide — then that’s very ﬁne, you have made great progress.  You know, most of the questions are badly worded, because you really do not know what you want to know.


The Mother: I mean, you are not quite clearly aware of the thing you want to know. There’s a grouping of words in your head, not the consciousness of an idea trying to become clear; there are only words knocking about in your brain which you cannot manage to ﬁt in, so as to be able to understand what they mean. So you cannot speak easily, because you do not think. It does not proceed from thought. It is a kind of automatic thing coming from the brain; if you have a clear awareness of an experience you want to state accurately or some knowledge you want to arrange in your head, then you can state it very clearly and at the same  time your brain is ready to receive the answer; but if, merely with the clash of words — words come like that, don’t they?


The Mother: You connect three or four words and then launch an idea.... I answer, because I think there will always be someone... that it could drop into a brain somewhere; but otherwise, most of the time, the head is not ready to understand even what I say. You must think well and be well concentrated and see very clearly what you want to ask before asking. Otherwise, it is not the part of the mind which can understand that asks.


The Mother: It is just a surface which is in a perpetual movement of words linking up more or less aptly, coming and going and passing on, and it is this which speaks, it’s this which asks and this, indeed, cannot understand.  How many times have I told you things — the same thing, and if I ask you about it, sometimes just a week later, you do not remember it! How many times you ask me the same question, because you asked the question but were not at all in a condition to understand the answer. Nothing remains inside, these are only passing words, just that. It’s as when you learn a lesson by heart: they are only passing words.


The Mother: There is nothing, there’s nothing which enters within, gets settled somewhere in the real thought, and so it has no effect and does not help you to understand anything at all. The proof: how many times I have asked you, said to you, “But indeed I have told you this”; you don’t even remember it!  It has often happened, hasn’t it? — but usually with the very small children — and well, even with you it has sometimes happened, that someone has asked me a question, I have answered.  Another person asks me the same question in different words.


The Mother: If you had listened to what I just said, I have already replied to what you are asking me! All that goes by like that, you know, altogether passingly like that, absolutely in the superﬁcial thought, nothing enters within and gets settled in an inner understanding.  That is why you cannot ask questions: it is because you don’t think... only words playing about....   Now, if we were to offer a ﬁne little superstitious prayer to ask that it does not rain! ()


The Mother: But you know, in the clouds, the wind, there are little entities. These entities belong to the vital domain; they are not all wicked, they are often very mischievous.  Most of the time they obey the laws of Nature of a much vaster and more general order, but some of these entities are halfindependent and bring about local rain, etc. Perhaps (we said that they like prayers, these small entities), perhaps if we tell them, “I beg of you, be a little kind, tomorrow we have our opening, don’t be up to mischief, wait till the evening to send rain if you want to do so, don’t come and disturb our little session”, perhaps this will have some effect!  Do you remember how when there was no rain, people told us that if we prayed, we would bring rain?


The Mother: And what a good time we had one day trying that out — calling the rain — and it rained? It really rained afterwards. Well, that’s how it happens.  This domain is that of the vital.  Now say what you wanted to say!


The Mother: Yes, yes, my children.  Own purpose? You are here for that. If you call me in order to do things as well as you can, there’s nothing wrong.


The Mother: But, it is true, you know, when I come back from there, at the end of the session, well, I am drained. I have to rest.... It draws and draws, sometimes terribly.... The performances we have on the  1st and 2nd of December or other events of this kind, draw, draw, draw.... After a while it is made up for again.


The Mother: It isn’t serious but it’s true that it draws.  But I have no objection; on the contrary, I myself tell you, “My children, if you are doing something difﬁcult, call me, call me.” No, not in order to come ﬁrst or gain a victory, but so that nothing unpleasant happens to you. Call me so that things may go as well as possible, not for showing off but for the joy of doing well. And you may also call in order to do the thing as an offering, and then it becomes very good.


The Mother: Yes, my child, but that’s much more difﬁcult. Yes, there is another way. There is a true way... it is more difﬁcult.  But this one is all right, I have nothing to say against it, it is all right.


The Mother: I prefer this to having the experience, when looking at people, of seeing a little black cloud turning around their head, of feeling that there’s going to be an accident, something that’s going to happen, and trying to break through that to give protection, and ﬁnding myself before someone who is absolutely closed up, unconscious and convinced that he alone is capable of protecting himself and... not being able to avoid the accident!  That has happened! This is much more unpleasant for me.  I prefer to be called....  So, no rain tomorrow, yes!


The Mother: It is the vital being when it is converted. The vital turned completely to the Divine is like a warrior. It has even the appearance of a warrior. The vital is the place of power and it is this power which impels it to ﬁght, which can ﬁght and conquer, and of all things this is the most difﬁcult, for it is precisely these very qualities of ﬁghting which create in the vital the sense of revolt, independence, the will to carry out its own will. But if the vital understands and is converted, if it is truly surrendered to the divine Will, then these ﬁghting capacities are turned against the anti-divine forces and against all the darkness which prevents their transformation.


The Mother: And they are all-powerful and can conquer the adversaries. The anti-divine forces are in the vital world; from there, naturally, they have spread out into the physical, but their true seat is in the vital world, and it is the converted vital force which has the true power to vanquish them. But of all things this conversion is the most difﬁcult.    Subterfuges?


The Mother: They are tricks. You know what a trick is? — Yes?  Well, subterfuges are ways of deceiving, means employed to deceive. One hides what one wants to do under other appearances, in order to deceive; these are subterfuges.


The Mother: Irrevocable — it means a transformation on which one cannot go back, which is achieved once and for all.  Yes, the higher vital is usually much less difﬁcult to surrender, for it is under the inﬂuence of the mind and at times even of the psychic; so it understands more easily. It is much easier to convert this than the lower vital which is essentially the vital of desires and impulses. So, you see, what he means is that the lower vital can submit, it agrees to obey, to do what it is asked, but it is not at all satisﬁed. It is not happy; sometimes it even suffers; it pushes its revolt down into itself through obedience, but it does not collaborate.


The Mother: And unless the vital collaborates with joy and true love, nothing can be done; the transformation cannot come.  Wait, wait, your turn will come!   (inf´erieur)  Inner? The inner vital?


The Mother: Yes. But here the mistake has been carefully reproduced! This edition is ours. ( ) Exactly!


The Mother: Yes, it is “inner”. It is the inner vital. Yes, it should be “inner” here, as “the inner physical”. ( ) In all the editions there seems to be (“”) instead of “”.)


The Mother: But this is our own edition, and we should have corrected it. This one is the ﬁrst edition that was printed in France; not this; this one, the small one, was printed in France. Of course, the letters are very similar, aren’t they? The  and are very similar.


The Mother: ( ) So you think you are going to escape your question? ()   (


The Mother: ) You don’t have one? No! Then it will be for next week. Today I am not saying anything, because you were not informed.


The Mother: Not long enough in advance.  ( ) And you? You don’t have one?


The Mother: ( ) And you?  Yes. This means that it would be going against its work, its own work.


The Mother: The Grace has come; well, it works for the realisation of the truth. If it accepts the conditions laid upon it by the falsehood, it can no longer do anything. Of this, you know, I could give you examples — of people who insist that  things should happen in a particular way as far as they are concerned. They implore, at times even demand that things should be like that; and what they ask for is absolutely contrary to the truth; and if the Grace obeyed their demand, it would go against its own purpose and defeat its own purpose, that is, it would go against its own work and aim. It comes here to realise the truth; if it obeys the falsehood, it turns its back on truth.


The Mother: And people, you see, very often put the cart before the horse — most often through ignorance and stupidity; but sometimes it is also through bad will that they insist on having their conditions fulﬁlled, that they go in for a kind of bargaining in exchange for their surrender, and they do it.... Yes, many do it unconsciously — I said through ignorance and stupidity. There are others who do it consciously, and so they want their conditions fulﬁlled.  They say, “If it is like this and like that...” And ﬁnally they go as far as to say to the Divine, “If you are like this and like that, if you fulﬁl the conditions I lay down for you, I shall obey you!”


The Mother: They don’t put it in this way because that would be too ridiculous, but they almost constantly do it. You see, they say, “Oh, the Divine is like this. The Divine does this. The Divine must respond like this.” And they continue in this way, and they are not aware that they are quite simply imposing their conceptions and also their desires on what the Divine ought to be and do.


The Mother: And so, when the Divine does not do what they want or does not fulﬁl the conditions they lay down, they say, “You are not the Divine!”   ( ) It is very simple.


The Mother: “You do not fulﬁl the conditions I lay down, so you are not the Divine!” But they do it constantly, you know. So, naturally, if to please people, the Divine Grace were to submit to their demands, it would be working entirely against its own purpose and would destroy its own Work.   (


The Mother: ) Now, do you have a question?    (Laughter)  Oh, how very convenient!


The Mother: ( ) So now whose turn is it?   Yours? Your question?


The Mother: Which words exactly don’t you understand?  Handle victoriously!... You don’t know what this means?   ( )


The Mother: Opening from below — that is, something which comes from above and forces itself up from below, forces its way, makes a kind of road, a path through the resistance that’s below, by opening a way, as when one enters a virgin forest and cuts down trees, one opens up a way. Well, it is like that, you see; there is a resistance in the lower levels of matter, and by the pressure from above, it opens the road and makes a passage through the resistance. And then, do you understand what follows?  “Handle” — that means... “deal with”; that is, which can deal with all the resistances of the physical world. It is only the highest force which can overcome the difﬁculties of matter.


The Mother: That’s what it means. All the resistances and difﬁculties of the physical world can be overcome only by the highest force — the highest supramental force. Do you understand now?   ( )


The Mother: Nothing?  ( ) You?  But, you know, there are people who are told, “You should surrender.”


The Mother: Then they answer you with a smile, “Well, make me surrender!” Why, this is very simple!   Yes!  Yes, to progress.


The Mother: To help?  That’s something quite different. To help, that’s understood, He is there to help. But what is said here means to sit idly not doing anything, not making the shadow of an effort, nor even aspiring or willing, nothing, and then say, “Well, God will do this for me; the Divine will do everything for me. The Divine Grace will give me aspiration.


The Mother: If I need aspiration, It will give it to me. If I need surrender, It will give me that”, and so on. “I have to do nothing except to remain passively seated, without stirring and without  willing anything.” Well, there are people like that, many! They are told “Aspire.”


The Mother: “Give me aspiration.” ( ) They are told, “Be generous.” “Oh, make me generous; and I shall give everything!” ()


The Mother: And then? () Now, you!  Yes. Who has the English?


The Mother: Read it, read your English!   Opening from below? ()  This can mean allowing the force which is hidden at the core of matter to manifest itself.


The Mother: It gives the idea of the supramental Presence which is at the centre of all things but is hidden and incapable of manifesting itself, so to say, and which, then would be as if awakened by the force coming from above and would manifest.  It can mean this, that is to say, it may want to express the fact that the two extremities meet, as in a circle, you know, the beginning and the end touch. It can mean this.   Pavitra:


The Mother: Obviously! Only, it is not said in these very words. It means, in  fact — whether it is said in this way or another, it means that the two extremities join, you see, they unite, the Supreme who is in matter and the Supreme who is outside matter unite and join.  That’s what it means. In both cases it means the same thing.


The Mother: Inert passivity? It means... Passivity, we said the other day, didn’t we, is what does not move, does not act, vibrate, respond — well, an inert passivity is just this, what is absolutely unconscious, inactive, what does not respond; whereas the other day we described a passivity which responds, which opens and is receptive, but doesn’t move, doesn’t act, which is the opposite of... Let us take passivity as the opposite of activity, something that does not act but is receptive and receives.  But an inert passivity is a passivity that receives nothing, it is like a stone; for instance, we say the stone has an inert passivity, don’t we?


The Mother: ... like the soil or sand. It is not quite true, for there is nothing which is not at least a little receptive to forces. But still, the more we go towards something we call unconscious, the more is it inert and passive at the same time. That is it.  So, an inert passivity in someone is a kind of incapability of vibrating, receiving, opening himself, responding, something that’s quite unconscious and does not move in any way!


The Mother: It must be sincere. If it is truly sincere, it becomes happy. So long as it is not — you may reverse the thing — so long as it is not happy, you may be sure it is not perfectly sincere; for if it is perfectly sincere, it is always happy. If it is not happy, it means that there is something which holds back, something which would like things to be otherwise, something that has a will of its own, a desire of its own, its own purpose and is not satisﬁed, and therefore is not completely surrendered, not  sincere in its surrender. But if one is sincere in one’s surrender, one is perfectly happy, automatically; rather, one automatically enjoys an ineffable happiness.


The Mother: Therefore, as long as this ineffable happiness is not there, it is a indication that you are not sincere, that there is something, some part of the being, larger or smaller, which is not sincere.   Aspire, insist, put the light on it, pray if necessary. There are many ways. Sometimes surgical operations are necessary, putting a red hot iron on the wound, as when there is a nasty abscess somewhere which will not burst.


The Mother: ( ) Did you say something?


The Mother: ( ) Oh, it is not your turn! () So...


The Mother: Yes, this is something that happens every minute!  (The child repeats the last phrase)  “Deny”? That’s what I was just saying. People who ﬁnd that the Divine does not want all that they want or that He does not comply with their own will, deny Him.


The Mother: They say, “It is not the Divine!” Or else, there are others who go still further. They say, “There is no Divine, it does not exist, the Divine, for it is not consistent with...” It is a nuisance that a Divine should be there: they say there’s no such thing!   Automaton — it’s just a little more than inert passivity.


The Mother: Automaton — it’s a mechanical movement; and “inert” means unconscious. So it is an unconscious mechanical movement, something that has no soul, no spirit, no will, no urge, something that is merely a machine, that has no consciousness; and inert, absolutely without any consciousness and any receptivity. It is yet... I don’t think even a watch, for example, could be called an inert automaton. A watch has something like a soul:


The Mother: a machine, when it is very well made, has something like a soul, it responds, it has a certain receptivity. But the other is something which has no receptivity, no consciousness, and is only like a machine which one rewinds and which does just this ( ), you see, without knowing why or how!  Submission... helpless? ( ) It can’t be that.


The Mother: It is a helpful submission. A helpful submission, we all know what that is, don’t we? A helpful submission.  Where is the text? We can’t say a helpless submission.


The Mother: ( ) (.)  Helpful, it is not helpless! (


The Mother: )  A glad submission, as I was just saying. Strong, you understand, not something weak and without energy; strong, powerful, and helpful, that is, which acts, is active, produces results, a submission which makes itself useful, a submission which, for example, wants to collaborate in the work, collaborate in the progress. It is the opposite of the inert automaton, the very opposite.   Instead of self-opening we could put receptivity, something that opens in order to receive.


The Mother: Now, instead of opening and receiving from all sides and from everyone, as is usually done, one opens only to the Divine to receive only the divine force. It is the very opposite of what men usually do. They are always open on the surface, they receive all the inﬂuences from all sides. And then this produces inside them what we might call a () of all kinds of contradictory movements which naturally create countless difﬁculties. So here, you are advised to open only to the Divine and to receive only the divine force to the exclusion of everything else.


The Mother: This diminishes all difﬁculties almost entirely. Only one thing remains difﬁcult. It is... One can do it and, unless one is in a state of total alchemy, well, it is difﬁcult to be in contact with people, to speak to them, for example, to have any kind of exchange with them without absorbing something from them. It is difﬁcult.


The Mother: If one is in a kind of... if one is in an atmosphere that’s like a ﬁlter, then everything that comes from outside is ﬁltered before it touches you. But it is very difﬁcult; it requires a very wide experience. That is why, also, people who wanted the easiest path went into solitude to sit under a tree, did not speak any more and saw nobody; for this helps to diminish undesirable exchanges. Only, it has been noticed that these people begin to become enormously interested in the life of little animals, the life of plants, for it is difﬁcult not to have any exchange with anything at all. So it is much better to face the problem squarely and be surrounded by an atmosphere so totally concentrated on the Divine that what comes through this atmosphere is ﬁltered in its passage.


The Mother: And then again, even when this has been done, there is still the problem of food; as long as our body is compelled to take in foreign matter in order to subsist, it will absorb at the same time a considerable amount of inert and unconscious forces or those having a rather undesirable consciousness, and this alchemy must take place inside the body. We were speaking of the kinds of consciousness absorbed with food, but there is  also the inconscience that’s absorbed with food — quite a deal of it. And that is why in many yogas there was the advice to offer to the Divine what one was going to eat before eating it ().  It consists in calling the Divine down into the food before eating it. One offers it to Him — that is, one puts it in contact with the Divine, so that it may be under the divine inﬂuence when one eats it.


The Mother: It is very useful, it is very good. If one knows how to do it, it is very useful, it considerably reduces the work of inner transformation which has to be done. But, you see, in the world as it is, we are all interdependent. You cannot take in the air without taking in the vibrations, the countless vibrations produced by all kinds of movements and all kinds of people, and you must — if you want to remain intact — you must constantly act like a ﬁlter, as I was saying. That is to say, nothing that is undesirable should be allowed to enter, as when one goes to infected areas, one wears a mask over the face so that the air may be puriﬁed before one breathes it in.


The Mother: Well, something similar has to be done. One must have around oneself so intense an atmosphere in a surrender to the Divine, so intensiﬁed around oneself that everything that passes through is automatically ﬁltered. Anyhow, it is very useful in life, for there are — we spoke about this too — there are bad thoughts, bad wills, people who wish you ill, who make formations. There are all kinds of absolutely undesirable things in the atmosphere. And so, if one must always be on the watch, looking around on all sides, one would think only of one thing, how to protect oneself.


The Mother: First of all, it is tiresome, and then, you see, it makes you waste much time. If you are well enveloped in this way, with this light, the light of a perfectly glad, totally sincere surrender, when you are enveloped with that, it serves you as a marvellous ﬁlter. Nothing that is altogether undesirable, nothing that has ill-will can pass through. So, automatically, these things return where they came from. If there is a conscious ill-will against you, it comes, but cannot pass; the door is closed, for it is open only to divine  things, it is not open to anything else.


The Mother: So it returns very quietly to the source from where it came.  But all these things are... One can learn how to do them through a kind of study and science. But they can be done without any study or science provided the aspiration and surrender are absolute and total. If the aspiration and surrender are total, it is done automatically.


The Mother: But you must see to it that they are total; and besides, as I was saying just now, you become very clearly aware of it, for the moment they are not total, you are no longer happy. You feel uneasy, very miserable, dejected, a bit unhappy: “Things are not quite pleasant today. They are the same as they were yesterday; yesterday they were marvellous, today they are not pleasing!” — Why? Because yesterday you were in a perfect state of surrender, more or less perfect — and today you aren’t any more.


The Mother: So, what was so beautiful yesterday is no longer beautiful today. That joy you had within you, that conﬁdence, the assurance that all will be well and the great Work will be accomplished, that certitude — all this, you see, has become veiled, has been replaced by a kind of doubt and, yes, by a discontent: “Things are not beautiful, the world is nasty, people are not pleasant. ” It goes sometimes to this length: “The food is not good, yesterday it was excellent.” It is the same but today it is not good!


The Mother: This is the barometer! You may immediately tell yourself that an insincerity has crept in somewhere. It is very easy to know, you don’t need to be very learned, for, as Sri Aurobindo has said in: One knows whether one is happy or unhappy, one knows whether one is content or discontented, one doesn’t need to ask oneself, put complicated questions for this, one knows it! — Well, it is very simple.  The moment you feel unhappy, you may write beneath it: “I am not sincere!”


The Mother: These two sentences go together: “I.”  “I.”  Now, what is it that is wrong? Then one begins to take a look, it is easy to ﬁnd out...   There you are, my children.


The Mother: Is that all?  Have we exhausted the questions or not?  ( ) You haven’t asked your question, have you?


The Mother: Letters  Yes, I noticed that. When I read it, I thought about this.  I thought about it. I think he wrote the sentence in this way so that it would be more easily understandable.


The Mother: But in fact, what he meant he has said here: you are yourself rejecting the Grace... Isn’t that it? He says — where is it? what page? page four?


The Mother: Yes, “... pushing the divine Grace from you”, yes; “... you are yourself pushing the divine Grace away from you.” No, it is not that; it is... ( ) No, after that, my child... “It will not act...”


The Mother: () This is what we have explained. That is something else. You see, this is what I have explained: you ask the Grace to do something for you, but this thing is a falsehood. It won’t do it, because It always acts only in the truth.


The Mother: It doesn’t help the sinner to be a sinner! It helps the sinner to give up his sin; that is to say, It does not push away the sinner, saying, “I won’t do anything for you.” It is there, always, even when he is sinning, to help him to come out of it, but not to continue in his sin.   There is a great difference between this and the idea that you are bad and so “I won’t look after you, I shall throw you far away from me, and whatever is to happen to you will happen, I am not concerned about it.” This is the common idea.


The Mother: One says, “God has rejected me”, you know. It is not that. You may not be able to feel the Grace, but It will always be there, even with the worst of sinners, even with the worst of criminals, to help him to change, to be cured of his crime and sin if he wants to be.  It won’t reject him, but It won’t help him to do evil. It wouldn’t be the Grace any longer.


The Mother: You understand the difference?  But there is a sentence here that’s... here we are, it is absolutely true: “You are yourself pushing the divine Grace away from you”, and then there is a... ( ) I thought it was here...


The Mother: ( ) “Then...” here we are, “... always you will be open to attack and the Grace will recede from you.” You see, this... () It is not the Grace which recedes from you, it is you who recede from the Grace. It is a feeling, and the expression of the fact.


The Mother: For in the sentence... a preceding sentence, we have: “You are yourself pushing the divine Grace away from you.” This is just the thing. You are yourself pushing the divine Grace away from you. But after having pushed It away, you have the impression that It has receded from you; and it is rather this: “... then always you will be open to attack and the Grace will recede from you.” It is not a fact that It recedes from you, you have the impression that It recedes from you.


The Mother: While reading it I noticed this. I don’t know what it is in English. Here it is on page seven. I don’t know, it must be approximately on the same page, I suppose: “If you call for the Truth...”, something like that.  ( )


The Mother: Ah, yes. “Recede from you...” “... then always you will be open to attack and the Grace will recede from you.”  It expresses one’s impression. But it is not that the Grace withdraws.


The Mother: For it is written here, you see, just a little before, “it is not the divine Grace you must blame”, it is you who push It away from you.  In one case he takes the position of the Grace and in the other he takes the attitude of the person who says, “The Grace recedes from me.” But it is not the Grace that recedes, it is he himself who pushes It away, that is, he has put a distance between himself and the Grace. In fact, even “pushing away” doesn’t give the correct picture; you see, this is not written, it was not written to a philosopher, and it is not in philosophical terms.  In one case, you see, he has taken this particular attitude, but the phenomenon is the same; that is, there is a kind of psychological distance created between the Grace and the individual.


The Mother: And due to this psychological distance the individual cannot receive the Grace and feels that It is not there. But It there, in fact; only, as he has established this distance between the two, he doesn’t feel It any longer. This is the real phenomenon. It isn’t that the Grace goes away, it isn’t even that he has the power to push It away, for if It doesn’t want to go, no matter how much he tries, It won’t go. But he makes himself incapable of feeling It and receiving its effect.


The Mother: He creates a psychological barrier between himself and the Grace.  There you are, my children, I think that’s enough for this evening.  Good night.   He has said that the Divine is the Supreme. That’s the origin.


The Mother: He has said, hasn’t he? at the very beginning of this chapter, I think, he has said, “The Divine...”  (The child reads the text)  He takes the Shakti as the executive power, the creative Consciousness.  It means surrender of the physical, surrender of the vital, surrender of the mind and surrender of the psychic.


The Mother: And if you are conscious of other parts of your being... You must ﬁrst begin by distinguishing between the different parts of your being, and  then, when you can distinguish them clearly, you offer them one by one.  Yoga Maya? Maya, I don’t know in what sense he takes it, whether it is as the most external manifestation... Does he speak of Yoga Maya?


The Mother: (A child reads the last part of the phrase)  Yes, veiled by his external manifestation. Truly, that’s what it means, the outer form of the world; and also the egoism of the Jiva, that is, the individual being.  Yes, it’s the same thing. Yes, “through” — that means the ego is there.


The Mother: Generally, the lower nature is always active. It is only when one has surrendered completely that it stops being active. When one is no longer in his lower consciousness, when one has made a total surrender, then the lower nature is no longer active. But so long as it is active, personal effort is necessary.  In fact, so long as one is conscious of one’s own self as a separate person, personal effort has to be made.


The Mother: It is only when the sense of separation is lost, when one is not only completely surrendered, but completely fused in the Divine that there is no  longer any need of personal effort. But so long as one feels that one is a separate being, one must make a personal effort. This is what he calls the activity of the lower consciousness.  ()  Yes, why?


The Mother: I, too, ask: Why? I would like to know very much!  But it is like that. Things are like that. I think the chief reason is that the nature, in its outer and personal form, doesn’t wish to change.


The Mother: It doesn’t want to change; so one is hostile to the force that would like you to change, to the truth.   ( )  Ah, that’s good! Now all our speeches will be punctuated by this noise!


The Mother: () You can stop it, we do not want to record the ﬁreworks! ()  Exactly. But there are many who think that they have surrendered and tell you, “I no longer do anything myself, I have given myself to the Divine, the Divine ought to do everything for me.” This they call surrender....


The Mother: That is to say, it is a movement of laziness and tamas which doesn’t want to make any effort and would very much like the Divine to do everything for you, because that is much more comfortable!  The heart’s seeking — it is the emotional being trying...    ( )  We can’t see anything....


The Mother: It is from that side.... Eh? We can only hear the noise!  “Seeking” means that the affective centre is trying to ﬁnd an emotional contact with the Divine. It is truly this.


The Mother: ( ): I think you had better stop.  (A child)  I can hardly even speak! () And now?


The Mother: Why do people speak uselessly? Yes, that’s probably because man is instinctively very proud of being able to formulate words.  He is the ﬁrst being on earth who can speak, who emits articulate sounds. So it is a kind of... it is like a child who has a new toy it likes to play with very much.


The Mother: Man is the only animal on earth who has articulate sounds at his disposal, so he plays with them, you see... I think it’s that....  And then there’s all the stupidity.... You know, I also said that some people could begin to think only when they talked.... When they do not speak, they do not even think!


The Mother: They are not able to think in silence, so they get into the habit of speaking. But the more developed one is, the more intelligent one is and the less need one has to express oneself. It is always at a lower level that one needs to talk. And truly, a being who is very conscious, who is mentally, intellectually, very developed, talks only when it is necessary. He does not utter useless words.


The Mother: In the social scale it is like this.... Take people right at the  bottom of the scale: they talk the most, they spend their time in talking. They can’t stop! Whatever happens to them they express immediately in words. And to the extent that one is developed and on a higher level of evolution, one feels much less need to speak.


The Mother: It comes from two causes: one, because it is a new faculty which naturally and instinctively has the attraction of new faculties; the other, because it helps you to become aware of your own thought. Otherwise one doesn’t think, one is not able to formulate his thought unless he expresses it in words, aloud.... Except those who are talkers by profession — that is, those who are in the habit of giving lectures or political speeches, or taking classes, giving lessons — except these people who, obviously, can be both intellectual and talkative at the same time, as a general rule, the more talkative people are, the less are they intellectually developed!   Think!


The Mother: You have only to reﬂect a little more. If only you make it a habit to think before speaking, that saves you at least half of what you say. To think before speaking and to say only what seems absolutely indispensable to you — then you very quickly become aware that very few words are indispensable, except from the practical point of view, in work, when one is working with somebody and is obliged to use words: “Do this”, “Give me that”, or “Like this”, or “Like that”. And even so, this can be reduced to a minimum. Otherwise, you see...


The Mother: ( ) These are ﬂying saucers! They go far!  How long will all this go on?  (Another child)   Ten o’clock!...


The Mother: So, I continue!  Who has a question to ask? Whose turn is it?    (Loud noise.


The Mother: Nothing else is heard.)  What did you say? Speak very clearly, it will be a good exercise.   (


The Mother: )  The usual answer, it is because one is foolish! ()  But the truth is that the physical mind is truly completely stupid! You can prove it very easily. It is constructed probably as a kind of control, and in order to make sure that things are done as they ought to be.


The Mother: I think that this is its normal work.... But it has made it a habit to doubt everything.  I think I have already told you about the small experiment I made one day. I removed my control and left the control to the physical mind — it is the physical mind which doubts. So I made the following experiment: I went into a room, then came out of the room and closed the door.


The Mother: I had decided to close the door; and when I came to another room, this mind, the material mind, the physical mind, you see, said, “Are you sure you have locked the door?” Now, I did not control, you know... I said, “Very well, I obey it!” I went back to see. I observed that the door was closed.


The Mother: I came back. As soon as I couldn’t see the door any longer, it told me, “Have you veriﬁed properly?” So I went back again.... And this went on till I decided: “Come now, that’s enough, isn’t it? Closed or not, I am not going back any more to see!”


The Mother: This could have gone on the whole day. It is made like that. It stops being like that only when a higher mind, the rational mind tells it, “Keep quiet!” Otherwise it goes  on indeﬁnitely.... So, if by ill-luck you are centred there, in this mind, even the things you know higher up as quite true, even things of which you have a physical proof — like that of the closed door, it doubts, it will doubt, because it is built of doubt.


The Mother: It will always say, “Are you quite sure this is true?... Isn’t it an idea of yours?... You don’t suppose it is like that?” And it will go on until one teaches it to keep quiet and be silent.


The Mother: Yes, but we have just been speaking about this! I have already answered this question. Someone asked me... I have already answered....  Because it is the Divine who does the sadhana in the being.


The Mother: Without the Divine there would be no sadhana. Only, you know nothing about it... you think — you are under the illusion — that it is you. And precisely, so long as you are under this illusion, you must make an effort; but the truth is that it is the Divine who does the sadhana in you, and that without the Divine there would be no sadhana.  Yes, He is everything, isn’t He?


The Mother: (Another child)  Yes, this is precisely what people say in their laziness! But if you were not lazy, you wouldn’t say it! ()  Effort which thinks it is personal. You have the sense of your separate person.


The Mother: Do you feel that you are the Divine, and only the Divine? No! ( ) Well, the Divine is this...


The Mother: Precisely, so long as you feel that you are Manoj, well, Manoj must make an effort. If you can completely get rid of the notion of Manoj, there is no longer anything but the Divine, and it is the Divine who will make the effort, naturally!... But so long as there is a Manoj, it is Manoj who has to make the effort.  Perhaps, but Manoj knows nothing about it! () I say simply that if there were no Divine, Manoj could not make the effort.


The Mother: But Manoj is not yet in a state to know that, so he knows that he is making an effort.   () Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha!... ()


The Mother: Mental knowledge is not enough, you must have the practical experience. Otherwise, my children, we would all have been transformed long ago, because for a long time we have had the knowledge that the transformation must come about. ( )  Is that all?


The Mother: Go on!   Self-giving, consecration and surrender? I believe we have read this somewhere, haven’t we? There was already some explanation like that, wasn’t there? We have already spoken about it.


The Mother: It was in also. Someone had asked about it and the reply was in this book. Sri Aurobindo has given the answer, the difference between... So, my children, if you...  Eh?


The Mother: In; wasn’t it?   Elements of Yoga; Oh, it was between these three! It was not between surrender, self-giving and consecration? But I have read this somewhere.


The Mother: (Another child) Prayers and Meditations Oh, it was in?  And so, what did I tell you? Ah, it’s going to be interesting!  () What did I tell you?  ()


The Mother: Pavitra:  I think they are closely synonymous, that they are rather shades  than differences. Because one can very well replace one by another in a sentence. It depends on how the sentence sounds and on the word that ﬁts best into it.


The Mother: It is a literary point. If one wants, one can ﬁnd a difference, but all this depends entirely on what one wants to put into the words.  I said, didn’t I, that “” is not a good word? We use in French “” to translate “surrender”, because there is no word which translates “surrender”. “” always gives the impression of something which accepts reluctantly, which does not give complete adherence, does not collaborate fully.


The Mother: And so, that is what makes the difference with the word in the sense of “surrender” in which there is the meaning of a perfect adherence. Which means that though one uses this word “”, it is not a good one....   ( )


The Mother: One can — if one wants to split hairs, as it is said — one can make a distinction between self-giving, consecration and offering. These are three... they may be three different phases. But that is if truly one wants to create complications; because in writing, as I said, one can very well use one word in place of another, according to the rhythm of the sentence, and this keeps the meaning intact. For if you want to make a distinction, you are immediately obliged to put adjectives, aren’t you?...


The Mother: Take the word in itself, “self-giving, offering, consecration”... Now, if you want to make a distinction, you say “a total consecration”, “a partial self-giving”... You see, you are obliged to use adjectives: they are synonyms.  Who asked the question? It was you?


The Mother: Now, it depends on the sentence you are going to write — you will use one word or another. But you must know: the word “” does not have the precise meaning that’s necessary. “”  (“submission”) compared with “surrender” gives the same difference that there is — perhaps less strongly — but a difference  analogous to that between obedience and collaboration. In one case there is a perfect adherence, and in the other there is an acceptance which perhaps reserves itself; it accepts because it realises that it can’t do otherwise, but it does not collaborate entirely....


The Mother: One does not give total adherence.   Any other questions?  Yes.  Perhaps they have even something resembling sensitivity.


The Mother: For instance, if you have a precious stone — precious stones of course have a much more perfect structure than ordinary ones, and with perfection consciousness increases — but if you take a precious stone, you can charge it with consciousness and force; you can put, accumulate force within it. So it is receptive, otherwise it will not receive it, it could not keep it. You can charge it. As one charges an electric battery, you can charge a stone with force, put conscious force into a stone; it keeps it and can transmit it to someone. Therefore this stone has a receptivity.


The Mother: Otherwise it could not do this.  Flowers are extremely receptive. All the ﬂowers to which I have given a signiﬁcance receive exactly the force I put into them and transmit it. People don’t always receive it because most of the time they are less receptive than the ﬂower, and they waste the force that has been put in it through their unconsciousness and lack of receptivity. But the force is there, and the ﬂower receives it wonderfully.


The Mother: I knew this a very long time ago. Fifty years ago.... There was that occultist who later gave me lessons in occultism for two  years. His wife was a wonderful clairvoyant and had an absolutely remarkable capacity — precisely — of transmitting forces.  They lived in Tlemcen.


The Mother: I was in Paris. I used to correspond with them. I had not yet met them at all. And then, one day, she sent me in a letter petals of the pomegranate ﬂower, “Divine’s Love”.  At that time I had not given the meaning to the ﬂower.


The Mother: She sent me petals of pomegranate ﬂowers telling me that these petals were bringing me her protection and force.  Now, at that time I used to wear my watch on a chain. Wristwatches were not known then or there were very few. And there was also a small eighteenth century magnifying-glass... it was quite small, as large as this ()....


The Mother: And it had two lenses, you see, like all reading-glasses; there were two lenses mounted on a small golden frame, and it was hanging from my chain.  Now, between the two glasses I put these petals and I used to carry this about with me always because I wanted to keep it with me; you see, I trusted this lady and knew she had power. I wanted to keep this with me, and I always felt a kind of energy, warmth, conﬁdence, force which came from that thing.... I did not think about it, you see, but I felt it like that.  And then, one day, suddenly I felt quite depleted, as though a support that was there had gone.


The Mother: Something very unpleasant.  I said, “It is strange; what has happened? Nothing really unpleasant has happened to me. Why do I feel like this, so empty, emptied of energy?” And in the evening, when I took off my watch and chain, I noticed that one of the small glasses had come off and all the petals were gone.


The Mother: There was not one petal left. Then I really knew that they carried a considerable charge of power, for I had felt the difference without even knowing the reason. I didn’t know the reason and yet it had made a considerable difference. So it was after this that I saw how one could use ﬂowers by charging them with forces. They are extremely receptive.


The Mother: () Now that’s enough, I suppose?  Enough of that noise!   Another question? ( )


The Mother: Boom!  Decay? No, my child; when they dry up, yes. Decayed ﬂowers are just nothing. A decomposition takes place, so the thing disappears.


The Mother: Perhaps it brings energy to the soil, that’s quite possible; but still, when it decays it is good only to make manure to grow other ﬂowers. But if it dries up, it is preserved, it can remain for quite a long time.  Those small packets which I give on Kali Puja day are made to be preserved for one year. For a year they keep their force intact and I renew them every year to make sure that... I know that there isn’t one in ten among you who makes a proper use of it... but still, I give it on the off-chance for those who know how to use it.


The Mother: It is prepared to keep the force for one year. And when I give the new one, you can dispose of the other. Usually it has fallen to dust. Not always.... But these little packets keep their charge of force exactly for one year.


The Mother: Flowers? You ought to keep them as long as they are fresh, and when they are no longer so, you must collect them and give them to the gardener (any gardener you know), so that he can put them in the earth to produce other ﬂowers. Yes, one must give back to the earth what it has given us, for otherwise it will become poor.   This is a question which is difﬁcult to answer.


The Mother: But I have made a rather interesting experiment in this way.  I don’t know if you remember — if you were there — if you remember the time when ﬂowers used to be counted; you see, it was a kind of agreement between me and Nature. To each of these ﬂowers I had given a particular value, not only its signiﬁcance but its value. For example — it was understood — I had made an agreement with Nature. Take, for instance, the “transformation” ﬂowers; note that if one is quite attentive, one will see that in different seasons one ﬂower is replaced by another with a similar or close signiﬁcance, and you can go all round the year in this way — if you know how to make use of things!


The Mother: There are also permanent things which are always there.... But ﬂowers, for example, like the “transformation” ﬂowers, have a season, quite a long one, but still a season. The “realisation” ﬂower has a fairly long season, but it doesn’t come at the same time as the “transformation” ﬂower.... They... how shall I put it? ... overlap.


The Mother: One begins before the other ﬁnishes. But the seasons when they come abundantly are not the same, and all ﬂowers are like that. Yes, it is arranged. This answers your question, doesn’t it? These are shades in the meaning and it is possible that some seasons are more favourable; one may lay greater stress on one movement than on another.


The Mother: But each of these ﬂowers had a numerical value, and I used to write it down; I had them counted, because I was noting the numerical value. I stopped when my pages... I had long pages like this, you see ( ), because I was totalling up the numerical values. I had my reasons for it, it was not just like that.... I did a great deal of work with it....


The Mother: I had to stop because it was taking too much time. You see, when I had to write ﬁgures on a paper at least as long as this, and then later, suddenly it had to be still bigger, it was impossible! ()  So I had to stop. I stopped because of this. But not only did I  have a numerical value and did some work upon it, there was also the meaning of the ﬂower.


The Mother: Well, it was an agreement like this: the numerical value corresponded to something that it was understood Nature would give me for my work, but the signiﬁcance of the ﬂower also was something agreed upon between me and Nature. For example, take “transformation”. When there was a computation — it was sometimes by thousands during the season, you know — well, it represented (it was an understanding with Nature) that the same number of men would be transformed.... And it was even much better than this. It was that when I gave somebody one, two, three, four, ﬁve ﬂowers I gave him at the same time the power to transform as many elements within him.


The Mother: But naturally, for this to work in all sincerity, it had not to pass through the head; because when their head starts working — not always in the right way — men spoil everything. That is why I never used to say anything about this.  It was the same thing for all ﬂowers, “aspiration”, for example: the “aspiration” ﬂowers which used to come in large basketfuls, you know; there were thousands and thousands of them, all counted.... Well, each one represented an aspiration; and even now, sometimes, when I have ﬂowers like “prayer”... I have at times told you when I distribute “prayer” ﬂowers, “It is a prayer.


The Mother: Be careful, this prayer is granted. ” I did that, you remember, don’t you? And I told you, “Take care of your ‘prayer’.


The Mother: Pray only for what you want should be! Take great care! Because this prayer is granted. I give the ﬂower, but at the same time the possibility of [ . . . ] the prayer you will make. Well, it will be granted.”


The Mother: It was very interesting, in the sense that I always used to tell Nature, “You know, if you don’t want me to have these things, you need not give them to me.” There were ﬂuctuations, there were times when things came in abundance, when I insisted; there were times when they stopped abruptly,  why one couldn’t tell, one did not understand.... She did not agree to give us... Other things, on the contrary, she gave in great abundance.  But all this is what goes on behind the scene, behind the stage....


The Mother: My child, all I can hear is the ﬁreworks!  ( )  It depends above all on what you think about it! Something I give you with my own hands — there I put in something; but if it is of your own choice that you have taken a ring or a portrait, something, and you wear it...


The Mother: if you have the trust, the faith that it protects you, it protects you. When give it, I give it with something completely different from the thing itself. It can contain this thing if I put it in, but if I don’t, it does not contain it.  Sri Aurobindo used to say, you know, that to wear a ring with his portrait and think that it protects you, is a superstition!  He would tell you it is a superstition!


The Mother: That is, it depends on what you think about it.... It depends solely on what you think about it. If he had given you a ring, saying, “Wear this, my force will be with you”, then it would have been altogether different; there’s a world of difference.  I shall tell you another little story. Long ago some people used to believe that a perforated coin...


The Mother: It was in the days when coins were not perforated... now we have perforated coins, don’t we, some countries have perforated coins, but in those days they were not perforated, and yet sometimes there were holes in a coin. And there was indeed a superstition like this, that when one found a perforated coin, it brought good luck. It brought you good luck and success in what you wanted to do.   There was a man working in an ofﬁce whose life was rather poor and who was not very successful, and one day he found a perforated coin.


The Mother: He put it in his pocket and said to himself, “Now I am going to prosper!” And he was full of hope, courage, energy, because he knew: “Now that I have the coin, I am sure to succeed!” And, in fact, he went on prospering, prospering more and more. He earned more and more money, he had a better and better position, and people said, “What a wonderful man! How well he works!


The Mother: How he ﬁnds all the solutions to all problems!”  Indeed, he became a remarkable man, and every morning when he put on his coat, he felt it — like this — to be sure that his coin was in his pocket.... He touched it, he felt that the coin was there, and he had conﬁdence. And then, one day, he was a little curious, and said, “I am going to see my coin!” — years later.  He was having his breakfast with his wife and said, “I am going to see my coin!”


The Mother: His wife told him, “Why do you want to see it? It’s not necessary.” “Yes, yes, let me see my coin.” He took out the little bag in which he kept the coin, and found inside a coin which was not perforated!  “Ah,” he said, “this is not my coin!


The Mother: What is this? Who has changed my coin?” Then his wife told him, “Look, one day there was some dust on your coat.... I shook it off through the window and the coin fell out. I had forgotten that the coin was there.


The Mother: I ran to look for it but didn’t ﬁnd it. Someone had picked it up. So I thought you would be very unhappy and I put another coin there.” () Only, he, of course, was conﬁdent that his coin was there and that was enough.


The Mother: It is the faith, the trust that does it, you see.... The perforated coin gives you nothing at all. You can always try. When one has conﬁdence...


The Mother: There! now... and that’s enough.   Which of you did not ask questions last time?... The ﬁrst one!


The Mother: If I could only hear what you are saying, it would be easier!  ( )  The divine truth...  I don’t think there is much difference!


The Mother: Candid? It is simple, sincere and does not doubt. We speak mostly of the candour of a child, who has a simple faith without any doubts.  Eh?


The Mother: You push it away every time you make a mistake?  Well, there are two different kinds of mistakes. There is the fault committed through ignorance. That remains a fault, and it puts a veil between the Grace and you, but it is a fault made  without knowing that one is making a mistake. But as soon as one knows that it is a mistake, one must absolutely refrain from making it, because each time one makes it, it is true that one builds a wall between oneself and the divine Grace.


The Mother: There is a very big difference between the mistake made through ignorance which one will not make again as soon as one knows it is a mistake, and the mistake made knowing that it is a mistake. And this, indeed, is called And this is more serious, it is even very serious! It veils the consciousness very much, veils it so much that after some time one no longer knows at all that one is making mistakes. One makes them thinking that one doesn’t. One gives so many excuses and justiﬁcations for everything one does, that one ends up by believing that one is no longer making any mistakes at all.


The Mother: Then, here, it becomes very serious, because one is incorrigible!  We have already spoken about this once. I have already answered. And I have told you I won’t repeat twice the same thing, because I want you to get into the habit of remembering what I have said.  Yes, for instance, if one wants to become somebody very important, to have a high position or attract the admiration of people around him, to become a great sadhak, a great sannyasi, a great yogi, etc., somebody quite important, that is called having a faith full of ambition.


The Mother: You have the faith that this may happen, you have faith in the Divine, but it is for your own small personal vainglory; and this is no longer something pure, sincere and true.  It is something that’s entirely for personal proﬁt. Naturally, there is no question in this of any self-giving; it is a hoarding of forces  as much as it is possible for you to hoard them, that is to say, the very opposite of the true movement. This happens much oftener than one would think.... This movement of ambition is often hidden right in the depths of the being and it pushes you, like this, from behind....


The Mother: It whips you so that you get on. It is a kind of veiled pride.  Listen, my child, the Divine never goes by human notions in His ways of acting. You must get that well into your head, once and for all. He probably does things without what we call reasons.


The Mother: But anyway, if He has reasons they are not the same as human reasons, and He does have the sense of justice as it is understood by men .  For example, you imagine very easily that a man who is craving for wealth and tries to deceive people in order to get money... According to your idea of justice, this man ought to be deprived of all his wealth and reduced to poverty. We ﬁnd that usually just the opposite happens.


The Mother: But that, of course, is only a matter of appearances. Behind the appearances, there is something else.... He exchanges this for other possibilities. He may have money, but he no longer has a conscience. And, in fact, what almost always happens is that when he has the money he desired, he is not happy....


The Mother: And the more he has, usually the less happy he is! He is tormented, you see, by the wealth he has gained.  You must not judge things from an outer success or a semblance of defeat. We may say — and generally this is what almost always happens — we could say that the Divine gives what one desires, and of all lessons this is the best! For, if your desire is inconscient, obscure, egoistic, you increase the unconsciousness, the darkness and egoism within yourself; that is to say, this takes you farther and farther away from the truth, from consciousness  and happiness.


The Mother: It takes you far away from the Divine. And for the Divine, naturally, only one thing is true — the divine Consciousness, the divine Union. And each time you put material things in front, you become more and more materialistic and go farther and farther away from full success.  But for the Truth that other success is a terrible defeat.... You have exchanged truth for falsehood!


The Mother: To judge from appearances and apparent success is precisely an act of complete ignorance. Even for the most hardened man, for whom everything has apparently been successful, even for him there is always a counterpart. And this kind of hardening of  the being which is produced, this veil which is formed, a thicker and thicker veil, between the outer consciousness and the inner truth, becomes, one day or another, altogether intolerable.


The Mother: It is usually paid for very dearly — outer success.   ( ) One must be great, pure, have a high and disinterested spiritual consciousness in order to be successful without being affected by it.


The Mother: When you do not succeed, quite naturally you turn back on yourself and within yourself, and you seek within yourself the consolation for your outer failure. And to those who have a ﬂame within them — if the Divine really wants to help them, if they are mature enough to be helped, if they are ready to follow the path — blows will come one after another, because this helps! It is the most powerful, the most direct, most effective help. If you succeed, be on your guard, ask yourself: “At what price, what cost have I bought success? I hope it is not a step towards...”


The Mother: There are those who have gone beyond this, those who are conscious of their soul, those who have given themselves entirely, those who — as I said — are absolutely pure, disinterested, and can succeed without its affecting and touching them ; here, then, it is different.     And after all, it is perhaps the last test which the Divine gives to anyone: “Now that you are noble, you are disinterested, you have no egoism, you belong only to me, I am going to make you triumph. We are going to see if you will hold out.”


The Mother: I don’t hear a thing!... Acts against the Asuras? Why do you want to know that?   (Laughter)  Perhaps to them also She gives what they want to have....


The Mother: ( ) And usually this hastens their end. There are Asuras and Asuras... that is to say... no, the Asuras are Asuras, but there are all those who have come out of them, and who are beings of an inferior kind.


The Mother: An Asura is generally a conscious being and he knows he has an end. He knows that the attitude he has taken up in the universe is bound to destroy him after a certain time. Naturally, the time of an Asura is extremely long if we compare it with the lifetime of man. But still, he knows there is an end, because he has cut himself off from Eternity. And so he tries to realise his plan as totally as he can until the day of his complete defeat.


The Mother: And it is possible that if he is allowed to do it, the defeat will come sooner. It is perhaps for this reason that at the time great things are about to be accomplished — it is at this time that the adverse forces are most active, most violently active, and apparently the most fully successful. They seem to have a clear ﬁeld: it is perhaps in order that things may be more rapidly ﬁnished.   (


The Mother: )  Is that all?   My children, speak dis-tinct-ly! You don’t need to shout loudly... You must articulate clearly!


The Mother: ( )  Mental arrogance? That means... what all of you have! ( )


The Mother: I don’t know a human being who does not have mental arrogance. There are those who have a little, there are those who have much, there are those who are entirely made up of it.... The mind, by its very nature, is something essentially arrogant. It fancies that it can know, it imagines that it can judge, and it spends its time passing judgments on everything — within you, on yourself, on others, on all things!  Recently, a very amusing incident happened.


The Mother: Someone wrote and began to express a doubt about something said by Sri Aurobindo. But then, afterwards, he added, “But we should not forget that he who wrote this is at least as intelligent as we!” ( .) When people spend their time judging things, if they tell themselves, “But perhaps the other person is at least as intelligent as I am!”, they would be less...  But you have only to observe yourselves...


The Mother: you can observe yourself, catch yourself at least a hundred times a day, with a mind which decides everything, knows everything, judges everything, knows very well what is good, what bad, what is true, what false, what is right.... And also how one should act, what this person should have done, how to resolve that problem.... All men know, you see.... If they were at the head of governments, for instance, they would know very well how to manage everything! But people don’t listen to them...


The Mother: that’s all!   You have only to look at yourself, you will see, you will catch yourself all the time.... Not to speak of those who have long ago decided about all the errors God has committed and how the  world would be if it were they who had been commissioned to make it! There.


The Mother: Opportunities for progress? Yes! Well, this is something quite obvious. You have made a big mistake, you are in great difﬁculty:  then, if you have faith, if you have trust in the divine Grace, if you really rely on It, you will suddenly realise that it is a lesson, that your difﬁculty or mistake is nothing else but a lesson and that it comes to teach you to ﬁnd within yourself what needs to be changed, and with this help of the divine Grace you will discover in yourself what has to be changed.


The Mother: And you will change it. And so, from a difﬁculty you will have made great progress, taken a considerable leap forward. This, indeed, happens all the time. Only, you must be truly sincere, that is, rely on the Grace and let It work in you — not like this: one part of you asking to be helped and another resisting as much as it can, because it doesn’t want to change... this is the difﬁculty.


The Mother: All that he is saying, all the time, is: completely, totally, sincerely, without reserve. For there is one part of the being which has an aspiration, there is one part of the being which gives itself, and there are other parts — sometimes a small part, some times a big one which hides nicely, right at the bottom, and keeps absolutely quiet so that it may not be found out, but which with its might, so as not to change.  And so one wonders... with, “Oh, I had such a beautiful aspiration, I had so much goodwill, I had such a great desire to change, and then, see, I cannot! Why?” Then, of course, your mental arrogance comes in and says, “I didn’t get the response I deserved, the divine Grace doesn’t help me, and I am left all alone to shift for myself”, etc., etc.


The Mother: It is not that. It is that hidden somewhere there is a tiny something which is well coiled up, in there,   upon itself and well hidden, right at the bottom, as at the bottom of a box, which refuses to stir. ( ) So when the effort, the aspiration wane, die down, this springs up like that, gently, and then it wants to impose its will and it makes you do exactly what you did not want to do, what you had decided you would not do, and which you do without knowing how or why! Because that thing was there, it had its turn — for small things, big things, for the details, even for the direction of life.  There are people who see clearly, who know so well what they ought to do, and who feel that they can’t....


The Mother: They don’t know why. It is nothing else but that. There is a little spot which doesn’t want to change and this little spot awaits its hour.  And the day it is allowed, through laxity, fatigue, somnolence, through a little inertia, allowed to show itself, it will show itself with all concentrated, accumulated energy, and will make you do, will make you say, make you feel, make you act contrary to what you had decided to do! And you will stand there: “Ah, how discouraging this is!...”


The Mother: Then some people say, “Fate!”  They think it is their fate. It is not fate, it is themselves!... It is that they don’t have, haven’t used, the light, the searchlight. They have not turned the searchlight into the small hidden corners of their being, they haven’t discovered what was well hidden.


The Mother: They have left it there, and then have done this ( ) so as not to see it. How many times one suddenly feels one is on the point of catching something, “Hup!” It hurts a little.... It is troublesome.... So one thinks of something else, and that’s all!


The Mother: The opportunity has gone. One must wait for another occasion, again commit a few stupidities, before being able to ﬁnd an opportunity to catch the thing by the tail, like this, or by the ear or the nose, and hold it ﬁrmly and say, “No! You won’t hide any longer now, I see you as you are, and you must either get out or change!”  One must have a strong grip and an unshakable resolution.  As in our Japanese story of the other day, that soldier who had a  knife in his knee in order to make sure of not falling asleep... and when he felt very sleepy, he turned the knife in such a way that it hurt him still more.


The Mother: One must have something like that. This,  is determination: to know what one wants and to do it.  There we are!  Ask!  (


The Mother: ) That, well, that depended on the previous arrangement I had made, you see.... One day it could be one thing, another day it could be another. Sometimes it was only movements, elements, cells.... Sometimes it was people. It depended on what I saw as possible and the arrangement I had made before counting.


The Mother: It was as when I used to give people a certain number of ﬂowers: at times it meant, “As many movements in you, as many elements of your being can be changed.” At other times I used to give them a certain number of ﬂowers, well: “You will have the power to change, to bring transformation to as many people as there are ﬂowers” — and all kinds of things like that.  It was not always the same thing. But it was always a power of transforming something.... It could be the transformation of the will, it could be the transformation of action, it could be the material transformation of the cells, it could be a transformation of yourself... the transformation of stars in the universe...


The Mother: of many things.... It depended on people.   Sometimes. Usually there were also associations with other ﬂowers.... There were times when one could organise one thing more than another....


The Mother: There were times... there was a time when I arranged ﬂowers in this way... for some people it was a total transformation. But when...


The Mother: The time factor sometimes eludes us, it is difﬁcult.... In organisations of this kind, the most difﬁcult thing to control is the time. One does not know if it will be in a year or in a hundred years.... It is difﬁcult to control. I never had the opportunity to give the time-sense to ﬂowers, and probably it is not possible.


The Mother: Perhaps it will come, but for the moment it is an element difﬁcult to gauge.  What does it mean? What is your question? I spoke of the transformation of stars.... If the whole universe is going to be transformed, the stars will be transformed also!


The Mother: Why do you suppose it will be only on earth?  Come back? () That is... I shall tell you this personally.  It depends on something....


The Mother: We could put it like this: ﬁrst — the very same question is in the Gita — there are two kinds of Asuric beings. There are those who can be converted and will be converted — after all, perhaps it would be enough if only at one moment, were it just in a passing ﬂash, these beings have conceived the possibility of conversion, for this to happen one day. And there are those who have absolutely consciously and  wilfully decided that they would prefer to be dissolved and to disappear. So those who want to be dissolved will be dissolved and those who want to be converted will be converted. That’s how it is in life!


The Mother: There are those who die, those who return. Usually it is something known, almost decided. One could say with certainty, . They will die, they will die, that is to say, they cut themselves off from their soul. They may have — as I said a while ago — a life that is quite... that seems to be altogether successful.


The Mother: They are not necessarily unhappy physically, far from it; sometimes, on the contrary, everything turns out successfully for them. And then, on the other hand, there are perhaps others under a special grace, who, in their adventure meet the worst rebuffs, and after some time they realise that they have been foolish, idiotic, stupid. And then... they come back. It depends on people. In fact, when they are successful it means that they are condemned; when they do not succeed, well, it is that the Grace has not left them.


The Mother: But mostly it will be after their death that there will be a difference, because those human beings who have allowed adverse forces to take hold of them and govern their lives, as soon as they leave their body, they are just swallowed up, that’s all! They have already cut off the connection with their psychic being, so their psychic being often has gone somewhere far off already in other worlds... and so, their vital being, which is the receptacle for these forces, as soon as it leaves the body will be quite simply swallowed, and that’s all. And so they will really die for good. That won’t make much difference in the world.


The Mother: It won’t change things much.  A still greater vital being! ( ) You see, they have in them an emanation of adverse vital forces, and the being or power which has emanated this force has done so in order to make  use of the body, to make it do in the material life exactly the things it wanted to do.


The Mother: But now, when there is no longer a body left, it is no longer interesting.... You see, it was this body which was meant to do a certain number of things to act against the divine action. Once the body has disappeared, the emanation is withdrawn and all the force that was with it, and it is swallowed up again for another opportunity.  They spend their time doing this. They emanate and then reabsorb when it pleases them, at times before death... that is, this hastens death a bit.


The Mother: It leaves the being like a kind of rag, powerless, lifeless, without anything.... This happens; it makes them absolutely mad. Or else, when they die in some sort of catastrophe, as it happened during the war, suddenly... hup!


The Mother: It acts like a cupping-glass, it absorbs everything, swallows up everything again for another occasion. It looks for this, for what is ready to receive it, and it makes it... There is always someone who is open to receive it, and who immediately believes himself a very superior being; because it gives this, it gives people the feeling that they are truly, exceptionally remarkable... they are capable of seeing the faults of things which others don’t see; their judgment is more sane than that of hundreds of other individuals. Besides, they have decided, they are among those who have decided what the creation ought to be like and who try to make it so, to put things in their place as they ought to be.


The Mother: I had these... people who, in a moment of lucidity or sincerity, a second of sincerity, had asked to be freed from the hostile emanation which made them act. And then, in that moment of sincerity this emanation went out of them, and without hurting the body it could be caught and destroyed. That has happened several times.  Then for some days the being is so happy...


The Mother: and it feels free, feels good, feels luminous.... And then suddenly, it tells itself, “But I no longer have any power! I don’t know any longer, can’t do anything any longer, I am altogether an ordinary being!” And then, “But this is not at all good, it was much better before!” And  so, as these adverse forces are countless — these entities exist in thousands and thousands, you see, they are there swarming around people, only waiting for an opportunity to be able to rush into someone — immediately one reabsorbs one’s dose and becomes once again what one was before, sometimes worse.


The Mother: And so the comedy begins all over again.   You are far too attached to it! Keep your little hostile being with you! It is useless, in this case. But it is this, it’s the feeling, all of a sudden, of having lost one’s power.


The Mother: But note, this happens to ambitious people, above all to ambitious people who want to have power, want to dominate others, want to be great masters, great instructors, want to perform miracles, have extraordinary powers... it is to these that this happens most often... those who have a kind of ambition, here, turning in their mind. This is dangerous.  It is so good to be simple, simply good-willed, to do the best one can, and in the best way possible; not to build anything very considerable but only to aspire for progress, for light, a peace full of goodwill, and let That which knows in the world decide for you what you will become, and what you will have to do.


The Mother: One no longer has any cares, and one is!  There we are.   What other planes? He speaks of the vital and physical, doesn’t he? ... that it is a force which manifests on the vital plane and the physical plane.


The Mother: The vital forces have a very great inﬂuence over money.   ( ) You see, when one thinks of money, one thinks of bank-notes or coins or some kind of wealth, some precious things.


The Mother: But this is only the physical expression of a force which may be handled by the vital and which, when possessed and controlled, almost automatically brings along these more material expressions of money. And that is a kind of power.  () It is a power of attracting certain very material vibrations, which has a capacity for utilisation that increases its strength — which is like the action of physical exercise, you see — it increases its strength through utilisation.  For example, if you have a control over this force — it is a force which, in the vital world, has a colour varying between red, a dark, extremely strong red and a deep gold that’s neither  bright nor very pale. Well, this force — when it is made to move, to circulate, its strength increases.


The Mother: It is not something one can accumulate and keep without using. It is a force which must always be circulated. For example, people who are misers and accumulate all the money, all the wealth they can attract towards themselves, put this force aside without using its power of movement; and either it escapes or it lies benumbed and loses its strength.  The true method of being in the stream of this money-power is precisely what is written here: a sense of absolute impersonality, the feeling that it is not something you possess or which belongs to you, but that it is a force you can handle and direct where it ought to go in order to do the most useful work. And by these movements, by this constant action, the power increases — the power of attraction, a certain power of organisation also.


The Mother: That is to say, even somebody who has no physical means, who is not in those material circumstances where he could materially handle money, if he is in possession of this force, he can make it act, make it circulate, and if ever he ﬁnds it necessary, receives from it as much power as he needs without there being externally any sign or any reason why the money should come to him. He may be in conditions which are absolutely the very opposite of those of usual wealth, and yet can handle this force and always have at his disposal all the wealth that’s necessary to carry on his work.  Therefore, it was like this, you see: this letter was written to someone who wanted to go out from here to collect money for Sri Aurobindo’s work, and this person had no means at all.  So he began by saying to Sri Aurobindo, “But as I myself have no means, people will have no trust in me, and I won’t be able to get anything.” And Sri Aurobindo answered him something like this, that it is not the external force in its most material form which is necessary, it is the handling of the inner force which gives one control over money wherever it is: whether it is in public institutions or with individuals, one obtains control  over it and one can, when it is necessary, attract by a certain movement what is needed.


The Mother: Eh?  ()  It is precisely the main word in your question which I don’t understand. In what manner, in what way have the money-forces...  Left?


The Mother: The money-power belongs to a world which was created deformed. It is something that belongs to the vital world; and he says this, doesn’t he? He says that it belongs to the vital and material worlds. And so at all times, always it was under the control of the Asuric forces; and what must be done is precisely to reconquer it from the Asuric forces.  That is why in the past, all those who wanted to do Yoga or follow a discipline, used to say that one should not touch money, for it was something — they said — diabolic or Asuric or at least altogether opposed to the divine life.


The Mother: But the whole universe, in all its manifestation, is the Divine Himself, and so belongs entirely to Him; and it is on this ground that he says that the money-forces belong to the Divine. One must reconquer them and give them to Him. They have been under the inﬂuence of the Asuric forces: one must win them back in order to put them at the disposal of the Divine so that He may be able to use them for His work of transformation.  ( )  Hm! ()


The Mother: It is as though you told me: it is a man and woman who have created another person, then how can he be divine in essence? It is exactly the same thing! The whole creation is made externally by external things, but behind that there are divine forces. What men have invented — paper or coins or other objects — all these are but means of expression — nothing else but that.... I just said this a moment ago, it is not the force itself, it is its material expression as men have created it.


The Mother: But this is purely conventional. For example, there are countries where small shells are exchanged instead of money. There are even countries where... Someone has written a story like this: in the North wealth means having hooks for ﬁshing; and the rich man is he who has the greatest number of ﬁsh-hooks. You know what these are, don’t you? — small iron hooks for catching ﬁsh which are ﬁxed at the end of the line.


The Mother: So, the multimillionaire is one who has a huge number of hooks!  It is purely conventional. What is behind is the force I am speaking about, you see, and so it manifests in all sorts of ways.  For example, even gold, you know... men have given a certain value to gold, because of all metals it deteriorates the least.


The Mother: It is preserved almost indeﬁnitely. And this is the reason, there’s no other. But it is a mere convention. The proof is that each time a new gold-mine is found and exploited, the value of gold has fallen. These are mere conventions between human beings.


The Mother: But what makes money a power is not this, it is the force that’s behind. As I was saying a while ago, it is a force that is able to attract and use anything whatever, all material things and...  So this is used according to a convention. Now, it is understood that wealth is represented by bits of paper which become very dirty, and on which something is printed. They are altogether disgusting, most often good only for lighting the ﬁre.


The Mother: But it is considered a great fortune. Why? Because that’s the convention. Yet one who is capable of attracting this and using it for something good, to increase the welfare of this world, the welfare and well-being of the world, that man has a hold on the  money-power, that is to say, the force that is behind money.  In French we call money “”.


The Mother: “” is also the name of a white metal which is just a little more... a little prettier and a little more lasting than other metals, one which is less easily oxidised and spoilt. So this is called “”, money. And then, by expansion, all that is wealth is also called “”. It is really paper or gold or sometimes just written things... because many large fortunes are only numbers written on paper, not even these papers which circulate, only books! There are immense fortunes which govern the world and are just written on papers, like that, with some documents and conventions between men.


The Mother: The fortune may increase, become triple, fourfold, tenfold, or else it may be reduced to nothing. They sell everything, they sell cotton, they sell sugar, they sell corn, coffee, anything at all, but there is nothing! There is no cotton, no sugar, no corn, nothing.  Everything is on paper! And so you buy millions of worth of cotton: you don’t have a wisp of cotton there!


The Mother: It is all on paper.  And so, sometimes later, you sell it off again. If the price of cotton has increased, you gain a fortune, if it has gone down you lose a fortune. And you have with you neither money nor cotton nor anything, nothing but paper. (


The Mother: ) It is entirely a convention.  How can one merge in the divine Consciousness?  Eh? merge oneself?   I don’t understand what you mean.


The Mother: “Merge”?  Yes, that’s just what I mean.... How can one dissolve, you mean dissolve in the Divine, and lose one’s ego?  First of all, one must will it. And then one must aspire with great perseverance, and each time the ego shows itself, one must give it a little rap on the nose () until it has received so many raps that it is tired of them and gives up the game.


The Mother: But usually, instead of rapping it on the nose, one justiﬁes its presence. Almost constantly, when it shows itself, one says, “After all, it is right.” And mostly one doesn’t even know that it is the ego, one thinks it is oneself. But the ﬁrst condition is to ﬁnd it essential not to have the ego any longer. One must really understand that one doesn’t want it.


The Mother: It is not so easy. It is not so easy! For one can very well turn words over in the head and say, “I don’t want the ego any more, I no longer want to be separated from the Divine.” All this goes on inside, like that. But it remains just there, it hasn’t much effect on your life.


The Mother: The next moment you do something purely egoistic, you see, and ﬁnd it quite natural. It doesn’t even shock you.  One must ﬁrst begin to understand truly what this means.  The ﬁrst method... you see, there are many stages...