The Mother: It is always the same thing. One must be very quiet, very attentive, calm the mind as much as possible, because as soon as it begins to stir, the phenomenon is distorted.  In any case, in a very general way, this proves that the inner vision is beginning to develop or is developed.   ()


The Mother: Nothing more? Do you have another question?   The ﬁlm?  Oh,oh, oh, oh!...


The Mother: the ﬁlm about Berlioz?  Yes, yes, so what place...? Where does it come from?  How does it help? That depends on people.


The Mother: Some people are very powerfully helped by it. I consider that man one of the purest expressions of music. It is almost... I could say that he is an incarnation of music, of the spirit of music. Unfortunately his body was a little frail; that is, he did not have that solid base which yoga gives, for instance.


The Mother: So this shook him up too  much, and made him too emotional, nervous, agitated, emotive.  You see, it was a serious weakness. But from the point of view of creation, I have always felt — and the other day it was very strong — that truly he was in contact with the spirit of music, you know, the very meaning of music, and that this entered into him with such a force that it shook him up; but truly, truly he was like an incarnation of music.  The notion that it was suffering that made him create is purely human; it is not true. What, on the contrary, is very remarkable is — to turn the thing around — that there was no physical pain which was not instantaneously translated into music in him; that is, the spirit of music was much stronger than human pain, and each blow which he received from life — and as he was indeed too sensitive to have the power of resisting, he was shaken — all the same, instantly, it was translated into music.


The Mother: It is something very rare.  People — all creators — usually require a little... how shall I put it?... time and quietness to be able to begin creating again, while with him it was spontaneous. The painful blow brought musical expression instantaneously. Truly for him his whole life began with music, ﬁnished with music. It was music and it was a...


The Mother: he had such a sincerity and such an exclusive intensity in his attachment to music that I feel that the spirit of music expressed itself through him. Perhaps what he has written is not the beautiful music, because of that kind of weakness of what we call the “” here. He was... his physical make-up was a little too weak. But from the point of view of music, it is very beautiful, very beautiful.


The Mother: ( ) And even with his power he had a very great simplicity. There is a kind of limpidity of line in what he has written, with a very great technical knowledge, of course. His power of orchestration was very, very remarkable.


The Mother: When one can orchestrate something for six hundred performers, it means a science as complicated as the most complicated mathematics. And in fact they come very close.   I knew a musician who was not at all his equal but was still a very good musician, and he used to compose. He composed operas, musical comedies, and music for... well, not concert music. In front of a sheet of paper... you see, he had a large sheet of paper and on it he wrote the names of the different instruments; and beside each one he wrote simply, just like that, what it had to play.


The Mother: He was a friend of mine, you know, I used to see him at work. It was as though he was writing equations, like that. When it was ﬁnished, it had only to be given to an orchestra, it became something magniﬁcent. Sometimes even... The other man, you noticed how he played his theme on the piano, didn’t you?


The Mother: He played a few notes, almost nothing, it seemed just two or three notes, like that: it was his theme. And on this theme, then, suddenly he began to write. But this man usually did not even play his theme on the piano, he wrote directly. It is a particular cerebral formation. There are others who compose exclusively on the piano and someone else has to write for them.


The Mother: Another person has to do this work of giving the different notes and organising the notes to reproduce the harmony created. But this man I am talking about — great musicians like Saint-Sa¨ens, for example, the musicians of his time, gave him their compositions for orchestration. They wrote them, you see, as one writes for the piano, for two hands; and he changed that into orchestra music. He orchestrated just as I said, like that, separating the different groups of instruments and putting down beside each the part it had to play.  (


The Mother: )  For this — if one can be completely silent, you see, silent and attentive, simply as though one were an instrument which has to record it — one does not move, and is only something that  is listening — if one can be absolutely silent, absolutely still and like that, then the thing enters. And it is only later, so


The Mother: me time later, that you can become aware of the effect, either of what it meant or the impression it had on you.  But the best way of listening is this. It is to be like a still mirror and very concentrated, very silent. In fact, we see people who truly love music... I have seen musicians listening to music, musicians, composers or players who truly love music, I have seen them listening to music...


The Mother: they sit completely still, you know, they are like that, they do not move at all. Everything, everything is like that. And if one can stop thinking, then it is very good, then one proﬁts fully.... It is one of the methods of inner opening and one of the most powerful.  (


The Mother: )  Is that all?   Express it? If one has the gift; otherwise it is not worthwhile.


The Mother: But if one has the gift it is good.  There are different depths in these shocks. They are not all on the same plane. Usually people receive emotional or sentimental shocks altogether superﬁcially, and that is why they weep, they cry, they... sometimes gesticulate. Anyway, these are shocks in the outer crust.


The Mother: But there is a greater depth where usually you receive silently, but which awakens in you a creative vibration and a need to formulate. Then, if one is a poet he writes poetry, if one is a musician he composes music, if one is a writer he writes a story, and if one is a philosopher he expresses his state, describes his state .  Now, there is a greater depth of pain which leaves you in  an absolute silence and opens the inner doors to greater depths which can put you in immediate touch with the Divine. But this indeed is not expressed in words.


The Mother: It changes your consciousness; but usually a long time elapses before one can say anything about it.  Berlioz, of course, was in the second category.   ( )


The Mother: There then, is that all?  Eh?  Sometimes you feel, sometimes you don’t, sometimes you like it, sometimes you don’t, sometimes you understand, sometimes you don’t understand, and sometimes I play well and sometimes I play badly. ()  This depends on many things, above all on the state you are in yourself. It may depend a great deal on the region which seeks expression in the music.


The Mother: There are some which are accessible, there are others which are more difﬁcult to understand or receive; but usually it depends almost exclusively on the condition you yourself are in. The day you are well disposed, you like it; the day you are ill-disposed you don’t understand. There are days when it puts you to sleep, there are days when it pleases you; on some days you have the feeling that it opens a horizon before you, on others you say, “don’t know, don’t understand”! So, there. It depends altogether on one’s own condition.


The Mother: Eh?  I?  Before sitting down I don’t even know what notes I am going to play. The region?


The Mother: It is always the same region. This is why I can speak with some experience about the origin of Berlioz’s music, because it is a region very well known to me, one I frequent assiduously. But I do not at all know what will come. Nothing at all, nothing. I don’t even decide what feeling or idea or state of consciousness is going to be expressed, nothing.


The Mother: I am like a blank page. I come and sit down, concentrate for a minute and let it come. Afterwards, sometimes I know, not always. But when I hear it a second time here, in the afternoon or evening, then I know; because it is no longer I, it is something that comes from outside. So then I know quite well what it is like.


The Mother: Yes, that day I knew what I was going to play. This may happen.  There are times when I know, others when I don’t. Only, there are days when, if I had at my disposal an orchestra of two hundred players, it would be very interesting. The means are poor; that is, the music I sense, which comes to me, would be expressed very well as... by what we saw the other evening in the ﬁlm.


The Mother: It would need, you see, an expression of that kind  to be expressed fully. So it has to be collected as in a dropper, you know, and then given out drop by drop, like that. And so naturally it is much impoverished. It doesn’t come to much. The greater part escapes.


The Mother: There. Now I think it is ﬁnished. Nothing else that’s important, interesting, urgent? (


The Mother: )   Oh dear! She still has her nose in her book.  Did not understand!


The Mother: There are many things you have not understood. ( )  So, what did you not understand?  He is answering — it is always the same thing — answering something the person writing the letter has asked... an experience he had or something he has described.


The Mother: He is answering that and says, “This is...” the explanation of what happened.  So it doesn’t mean anything else except what it says. It is an explanation. What the experience was he doesn’t say. Don’t understand, eh?


The Mother: Yes, many.    Yes, yes. In fact there are some which not only always seek the Divine but have an intense aspiration, and one is not aware of them. The psychic being is like that, and it is always there.


The Mother: But one becomes aware of it only very rarely. It is so veiled, you see.  I spoke a while ago of the outer crust. It is really like a crust. It is something hard, thick, without any transparency, which lets no vibrations pass, and one lives so constantly inside this that one is not even aware that there is something else.


The Mother: But there is, there is indeed right in the depths of the being — specially of those who are predestined, that’s understood, but still — a being which not only presides over one’s destiny, not only aspires for identiﬁcation with the Divine, but has the power to govern the circumstances of life and, in fact, to organise them in spite of the outer will which very often revolts and does not want the circumstances as this inner consciousness — which is fully clearsighted — has organised them. And it is only much later, when one becomes aware of it and looks back at his life, that one realises that all this was wonderfully organised with a complete clear-sightedness of what was necessary, in order to lead him there, just where he had to go.  Most often the things which you took for accidents or misfortunes or even tragedies or even for the blows of fate, for attacks of the adverse forces, all this, almost all without any exception, was a marvellously perspicacious and admirably executed plan to lead you just where you had to go by the shortest road.  Of course this is not always absolute, because it depends on the importance of the individual in relation to the importance of the surrounding circumstances. That is why I said at the beginning: every predestined being.


The Mother: What I mean by “predestined” is a being who has come down upon earth to accomplish a precise mission and who, naturally, will be helped in the  accomplishment of this mission. It may be a very modest mission but it is a precise one that he has to accomplish upon earth. Well, all these beings... their life is organised in this way; but ninetynine and a half per cent are not aware of it, and they revolt or lament or... And then, above all, they pity themselves greatly and lament their own difﬁculties, their own miseries, their own sufferings, and caress themselves gently: “Oh, my poor little one, how unhappy you are!”


The Mother: But it is their inner being which has done everything.  There we are.  , my children.    Oh, yes!


The Mother: First of all there are many different parts of the being and each one can open in its own way, you see; the mental opening and the vital opening are very different in nature and the physical opening is still more different.  That’s when the physical body opens to the divine inﬂuence and receives the divine forces.  For example, you see, there’s a moment when the divine forces come and penetrate all the cells. To begin with, it is the physical consciousness, the body consciousness which opens ﬁrst to the inﬂuence of the Divine and understands and wants nothing else but, the divine Presence, the divine inﬂuence. There are also the body’s feelings, and the very cells of the body, which can open to receive the force.


The Mother: For instance, when at a certain moment one feels a kind of very intense vibration spreading through the whole body and at that time one feels ﬁlled with a strength, an unusual force, a consciousness also, and all things become clear  and perceptible, then that’s an opening of the body; it is when the body knows, you see, and has succeeded in opening to the inﬂuence.  He says here that it is easier. For some people it is more difﬁcult, it depends on one’s nature. But it is better because if you concentrate there, deeply enough, it is there that you enter into contact with the psychic for the ﬁrst time; while if you concentrate in the head you have to pass later from the head to the heart to be able to identify yourself with the psychic being. And if you concentrate by gathering the energies, it is better to gather them here, because it is in this centre, in this region of the being that you ﬁnd the will to progress, the force of puriﬁcation, and the most intense and effective aspiration.


The Mother: The aspiration that comes from the heart is much more effective than that from the head.  “To keep on its side” — it is, for instance... you see, there is on one side — how shall I put it? — let us take the army, the army of the divine forces, on the other side the army of the forces of ordinary nature; so whether to keep on the side of this army or of that, that’s what it means.  You do not understand? That is to say, to go to this side, join this or that side. If I keep on the side of the divine forces I join those who are ﬁghting for the divine forces like an army.


The Mother: If  I put myself on the side of the ordinary vital forces of life, I go over to that side and forsake the others, I go over to that side.  Knot? Oh! It is an image, you see. But it is something that clings to you and holds you as tightly as a well-made rope knot.


The Mother: And so it is always said that in order to progress truly the ﬁrst thing to do is to cut the knot of the ego. It is very expressive and makes a good image, doesn’t it? — one is tied up, one is shut up in oneself, bound as in a prison by knots which tie up all the parts of the being together; it is this which produces a cohesion.  But at the same time it is a limitation, a limiting. You cannot receive all the forces you would like to, because you are enclosed in this shell made of a heap of knots in the rope that’s tying you.


The Mother: How to cut it? Take a sword and strike it (), when one becomes conscious of it. For usually one is not; we think it quite normal, what happens to us; and in fact it is very normal but we think it quite good also. So to begin with one must have a great clear-sightedness to become aware that one is enclosed in all these knots which hold one in bondage. And then, when one is aware that there’s something altogether tightly closed in there — so tightly that one has tried in vain to move it —


The Mother: then one imagines one’s will to be a very sharp sword-blade, and with all one’s force one strikes a blow on this knot (imaginary, of course, one doesn’t take up a sword in fact), and this produces a result.  Of course you can do this work from the psychological point of view, discovering all the elements constituting this knot, the whole set of resistances, habits, preferences, of all that holds you narrowly closed in. So when you grow aware of this, you can concentrate and call the divine Force and the Grace and strike a good blow on this formation, these things so closely held,  like that, that nothing can separate them. And at that moment you must resolve that you will no longer listen to these things, that you will listen only to the divine Consciousness and will do no other work except the divine work without worrying about personal results, free from all attachment, free from all preference, free from all wish for success, power, satisfaction, vanity, all this.... All this must disappear and you must see only the divine Will incarnated in your will and making you act.


The Mother: Then, in this way, you are cured.   Oh, as one strengthens muscles, by a methodical exercise. You take one little thing, something you want to do or don’t want to do. Begin with a small thing, not something very essential to the being, but a small detail.


The Mother: And then, if, for instance, it is something you are in the habit of doing, you insist on it with the same regularity, you see, either not to do it or to do it — you insist on it and compel yourself to do it as you compel yourself to lift a weight — it’s the same thing. You make the same kind of effort, but it is more of an inner effort. And after having taken little things like this — things relatively easy, you know — after taking these and succeeding with them, you can unite with a greater force and try a more complicated experiment. And gradually, if you do this regularly, you will end up by acquiring an independent and very strong will.  Yes, each part of the being has its own aspiration which has the nature of the aspiring part.


The Mother: There is even a physical aspiration; the body can... The cells of the body understand what the transformation will be, and with all their strength, all the consciousness they contain, they aspire for this transformation.   The very cells of the body — not the central will, thought or emotion — the cells of the body open in this way to receive the Force.   Not in the physical heart, not in the organ.


The Mother: It is in a fourth dimension, an inner dimension. But it is in that region, the region somewhat behind the solar plexus, it is there that one ﬁnds it most easily. The psychic being is in the fourth dimension as related to our physical being.  Negative Nirvana? It is not in today’s lesson.


The Mother: Negative Nirvana means quite simply a Nirvana which contains nothing positive. It means a nought containing nothing positive, an absolute nought.  Here we are, my children, that’s all.   ( )


The Mother: You have a question? ( ) You want to put a question? Put, put, put your question!  (


The Mother: ) What is it? No?  That’s all.   Yes.


The Mother: First you must attain the true consciousness, be in contact with the Divine and let Him govern your action; and then you can act upon outer circumstances, even actions, and overcome outer difﬁculties. You must have the inner experience ﬁrst before hoping to be able to [...] something external. In fact everything is founded upon an awareness of the divine Consciousness, and unless this is done all the rest is uncertain. Nothing can be permanently established. It is only after one has become conscious; then one can follow one’s path rapidly, without fear.


The Mother: Otherwise there are always... one always risks making mistakes, going on a false track.   Psychic poise means the poise of the being which comes from the fact that the psychic, which governs the movements of the being, is the master of all the movements of the consciousness.  The psychic is always well poised.


The Mother: So when it is active and governs the being, it inevitably brings a balance.   I think everyone has defects. So if it were necessary not to have any defects in order to be open, nobody could be open. One always has defects, to begin with. One is not made of a single piece.


The Mother: This is the main reason. There are many different parts in the being which sometimes are quite independent of one another and take hold of the consciousness almost in turn and sometimes even in an altogether regular order. So, when part of the being has goodwill and already a kind of perception of what the divine force is, you see, this opens the being and puts it into contact with this force. But it is not always there. There are other parts which come to the front, which have defects, bad habits, and which can veil the consciousness completely.


The Mother: But if one keeps the memory of the part which was open, one can keep the opening all the same, though outwardly the part that is active is not particularly interested and not even able to understand. But the other part can continue to be open and receive the force.   What? Faith through aspiration?


The Mother: I think so, because it is rare to have it spontaneously, to be born with it. Very few people have this good luck to have a spontaneous faith. But if one is very sincere in one’s aspiration, one gets it. Aspiration can bring everything, provided it is sincere and constant. One always has a tiny element of faith within oneself, whether it be faith in what one’s parents have said or in the books one has studied.


The Mother: After all, all your education is based upon a faith of this kind. Those who have educated you have told you certain things. You had no means of checking, because you were too young and had no experience. But you have faith in what they told you and you go forward on that faith. So everyone has a tiny bit of faith, and to increase it one can use one’s aspiration.


The Mother: It signiﬁes anything one wants, you see. Twelve: that’s the number of Aditi, of Mahashakti. So it applies to everything; all her action has twelve aspects. There are also her twelve virtues, her twelve powers, her twelve aspects, and then her twelve planes of manifestation and many other things that are twelve; and the symbol, the number twelve is in itself a symbol. It is the symbol of manifestation, double perfection, in essence and in manifestation, in the creation.


The Mother: Ah, my child, I have described this somewhere, but I don’t remember now. For it is always a choice, you see; according to what one wants to say, one can choose these twelve aspects or twelve others, or give them different names. The same aspect can be named in different ways. This does not have the ﬁxity of a mental theory. (


The Mother: )  According to the angle from which one sees the creation, one day I may describe twelve aspects to you; and then another day, because I have shifted my centre of observation, I may describe twelve others, and they will be equally true.   () Is it the wind that’s producing this storm?  It is very good for a dramatic stage-effect....


The Mother: The traitor is approaching in the night... yes? We are waiting for some terrible deed....  What?....   Yes.


The Mother: This means that the help of the psychic poise is necessary.   It is not that the psychic being has to become balanced: it is that one must be under the inﬂuence of the psychic poise. The psychic is always balanced. But the being is not always under the inﬂuence of the psychic which brings the balance. The inﬂuence of the psychic gives the balance.


The Mother: ( )  My child, when it happens, one understands. Precisely, so long as one doesn’t understand it means that it hasn’t come. This is like people asking you, “How can I know whether I am in contact with the Divine?”


The Mother: That itself is enough to prove that they are not. For if they are they can no longer ask the question.  It is something understood. For the psychic it is the same thing.  When the psychic is in front one knows it, and there is no possibility of any doubt.


The Mother: Consequently one no longer asks the question.  Make what?... Yes, it is difﬁcult. ( )


The Mother: It is a great task.   Well, it is always the same thing; ﬁrst of all you must understand what is meant by being clear. And then you must aspire, and with persistence; and each time something comes to obstruct you, you must brush it aside, push it back, not accept it.


The Mother: The mind and vital have a very bad habit: when one has succeeded through aspiration in having an experience, being in contact with the divine force, immediately they rush forward to make it their own property, you see, like that (), as a cat jumps on a mouse. And then they catch it and say, “It is for me.” And then the mind turns it into all kinds of speculations and afﬁrmations and constructions and takes great pride in it, and the vital uses the power to fulﬁl its own desires.  So, in order to avoid this it is said that they must be clear, quiet, peaceful, and must not rush at the force which is trying  to manifest and make of it a tool for their personal use. For the mind to be clear it must be silent — at least to a certain extent, and for the vital to be clear it must give up its desires, have no desires and impulses and passions.


The Mother: This indeed is the essential condition. Later, if one goes into details, neither of them should have any preferences, attachments, any particular way of being or particular set of ideas.   There are several degrees of sincerity.  The most elementary degree is not to say one thing and think another, claim one thing and want another.


The Mother: For example, what happens quite often: to say, “I want to make progress, and I want to get rid of my defects” and, at the same time, to cherish one’s defects in the consciousness and take great care to hide them so that nobody intervenes and sends them off. This indeed is a very common phenomenon. This is already the second degree. The ﬁrst degree, you see, is when someone claims, for example, to have a very great aspiration and to want the spiritual life and, at the same time, does completely... how to put it?... shamelessly, things which are most contradictory to the spiritual life. This is indeed a degree of sincerity, rather of insincerity, which is most obvious.


The Mother: But there is a second degree which I have just described to you, which is like this: there is one part of the being which has an aspiration and says, even thinks, even feels that it would very much like to get rid of defects, imperfections; and then, at the same time, other parts which hide these defects and imperfections very carefully so as not to be compelled to expose them and get over them. This is very common.  And ﬁnally, if we go far enough, if we push the description far enough, so long as there is a part of the being which contradicts the central aspiration for the Divine, one is not perfectly sincere. That is to say, a perfect sincerity is something extremely  rare. And most commonly, very very frequently, when there are things in one’s nature which one does not like, one takes the greatest care to hide them from oneself, one ﬁnds favourable explanations or simply makes a little movement, like this ().


The Mother: You have noticed that when things move like this you can’t see them clearly. Well, where the defect is seated, there is a kind of vibration which does this, and so your sight is not clear, you no longer see your defects. And this is automatic. Well, all these are insincerities.  And perfect sincerity comes when at the centre of the being there is the consciousness of the divine Presence, the consciousness of the divine Will, and when the entire being, like a luminous, clear, transparent whole, expresses this in all its details.


The Mother: This indeed is true sincerity.  When, at any moment, whatever may happen, the being has given itself to the Divine and wants only the divine Will, when, no matter what is going on in the being, at any moment whatever, always, the whole being in perfect unanimity can say to the Divine and feels for the Divine, “Let Thy Will be done”, when it is spontaneous, total, integral, you are sincere.  But until this is established, it is a mixed sincerity, more or less mixed, right up to the point where one is not at all sincere.  You must become conscious. Aspire, ask, aspire sincerely.


The Mother: You see, generally speaking, you are here, we have a class, we have just read something, you have questions to ask; while you are here you ask questions and think of the subject. But as  soon as you go out or go home, you think of a thousand other things, don’t you? So, how do you expect that you will become conscious of the divine Force? We have hardly about half an hour here, that’s not a very long time to become conscious of the Force.  But if it is your sole preoccupation, if truly, with all your being, you want to become conscious of the divine Force, you will be able to.


The Mother: You can’t, simply because you think about it from time to time; when the subject comes up, you ask yourself, “Why, it is true, how can I do it?” And then, the next minute you don’t think about it any more. So, how do you expect this to happen? You must be very attentive, you must be very silent, must observe yourself very clearly. And you must be very humble; that is, be willing not to play a great part in all this story.


The Mother: The misfortune is that usually either the vital being or the mental being or even the physical being is very anxious to play a part, very anxious. So it swells up, takes up a lot of place, covers the rest; and it covers it so well that one can’t even become aware of the presence of the divine Force because the personal movement of the physical, the body, the vital, the mind, covers everything with its own importance.  Listen: if every evening before going to sleep you take off only a tiny minute, like that, and in this little minute, with all the concentration you are capable of you ask to become conscious of the divine Force, simply like that, nothing more; in the morning when waking up, before beginning your day, if you do the same thing, take a minute off, concentrate as much as you can and ask to become conscious of the divine Force, you will see, after some time, it will happen. Nothing but these small things which are nothing at all and take no time.  One day it will happen.


The Mother: Only, you must do it with concentration, intensity and sincerity; that is, it must not happen that while you are asking for this, another part of your being is telling itself, “After all, this has no importance.” Or maybe you think of something else, what you are going to put on or the  person you will meet, anything at all, a thousand desires. You must be there, fully, for Of course if you multiply the minute, it goes so much the quicker. But as I also said, if one is able not to contradict the next minute the aspiration one had the minute before, it is easier; if not, it pushes sincerity away.   Probably he considers these the two aspects of the problem.


The Mother: The truth is that there are people who can more easily get into contact with an impersonal Divine than with a personal Divine.  For them, for certain minds, certain types of intelligence, it is easier; they understand better or think they understand better.  You see, there are certain... what we could call certain attributes of the Divine which it seems to them impossible to give to a personal being, and so they prefer to have a relation with an impersonal conception of the Divine. So, for them, he says this.  There are others who are able to have both at the same time, one completing the other; but for others still it is an antinomy, a contradiction.


The Mother: So, they prefer to choose one or the other. I think this is why he has put it like that, so that each one may choose the approach that’s easiest for him and the most expressive also.  Essentially it is the same thing; in the human mind it becomes different. And then, man’s mind fashions man’s consciousness; and as for the human consciousness, well, it depends on one’s inner attitude and one’s tastes. The mind always needs to make divisions, otherwise it thinks that it does not understand.


The Mother: Probably it is to help him in his work, so that there may not be someone who says, “Ah, no, I don’t want the personal Divine!”  — so he says, “It is all right, turn to an impersonal God.”   Ah, that’s what looks on at what it is doing! There is always someone who observes when one is doing something. Now sometimes, he becomes proud.


The Mother: Obviously, this takes away much strength from the effort. I think it is that: it is the habit of looking at oneself acting, looking at oneself living. It is necessary to observe oneself but I think it is still more necessary to try to be absolutely sincere and spontaneous, very spontaneous in what one does: not always to go on observing oneself, looking at what one is doing, judging oneself — sometimes severely. In fact it is almost as bad as patting oneself with satisfaction, the two are equally bad. One should be so sincere in his aspiration that he doesn’t even know he is aspiring, that he becomes the aspiration itself.


The Mother: When this indeed can be realised, one truly attains to an extraordinary power.  One minute, one minute of this, and you can prepare years of realisation. When one is no longer a self-regarding being, an ego looking at itself acting, when one becomes the action itself, above all in the aspiration, this truly is good. When there is no longer a person who is aspiring, when it is an aspiration which leaps up with a fully concentrated impulsion, then truly it goes very far. Otherwise there is always mixed up in it a little vanity, a little self-complacency, a little self-pity also, all kinds of little things which come and spoil everything.


The Mother: But it is difﬁcult.  How many times I have explained this to you! At least thirty  times. What is the use of explaining? You must try, you must make an effort yourself.


The Mother: To explain is simply to try to give a formula to the mind which allows the thing to be done without any effort. One has a ﬁne explanation in his head and believes that it is enough for the thing to be realised. But if one does just a little — even very awkwardly — gradually one progresses, one does better and better. When one does it really well, one understands what one is doing, and one also knows how one has learnt to do it, by doing it step by step, by trying.  The most important condition is an almost childlike trust, the candid trust of a child who is sure that it will come, who doesn’t even ask himself about it; when he needs something he is sure that it is going to come.


The Mother: Well, it is this, this kind of trust — this indeed is the most important condition.  To aspire is indispensable. But some people aspire with such a conﬂict inside them between faith and absence of faith, trust and distrust, between the optimism which is sure of victory and a pessimism which asks itself when the catastrophe will come.  Now if this is in the being, you may aspire but you don’t get anything. And you say, “I aspired but didn’t get anything.”


The Mother: It is because you demolish your aspiration all the time by your lack of conﬁdence. But if you truly have trust... Children when left to themselves and not deformed by older people have such a great trust that all will be well! For example, when they have a small accident, they never think that this is going to be something serious: they are spontaneously convinced that it will soon be over, and this helps so powerfully in putting an end to it.  Well, when one aspires for the Force, when one asks the Divine for help, if one asks with the unshakable certitude that it will come, that it is impossible that it won’t, then it is sure to come.


The Mother: It is this kind... yes, this is truly an inner opening,  this trustfulness. And some people are constantly in this state.  When there is something to be received, they are always there to receive it. There are others, when there is something to have, a force descends, they are always absent, they are always closed at that moment; while those who have this childlike trust are always there at the right time.  And it is strange, isn’t it, outwardly there is no difference.


The Mother: They may have exactly the same goodwill, the same aspiration, the same wish to do good, but those who have this smiling conﬁdence within them, do not question, do not ask themselves whether they will have it or not have it, whether the Divine will answer or not — the question does not arise, it is something understood... “What I need will be given to me; if I pray I shall have an answer; if I am in a difﬁculty and ask for help, the help will come — and not only will it come but it will manage everything.” If the trust is there, spontaneous, candid, unquestioning, it works better than anything else, and the results are marvellous.  It is with the contradictions and doubts of the mind that one spoils everything, with this kind of notion which comes when one is in difﬁculties: “Oh, it is impossible! I shall never manage it.


The Mother: And if it is going to be aggravated, if this condition I am in, which I don’t want, is going to grow still worse, if I continue to slide down farther and farther, if, if, if, if...” like that, and one builds a wall between oneself and the force one wants to receive.  The psychic being has this trust, has it wonderfully, without a shadow, without an argument, without a contradiction. And when it is like that, there is not a prayer which does not get an answer, no aspiration which is not realised.    abhimana


The Mother: Oh, good heavens! First of all, see how utterly disastrous it is: it is very petty, it is destructive; and then take a step farther and hold  yourself up to ridicule, see to what extent you are ludicrous. So, in this way you get rid of it. But so long as you take it seriously, so long as you justify the movement, so long as somewhere in the mind there’s the idea, “After all, it is quite natural, I was illtreated and I suffer from the ill-treatment”, then it is ﬁnished, it will never go.


The Mother: But if you begin to understand that it is a sign of weakness, of inferiority — naturally, of a very considerable egoism, a narrow-mindedness, and above all of a pettiness of the feelings, a small-heartedness — if you understand that, you can ﬁght it. But your thought should be in agreement. If there is the attitude, “I have been hurt, I am suffering, I am going to show that I am suffering”, then it is like that. I am not going so far as to mention people who nurse a fairly secret spirit of vengeance and say, “I have been made to suffer, I shall make them suffer.” This indeed becomes nasty enough for people to notice that it should not exist — though it is not always easy to resist.


The Mother: It indicates something very petty in the nature. It may be very sensitive, it may be very emotional, it may have a certain intensity but it is quite petty, it is all turned back on oneself, and is quite petty.   Of course, you can use your reason, if you have one which works. You can make use of the reason and can tell yourself something which is very true: that in our being it is only egoism which always suffers, and that if there was no egoism there would be no suffering, and that if one wants the spiritual life, one must overcome his egoism.


The Mother: So the ﬁrst thing to do is to look straight at this suffering, perceive to what an extent it is the expression of a very petty egoism and then sweep the place clean, make a clean ground and say, “I don’t want this dirt, I am going to clean my inner chamber.”  Physical sufferings? No, she is not speaking of physical suffer405 ings. Physical sufferings? One thing is certain, you know; I think this was in the system, in the nature, that it was invented as an indicator; because, for example, if the body was disorganised in some way or other and this caused no suffering at all, one would never look for a way to stop the disorganisation.


The Mother: One thinks of curing an illness only because one suffers. If it caused you no unpleasantness, you would never think of being cured of it. So, in the economy of Nature I think that the ﬁrst purpose of physical suffering was to give you a warning.  Unfortunately, there is the vital which pokes its nose into the affair and takes a very perverse pleasure in increasing, twisting, sharpening the suffering. Now this deforms the whole system because instead of being an indicator, sometimes it becomes an occasion for enjoying the illness, for making oneself interesting, and also having the opportunity to pity oneself — all kinds of things which all come from the vital and are all detestable, one more than another.


The Mother: But originally I think that it was this: “Take care!” You see, it’s like a danger-signal: “Take care, there’s something out of order.”  Only, when one is not very much coddled, when one has a little endurance and decides within himself not to pay too much attention, quite remarkably the pain diminishes. And there are a number of illnesses or states of physical imbalance which can be cured simply by removing the effect, that is, by stopping the suffering. Usually it comes back because the cause is still there.


The Mother: If the cause of the illness is found and one acts directly on its cause, then one can be cured radically. But if one is not able to do that, one can make use of this inﬂuence, of this control over pain in order — by cutting off the pain or eliminating it or mastering it in oneself — to work on the illness. So this is an effect, so to say, from outside inwards; while the other is an effect from within outwards, which is much more lasting and much more complete. But the other also is effective.  For example, you see, some people suffer from unbearable toothache.


The Mother: It depends above all... some people are more or less  what I call “coddled”, that is, unable to resist any pain, to bear it; they immediately say, “I can’t! It is unbearable. I can’t bear any more!” Ah, this indeed changes nothing in the circumstances; it does not stop the suffering, because it is not by telling it that you don’t want it that you make it go away.


The Mother: But if one can do two things: either bring into oneself — for all nervous suffering, for example — bring into oneself a kind of immobility, as total as possible, on the part which hurts, this has the effect of an anaesthetic. If one succeeds in bringing an inner immobility, an immobility of the inner vibration, at the spot where one is suffering, it has exactly the same effect as an anaesthetic. It cuts off the contact between the place of pain and the brain, and once you have cut the contact, if you can keep this state long enough, the pain will disappear. You must form the habit of doing this.  But you have the occasion, all the time, the opportunity to do it: you get a cut, get a knock, you see, one always gets a little hurt somewhere — especially when doing athletics, gymnastics and all that — well, these are opportunities given to us.


The Mother: Instead of sitting there observing the pain, trying to analyse it, concentrating upon it, which makes it increase indeﬁnitely... There are people who think of something else but it does not last; they think of something else and then suddenly are drawn back to the place that hurts. But if one can do this... You see, since the pain is there, it proves that you are in contact with the nerve that’s transmitting the pain, otherwise you wouldn’t feel it. Well, once you know that you are in contact, you try to accumulate at that point as much immobility as you can, to stop the vibration of the pain; you will perceive then that it has the effect of a limb which goes to sleep when you are in an awkward position and that all of a sudden... you know, don’t you?... and then, when it stops, it begins to vibrate again terribly.


The Mother: Well, you deliberately try this kind of concentration of immobility in the painful nerve; at the painful point you bring as total an immobility as you can.  Well, you will see that it works, as I told you, like an anaesthetic: it puts the thing to sleep. And then, if you can add to that a kind  of inner peace and a trust that the pain will go away, well, I tell you that it will go.  Of all things, that which is considered the most difﬁcult from the yogic point of view is toothache, because it is very close to the brain. Well, I know that this can be done truly to the extent of not feeling the pain at all; and this does not cure the bad tooth, but there are cases in which one can succeed in killing the painful nerve.


The Mother: Usually in a tooth it is the nerve which has been attacked by the caries, the disease, and which begins to protest with all its strength. So, if you succeed in establishing this immobility, you prevent it from vibrating, you prevent it from protesting. And what is remarkable is that if you do it fairly constantly, with sufﬁcient perseverance, the sick nerve will die and you will not suffer at all any more. Because it was that which was suffering and when it is dead it does not suffer any longer.  Try.


The Mother: I hope you never have a toothache. ( )   That is to say, in the forefront of the consciousness, instead of being pushed behind, in a background which is only very rarely seen; to keep it right in front of the consciousness, in the active consciousness. In any case, you must want it and try to do it.


The Mother: You see, one has an aspiration for Light, for Knowledge, for all kinds of things. Now, if a desire is mixed with your aspiration, instead of simply aspiring and awaiting the answer, you begin to pull, as one draws things when one desires them — you draw them to yourself. So instead of waiting for the Force and Light and Consciousness and Truth to answer your aspiration, you pull them down like that, towards yourself with a very egoistical movement, as though you were pulling a rope or something, and so anything at all can come in answer. Instead of its being, for example, a true light, it can be a false light which takes brilliant appearances to deceive you; instead of its being a true force, it can be an adverse force of the vital which wants to take possession of you. It means that when one has an aspiration, it is better that no desires get mixed up in it, because desires always spoil everything.


The Mother: Inner tapasya? It means the tapasya for the character, and for changing the psychological movements of the being, precisely to conquer the desires, conquer the passions, overcome egoism, get rid of fears. This is the inner tapasya.  Outer tapasya is all the ascetic or hathayogic methods; to make use of physical means for one’s yoga is an outer tapasya.  But inner tapasya consists of attending to one’s character and trying to change it.


The Mother: They are not at all the same thing. When you see that something ought to be done, for instance, that it is good to do it — take your reason: say your reason decides that this ought to be done — then your will starts working and makes you do the things required for this thing to be done. Your will is an executing power, which ought to be at the disposal, the service of what was decided by the reason or a higher force. It is something coordinated, organised, which acts in accordance with a plan, precisely in a fully controlled way.  Desire is an impulse.


The Mother: It takes hold of you... it doesn’t necessarily hold you with any conscious thought. It is an impulse which pushes you to get possession of something. You can put your will at the service of your desire, but desire is not will.  Desire is an impulse.


The Mother: There are people who are full of desires and who have no will. So they simply are eaten up, as we say, by their desires; but this leads to nothing, because they don’t even have the will to realise them. Most people always put the little bit of will that’s at their disposal at the service of their desires. But will is a force with a power of organisation and it can be put at the service of any purpose whatever. It is something that, when one has will-power, one has [ . . . ] to a deﬁnite purpose.


The Mother: This is will.   You must not mistake desire for will. Desire is an impulse: it seizes you, you know, it clings to you, holds you. And then, if you let desire do what it likes, well, it makes you do anything at all, and it makes use of your will. But usually, a desire is something violent, passionate and transient.


The Mother: Rarely is it very sustained; it does not have the stuff, the organisation of a sustained effort.  When a desire seizes you, it can make you do anything whatever — but impulsively, not methodically.  What things?   Oh, because they are full of desires.


The Mother: They were probably formed with vibrations of desires, and as they have no control over themselves it is expressed freely. Older people are also full of desires, but usually they have a kind of... how do we call it?... they are a little shy of showing their desires or they feel a bit ashamed or perhaps are afraid they will be laughed at; so they don’t show them. Well, they too are full of desires. Only children are more simple.


The Mother: When they want something they say so. They don’t tell themselves that perhaps it would be wiser not to show this, because they don’t yet have this kind of reasoning. But I think, generally speaking, with very few exceptions, that people live in perpetual desires. Only, they don’t express them, and sometimes they are ashamed also to acknowledge it to themselves. But it is there, this need of having something...


The Mother: you know, one sees something pretty, it is immediately translated into a desire for possession; and this is one of the things... it is absolutely childish.  It is childish and indeed it is ridiculous, because at least ninety times out of a hundred, when the one who had a desire for something possesses it, he doesn’t even look at it any longer. It  is very rarely that this thing continues to interest him once he has it, whatever the nature of the object.  There are many ways.


The Mother: But ﬁrst of all you must know whether you will not just stop him from freely expressing what he thinks and feels. Because this is what people usually do. They scold, even sometimes punish him; and so the child forms the habit of concealing his desires. But he is not cured of them. And you see, if he is always told, “No, you won’t have that”, then, simply, this state of mind gets settled in him: “Ah, when you are small, people don’t give you anything!


The Mother: You must wait till you are big.  When I am big I shall have all that I want.” That’s how it is. But this does not cure them. It is very difﬁcult to bring up a child.


The Mother: There is a way which consists in giving him all he wants; and naturally, the next minute he will want something else, because that’s the law, the law of desire: never to be satisﬁed. And so, if he is intelligent, one can tell him, “But you see, you insisted so much on having this and now you no longer care for it. You want something else.” Yet if he was very clever he would answer, “Well, the best way of curing me is to give me what I ask for.”  Some people cherish this idea all their life.


The Mother: When they are told that they should overcome their desires, they say, “The easiest way is to satisfy them.” This kind of logic seems impeccable.  But the fact is that it is not the object desired that has to be changed, it is the impulse of desire, the movement of desire.  And for this a great deal of knowledge is needed, and this is difﬁcult for a very young child.  It is difﬁcult.


The Mother: Indeed, they don’t have the capacity for reasoning; one can’t explain things to them, because they don’t understand the reasons. So you see, when it is like that the parents usually tell the child, “Keep quiet, you are a nuisance!”  In this way they get out of the difﬁculty. But this is no solution. It  is very difﬁcult.


The Mother: It asks for a sustained effort and an unshakable patience. Some people are like that all their life; they are like babies throughout their existence and it is impossible to make them see reason. As soon as one tells them that they are not reasonable and that one can’t all the time be giving them things to satisfy their desires, they simply think, “These people are unpleasant. This person is not nice.” That’s all.


The Mother: In fact, perhaps one should begin by shifting the movement to things which it is better to have from the true point of view, and which it is more difﬁcult to obtain. If one could turn this impulsion of desire towards a... For example, when a child is full of desires, if one could give him a desire of a higher kind — instead of its being a desire for purely material objects, you understand, an altogether transitory satisfaction — if one could awaken in him the desire to know, the desire to learn, the desire to become a remarkable person... in this way, begin with that. As these things are difﬁcult to do, so, gradually, he will develop his will for these things.


The Mother: Or even, from the material point of view, the desire to do something difﬁcult, as for example, construct a toy which is difﬁcult to make — or give him a game of patience which requires a great deal of perseverance.  If one can orient them — it requires much discernment, much patience, but it can be done — and if one can orient them towards something like this, to succeed in very difﬁcult games or to work out something which requires much care and attention, and can push them in some line like this so that it exercises a persevering will in them, then this can have results: turn their attention away from certain things and towards others. This needs constant care and it seems to be a way that’s most — I can’t say the easiest, for it is certainly not easy — but the most effective way. To say “No” does not cure and to say “Yes” does not cure either; and sometimes it becomes extremely difﬁcult also, naturally.  I knew people, for example, whose children wanted to eat everything they saw.


The Mother: They were allowed to do it. So they fell  very ill. After that, they felt disgusted. But this is a little risky, isn’t it? There are children who ﬁdget with everything.


The Mother: Now, one day, you see, one child got hold of a box of matches. Then, instead of telling him, “Don’t touch it”, they let him do it: he burnt himself. He never touched them again.  But it is a little dangerous, because some children are altogether unconscious and very bold in their desires: for example, those who like to walk on the edge of a wall or the top of a roof or have the desire to plunge into water when they see it or to dive into a river... you see, this becomes sometimes very difﬁcult...


The Mother: or those who have the mania for crossing the street: each time they see a car coming... they try to cross it. So if they are allowed to do so, the experience may one day be fatal.   Well, I knew people who did this. I don’t know if they succeeded much in it.


The Mother: As I said, the child was burnt, but this was a nuisance because it left scars. And then too, one who played quite unthinkingly on the railing of a staircase and fell and halfbroke his head... you see, this has its consequences. But to say “No” to them too doesn’t cure them, quite the contrary. And to tell them, “Especially don’t take this, this will harm you” — they don’t believe it; they think it is just to get rid of their desire.


The Mother: It is a very difﬁcult problem. There was someone who had ideas like this, on freedom in education and who made theories to tell me that individual freedom should be respected to the extent of never making use of past experience for new people, and that we ought to leave them to make all their experiments themselves. This goes very far and they criticised me very much because I was trying to prevent accidents. So they told me, “You are absolutely wrong in preventing them.” So I said, “But if someone dies?” — “Well, it means he had to die.


The Mother: You have no right to intervene in their destiny and the freedom of their development. They want to commit stupidities, let them do stupid things. When they realise that these are stupidities, they won’t do them.” And there are cases in which one is sure never to do it again, because one has gone beyond the limit.   It is a very difﬁcult problem, if one wants to make a theory of it.


The Mother: But each case is absolutely different and asks for a different procedure. And in fact, if one truly wanted to give the best education to a child, well, one would have to spend all his time on it. One could not do anything else, because, even considering that one should not watch over him visibly, in order to do the right thing at the right time, one should always observe him, even without his knowing it. One would not be able to do anything else.  So, probably, one needs to ﬁnd a middle term between the two, between the two extremes: that of watching over him all the time and that of leaving him absolutely free to do what he likes, without even warning him against the accidents which are likely to occur.


The Mother: An adjustment to make every minute! Difﬁcult.  It is still more unwise to imagine that one has it. That’s it. Yes, because some people, as soon as they ﬁnd a phrase in a book, in a teaching, immediately imagine that they have realised that.


The Mother: So, when Sri Aurobindo began speaking about the supermind — in what he was writing — everyone wrote to him: “I have seen the supramental Light, I had an experience of the supermind!”  Now, it is better to keep the word “supermind” for a later time.  For the moment let us not speak about it.  Somewhere he has written a very detailed description of all the mental functions accessible to man. Well, when we read this, we say that merely to traverse the mental domain to its highest limit there are so many stages which have not yet been crossed that truly we don’t need to speak about the supermind for the time being.


The Mother: When he speaks of the higher ranges of the mind, one becomes aware that one very rarely lives in these places. It is very rare for one to be in this state of consciousness. On the contrary it is in what he calls the altogether ordinary mind, the mind of the ordinary man, that we live. And to the ordinary consciousness the reason seems to belong to a very high region; and the reason for him is one of the average faculties of the human mind. There are mental regions very much higher than that, which he has described in detail.


The Mother: And it is quite certain that those correspondents, if they had... Suddenly they said that they were having wonderful supramental experiences, because one is rarely in these regions which lie beyond the reason, which are regions of direct perception, intuition and other faculties of intuition of the same kind, which go far beyond the reason; and these are still mental regions, they have nothing of the supramental.  Intermediary? We shall see that later.  I did not say that they were between the mind and the supermind.


The Mother: I said it is in the mind itself, without coming out of the mind, that there are all these regions which are almost inaccessible for most human beings. I did not say the mind and supermind.  You mean this evening or at some other time? What are you speaking of, of something I said this evening or something I said on another day?   No, you did not hear. I said in the mind itself.


The Mother: Before reaching the extreme limit of the mind, there are so many regions and mental activities which are not at all accessible to most human beings. And even for those who can reach them, they are not regions where they constantly live. They must make an effort of concentration to get there and they don’t always arrive. There are regions which Sri Aurobindo has described which only very rare individuals can reach, and still he speaks of them as mental regions. He does not use for them the word supramental.


The Mother: It can very well happen — besides, when he spoke of the supermind he said that there are many regions in the supermind itself and that it would naturally be the ﬁrst ones, the lowest regions, which would manifest to begin with — it can very well happen that there are still a number of intermediary states of being, this is possible — intermediary stages.  Certainly the perfect race will not come spontaneously. Very probably not. But already, even the ﬁrst attempts... in comparison with the present human being, it will make a great difference, great enough for one to feel that this is something miraculous.  It can very well happen that the ﬁrst supramental manifestations will be altogether incomplete.


The Mother: But even to these, man as he is at present will seem something absolutely gross. There is no halt in the universal development and even the thing which would seem at a certain time absolutely perfect and ﬁnished, will still be only a stage for future manifestations. But men very much like to sit down and say, “Now I have done what I had to do.”  But the universe is not like that; it does not sit down, it does not rest, it always goes on. One can never say, “Now it is over, I close the door and that’s all.”


The Mother: One may shut the door but then one cuts himself off from the universal movement.  Expressions are always relative, and the ﬁrst being which is no longer a human animal but begins to be a divine human, a divine man, will seem something absolutely marvellous, even if he is  still very incomplete as the perfect type of this new race. One must get accustomed to living in a perpetual movement. There is something which likes very much — perhaps it is necessary for facilitating the action — to ﬁx a goal and say, “This indeed is the end”, but not at all. “This is perfection” — there is no absolute perfection.


The Mother: All things are always relative and constantly they are changing.  There we are. I think this is enough. There are no important questions? That’s good.


The Mother: Why, we spoke about it last time, didn’t we? I think so. It is the psychic surrender expressing itself in the physical consciousness; that is, the physical consciousness takes an attitude of psychic surrender. The physical consciousness receives the inﬂuence of the psychic and takes the attitude which psychic surrender gives.  We said that; I am sure I said something very much the same.


The Mother: ( ) And you, you said you had something?  Cosmic?


The Mother: Why, I have been asked this before. Someone asked me, “How can we teach the children to develop the cosmic consciousness?” And so I replied, “Develop it ﬁrst in yourself.”  How can you do it? You know what the cosmic consciousness is?


The Mother: You must ﬁrst begin by knowing that. The cosmic consciousness means that, instead of feeling that one is an altogether separate, isolated being, different from all others, one feels that he is only a part of an immense whole and in relation with the whole totality, receiving the movements and vibrations of all others and transmitting to all others its own vibrations, that the movements of consciousness, the psychological vibrations do not stop inside a small individual enclosed in himself, who is as in a shell, without any contact with the rest; the forces pass across, going from one to another, touching one here, another  there, and these forces are so complex and multiple that we can no longer tell where one begins and another ends. One has exactly the impression of an immense whole moving within itself. It is something like that — the cosmic consciousness.  So, ﬁrst of all, you must think of this; you must ﬁrst become aware that you are a point in the universal immensity, and not isolated but altogether joined with it.


The Mother: And then you must study yourself, observe yourself. You will immediately have the opportunity of seeing the vibrations which come from outside and pass through you but are not generated in you, which you receive and express. So gradually, by studying, looking, observing, you become aware of that which is not limited. This is how you begin to acquire the universal or cosmic consciousness. Cosmic and universal mean the same thing.


The Mother: No snatching, no...?  You know what “clutching” means? ( )  All right, it means... Does he say one should not or one cannot?


The Mother: That means one must not try to do it, because it does not obey this kind of movement. These people try to progress through violence. They have no patience, they have no persistence; and when a desire arises in them they must realise it immediately.   Now, they want to have something — let us say a change in  their character or a change in the circumstances or a set of things — and then, they want it at once; and as this usually does not happen all at once, they pull it down from above.


The Mother: This is what he calls “clutching”. They seize it, pull it towards themselves. But in this way one has neither the real thing nor the true movement; one mixes violence with one’s aspiration and this always produces some confusion somewhere, and moreover one cannot have the true thing, one can only have an imitation of the true thing; because this is not how it comes, not by pulling it as though one were pulling it by the tail; it will not come.   Clutching!


The Mother: One clutches the rope when one wants to climb up.  That’s how it is when one pulls! That’s exactly the movement one should not have once one holds the rope. That’s all.


The Mother: Eh? On what does it depend? That means? What exactly do you want to say? On what does its manifestation depend, or on what does it itself depend for its existence?


The Mother: The central will? It depends on the divine Will.  It is the individualised expression of the divine Will; and the divine Will is the expression of the divine Consciousness seeking to manifest itself, to realise itself.  Ah, this of course is another side of the problem. First of all one must become aware of what is highest, most true, most universal and eternal in one’s consciousness.


The Mother: This is learnt gradually. One learns to discern among one’s ordinary, external movements and the different gradations of the  movements of one’s inner consciousness. And if one continues to do this with a certain persistence, one realises what it is that puts this highest part of one’s being into motion, which represents the ideal of the being. There is no other way. Sometimes this awakens through reading something, sometimes through a conversation, sometimes through a more or less dramatic, that is, unexpected event, which gives you a shock, shakes you up, brings you out of your usual little rut.


The Mother: Sometimes when you are in very great danger, suddenly you feel as though you are above yourself and beyond your small habitual weakness, having within you something higher which can hold out against circumstances.  Such occasions make you enter, ﬁrst, into contact with that.  Afterwards by a methodical discipline you can make the contact continuous; but usually this takes time. But ﬁrst you get it like that, suddenly, for one reason or another.  (


The Mother: )  This may come with a very strong emotion, with a very great sorrow, a very great enthusiasm. When one is called to perform a fairly exceptional action, in circumstances which are a little exceptional, all of a sudden, one feels something as though breaking or opening within one, and one feels as though one were dominating oneself, as though one had climbed up a higher rung and from there was looking at one’s own existence with the normal perception. Once one has experienced this, one does not forget; even if only once it has happened, one does not forget it.  And one can by concentration reproduce the state at will, later.


The Mother: This is the ﬁrst step to cultivate it.  Afterwards one can very easily call up this state each time a decision is to be taken, and then one takes it in full awareness of the implications and foreseeing everything that’s going to happen. I don’t think there’s one individual in the world who hasn’t experienced it — in any case one cultured individual — at least once in his life, something that breaks and opens... and  one understands. This seems to astonish you very much!...


The Mother: ( ) You have never felt this, you? Yes?  You are not sure! ()  When one has had it one feels that one has begun to live, that before this one did not know what life was. Suddenly one has entered fully into life.


The Mother: This is not forgotten.   (To a child)   It is one of those planes, one of those regions we were speaking about last time, which are intermediary between the higher mind and the Overmind.


The Mother: Um! How does it manifest? It is something which takes place without any reasoning, any analysis, any deduction. Suddenly one knows a thing, without having reasoned, without having analysed, without deducing, without having reﬂected, without having made use of one’s brain, without having put together the elements of the problem and tried to resolve them — it is not like that.


The Mother: All of a sudden it comes like a light in the consciousness; it can be in the head, it can be lower down, elsewhere; it is a light in the consciousness which brings a precise knowledge on a particular point and it is not at all a result of analyses and deductions. In fact, it is the ﬁrst manifestation of the knowledge by identity. Knowledge by identity — you understand clearly what that means?  If one succeeds in identifying oneself with something, well, one becomes this thing for a time, and becoming this thing one  knows all that is in it, without needing either to guess or to construct. (


The Mother: ) That’s all.  Of course, there is also a form of foresight, but this does not have altogether the same nature. Foresight usually comes from the faculty of knowing by identity. If one can project one’s consciousness into something — a circumstance or an event or a person — if one can project one’s consciousness, well, one receives, afterwards, the precise indication of the thing with which the consciousness was mingled.


The Mother: And this leads gradually to a total and absolute knowledge. In fact it is the only way of knowing, and if one pushes this far enough and succeeds in identifying oneself with the Divine, one has the divine knowledge, and this is not impossible. It is something possible because the universe is made like that, for that. Only, it has gone off the right track; for what reasons, one doesn’t know. Ah, what strange things we see!...


The Mother: To be sure that one knows, and then, at the same time to wonder how it happens.   You have never tried to enter another person’s consciousness to know exactly what is going on there? Not projecting your consciousness into someone else, because then you ﬁnd yourself inside him and this is not interesting — but entering into relation with his consciousness which is within him, for example when, for one reason or another, you don’t see things eye to eye; one sees them in one way, the other in another. If people are reasonable they do not quarrel.


The Mother: But if they are not reasonable, they begin quarrelling. Then, instead of quarrelling, the best thing to do is to enter into the other’s consciousness and ask yourself why he says things like that, what is it that pushes him to do this or say that? What is the inner reason, what is his vision of things which makes him take this attitude?  It is extremely interesting. If you do this, immediately you stop being angry.


The Mother: First thing: you can no longer be angry. So this is already a great gain. But also, if the other continues being angry, it has no effect on you.  And then, later, one can try to identify oneself more perfectly  and prevent the movements of division and deformation and stop quarrels. Very useful.


The Mother: () I have already recommended this procedure to you several times, I think. I remember. Did you try? You, there, I am talking to you!


The Mother: You have tried? No? Ah, you are obstinate. No? (


The Mother: ) It won’t come out.... Good, let’s not talk about it any more.   So, that’s all, my children?


The Mother: Anything else? No more questions? Nothing over there, no?   For the immense majority of people the psychic being is the central being.


The Mother: But the central being can be identiﬁed with another consciousness and another state which is more central and is not purely human. And this is — I can’t say that it is extremely rare, but still it is not frequent.  That’s all?  It is nine o’clock. That’s all?


The Mother: Good. Finished.    The witness we have spoken about several times already, only here it is in the mind.


The Mother: There are witnesses everywhere. It is a capacity of the being to detach itself, to stand back and look at what is happening, as when one looks at something happening in the street or when one looks at others playing and does not himself play, one remains seated, looking at the others moving but does not move.  That’s how it is.  In all the parts of the being there is one side which can do this: put itself at the back, remain quiet and look, without participating. This is what is called the witness.


The Mother: One has many witnesses inside oneself, and often one is a witness without even being aware of it. And if you develop this, it always gives you the possibility of being quiet and not being affected by things.  One detaches oneself from them, looks at them as at a dramatic scene, without participating in it. This does not change things very much.


The Mother: No, because it has come to you too easily, all this. One appreciates those things for which one has made a great effort. But you see, this has come to you in this way because it happens that your parents came here; it is not you who have chosen to come. You were brought and put in this atmosphere... some of  you from the time you were very small, and you see, you are accustomed to this, it seems relatively natural to you because you have always been here, and you are not even aware of the difference between the conditions we are in here and those found elsewhere, outside.


The Mother: Perhaps if most of you were suddenly transplanted into the outer world, you would be completely lost.  All the ways of life are absolutely different. Now here, you are so much accustomed to things that it seems quite natural to you, and certainly you don’t draw as much proﬁt as possible from the opportunities you have. For to proﬁt by things one must appreciate them , you see.


The Mother: But this seems too natural for you to appreciate it. That’s how it is. And as human nature is never constantly satisﬁed, you can even ﬁnd many occasions for not being content, without even realising that if you were in other circumstances, they would be much more serious and[ . . . ] occasions. You do not have any means of comparing, most of you. It is not that I wish that you have them.


The Mother: I don’t wish such a thing to anybody. But still, this is the reason. You ask me why: this is it, this is the reason. It is because all this has come to you too naturally, without your thinking about it.   samadhi


The Mother: And naturally! Because if in order to have a meditation or a relation with the inner world, you are obliged to enter into, your waking consciousness always remains what it is, without ever changing. That’s what I said in other words, you see, when I said that people have a higher consciousness only in very deep meditation. When they come out of their meditation they are no  better than they were before. All their defects are there which come back as soon as they come back into their waking consciousness; and they never make any progress because they do not establish a relation between their deeper consciousness, the truth of their being, and their outer being.


The Mother: You see, they take off their outer being as though they were taking off a cloak, and they put it in a corner: “Come now, don’t trouble me, keep quiet.  You are a nuisance.” And then they enter into contemplation, their meditation, into their deep experience; and then they come back, put on the cloak which of course has not changed — which perhaps is dirtier still than before — and they remain exactly as they were without any meditation.  If you want the outer being to change, it is while remaining conscious of it that you should have the other experiences; and you must not lose contact with your ordinary outer consciousness if you want it to proﬁt by the experience. There are many people...


The Mother: I knew people like that, who used to meditate for hours, almost all the time... they spent their time meditating, and then if by chance... if someone disturbed them in their meditation, if they had to do something, they ﬂew into a rage, a fury, they abused everybody, they became more intolerable than if they had never meditated, than any ordinary person. This happened because they neglected making their outer being participate in their deeper life. They cut themselves into two, so there is a portion inside which progresses and a portion outside which becomes worse and worse, because it is completely neglected.


The Mother: No! You cure nothing. You only give yourself the illusion that you have progressed, but you cure nothing. The proof is that if you stop your ascetic methods, the thing is even stronger than before; it comes back with a vengeance. It depends upon what you call ascetic methods.


The Mother: If it is not to indulge in satisfying all  your desires, this indeed is not asceticism, it is common sense. It is something else. Ascetic methods are things like repeated fasting, compelling yourself to endure the cold... in fact, to torture your body a little. This indeed gives you only a spiritual pride, nothing more. It masters nothing at all.


The Mother: It is inﬁnitely easier.  People do it because it is very easy, it is simple. Just because the pride is quite satisﬁed and the vanity can get puffed up, it becomes very easy. One makes a great demonstration of one’s ascetic virtues, and so considers oneself an extremely important personage, and that helps one to endure many things.  It is much more difﬁcult to master one’s impulses quietly, composedly, and to prevent them from showing themselves — much more! — without taking ascetic measures.


The Mother: It is much more difﬁcult not to be attached to the things you possess than to possess nothing. This is something that has been known for centuries. It requires a much greater quality not to be attached to the things one possesses than to be without any possessions or to reduce one’s possessions to a strict minimum. It is much more difﬁcult. It is a much higher degree of moral worth.


The Mother: Simply this attitude: when a thing comes to you, to take it, use it; when for one reason or another it goes away, to let it go and not regret it.  Not to refuse it when it comes, to know how to adapt yourself and not to regret it when it goes.  It is not a question of defects, I am speaking of material things.  Defects are not things which come, they are things one carries in oneself. I am speaking of material things.


The Mother: I am speaking of asceticism, you understand.  Asceticism is an altogether material discipline. Defects — don’t think they come from outside; one has enough of them inside one without needing to borrow them from elsewhere.  And in fact, if one did not carry them in oneself, one could not become aware of them in others. It is because the seed of all  this is in oneself that one is in contact with them.


The Mother: And when we say that great waves of passion pass through people, and that they are not generated in them but pass through them, it is perfectly true. But if there was someone absolutely immune from all possibility of passion, they could pass by for centuries, he wouldn’t even feel them. He could see them, see them passing, as one sees a storm passing in the sky, but he would feel nothing at all. When the vibrations inside oneself answer the vibrations from outside, it means that they are there; otherwise no vibration can enter.


The Mother: There are examples like this. For instance, a crowd is seized by panic. Well, it is always possible that there are one or two persons who resist the panic, who are not touched, are outside it: they can save the situation. This has happened many a time.


The Mother: The reason why a movement, a vibration, a forceful movement is contagious is because the ground for contagion is there.  It is because the physical nature in ordinary men is, as Sri Aurobindo writes, rather tamasic. Naturally it does not make any effort. But the vital makes an effort. Only, it makes the effort usually for its own satisfaction.


The Mother: Yet it is quite capable of making an effort because that is in its nature. In fact, I can’t say that you don’t make any effort, you make a lot of effort for many things, when it pleases you or when you have understood that it is necessary for one reason or another. What you mean is to make a continuous effort for yoga. There are even people who have come here for yoga or at least thinking that they came for yoga and who don’t make much effort, who take things easy, as they come. I don’t think that the physical nature, left to itself, is spontaneously pushed into any effort.


The Mother: It needs a certain amount of activity, but it is very little. You see, the great thing here is that  the principle of education is a principle of freedom, and to put it brieﬂy, the whole life is organised on the maximum possible freedom in movement; that is, the rules, regulations, restrictions are reduced absolutely to the minimum. If you compare this with the way in which parents usually educate their children, with a constant “Don’t do this”, “You can’t do that”, “Do this”, “Go and do that”, and, you know, orders and rules, there is a considerable difference.  In schools and colleges everywhere there are inﬁnitely more strict rules than what we have here. So, as one doesn’t impose on you the absolute condition of making progress, you make it when it pleases you, you don’t when it doesn’t, and then you take things as easy as you can.


The Mother: There are some — I do not say this absolutely — there are some who try, but they try spontaneously.  Of course from the spiritual point of view this is inﬁnitely more valuable. The progress you will make because you feel within yourself the need to make it, because it is an impulsion that pushes you forward spontaneously, and not because it is something imposed on you like a rule — this progress, from the spiritual point of view, is inﬁnitely greater. All in you that tries to do things well, tries to do it spontaneously and sincerely; it is something that comes from within you, and not because you have been promised rewards if you do well and punishments if you do badly. Our system is not based on this.


The Mother: It is possible that at a certain moment something comes along to give you the impression that your effort has been appreciated, but the effort was not made in view of that; that is, these promises are not made beforehand nor are they balanced by equivalent punishments. This is not the practice here. Usually things are such, arranged in such a way, that the satisfaction of having done well seems to be the best of rewards and one punishes oneself when one does badly, in the sense that one feels miserable and unhappy and ill at ease, and this is indeed the most concrete punishment one has. And so, all these movements, from the point of view of the inner spiritual growth, have  an inﬁnitely greater value than when they are the result of an outer rule.


The Mother: It is something which puts you in contact with a consciousness higher than the one you usually have. You have a certain feeling about yourself, you are not even aware of it, it is for you your ordinary condition, you understand. Well, if suddenly you become conscious within of something very different and much higher, then, whatever it may be, this will be a spiritual experience. You may formulate it with a mental idea, you may not formulate it; you may explain it to yourself, you may not; it may last, it may not, it may be instantaneous. But when there is this essential difference in the consciousness and when, naturally, the quality that comes is very... much higher, clearer, purer than what one usually has, then one can call this a spiritual experience; this means that there are thousands of different things which can be called spiritual experiences.


The Mother: I think it is wiser to aspire to make progress or to be more conscious or to be better or do better than aspire for a spiritual experience; because that might open the door to more or less imaginary and falsiﬁed experiences, to movements of the vital which take on the appearance of higher things. One may deceive oneself by having an aspiration for experiences. In fact, the experience must come spontaneously, as the result of inner progress, but not for itself or in itself.   Who were not... ?


The Mother: You knew them, did you?  Who? Who told you that?   (


The Mother: ) I can say nothing. I don’t say anything now. If it is a teacher, I don’t say anything any more. (


The Mother: )  Don’t ever speak to me about what your teachers tell you, because I won’t contradict them, and I refuse to comment on what they say. Teachers are people who should be respected. And besides, for your information, I can say that you have put the question badly.  If you wanted me to answer, you could have put the question in an absolutely different way.


The Mother: Now I won’t reply. ( ) But if you had said, “Are there beings who...”, I would have quite naturally answered you. Perhaps not what you wanted to hear, but I would have said something.


The Mother: But you asked the question badly. You made a statement to begin with, so...  Good. Then, that’s all?   It depends on the degree of the possession.


The Mother: Usually it is something progressive. First there is an inﬂuence under which one comes, and comes in a fragmentary way, not even totally in his being, but in certain parts and for a time. This is the ﬁrst stage. The second: the inﬂuence becomes permanent and there is one part of the being which deteriorates, which is constantly under this inﬂuence and expresses it. After this, the being which has cast this inﬂuence tries to enter that part.


The Mother: Then, usually, this produces a conﬂict, a kind of inner battle. People have ﬁts, sometimes even nervous morbid ﬁts. In trying to resist, the two parts of the being come constantly into conﬂict, and this produces great imbalance, even physical imbalance. But if one doesn’t know how to resist and doesn’t succeed in shaking off the hold, then gradually the being that has seized upon a part of the person acts like an octopus and spreads its tentacles like that, slowly and everywhere; and ﬁnally it is a total possession.


The Mother: At the moment of the total possession, either the possessed person becomes completely unbalanced or he becomes a kind of monster and his psychic being leaves him.  These cases are extremely rare, fortunately. Usually, in the human being the psychic is strong enough to be able to resist, and the most frequent case is that of constant conﬂict between the two parts, until the psychic being, if it is strong enough and knows how to lean on a greater strength than its own, is capable of rejecting this inﬂuence and freeing itself. It is only  in an extreme case of a total possession that the psychic being goes away. But these are extremely rare cases, extremely rare.


The Mother: It sometimes happens that a child is still-born, that is, just at the moment of birth it dies or a few minutes later, or an hour or two later, you see, just at that time. In these cases it happens that it is the psychic being which has decided not to use this body. But if, for example, the doctor who is looking after the case is a clever man or the nurse a clever person and they can bring back life into the body by artiﬁcial respiration or such means, most often it is a hostile being which gets hold of this body. There have been cases like that, children who seemed to be dead, that is, the psychic being had left the body, and before it had died completely, a vital being had entered and taken its place. Such cases have been known.


The Mother: And these beings are demons. In life they become veritable demons. There are not many of them.  There are beings of the vital, but of a higher kind, emanations of Asuras, for example, who have decided for one reason or another that they would try to be converted, not to be antidivine, and manage to enter into relation with the Divine. They know that the best way is to identify themselves with a human body in order to be under the control of a psychic being.


The Mother: And they incarnate in human bodies, but not with the intention of driving out the psychic being, on the contrary, to try to submit to the inﬂuence of the psychic being and be converted by it. These cases also are not frequent, but still they have been known, and in these cases these human beings are gifted with very exceptional capacities, but usually they also have very exceptional difﬁculties, because the power which has incarnated in them is one which was, at least, if it is not still so, a hostile power; and, you see, it is difﬁcult to get rid of all these movements of revolt immediately; sometimes it takes a whole lifetime to succeed in doing it.  Some of these asuric beings have tried to convert themselves and not succeeded. They ought to have left the body they had  chosen, because they could not convert themselves.


The Mother: It was too difﬁcult a task for them, it demanded too great an effort.  But all these cases about which I have just spoken to you are very rare ones, you see. We can’t say that such things happen and are met with at every turn: a gentleman who is the incarnation of an adverse force or another who is possessed. Such cases are very rare, very rare.  But the case of an inﬂuence — being under an inﬂuence and expressing it — this, unfortunately, is very frequent, especially with people who undertake yoga without being sufﬁciently puriﬁed beforehand, or otherwise with egoistic intentions; to people who begin to do yoga for reasons of ambition or vanity it happens very often that they put themselves under the inﬂuence of certain adverse forces.


The Mother: And there are also many people who are under certain inﬂuences in a way... how to put it?... one can’t call it accidental, but... for example, there are psychic beings who choose a certain environment to incarnate in because they think that there they will have the experiences they want, and owing to some circumstances in this environment there is a hostile inﬂuence at work; so the body they put on is to a certain extent under this hostile inﬂuence and they have to ﬁght against that terribly all their life.  They can at a particular moment, as I said — if they know how to rely on greater forces than their own — they can conquer and gain a great victory. It is a great victory to get rid of the inﬂuence of an adverse force.


The Mother: It is truly a victory which goes beyond the individual’s own person and has a repercussion on the whole terrestrial state. Each victory gained like this by an individual over a hostile force inﬂuencing him, is a long step forward to the day when the earth will be completely free of the presence of hostile forces. It represents a great progress for the earth.  Well, if they want to, why can’t they? There is nothing in  the universe which doesn’t have one single origin — that is, a supreme origin — the hostile forces like everything else; and if they give up their revolt and separation and aspire to return to their source, they can very well be converted.


The Mother: It may require much more effort from them than is necessary for a human being to change his defects, that of course is obvious. It is a much greater effort and, above all, much deeper, because the origin of their revolt is very deep; it is not superﬁcial. But still, they can manage it. They have the power also; these are very powerful beings who, if they resolve to be converted, can do it; and then they become some of the most wonderful instruments for the divine work. The very ones who were some of the greatest adversaries.


The Mother: I am looking for someone who told me that she would ask me a question. It is Sujata. Where is she perched? At the end of the world! I shall never be able to hear her.


The Mother: What did you want to ask?  (Pavitra, repeating)  Very often, but not always. Mental imbalance can be due to many different causes. One of them may be simply a physical structure which is defective, a cerebral insufﬁciency.


The Mother: Now, one may say that this cerebral insufﬁciency is probably the expression of an inner vital imbalance. But in the case of cerebral insufﬁciency it is usually hereditary or organic, still... that is, something produced at the time of conception. So one can’t say that it is due to an additional inﬂuence: it was an inﬂuence which acted before birth, and the one who suffers from this mental imbalance is not necessarily under a direct adverse inﬂuence. It can be a consequence of malformation.


The Mother: Now, when people are divided in their mind, and in one part of their mind aspire for the truth and transformation and  in another don’t want them, and not only resist but revolt — which happens often — this indeed creates a terrible inner cerebral struggle, ﬁrst mental and then cerebral, and this may bring about a serious mental imbalance.  There are cases in which it is precisely the opening to a suggestion, an adverse inﬂuence, an opening which is the result of a wrong movement — a movement of revolt or of hatred or of violent desire. One can, in a wrong movement, open oneself — in a rage, for example — one can open to an adverse force and bring in an inﬂuence which could end up by a possession.  At the beginning these things are relatively easy to cure if there is a conscious part of the being and a very strong will to get rid of this bad movement and this inﬂuence. One succeeds easily enough, relatively speaking, if the aspiration is sincere; but


The Mother: if one looks on the thing with complacency and tells oneself, “Ah, it is like that, it can’t be otherwise”, then this becomes dangerous.  One must not tolerate the enemy in the place. As soon as one notices his presence, one must throw him out very far, as far as one can, pitilessly.  To be pure, what does it mean? One is truly perfectly pure only when the whole being, in all its elements and all its movements, adheres fully, exclusively, to the divine Will.


The Mother: This indeed is total purity. It does not depend on any moral or social law, any mental convention of any kind. It depends exclusively on this: when all the elements and all the movements of the being adhere exclusively and totally to the divine Will.  Now, there are stages, there are degrees. For example, insincerity, which is one of the greatest impurities, always arises from the fact that a movement or a set of movements, an element of the being or a number of elements, want to follow their own will and not be the expression of the divine Will.


The Mother: So this produces in the being either a revolt or a falsehood. I don’t mean that one tells  lies, but I mean that one is in a state of falsehood, of insincerity.  And then, the consequences are more or less serious and more or less extensive according to the gravity of the movement itself and its importance. But these, if one sees from the point of view of purity, these are the real impurities.  For example, if you take your stand on a moral viewpoint — which is itself altogether wrong from the spiritual point of view — there are people who apparently lead an altogether perfectly moral life, who conform to all the social laws, all the customs, the moral conventions, and who are a mass of impurity — from the spiritual point of view these beings are profoundly impure.


The Mother: On the other hand there are some poor people who do things... who are born, for instance, with a sense of freedom, and do things which are not considered very respectable from the social or moral point of view, and who can be in a state of inner aspiration and inner sincerity which makes them inﬁnitely purer than the others. This is one of the big difﬁculties. As soon as one speaks of these things, there arises the deformation produced in the consciousness by all the social and moral conventions.  As soon as you speak of purity, a moral monument comes in front of you which completely falsiﬁes your notion. And note that it is inﬁnitely easier to be moral from the social point of view than to be moral from the spiritual point of view.


The Mother: To be moral from the social viewpoint one has only to take good care to do nothing which is not approved of by others; this may be somewhat difﬁcult, but still it is not impossible; and one may be, as I said, a monument of insincerity and impurity while doing this; whereas to be pure from the spiritual point of view means a vigilance, a consciousness, a sincerity that stand all tests.  Now, I may put you on your guard against something — I think it is precisely in this very book that Sri Aurobindo has spoken about it — about people who live in their vital consciousness and say, “I indeed am above moral laws, I follow a higher law, I am free from all moral laws.” And they say this because they want to indulge in all irregularities. These people, then, have a  double impurity: they have spiritual impurity and in addition social impurity. And these usually have a very good opinion of themselves, and they assert their wish to live their life with an unequalled impudence.


The Mother: But such people we don’t want.  Yet usually the people whom I have found most difﬁcult to convert are very respectable people. I am sorry, but I have had much more difﬁculty with respectable people than with those who were not so, for they had such a good opinion of themselves that it was impossible to open them. But the true thing difﬁcult.  That is to say, one must be very vigilant and very self-controlled, very patient, and have a never-failing goodwill.


The Mother: One must not neglect having a small dose of humility, a sufﬁcient one, and one must never be satisﬁed with the sincerity one has. One must always want more.  ( ) What do you have to say, you?


The Mother: Nothing? Nobody has anything to say? Where is he, the other boy? He is not in his place. He is not in his place, he isn’t there.