The Mother: T HAS been ofﬁcially stated that the ﬁve rings of the symbol of the Olympic Games represent the ﬁve continents, but no special signiﬁcance has been attached to the colour of the rings, nor has there been any intention of allotting a speciﬁc colour to each continent.  Nevertheless, it is interesting to study these colours and to ﬁnd out what meaning they may have and what message they may convey.  It is quite well known that each colour has its signiﬁcance, but the meanings attached to the various colours by different interpreters vary and are often conﬂicting. There does not seem to exist any universally accepted classiﬁcation of these significances. This is because these colours are considered from a mental standpoint, or at least because the vision is inﬂuenced by the mind of the interpreter.


The Mother: But if one rises above the mind to the truly occult regions beyond, the real meaning of each colour is the same for all those who can read it directly. This is true not only in this particular case but for all occult and spiritual experience. There is a remarkable similarity in the experiences of mystics of all times and places.  Consequently, if the colours of the rings in the Olympic Symbol are viewed from this standpoint, we shall be able to ﬁnd their real esoteric meaning and see how they apply to the ﬁve continents.  Green denotes a vast peaceful feeling with a direct contact and a very harmonious relationship with Nature.


The Mother: It could represent a continent with vast open spaces and an unspoiled population living close to the soil and Nature.  Red is the colour of the physical and material world. The red ring could therefore be allotted to a people that has achieved a great mastery over the physical world. This colour would also  indicate that material success has given it predominance over the others. In any case, it represents a people that stresses physical and material things.


The Mother: Blue, on the other hand, indicates a young continent with its whole future before it and great possibilities, but still new and growing.  Black is a very unfortunate choice of colour as it can only represent a continent which is fast falling into deep obscurity — the descent of a declining people into dark oblivion.  On the contrary, yellow is the most glorious colour of all.  It is the golden colour of Light — the Light which comes from the Source and Origin of all things and which, with its helping hand, will lead evolving humanity back to its divine Origin.  The arrangement of the rings also has a signiﬁcance.


The Mother: Black is the central colour upholding all the others, and this is indeed an indication of the black chaos which now governs the world and of the blindness of those who are at present struggling to guide the ship of humanity on the dark sea of ignorance.  It is our hope that in the future this black ring will be replaced by a white one, when there comes a turn in the tide of human affairs, when the shades of ignorance are dispelled by the dawn of a new light, the bright, white, self-luminous light of the new Consciousness, and when at the helm of the ship stand those who will face this brilliant radiance and set course towards the Promised Land.§   URING the Athletic Championships of the J.S.A.S.A. which were held this quarter, the champion of each subgroup received as a prize a badge of championship. This badge is in the form of a golden tortoise with a full circle of red in the centre from which radiate twelve white rays.


The Mother: The form and colour of the badge have an occult signiﬁcance and may be interpreted as follows: The tortoise is the symbol of terrestrial immortality, that is, the immortality of the physical body on this earth. The red centre symbolises the illumined physical and from this radiate the twelve white rays of the integral Light of Truth. The rays are curved to indicate that the Light is dynamic in its nature and its action.  The golden colour of the tortoise itself shows that it is the Supramental which supports this terrestrial immortality and which alone can bring about the transformation.§  ANUARY


The Mother: , February, March and April are for us the months of tournaments. Small and big, all participate with the same ardour, but, I must say, not in the spirit of the ordinary competitors. For we always strive, not to win, but to play the best we can and open thus the way to a new progress.   We are not aiming at success — our aim is perfection.


The Mother: We are not seeking fame or reputation; we want to prepare ourselves for a Divine manifestation. That is why we can boldly say: It is better to be than to seem. We need not appear to be good if our sincerity is perfect. And by perfect sincerity we mean that all our thoughts, feelings, sensations and actions should express nothing but the central Truth of our being.   G A


The Mother: My little ones, you are the hope, you are the future. Keep always this youth which is the faculty to progress; for you the phrase “it is impossible” will have no meaning.   G B Call to Victory  I salute you, my brave little soldiers, I give you my call to the rendezvous with Victory.    G C


The Mother: The Lord will name “supreme” only those of his workers who will have wholly surmounted and overpassed in them all animality. Let us be at the outset his faithful and sincere workers and when this more modest programme is accomplished we shall prepare ourselves for greater realisations.   G D  With a single sincere heart we all will for Victory, but it is by stages that it can be achieved. A scrupulous discipline is the ﬁrst step.


The Mother: Let your new uniform be the symbol of its fulﬁlment.    G DG  I accept your pledge and you can rely upon my help to realise it.  Age exists only for those who choose to become old.  Forward, ever forward, without fear and without hesitation.


The Mother:  G DK Be always faithful and persevering and you will have your share of the realisation.     G E


The Mother: I have full trust in your goodwill. Trust in my help.    C’ G


The Mother: All you Captains of Physical Education:  You can and must be the ´elite. I was thinking that, in the Ashram, there should be a nucleus around which all will be organised. The Captains of Physical Education can be the nucleus of Physical Education. They need not be many in number, but a good selection, ﬁrst class people, true candidates for supermanhood, ready to give themselves entirely, unreservedly to the big divine work. This is what is expected from you.


The Mother: This must be your programme.    My children, We are united towards the same goal and for the same accomplishment — for a work unique and new, that the divine Grace has given us to accomplish. I hope that more and more you will understand the exceptional importance of this work and that you will sense in yourselves the sublime joy that the accomplishment will give you.  The divine force is with you — feel its presence more and more and be careful never to betray it.


The Mother: Feel, wish, act, that you may be new beings for the realisation of a new world and for this my blessings shall always be with you.   A C 1959  Behind the appearances that the physical eyes can see, there is a reality much more concrete and lasting. It is in this reality that I am with you today and will be during all the athletic season.


The Mother: The force, the power, the light and the consciousness will be in your midst constantly to give to each one, according to his receptivity, the success in his endeavour and the progress which is the crowning result of all sincere effort.   G C 1959  What I told you at the opening of the athletics stands good for the Gymnastic Competition; I will be with you all through, helping you in your effort and enjoying your performances.   With my blessings.


The Mother:  A C 1960  In joy and conﬁdence, let all do their best, with my force, my help and my blessings.   A C 1962  Replace the ambition to be ﬁrst by the will to do the best possible.


The Mother: Replace the desire for success by the yearning for progress.    Replace the eagerness for fame by the aspiration for perfection.  Physical Education is meant to bring into the body, consciousness and control, discipline and mastery, all things necessary for a higher and better life.  Keep all that in mind, practise sincerely and you will become a good athlete; this is the ﬁrst step on the way to be a true man.


The Mother: Blessings.    A C 1963  To all those who want to make their body ﬁt for a Divine Life, I say, do not miss this excellent opportunity of the athletic competition and never forget that whatever we do we must aspire for perfection. For it is this yearning for perfection which will, in spite of all difﬁculties, lead us to our Goal.


The Mother: Blessings.    A C 1964  We are here to lay the foundations of a new world.  All the virtues and skills required to succeed in athletics are exactly those the physical man must have to be ﬁt for receiving and manifesting the new force.


The Mother: I expect that with this knowledge and in this spirit you will enter this athletic competition and go through it successfully.   My blessings are with you.    facsimile   G C 1964


The Mother: The 18th October is a good day.  Gymnastics is a good art.  And you will be good gymnasts.  Blessings.    C 1966


The Mother: It might be better to remind you that we are here for a special work, a work which is done nowhere else.  We want to come in contact with the supreme consciousness, the universal consciousness, we want to bring it down in ourselves and to manifest it. But for that we must have a very solid base; our base is our physical being, our body. Therefore we have to build up a body solid, healthy, enduring, skilful, agile and strong, ready for everything. There is no better way to prepare the body than physical exercise: sports, athletics, gymnastics, and all games are the best means to develop and strengthen the body.


The Mother: Therefore I call you to go through the competitions beginning today, full-heartedly with all your energy and all your will.   C 1967  On this occasion of our physical education and sportive activities: I must tell you once more that for us spiritual life does not mean contempt for Matter but its divinisation. We do not want to reject the body but to transform it. For this physical education is one of the means most directly effective.


The Mother: So I invite you to participate in the programme beginning today with enthusiasm and discipline — discipline, because it is the indispensable condition of order; enthusiasm, because it is the essential condition of success.  Blessings.    facsimile on whole page  C 1968  The ﬁrst condition for acquiring power is to be obedient.  The body must learn to obey before it can manifest power; and physical education is the most thorough discipline for the body.


The Mother: So be eager and sincere in your efforts for physical education and you will acquire a powerful body.  My blessings are with you.   C 1969  Since the beginning of this year a new consciousness is at work upon earth to prepare the men for a new creation, the superman.  For this creation to be possible the substance that constitutes man’s body must undergo a big change, it must become more receptive to the consciousness and more plastic under its working.


The Mother: These are just the qualities that one can acquire through physical education.  So, if we follow this discipline with such a result in view, we are sure to obtain the most interesting result.   My blessings to all, for progress and achievement.   C 1970


The Mother: What better offering can we make to the Divine, than to offer the skill of our growing bodies?  Let us offer our efforts towards perfection, and physical education will take for us a new meaning and a greater value.  The world is preparing for a new creation, let us help through physical education, by making our bodies stronger,  more receptive and more plastic, on the way to physical transformation.   C 1971  We are at one of these “Hours of God”, when the old bases get shaken, and there is a great confusion; but it is a wonderful opportunity for those who want to leap forward, the possibility of progress is exceptional.


The Mother: Will you not be of those who take advantage of it?   Let your body be prepared through physical education for this great change!   My blessings to all.


The Mother:  C 1972  This year, let us offer all the activities of our body in consecration to Sri Aurobindo.   D 1960  Bravo! To all those who participated in yesterday’s performance!


The Mother: It was excellent. My congratulations to everybody.  Everything was well planned and well executed.  With love and blessings to all.   D 1963


The Mother: Yesterday I was with you all the time, with all the force and all the consciousness to help you and uphold you, I knew that the rain was a test which had to be overcome.  You have done it victoriously and I am very happy about it.   Let everyone know of my entire satisfaction.


The Mother: With my blessings.   D 1964 My blessings for all those who will take part in the demonstration so that they may be at the summit of their capacities.    facsimile on whole page  facsimile on whole page  D 1966 Be courageous, enduring, vigilant; above all, be sincere, with perfect honesty.  Then you will be able to face all difﬁculties. And victory will be yours.


The Mother:  D 1967 The prayer of the cells in the body  Now that, by the effect of the Grace, we are slowly emerging out of inconscience and waking to a conscious life, an ardent prayer rises in us for more light, more consciousness, “O Supreme Lord of the universe, we implore Thee, give us the strength and the beauty, the harmonious perfection needed to be Thy divine instruments upon earth.”   Become Master of your body — this will lead you to Freedom.    Physical culture is the best way of developing the consciousness of the body, and the more the body is conscious, the more it is capable of receiving the divine forces that are at work to transform it and give birth to the new race.


The Mother:    ( )


The Mother: Does this room have air and light? Without air and light exercises do more harm than good.   It is an urgent and indispensable lesson to be learned. Nothing useful can be won without a team-spirit and a sporting discipline.   Read the enclosed booklet — it will give you an answer and read also Sri Aurobindo’s message in the ﬁrst.


The Mother:   If I understand well what you have written, you mean that by concentrating one’s attention on the physical activity one is doing, it automatically stops all mental activity and this increases the efﬁciency of the body. This is true provided the concentration is total which is rather rare.  Blessings.    ( )


The Mother: A plan is good, but more for yourself than for the children.  I mean to say that you must know exactly what you want to do and you must organise your work. But do not enforce too rigidly your method because the children like to be free and spontaneous in their movements, and this freedom is good for their growth.  My love and blessings.


The Mother:    To the Soviet Gymnasts  We salute you, brothers already so far on the way to the physical perfection for which we all aspire here.  Be welcome in the Ashram, amongst us.


The Mother: We feel sure that today one step more is taken towards unity of the great human family.    Build in yourself the total harmony, so that when the time comes Perfect Beauty can express itself through your body.    A H Y  From our experience we have found that a particular system of exercises cannot be stamped as the only yogic type of exercises and we cannot deﬁnitely say that participation in those exercises only will help to gain health because they are yogic exercises.


The Mother: Any rational system of exercises suited to one’s need and capacity will help the participant to improve in health. Moreover it is the attitude that is more important. Any well-planned and scientiﬁcally arranged programme of exercises practised with a yogic attitude will become yogic exercises and the person practising them will draw full beneﬁt from the point of view of physical health and moral and spiritual uplift.    Do sincerely some physical culture and you will succeed.


The Mother:    It does not seem to me quite wise to take children below six years to sea bathing; the sea water is too strong for them.    ( ) Your reply is correct.


The Mother: When one is incapable of conforming to a discipline, one is also incapable of doing anything of lasting value in life.      (


The Mother: )  Do not worry — with some good and regular exercises and my blessings it will be all right.  Love and blessings.


The Mother: Be and you will no more be injured.     No.  The body is capable of progressing and gradually it can learn to do what it could not do.


The Mother: But its capacity for progress is much  slower than the vital desire for progress and the mental will for progress. And if the vital and the mental were left as masters of action, they would simply harass the body, destroy its poise and upset its health.  Therefore, one must be patient and follow the rhythm of one’s body; it is more reasonable and knows what it can do and what it cannot.  Naturally, there are tamasic bodies and they need some encouragement for progressing.  But in everything and in all cases, one must keep one’s balance.


The Mother: Blessings.    Because it is an occasion to put in a greater effort and therefore to make a rapid progress.  Blessings.


The Mother: ()  I do not think there are more accidents here than outside. Certainly there should be less. But for that, children who are here must take care to grow in consciousness (a thing which they can do here more easily than anywhere else). Unfortunately, however, very few among them take the trouble to do it.


The Mother: So they lose the good chance given to them.     Sports are all the games, competitions, tournaments, etc., all the things based on contests and ending in placings and prizes.  Physical education means chieﬂy the combination of all exercises for the sake of the growth and upkeep of the body.  Naturally, here we have the two together.


The Mother: But it is particularly so because human beings, especially in their young age, still require some excitement in order to make an effort.  Blessings.     Sports help the body to prepare for the Transformation.


The Mother:  ( )  The drawing on the winner’s card is an adaptation from a Greek bronze and is meant to express our will to use the physical strength for mastery over the black bull of passion.    ( )  This of Rodin on the Runner-up Cards signiﬁes the necessity of reﬂection to perfect means for a better result.


The Mother:    ( )  The Riddle of the World  If you can solve it, you will be immortal, but if you fail you will  perish.


The Mother: ()   1. For God’s sake can’t you forget that you are a girl or a boy and try to become a human being?  2. Each idea (or system of ideas) is true in its own time and place.


The Mother: But if it tries to be exclusive or to persist even when its time is over, then it ceases to be true.  The Mother    Before answering your questions I wish to tell you something which you know no doubt, but which you must never forget if you wish to learn how to lead a wise life.  It is true that we are, in our inner being, a spirit, a living soul that holds within it the Divine and aspires to become it, to manifest it perfectly; it is equally true, for the moment at least, that in our most material external being, in our body, we are still an animal, a mammalian, of a higher order no doubt, but made like animals and subject to the laws of animal Nature.


The Mother: You have been taught surely that one peculiarity of the mammal is that the female conceives the child, carries it and builds it up within herself until the moment when the young one, fully formed, comes out of the body of its mother and lives independently.  In view of this function Nature has provided the woman with an additional quantity of blood which has to be used for the child in the making. But as the use of this additional blood is not a constant need, when there is no child in the making, the surplus blood has to be thrown out to avoid excess and congestion.   This is the cause of the monthly periods. It is a simple natural phenomenon, result of the way in which woman has been made


The Mother: and there is no need to attach to it more importance than to the other functions of the body. It is not a disease and cannot be the cause of any weakness or real discomfort. Therefore a normal woman, one who is not ridiculously sensitive, should merely take the necessary precautions of cleanliness, never think of it any more and lead her daily life as usual without any change in her programme. This is the best way to be in good health.  Besides, even while recognising that in our body we still belong dreadfully to animality, we must not therefore conclude that this animal part, as it is the most concrete and the most real for us, is one to which we are obliged to be subjected and which we must allow to rule over us.


The Mother: Unfortunately this is what happens most often in life and men are certainly much more slaves than masters of their physical being. Yet it is the contrary that should be, for the truth of individual life is quite another thing.  We have in us an intelligent will more or less enlightened which is the ﬁrst instrument of our psychic being. It is this intelligent will that we must use in order to learn to live not like an animal man, but as a human being, candidate for Divinity.


The Mother: And the ﬁrst step towards this realisation is to become master of this body instead of remaining an impotent slave.  One most effective help towards this goal is physical culture.  For about a century there has been a renewal of a knowledge greatly favoured in ancient times, partially forgotten since then.  Now it is reawakening, and with the progress of modern science, it is acquiring quite a new amplitude and importance. This knowledge deals with the physical body and the extraordinary mastery that can be obtained over it with the help of enlightened and systematised physical education.


The Mother: This renewal has been the result of the action of a new power and light that have spread upon the earth in order to prepare it for the great transformations that must take place in the near future.   We must not hesitate to give a primary importance to this physical education whose very purpose is to make our body capable of receiving and expressing the new force which seeks to manifest upon earth.  This said, I now answer the questions you put to me.  The attitude you take towards something quite natural and unavoidable. Give it as little importance as possible and go on with your usual life, without changing anything because of it.


The Mother: Certainly if she is accustomed to physical exercise, she must not stop because of that. If one keeps the habit of leading one’s normal life always, very soon one does not even notice the presence of the menses.   It is a question of temperament and mostly of education. If from her childhood a girl has been accustomed to pay much attention to the slightest uneasiness and to make a big fuss about the smallest inconvenience, then she loses all capacity of endurance and anything becomes the occasion for being pulled down.


The Mother: Especially if the parents themselves get too easily anxious about the reactions of their children. It is wiser to teach a child to be a bit sturdy and enduring than to show much care for these small inconveniences and accidents that cannot always be avoided in  life. An attitude of quiet forbearance is the best one can adopt for oneself and teach to the children.  It is a well-known fact that if you expect some pain you are bound to have it and, once it has come, if you concentrate upon it, then it increases more and more until it becomes what is usually termed as “unbearable”, although with some will and courage there is hardly any pain that one cannot bear.


The Mother: There are some exercises that make the abdomen strong and improve the circulation. These exercises must be done regularly and continued even after the pains have disappeared. For the grown-up girls, this kind of pain comes almost entirely from sexual desires. If we get rid of the desires we get rid of the pain. There are two ways of getting rid of desires; the ﬁrst one, the usual one, is through satisfaction (or rather what is called so, because there is no such thing as satisfaction in the domain of desire).


The Mother: That means leading the ordinary human-animal life, marriage, children and all the rest of it.  There is, of course, another way, a better way, — control, mastery, transformation; this is more digniﬁed and also more effective.   In all cases, as well for boys as for girls, the exercises must be graded according to the strength and the capacity of each one. If a weak student tries at once to do hard and heavy exercises, he may suffer for his foolishness.


The Mother: But with a wise and progressive training, girls as well as boys can participate in all kinds of sports, and thus increase their strength and health.   To become strong and healthy can never bring harm to a body, even if it is a woman’s body!  Weakness and fragility may look attractive in the view of a perverted mind, but it is not the truth of Nature nor the truth of the Spirit.  If you have ever looked at the photos of the women gymnasts you will know what perfectly beautiful bodies they have; and nobody can deny that they are muscular!  I never came across such a case.


The Mother: On the contrary, women who are trained to strong exercises and have a muscular body go through the ordeal of child-formation and child-birth much more easily and painlessly.  I heard the authentic story of one of these African women who are accustomed to walk for miles carrying heavy loads. She was pregnant and the time of delivery came during one of the day’s marches. She sat on the side of the track, under a tree, gave birth to the child, waited for half an hour, then she rose and adding the new-born babe to the former luggage, went on her way quietly, as if nothing had happened. This is a splendid example of what a woman can do when she is in full possession of her health and strength.


The Mother: Doctors will say that such a thing cannot occur in a civilised world with all the so-called progress that humanity has achieved; but we cannot deny that, from the physical point of view, this is a more happy condition than all the sensitiveness, the sufferings  and the complications created by the modern civilisations.  Moreover, usually doctors are more interested in the abnormal cases, and they judge mostly from that point of view. But for us, it is different; it is from the normal that we can rise to the supernormal, not from the abnormal which is always a sign of perversion and inferiority.  I do not see why there should be any special ideal of physical education for girls other than for boys.  Physical education has for its aim to develop all the possibilities of a human body, possibilities of harmony, strength, plasticity, cleverness, agility, endurance, and to increase the control over the functioning of the limbs and the organs, to make of the body a perfect instrument at the disposal of a conscious will.


The Mother: This programme is excellent for all human beings equally, and there is no point in wanting to adopt another one for girls.  Why make at all a distinction between them? They are all equally human beings, trying to become ﬁt instruments for the Divine Work, above sex, caste, creed and nationality, all children of the same Inﬁnite Mother and aspirants to the one Eternal Godhead.  A perfect harmony in the proportions, suppleness and strength, grace and force, plasticity and endurance, and above all, an excellent health, unvarying and unchanging, which is the result  of a pure soul, a happy trust in life and an unshakable faith in the Divine Grace.  One word to ﬁnish: I have told you these things, because you needed to hear them, but do not make of them absolute dogmas, for that would take away their truth.


The Mother:  = given; ‡ = chosen † = approved     A free talk where each one is able to express what he thinks or feels.


The Mother: I S: Never believe that you know.  Always try to know better.  Blessings.


The Mother:  F S: What is the best way of surmounting the ordinary mental activity?    My answer: Keep silent.


The Mother:  S S: How to be steady and sincere in our aspiration for the Divine Life.  Consider the Divine Life as the most important thing to obtain.    T S: How to discriminate between Truth and falsehood in the impulses of action.  Those who wish to help the Light of Truth to prevail over the forces of darkness and falsehood, can do so by carefully observing the initiating impulses of their movements and actions, and discriminating between those that come from the Truth and those that come from the falsehood, in order to obey the ﬁrst and to refuse or reject the others.


The Mother: This power of discrimination is one of the ﬁrst effects of the Advent of the Truth’s Light in the earth’s atmosphere.  Indeed it is very difﬁcult to discriminate the impulses of Truth from the impulses of falsehood, unless one has received this special gift of discrimination that the Light of Truth has brought.  However, to help at the beginning, one can take as a guiding rule that all that brings with it or creates peace, faith, joy, harmony, wideness, unity and ascending growth comes from the Truth; while all that carries with it restlessness, doubt, scepticism, sorrow, discord, selﬁsh narrowness, inertia, discouragement and despair comes straight from the falsehood.    F S: How to make one’s studies a means of one’s sadhana?‡


The Mother:   F S: How to turn one’s difﬁculties into opportunities for progress?‡    S S: 1. What is the best way of making humanity progress?†  2.


The Mother: What is true freedom and how to attain it?†  1. To progress oneself.  2. a) Freedom from the ego.  b) Get rid of the ego.


The Mother: S S: How to serve the Truth?†   E S: What is the destiny of Man?‡    N S: What is true love and how to ﬁnd it?‡  Do know what is true love?  There is only true love, the love the Divine, which, in human beings, turns into love the Divine.


The Mother: Shall we say that the nature of the Divine is Love.    T S: Why is the Choice imperative?‡  Because we are at one of the “hours of God” as Sri Aurobindo puts it — and the transforming evolution of the world has taken a hastened and intensiﬁed movement.   E S: What is the need of the hour?‡


The Mother: Sincerity.  Do not try to deceive the Divine.


The Mother: T S: Sri Aurobindo and the New Age.‡    facsimile on whole page    F A C: To break away from the old traditions and not to obey the old rules is good — but on condition that one discovers in oneself a higher and truer consciousness which manifests Harmony, Peace, Beauty and a superior Order, vast and progressive.


The Mother:    T S: The new outlook on education.‡  Truth, Harmony, Liberty.


The Mother:    F S: What we expect from the Mother.  Everything.  Nothing.


The Mother: As I am expecting nothing I cannot answer this question.  Happily not.     F S: 1. How to remain young?‡


The Mother: 2. What is the secret of perpetual progress?‡  How can these questions be answered before the supramental is manifested upon earth? It is only after that manifestation that we may know how it came and how it manifests.   full  complete I am speaking of a supramental manifestation evident to all, even the most ignorant — as the human manifestation has been evident to all when it happened.


The Mother:    S S: 1. The God of the Religions and the Divine.‡


The Mother: 2. Asceticism and true austerity.‡  A benevolent goodwill towards all worshippers.  An enlightened indifference towards all religions.  As for the relation with the beings of the Overmind, if this relation exists already, each case must have its own solution.   It is too soon to put such a question.


The Mother:  S S: 1. Why is our yoga an adventure?‡  2. The power of faith.‡  It can be called an adventure because it is the ﬁrst time that a yoga aims at transformation and divinisation of physical life instead of escape from it.


The Mother: Because we are aiming at something quite new that has never been done before.  Your faith puts you under the protection of the Supreme who is all-powerful.   S A C:  Above all words, above all thoughts, in the luminous silence of an aspiring faith give yourself totally, unreservedly, absolutely  to the Supreme Lord of all existences and He will make of you what He wants you to be.


The Mother: With love and blessings.   E S:  Here is the subject.  The salvation of the world lies in union and harmony.  How do you conceive this union and this harmony?


The Mother: Blessings.     N S:  What is the big change for which the world is preparing?


The Mother: How can one help it?†  A change of consciousness. And when our consciousness will change we will know what the change is.  The change does not need our help to come, but we need to open ourselves to the consciousness so that its coming is not in vain for us.


The Mother:    facsimile


The Mother: T S :  Is the aim of life to be happy?‡


The Mother: Is the aim of life to be happy?  This is just putting things topsy-turvy.   The aim of human life is to discover the Divine and to manifest It. Naturally this discovery leads to happiness; but this happiness is a consequence, not an aim in itself. And it is this mistake of taking a mere consequence for aim of life that has been the cause of most of the miseries which are afﬂicting human life.


The Mother:  S A C:  India of Sri Aurobindo’s Dream.†  Become conscious of your psychic being. Let your psychic being become intensely interested in India’s Soul and aspire towards it, with an attitude of service; and if you are sincere you will succeed.


The Mother:  T-F S:  The solution of the world’s problems lies in a change of consciousness. What is your conception of this change and how to bring it about?‡


The Mother: The consciousness that has to be manifested is already in the earth atmosphere. It is now only a question of receptivity.    T-S S: How to take a leap towards the future?‡  The choice is mental. The leap is made by the whole being.


The Mother: Each one in his own way.  “Blessed” is not the exclusive property of the Bible.


The Mother: T - T S: What is our ideal of integral perfection?‡  Conscious union with the Divine.    E A C: Have faith and be sincere.


The Mother: Blessings.    T-F S: Sri Aurobindo’s call to the youth.‡  To become the builders of a better future in the light of the Supramental consciousness.   T-F S: How to be worthy of


The Mother: Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary?†  Those who will be able to become receptive by the mastery of the psychic upon their ego, will know what this help is and will have the full beneﬁt of it.    T-S S: Education and Yoga.‡  Read Sri Aurobindo.   N A C: Sri Aurobindo reveals the future.


The Mother: A hero fears nothing, complains of nothing and never gives way.   T-S S: How to collaborate in all sincerity in showing to the  world that man can be a true servant of the Divine?‡  By being a true servant of the Divine.    T-E S: How to reconcile the individual’s claim for freedom with the collectivity’s need for unity and order?†


The Mother: Freedom is far from meaning disorder and confusion.  It is the inner liberty that one must have, and if you have it nobody can take it away from you.    ( )  The chief meaning of this kind of activity is just to solve the difﬁculties they speak of — inertia, shyness, laziness, etc., etc.


The Mother: And it is just for that I asked you to do it four times a year.  The students are not here to have an easy life but to prepare themselves for the Divine Life.  How can they expect to get ready if they shun an effort, remain lazy and “tamasic”?     (1)  FRENCH IN THE ASHRAM AND THE SCHOOL


The Mother: ( )  Sri Aurobindo did say that, but he also said many other things which complete his advice and abolish all possibility of dogmatism. Sri Aurobindo himself has often repeated that if one afﬁrms one thing, one should be able to afﬁrm its opposite; otherwise one cannot understand the Truth.  ( ) French will continue to be taught in the Ashram, at least so long as I am here, because Sri Aurobindo, who loved French very much and knew it very well, considered it to be an essential part of the knowledge of languages.


The Mother: (  “So much the worse for them.”   )  Sri Aurobindo loved French very much. He used to say that it was a clear and precise language, whose use encouraged clarity of mind. From the point of view of the development of the consciousness, that is precious.


The Mother: In French, one can say exactly what one wants to say.  Blessings.  (2) THE ORGANISATION OF WORK IN FRENCH CLASSES  ( )  No objection, these are things which you should arrange freely among yourselves.


The Mother:   ( )  Truly speaking, According to the truthvision, everything is still terribly mixed, a more or less fortunate combination of light and darkness, of truth and falsehood, of knowledge and ignorance, and so long as decisions are made and action is carried out according to opinions, it will always be like that.   We want to give the example of an action that is carried out according to the truth-vision, but unfortunately we are still very far from realising this ideal; and even if the truth-vision is expressed, it is immediately distorted in its implementation.  So, in the present state of things, it is impossible to say: this is true and this is false, this leads us away from the goal, this leads us nearer to the goal.


The Mother: can be used for the sake of progress; can be useful if one knows how to use it.   The important thing is never to lose sight of the ideal you want to realise and to make use of every circumstance for this purpose.  After all, it is always preferable not to make any decision for or against things, but to watch events as they develop, with the impartiality of a witness, relying on the divine Wisdom which will decide for the best and do what is needful.


The Mother: ( )  There is no harm in having said what you did, because, you see, to each person I can say, in all sincerity, that “I agree.” In fact, it is a thing that is rather difﬁcult for all of you to understand, since the mind can hardly approve of it. But behind each one’s point of view there is an aspect, sometimes a very small aspect of, and I always agree with this aspect — on condition, of course, that it does not want to be exclusive by trying to eliminate the others.  And I am seeking for a method in action by which all these aspects can be expressed, each one in its own place, without interfering with one another.


The Mother: The day I ﬁnd this means, I shall  begin to reorganise the school. In the meantime, you can always air ideas; it is healthy, so long as it is neither dogmatic, nor exclusive, nor aggressive, and so long as you quarrel.  (3) TEACHING FRENCH TO INDIAN TEACHERS WHO TEACH IN FRENCH S T S (  La Peste ) Reading certain things can be good for Europeans who have a rather thick skin, to arouse in them a feeling of true compassion; but here in India it is not necessary. And it is not good to give an even darker picture of a life that is already dark enough in itself.  ( Recherche d’une ´eglise )  was the book of my choice.


The Mother: Jules Romains is a great writer and his French is of the highest order.  When I mentioned cuts, it was because certain passages are not quite suitable for a young woman’s mind. But it would have been easy to make these cuts, and the rest is very good.   (  La France d’aujourd’hui) I have just been looking at the book, with interest. This time, it is very good.


The Mother:   F P W  ( )  Yes, this work would be of interest, but only if it is based on Sri Aurobindo’s (it has been published in the ). For in this book, not only are all the problems of human evolution posed, they are also solved.


The Mother: Each time that Sri Aurobindo mentions a civilisation or a country, the corresponding historical facts could be studied, and this work would be really interesting.     What I know of modern authors has taken away any wish I might have had to read more of them.  Why step deliberately into the mire?


The Mother: What is to be gained by it? The knowledge that the Western world is wallowing in the mud? It is hardly necessary. Selected passages, carefully selected, seem to be the solution.


The Mother: ( )  I fully agree. X should have the time to learn French thoroughly and her hours of work and teaching should be organised in such a way that she has the time to continue her lessons with you, until she feels that they are no longer necessary.  (4)  TEACHING FRENCH TO THE STUDENTS


The Mother: Generally, for spelling, one must take the help of the eyes. Each word should have its, which the eye remembers.   is more useful than mental memory. One should a lot — see, see, see, on the blackboard, in books, on pictures.  And as for style, gender, and grammar too, the best thing is to read, to read a great deal.


The Mother: In this way all this goes into the subconscient. It is the best way to learn.    A T Tests may be useful in giving you the worth of a child, but not his worth.  As for the real worth of a child, something else is to be found, but that will be for later on, and will be of a different nature.


The Mother: I am not worth to worth; they can coexist in the same individual, but it is a rather rare phenomenon which produces exceptional types of people.     (  )


The Mother: Very true.  Very true.  Very good.  Certainly more than once.  Yes, they need that very much.


The Mother: Yes, that is very useful.  True.  Heaven forbid!  You are right. It is the teachers, almost all of them, with only a few exceptions, who are lazy — more than the students.


The Mother: No, you are not bothering me, you are quite right.   Yes.   (5) THE “BIBLIOTH `EQUE CHOISIE”  ( )


The Mother: Mother’s advice about the composition of the “Biblioth`eque Choisie”.   Remove all modern novels.   Include only scholarly works, on philosophy, art, the sciences.


The Mother: The best thing would be to bring the list of books to Mother, a little at a time, so that she can see what they contain.  This is an important matter.  ( )  All books that aim to teach.


The Mother: The aim of the “Biblioth`eque Choisie” is to teach the students good French and the best in French thought.  It should include mainly scholarly works, that is, works which aim to teach: books on philosophy, art, the sciences, etc.  There should be very few novels (the students read only too many novels), and no modern novels, unless they are of particularly good quality.   Literature has its place in the “Biblioth`eque Choisie”, so that the students can learn what literature is.  The most important thing to be taken into consideration when selecting books, is the quality of the language and style, something “splendid” as in Flaubert.


The Mother: No translations, or very few, and only if they are of famous works — one cannot say “masterpieces” because there are so few of them!  ( )  They should be put in a special place, in a special room called “Bad Books”, so that those who want to study what they contain may do so.  Great care must be taken when ordering books.


The Mother: The question of the “Biblioth`eque Choisie” is an important one.  M “B` C”  The aim of the “Biblioth`eque Choisie” is to teach French well.  1. The books should be well written.


The Mother: 2. Preference should be given to those that are interesting from the point of view of learning.  3. Include novels only if they are remarkably well written.  4. Very few translations — only those of famous books.


The Mother: 5. Send all the rest to the Big Library with the note: “Not to be recommended.”     ( )  Completely, I approve completely.


The Mother: It is indispensable. We have fallen to such a level! In everything! Ah, I agree completely.  (6)


The Mother: MOTHER’S ACTION IN A CLASS OF CHILDREN AGED TEN TO ELEVEN  The best thing would be to tell them a story, using very simple words and phrases so that they can understand (a little story, short and interesting or amusing), and then afterwards ask them to write down in class what they have heard.  A minimum of silence is necessary. I know that the most undisciplined children are usually the most intelligent. But to be tamed they must feel the pressure of an intelligence that is more powerful than their own.


The Mother: And for that, one must be able not to come down to their level, and above all know how to remain unaffected by what they do. In fact, it is a yogic problem.  Yes, but for that the calm must be perfect in all parts of the being  so that the power can express itself through him.   ( )


The Mother: I have put marks in the children’s notebooks without making any classiﬁcation. Is this classiﬁcation really necessary? Each one has different merits and it is difﬁcult to grade them.    ()


The Mother: The relationship that has really been established between the class, you, the children and me, is certainly the most important thing and it must be preserved at all costs. But that depends on an much more than on an outer framework or material organisation. In fact, this same should be present throughout the whole school and all the classes, in all the teachers and all the students. This is what must be obtained and what we must strive for.


The Mother: ( )  Yes, certainly.   ( )  An experiment should be ﬂexible and plastic enough to be applicable and adapted to all the children, with any changes in detail that their different characters may require. So you may rest assured that the experiment will continue.


The Mother: Only the children may not be the same ones.  ( ) Let them continue with the experiment. Little by little things will settle down and the results will improve.  ( ) This slackening is no doubt due to the approach of the holidays.  (7) MOTHER’S ACTION IN A CLASS OF CHILDREN AGED SEVEN TO NINE


The Mother: ( )  The tree is life that aspires and grows. The sun is the light of Truth.   It is not the cold light of reason that helps life to grow and blossom, it is the warm and life-giving light of Truth; it is the sun, when it pours its joyful rays on the world.  ( )


The Mother: A good beginning. It will evolve quite naturally towards more intellectual activities, and meanwhile any work that is done with care is an opportunity to learn something.  ()  1. It is better not to lock the children up in the classroom, even to play.


The Mother: 2. A moment of silence and concentration is always good for   But the prayer Those who want to do it will be encouraged. I suggest that you put up a notice-board in the classroom with these words written on it in large letters: “Mother is always here amongst us to help us and guide us.”  Most of the children will understand, and some are capable of.


The Mother:   ( ) Yes.   The only effective thing is to create or awaken in them a interest in study,, to awaken their .  ()  It is only after months, and even years of assiduous, regular and obstinate effort that one can rightfully say (and even then!) that it has been useless and fruitless.


The Mother: Compulsion is neither the best nor the most effective principle of education.  True education must what is already present in the developing beings and make it blossom. Just as ﬂowers blossom in the sun, children blossom in joy. It goes without saying that joy does not mean weakness, disorder and confusion. But a luminous kindliness which encourages the good and does not severely insist on the bad.


The Mother: Grace is always much closer to Truth than justice.  There is nothing, no method, no process, which is bad in itself; everything depends on the spirit in which it is done.  If you want my help, it is not by accepting one principle of action and rejecting another that you can have it, but by concentrating before the class, by establishing silence and peace in your heart (and in your head too, if possible) and  with a sincere aspiration that I should be behind all your actions, not in the way you think that I would act (for  that can only be an arbitrary opinion and therefore necessarily wrong), but in silence and calm and inner spontaneity. This is the only true way of getting out of your difﬁculty.  And until you are able to achieve this, do your best quietly and perseveringly, according to your own capacities and the circumstances, with simplicity and without tormenting yourself.


The Mother: The Grace is always there with anyone who wishes to do well.  What I meant to say in the notebook, was that it is always preferable to continue quietly with what one is doing until an  brings about the outer change smoothly.  This is what I call.    Certainly.


The Mother: It is a weakening of the force due to the noncollaboration of the vital which causes the slackening. Children do not live in their minds enough to obey spontaneously a mental will that is not sustained by a vital force which inﬂuences them by its mere presence, without requiring any outer expression.  When the vital collaborates, my force works through it and automatically maintains order simply by its presence in the vital.  Young children are not very sensitive to a mental power that is not clothed with vital power. And in order to have vital power you yourself must be.


The Mother: (  )  Yes, it is a good idea. An atmosphere of friendly collaboration is always best.


The Mother: The psychic inspiration alone is true. All that comes from the vital and the mind is necessarily mixed with egoism and is arbitrary. One should not act in to outer contact, but with an immutable vision of love and goodwill. Everything else is a mixture which can only have confused and mixed results, and perpetuate the disorder.  (


The Mother: )  The problem is more far-reaching than it appears at ﬁrst sight.  It is in fact a revolt of the vital forces of the children against all discipline and all constraint. The normal ordinary method would have been to expel all the undisciplined children from  the school and to keep only those who are “good”. But this is a defeat and an impoverishment.


The Mother: If, by transmitting the inner force,, one can ﬁnally control this revolt, it becomes a conversion and a true enrichment. That is what I want to try and I hope that it will be possible for you to go on collaborating with my action.  And now that you have understood not only what I want to do, but also the mechanism and the process of this action, I am conﬁdent that we shall succeed. We must expect relapses and not be discouraged by them.  Vital forces, especially in children whose reason is not very well developed, ﬁght desperately before accepting the light and allowing themselves to be converted by it.


The Mother: But success is certain in the end, and we must know how to endure and wait.  ( )  All this is constantly with you. Remain open and let it work.


The Mother: ( ) Let the children group themselves according to their spontaneous sympathies.   If your calm is integral, that is, both inner and outer, founded on the perception of the Divine Presence, and unchanging, that is to say, constant and unvarying in all circumstances, it will undoubtedly be all-powerful, and the children will necessarily be inﬂuenced by it and the class will certainly become, spontaneously and almost automatically, what you want it to be.


The Mother: ( ) You are quite right in everything you say about the school, the class and work, and I fully approve the effort of organisation that you want to make.   ( )  If one does not love work, one is always unhappy in life.


The Mother: In order to be truly happy in life, .    S O M M C T C  My dear children, love work and you will be happy.


The Mother: Love to learn and you will progress.   ( )  My dear children, I have read your letter and I agree that it would be very good if by the end of the year you knew all the things that you have listed here.  But there is one point on which I want to draw your attention, because it is the central point and the most important one: it is your attitude in class and the state of mind in which you come to school.  To beneﬁt from your daily attendance in class, you must go there with a sincere will to learn, to be attentive and concentrated, to listen to what your teacher tells you and to work quietly and seriously.


The Mother: If you spend your time shouting, ﬁdgeting and upsetting everything like unconscious and ill-mannered children, you are wasting your time, you are wasting the teacher’s time and you will learn nothing at all. And at the end of the year I will have to say that you are bad students and do not deserve to move up into a higher class.  You must come to your class with the will to learn, otherwise it is a waste of time, because even if only one of you misbehaves all the others will be disturbed. So this is the decision I want you to take: to be good, quiet, attentive, and to work hard. This is what you must promise me to do in this notebook.


The Mother: And when each of you has written, with all his goodwill, then send the notebook back to me so that I can give you my blessings.     ( )  It is no more tiring to hold yourself straight than to hold yourself badly. When you hold yourself straight, the body grows harmoniously.


The Mother: When you hold yourself badly, the body becomes misshapen and ugly.  It is no more tiring to write neatly than to scrawl. When your work is neatly written, it is read with pleasure. When it is too badly written, it cannot be read at all.  To do with care all that one does is the basis of all progress.


The Mother:   The days pass, the weeks pass, the months pass, the years pass and time fades into the past. And later on, when they have grown up, those who no longer have the immense advantage of being children regret the time that they have wasted and that they could have used to learn all the things which are needed to know how to live.  (8) MOTHER’S ACTION IN A CLASS OF CHILDREN AGED SIXTEEN TO EIGHTEEN


The Mother: ( )  The subject is: What is death?  How should you begin? You must look into yourself, look inside; do not try to know by reading books or to ﬁnd out what is happening in the vital and the mind: what you feel, what you think about death.


The Mother: The research should be carried out exclusively on a material plane: what is death, from the physical point of view?  You must concentrate and ﬁnd the answers in yourself.  Don’t make any speeches. Say only one sentence. The more intelligent you are, the less words you need to express yourself.


The Mother:   ( )  I read what you sent with interest. And here is my reply:  Death is the phenomenon of decentralisation and dispersion of the cells which make up the physical body.


The Mother: The consciousness is, by its very nature, immortal, and in order to manifest in the physical world, it assumes more or less lasting material forms.  The material substance is in course of transformation in order to become a multiform and increasingly perfect and lasting mode of expression for this consciousness.    ( )  Here are my replies to your students’ questions.


The Mother: I hope they will be able to understand.  What is the self-interest of a cell!     Everything does not disperse all at once; it takes a long time.


The Mother: The central will of the physical being abdicates its will to hold all the cells together. That is the ﬁrst phenomenon. It accepts dissolution for one reason or another. One of the strongest reasons is the sense of an irreparable disharmony; the other is a kind of disgust with continuing the effort of coordination and harmonisation. In fact, there are innumerable reasons, but unless there is a violent accident, it is above all this will to maintain cohesion which abdicates for one reason or another, or without reason.


The Mother: It is this which inevitably precedes death.   It is not like that. It is still a semi-collective consciousness, it is not an individual consciousness of the cells.


The Mother: It often starts before.  Naturally, the body dissolves after death, but that takes a long time.  I used the word dispersion of the cells in its most concrete sense.  When the concentration which forms the body comes to an end and the body dissolves, all the cells that have been especially developed and have become conscious of the divine Presence within them, are scattered and enter other combinations in which they awaken, by contagion, the consciousness of the Presence that each one has had. And in this way, by this phenomenon of concentration, development and dispersion, all matter evolves and learns by contagion, develops by contagion, has the experience by contagion.


The Mother: Naturally, the cell dissolves with the body. It is the consciousness of the cells that enters other combinations.     The physical consciousness is conscious only physically; the will of the physical being can abdicate without any reason of which it is aware.  Usually, this disgust occurs when there is, in one part of the being (an important part, either vital or mental), an absolute refusal to progress.


The Mother: And so, physically, this is manifested as a refusal to strive against the deterioration which comes with time.   The cells have an inner composition or structure which corresponds to the structure of the universe. So the link is established between identical external and internal states.... It is not “external”, but it is external for the individual.


The Mother: That is, the cell, in its internal composition, receives the vibration of the corresponding state in the composition of the whole. Each cell is composed of different radiances, with a wholly luminous centre, and the connection is established between light and light. That is, the will, the central light, acts on the cell by touching the corresponding lights, by an inner contact of the being. Each cell is a world in miniature corresponding to the whole.    That is precisely what the transformation of the body is: the physical cells not only become conscious, but receptive to the true Consciousness-Force; that is, they allow the working of this higher Consciousness.


The Mother: That is the work of transformation.  It is just like asking, “How does the will act on matter?” All life is like that. You should explain to these children that their whole existence is the result of the action of the will, that without will, matter would be inert and immobile and that it is precisely the fact that the vibration of will acts on matter that makes life possible. Otherwise there would be no life.


The Mother: If they want a scientiﬁc answer and want to know how, it is more difﬁcult, but the fact is there, it is a fact that can be seen at every second.    Mankind, nearly all of mankind, is conscious only of the physical being. With education, the number of men who are conscious of their vital and mind is increasing. As for the human beings who are conscious of their psychic being, they are relatively few.


The Mother: If you mean, “How does one awaken the consciousness of the physical being?”, that is precisely the aim of physical education. It is physical education that teaches the cells to be conscious. But for the development of the brain, it is study, observation, intelligent education, above all observation and reasoning. And naturally, for the whole education of the consciousness from the point of view of character, it is yoga.


The Mother: It is the brain.   Certainly. One can experience death yogically; one can even experience it materially, if death is short enough so that the doctors do not have time to pronounce you dead.  Any part of the being that survives can become aware that the body is no longer there.


The Mother: It depends.  Only when it decomposes .  By carefully maintaining the physical balance.  Not necessarily.


The Mother:   The method is to detach one’s consciousness from the body and to concentrate it on the deeper life, so as to bring this deeper consciousness into the body.  It is not true that the mind is more durable. The psychic consciousness which has identiﬁed itself with the little physical part leaves this little physical person. Insofar as this consciousness has shaped the life, it remembers what it has shaped and the memory is closely linked to the psychic consciousness in the events. Wherever the psychic consciousness has not taken part in events, there is no memory.


The Mother: And only the psychic consciousness can continue; it is not the mind that retains memories, that is quite incorrect.    ( )  In fact, there is no death.


The Mother: 1. Have no ambition, above all never lay claim to anything, but be at each moment the utmost that you can be.  2. As for your place in the universal manifestation, the Supreme alone will show it to you.  3. The Supreme Lord has ineluctably decreed the place you occupy in the world concert, but whatever that place may be, you have the same equal right as everyone else to scale the supreme heights as far as the supramental realisation.


The Mother: 4. What you are in the truth of your being is ineluctably decreed and nothing and no one can prevent you from being it; but the path you will take to attain it is left to your own free choice.   5. On the path of ascending evolution, each one is free to choose the direction he will take: the swift and steep ascent towards the summits of Truth, the supreme realisation, or, turning his back to the peaks, the easy descent towards the interminable meanderings of endless rebirths.


The Mother: 6. In the course of the ages and even in the course of your present life you can make your choice once and for all, irrevocably, and then you have only to conﬁrm it at each new occasion; or else, if you have not taken the ﬁnal decision at the outset, at each  moment you will have to make a new choice between falsehood and truth.  7. But even supposing that you have not taken the irrevocable decision at the outset, if you have the good fortune to be alive at one of those extraordinary moments in universal history when the Grace is present, incarnate on earth, It will give you once again, at certain exceptional moments, the possibility of making a ﬁnal choice that will lead you straight to the goal.


The Mother: For the last hundred years or so mankind has been suffering from a disease which seems to be spreading more and more and which has reached a climax in our times; it is what we may call “utilitarianism”. People and things, circumstances and activities seem to be viewed and appreciated exclusively from this angle.  Nothing has any value unless it is useful. Certainly something that is useful is better than something that is not. But ﬁrst we must agree on what we describe as useful — useful to whom, to what, for what?


The Mother: For, more and more, the races who consider themselves civilised describe as useful whatever can attract, procure or produce money. Everything is judged and evaluated from a monetary angle. That is what I call utilitarianism. And this disease is highly contagious, for even children are not immune to it.


The Mother: At an age when they should be dreaming of beauty, greatness and perfection, dreams that may be too sublime for ordinary common sense, but which are nevertheless far superior to this dull good sense, children now dream of money and worry about how to earn it.  So when they think of their studies, they think above all about what can be useful to them, so that later on when they grow up they can earn a lot of money.  And the thing that becomes most important for them is to prepare themselves to pass examinations with success, for with diplomas, certiﬁcates and titles they will be able to ﬁnd good positions and earn a lot of money.  For them study has no other purpose, no other interest.  To learn for the sake of knowledge, to study in order to  know the secrets of Nature and life, to educate oneself in order to grow in consciousness, to discipline oneself in order to become master of oneself, to overcome one’s weaknesses, incapacities and ignorance, to prepare oneself to advance in life towards a goal that is nobler and vaster, more generous and more true...


The Mother: they hardly give it a thought and consider it all very utopian. The only thing that matters is to be practical, to prepare themselves and learn how to earn money.  Children who are infected with this disease are out of place at the Centre of Education of the Ashram. And it is to make this quite clear to them that we do not prepare them for any ofﬁcial examination or competition and do not give them any diplomas or titles which they can use in the outside world.  We want here only those who aspire for a higher and better life, who thirst for knowledge and perfection, who look forward eagerly to a future that will be more totally true.


The Mother: There is plenty of room in the world for all the others.   The contents of the consciousness must change, the level of the consciousness must be raised, the quality of the consciousness must progress.  Things are as you have described them, because most children have their consciousness centred in the physical which is tamasic and reluctant to make any effort. They want an easy life, and only the excitement or the rivalry of a game or a competition awakens enough interest in them so that they consent to make an effort. For this, a vital passion has to be aroused to intensify the will.


The Mother: The idea of progress belongs to the intelligent will which is active only in very few who are in contact with their psychic being; later on, in those who are mentally more developed and begin to understand the need to develop and control themselves.  I said that the remedy is to raise the consciousness to a higher level. But, naturally, one must start with the level of the consciousness of the captains and instructors themselves.  First of all, they should have a clear conception of what they want to obtain from those for whom they are responsible; and not only that, but they should also have realised in themselves the qualities which they demand from others.


The Mother: Over and above these qualities, they should have developed in their character and action a great deal of patience, endurance, kindness, understanding and impartiality. They should have no likes or dislikes, no attractions or repulsions.   That is why the new group of captains must really be an ´elite group in order to set a good example to the pupils and students, if we want them in their turn to adopt the true attitude.   Therefore I say to all: set to work sincerely and sooner or later the obstacles will be overcome.


The Mother: Both are indispensable and should, as far as possible, be always present.   With a little imagination and inventive ﬂexibility, the instructors should give charm and novelty to what they teach.   On their part, the children, by cultivating in themselves the will and inclination for progress, should create a constant interest in what they do.


The Mother: In the meanwhile, the captains can partly entrust to the children the responsibility for organising their own exercises, using as much as possible whatever ingenious ideas may occur to them.  If the sense of collaboration and responsibility is awakened in the children, then they will take an interest in what they do and do it with pleasure.   Before, make an offering to the Divine of what you are going to do, so that it may be done in a spirit of consecration.


The Mother: Afterwards, ask the Divine to increase the will for progress in us, so that we may become instruments that are more and more capable of serving Him.  You may also, before starting, offer yourselves to the Divine in silence.  And at the end, give thanks to the Divine in silence.  I mean a movement of the without any words in the head.  In human life the cause of all difﬁculties, all discords, all moral sufferings, is the presence in everyone of the ego with its desires, its likes and dislikes.


The Mother: Even in a disinterested work which consists in helping others, until one has learned to overcome the ego and its demands, until one can force it to keep calm and quiet in one corner, the ego reacts to everything that displeases it, starts an inner storm that rises to the surface and spoils all the work.  This work of overcoming the ego is long, slow and difﬁcult; it demands constant alertness and sustained effort. This effort is easier for some and more difﬁcult for others.  We are here in the Ashram to do this work together with the help of Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge and force, in an attempt to realise a community that is more harmonious, more united, and consequently much more effective in life.  As long as I was physically present among you all, my presence was helping you to achieve this mastery over the ego and so it was not necessary for me to speak to you about it individually very often.


The Mother: But now this effort must become the basis of each individual’s existence, more especially for those of you who have a responsible position and have to take care of others. The leaders must always set the example, the leaders must always practise the virtues they demand from those who are in their care; they  must be understanding, patient, enduring, full of sympathy and warm and friendly goodwill, not out of egoism to win friends for themselves, but out of generosity to be able to understand and help others.  To forget oneself, one’s own likings and preferences, is indispensable in order to be a true leader.  That is what I am asking of you now, so that you can face your responsibilities as you should. And then you will ﬁnd that where you used to feel disorder and disunity, they have vanished, and harmony, peace and joy have taken their place


The Mother: .  You know that I love you and that I am always with you to sustain you, help you and show you the way.  Blessings.  It is an excellent opportunity to do some interesting work, to learn something new or develop some weak point in their nature or their studies.  It is an excellent opportunity to choose some occupation freely and thus discover the true capacities of their being.


The Mother: Blessings.  Rather, one could say that what the children do during their holidays shows what they are and how far they are capable of  proﬁting from their stay here. Thus, the case is different for each one and the quality of his reaction indicates the quality of his character.  Truly speaking, those who would rather stay here than do anything else, are ready to take full advantage of their education here and are capable of fully understanding the ideal they are taught.  Blessings.


The Mother: I do not say that the teaching here is perfect and exactly what it should be. But it is certain that a good number of students are very interested and understand very well that there is something here which is not to be found elsewhere.   So, it is those students who should remain here, and as we do not have enough room to meet all demands, the choice would be easier.  Blessings.


The Mother: What we want to teach is not only a mental ideal, it is a new idea of life and a realisation of consciousness. This realisation  is new to all, and the only true way to teach others is to live according to this new consciousness oneself and to allow oneself to be transformed by it. There is no better lesson than that of an example. To tell others: “Do not be selﬁsh,” is not much use, but if somebody is free from all selﬁshness, he becomes a wonderful example to others; and someone who sincerely aspires to act in accordance with the Supreme Truth, creates a kind of contagion for the people around him.


The Mother: So the ﬁrst duty of all those who are teachers or instructors is to give an example of the qualities they teach to others.  And if, among these teachers and instructors, some are not worthy of their post, because by their character they give a bad example, their ﬁrst duty is to become worthy by changing their character and their action; there is no other way.  Blessings.  Whatever imperfections the teachers and instructors here may have, they will always be better than those from outside. For all who work here do so without remuneration and in the service of a higher cause.


The Mother: It is clearly understood that each one, whatever his worth or capacity, can and must progress constantly to realise an ideal which is still much higher than the present realisation of humanity.  But if one is truly eager to do one’s best, it is by doing the work that one progresses and learns to do it better and better.  Criticism is seldom useful, it discourages more than it helps.   And all goodwill deserves encouragement, for with patience and endurance, there is no progress which cannot be made.  The main thing is to keep the certitude that whatever may have been accomplished, one can always do better if one wants to.


The Mother: The ideal to attain is an unﬂinching of soul and conduct, a patience that never fails and, of course, the absence of any preference or desire.  It is obvious that for one who teaches, the essential condition for the proper fulﬁlment of his task is the absence of all egoism; and no human being is exempt from the necessity of this effort.  But, I repeat, this effort is easier to make here than anywhere else.  Blessings.  Those who are strongly attached to ordinary life and its agitation should not come here, for they are out of their element and create disorder.


The Mother: But it is difﬁcult to know this before they come, for most of them are very young, and their character is not yet well formed.  But as soon as they are caught in the frenzy of the world, it would be better, for themselves and for others, that they return to their parents and their habits.  Blessings.   Unfortunately, there are many parents who send their children here not because they think that they will have a special education here but because the Ashram does not ask money for their studies; and consequently parents need to spend much less money here than elsewhere.  But the poor children are not responsible for this transaction, and we must give them a chance to develop fully if they are capable of it.


The Mother: Therefore, we accept them if we see a possibility in them. And it is only when they clearly show that they are incapable of beneﬁting from their education here that we are ready to let them go if they want to.   Blessings.  There is no difﬁculty in adapting to ordinary life, it is a bondage to which one is subjected from birth, for all carry it in themselves by atavism, and even those who are born to be freed need to  struggle seriously and continuously to get rid of this atavism in order to be truly free.


The Mother: Blessings.  Often, as soon as they ﬁnd themselves in the midst of ordinary life, many of them realise the difference and regret what they have lost. Few of them have the courage to give up the comforts they ﬁnd in their ordinary surroundings, but even the others no longer face life with the same unconsciousness as those who have never been in contact with the Ashram.  The work we do is not done with the expectation of something in return, but simply to help the progress of humanity.  Blessings.


The Mother: To prevent the students from being irregular, rude or negligent is obviously indispensable; unkind and harmful mischief cannot be tolerated.  But as a general and absolute rule, the teachers and especially the physical education instructors must be a constant living example of the qualities demanded from the students; discipline, regularity, good manners, courage, endurance, patience in effort,  are taught much more by example than by words. And as an absolute rule: never to do in front of a child what you forbid him to do.   For the rest, each case implies its own solution, and one must act with tact and discernment.


The Mother: That is why to be a teacher or an instructor is the best of all disciplines, if one knows how to comply with it.  Blessings.   A child ought to stop being naughty because he learns to be ashamed of being naughty, not because he is afraid of punishment.  In the ﬁrst case, he makes true progress.


The Mother: In the second, he falls one step down in human consciousness, for fear is a degradation of consciousness.   The best remedy for this sorry state of affairs would be, when all the children are assembled (probably at the playground), to give them a short lesson on how to behave in the street — what one may do and what one ought not to do. Someone who knows how to speak to them and tell them this in an interesting, and even if possible an amusing way, could no doubt obtain a result.   Blessings.


The Mother: It is difﬁcult to interfere in an incident one has not witnessed.  Gossip is always suspect. But if one of the instructors personally witnesses the bad behaviour of one of his students, then it is appropriate for him to intervene, on condition, of course, that his relation with the student is friendly and affectionate.  Blessings.  It is always good to do disinterested work.


The Mother: But it becomes much better if the work becomes an enjoyment and not a boring task.  Blessings.   All depends on how he left: whether it was to obey his parents or whether he wanted to go himself. If he wanted to leave, whatever his outer merit, it would perhaps be better not to give him the prize, because that would mean that we attach no importance to the inner attitude and to the student’s understanding of the aim we pursue, that is, to prepare the men of tomorrow for the new creation.


The Mother: Blessings.  It is obvious that for the children it is better to study in order to develop their consciousness and learn a little of all they do not know; but to give prizes to those who have been particularly studious, disciplined and attentive, is not bad.  Blessings.   It is a certain attitude of consciousness which is necessary — and unfortunately, living even several years in the Ashram does not always lead to this right attitude.


The Mother: Truly speaking, teachers should be taken to see if they can acquire this right attitude and adapt themselves to the needs of their task.  Blessings.  The attitude of consciousness which is required is an inner certitude that, in comparison with all that is to be known, one knows nothing; and that at every moment one must be ready to learn in order to be able to teach. This is the ﬁrst indispensable point.  There is a second one.


The Mother: It is that outer life, as we know it, is a more or less illusory appearance and that we must constantly keep a living aspiration for the Truth.   Blessings.   Here, the ﬁrst duty of the parents or guardians is not to contradict either by word or example the education that is given to their children.


The Mother: In a positive way, the best thing they can do is to encourage the children to be docile and disciplined.   Blessings.  Thank God, I have no opinions.  For me good taste means being simple and sincere.


The Mother: Blessings.  Children have everything to learn. This should be their main preoccupation in order to prepare themselves for a useful and productive life.  At the same time, as they grow up, they must discover in themselves the thing or things which interest them most and which they are capable of doing well.


The Mother: There are latent faculties to be developed. There are also faculties to be discovered.  Children must be taught to like to overcome difﬁculties, and also that this gives a special value to life; when one knows how to do it, it destroys boredom for ever and gives an altogether new interest to life.  We are on earth to progress and we have everything to learn.   The teacher should not be a book that is read aloud, the same for everyone, no matter what his nature and character.


The Mother: The ﬁrst duty of the teacher is to help the student to know himself and to discover what he is capable of doing.  For that one must observe his games, the activities to which he is drawn naturally and spontaneously and also what he likes to learn, whether his intelligence is awake, the stories he enjoys, the activities which interest him, the human achievements which attract him.  The teacher must ﬁnd out the category to which each of the children in his care belongs. And if after careful observation he discovers two or three exceptional children who are eager to learn and who love progress, he should help them to make use of their energies for this purpose by giving them the freedom of choice that encourages individual growth.  The old method of the seated class to which the teacher gives the same lesson for all, is certainly economical and easy, but also very ineffective, and so time is wasted for everybody.


The Mother: I said we should give freedom of choice to exceptional children because for them it is absolutely indispensable if we truly want to help them to develop fully.  Of course this freedom of choice can be given to all the children, and after all it is a good way to ﬁnd their true nature; but most of them will prove to be lazy and not very interested in studies. But, on the other hand, they may be skilful with their hands and be willing to learn to make things. This too should be encouraged. In this way the children will ﬁnd their true place in society, and will be prepared to fulﬁl it when they grow up.


The Mother: Everyone should be taught the joy of doing well whatever he does, whether it is intellectual, artistic or manual work, and above all, the dignity of all work, whatever it may be, when it is done with care and skill.  It depends entirely on the child and his capacities.   If the children could see the different kinds of work they can do, the inclination to do one thing or another would awaken and it would become as interesting as a game for them — if they are really intelligent.   It depends entirely on the child.


The Mother: Some are already awake at the age of seven, some take longer.  What is important is to give the children the chance to see and judge for themselves.  One could say about eighteen. It depends on the case. Some children are fully developed at the age of fourteen or ﬁfteen.


The Mother: It is different for each one. It depends on the case.   By watching them live.  To be able to classify the children one must ﬁnd out about their nature by observing their habits and reactions.  The teacher must not be a machine for reciting lessons, he must be a psychologist and an observer.


The Mother: That has both advantages and disadvantages. The grouping of students should be made according to the resources at our disposal and the facilities we have. The arrangement should be ﬂexible so that it can be improved upon if necessary.  To be a good teacher one must have the insight and knowledge of a Guru with an unfailing patience.


The Mother: Oh, yes indeed!  The attitude of the teacher must be one of a constant will to progress, not only in order to know always better what he  wants to teach the students, but above all in order to be a living example to show them what they can become.  ( ) The teacher should be the living example of what he asks the students to become.


The Mother: It is the only right way. You see, a teacher who tells them, “You must not lie” and yet lies himself; “You must not lose your temper” and loses it himself — what would the result be? The children will not only lose conﬁdence in the teacher but also in what he teaches.  () Good! It is very good!


The Mother: We are here to do difﬁcult things. If we repeat what others do, it is not worth the trouble; there are already many schools in the world.  Men have tried to cure the ignorance of the masses by adopting the easiest methods. But now we have passed that stage and humanity is ready to learn better and more fully. It is up to those who are in the lead to show the way so that others can follow.


The Mother: That is what we are trying to do here. It depends on the teacher.  I do not have a theory one could put down on paper...  This is what we are trying to do here. But doing it well depends on the teacher, on the trouble he takes, and on his power of psychological understanding.


The Mother: He must be capable of recognising the character and possibilities of the student, so that he can adapt his teaching to the needs of each individual.  Classiﬁcation by subject is important when one wants to study one or several subjects in depth, once an overall grounding that is useful for everyone has already been provided equally to all:  for example, reading and writing, speaking at least one language correctly, a little general geography, a general outline of modern science and a few indispensable rules of conduct for group or communal living.   For a detailed and thorough study of one subject the appropriate age depends on the child and his capacity to learn.  The precocious ones can start at the age of twelve.


The Mother: For most it will be more like ﬁfteen and even seventeen or eighteen.  And when one wants to master a particular subject, especially a scientiﬁc or philosophical subject, one must be prepared to spend one’s whole life learning; one must never stop studying.   The categories of character.  In assessing the possibilities of a child, ordinary moral notions are not of much use.


The Mother: Natures that are rebellious, undisciplined, obstinate, often conceal qualities that no one has known how to use. Indolent natures may also have a great potential for calm and patience.  It is a whole world to discover and easy solutions are not much use. The teacher must be even more hard-working than the student in order to learn how to discern and make the best possible use of different characters.   Patience, perseverance, generosity, broad-mindedness, insight, calm and understanding ﬁrmness, and control over the ego until it is completely mastered or even abolished.


The Mother: Manners belong to the moral rules of ordinary life and have no value from our point of view.  Naturally, it is better not to take arbitrary and ignorant decisions. It would be disastrous for the children.  What I have said is for those who are capable of recognising characters and assessing them rightly, otherwise the result would be awful and more harmful than the usual mechanical teaching.   Certainly!


The Mother: What I have written is an ideal to be realised; you must prepare yourselves to be able to do it.  To be able to adopt this method, the teacher must be a discerning psychologist and that requires time and experience.  By doing what they can, knowing that they have everything to learn. In this way they will gain experience and do things better and better. That is the best way to learn, and if they do it in all sincerity, in two or three years they will become experts and will be truly useful.


The Mother: Naturally, work done in this way becomes really interesting and makes the teachers as well as the students progress.  For that, the teacher who organises the studies must be a discerning psychologist, observant and full of goodwill, knowing that he too has to learn and progress.   The true attitude is to take life as a ﬁeld of perpetual study, where one must never stop learning and think that one knows everything there is to know. One can always know more and understand better.  Yes, of course.


The Mother: One cannot make a theory. It depends on each case, the possibilities and circumstances. It is an attitude which the teacher must have and apply as well as he can, and better and better if possible.   First, he must understand, he must know what we want to do and understand well how to do it.  Secondly, he must have a power of psychological discernment in dealing with the students, he must understand his students and what they are capable of doing.


The Mother: Naturally, he must know the subject he is teaching. If he is teaching French, he must know French. If he is teaching English, Geography, Science, he must know what he is teaching.  But the most important thing is that he must have psychological discernment.  What is “sex-education”? What do they teach?


The Mother: For myself, I don’t like people to be preoccupied with these things. In my time we were never preoccupied with these things.  Now children talk about them all the time — it is in their minds, in their feelings. It is disgusting. It is difﬁcult, very difﬁcult.


The Mother: But if they talk about it elsewhere, we have to talk about it here too. They should be told the consequences of these things.  Especially the girls ought to be told that the consequences can be disastrous. When I was young, in those days, people never spoke about all that, they never paid attention to these things.  In those days, people did not talk about all that.


The Mother: Here, I did not want this subject to be discussed. That is why we do physical culture. In that way the energies are used to develop strength, beauty, skill and all that; and one is more capable of control.  You will see, the ones who do a lot of physical culture, they are much more capable of mastering their impulses.   ()


The Mother: The energies that are used in human beings for reproduction and which take such a predominant place in their existence should on the contrary be sublimated and used for progress and higher development, to prepare the advent of the new race. But ﬁrst the vital and the physical must be freed from all desire, otherwise there is a great risk of disaster.  Naturally, as the consciousness and intelligence develop in the children, it is more and more through them that we can deal with the children.  Punish? What do you mean by punish?


The Mother: If a child is noisy in class and prevents the others from working, you must tell him to behave himself; and if he continues, you can send him out of the class. That is not a punishment, it is a natural consequence of his actions. But to punish! To punish! You have no right to punish.


The Mother: Are you the Divine? Who has given you the right to punish? The children too can punish you for your actions. Are you perfect yourselves? Do you know what is good or what is bad?


The Mother: Only the Divine knows. Only the Divine has the right to punish.    The vibrations that you emit bring you into contact with corresponding vibrations. If you emit harmful and destructive vibrations, quite naturally you draw corresponding vibrations towards yourselves and that is the real punishment, if you want to use that word; but it does not correspond at all to the divine organisation of the world.


The Mother: Every action has its consequences, good or bad, but the idea of reward and punishment is a purely human idea and does not at all correspond to the way in which the Truth-Consciousness acts.  If the Consciousness that rules the world had acted according to human principles of punishment and reward, there would have been no men left on earth for a long time.  When men become pure enough to transmit the divine vibrations without distorting them, then suffering will be abolished from the world. That is the only way.  Some teachers have written to me that they have read what I wrote for you and that it had done them a lot of good.


The Mother: So you can continue showing them.  Yes, if you type this out on a piece of paper: “We want to be true servitors of the Divine.”  And then the prayer: “Supreme Lord, Perfect Consciousness, You alone truly know what we are, what we can do, the progress we must make in order to become capable and worthy of serving You as we want to do. Make us conscious of our capacities, but also of our difﬁculties, so that we may be able to surmount them and serve You faithfully.”   And then this — the conclusion: “The supreme happiness is to be true servitors of the Divine.”


The Mother: There are people whom it helps. Did you show them your notebook?  No, that one is for you. But you can copy things like this which are for everybody. You can show it to all those who have goodwill.


The Mother: I have received several letters telling me that it had done them a lot of good. So you can continue.   Bulletin  Not all of it. For example, I wouldn’t put this in the.


The Mother: For physical exercises, it all depends on the body and its capacities. Easy exercises that are not tiring can be given to everyone.  Afterwards, it all depends on the body, on its strength, its health, its resistance to fatigue, etc., etc.  Exercises should be given according to capacity and the children should be grouped according to these capacities. It is a matter of experience and observation.


The Mother: To be a good teacher of physical culture one must know anatomy, the various functions of the body, their development and their functioning.  Discipline is indispensable to physical life. The proper functioning of the organs is based on a discipline. It is precisely when an organ or a part of the body does not obey the general discipline of the body that one falls ill.  Discipline is indispensable to progress.


The Mother: It is only when one imposes a rigorous and enlightened discipline on oneself that one can be free from the discipline of others.  The supreme discipline is integral surrender to the Divine and to allow nothing else either in one’s feelings or in one’s activities. Nothing should ever be omitted from this surrender — that is the supreme and most rigorous discipline.  Communal life must necessarily have a discipline so that the weaker are not bullied by the stronger; and this discipline must be respected by all those who want to live in that community.  But for the community to be happy, this discipline should be set by the most broad-minded person or persons, if possible the person or persons who are conscious of the Divine Presence and are surrendered to it.


The Mother: For the world to be happy, power should only be in the hands of those who are conscious of the Divine Will. But for the time being that is impossible because the number of those who are conscious of the Divine Will is very small, and because they necessarily have no ambition.  In fact, when the time comes for this realisation, it will take place quite naturally.  The duty of each one is to prepare himself for it as completely as he can.  There can be no physical education without discipline.


The Mother: The body itself could not function without a strict discipline. Actually, the failure to recognise this fact is the principal cause of illness.  Digestion, growth, blood-circulation, everything, everything is a discipline. Thought, movement, gestures, everything is a discipline, and if there is no discipline people immediately fall ill.  We are not on earth to follow our own sweet will but to progress.


The Mother: Physical exercises are not done for fun or to satisfy one’s whims, but as a methodical discipline to develop and strengthen the body.  True wisdom is to take pleasure in everything one does and that is possible if one takes everything one does as a way to progress. Perfection is difﬁcult to attain and there is always a great deal of progress to be made in order to achieve it.  If you truly want peace and happiness, your constant preoccupation should be: “What progress must I make to be able to know and serve the Divine?”


The Mother: Show this to C. She ought not to have listened to what the children say. She has been here a long time. She ought to know that.  That [“To seek pleasure is certainly the best way to make yourself miserable”] is an absolute truth.


The Mother: It afﬁrms that if you want to satisfy your little ego, you are sure to be unhappy. For sure! It is the best way to make yourself miserable. To say: “Oh, it is boring; oh, I must do what I like; oh, that person is unkind to me; oh, life does not bring me what I want.”  Ouah!!!


The Mother: “Am I what I ought to be?  “Am I doing what I ought to be doing?  “Am I progressing as much as I should?”  Then it becomes interesting.  “What should I learn in order to make my next progress?


The Mother: What inﬁrmity must I cure? What shortcoming must I overcome?  What weakness must I get rid of?”  And then, naturally, the next moment: “How can I become capable of understanding and serving the Divine?”   I have written it down specially so that you can show it to C.


The Mother: Yes, that is all there is to say.     The cause of mediocre work is neither the variety nor the number of activities, but lack of the power of concentration.  One must learn to concentrate and do everything with full concentration.  The interest of the students is proportionate to the of the teacher.  ( )


The Mother: It is even more impossible than to change and become an ´elite.   Therefore, the best thing is to start to work immediately. The rest is simply an excuse that our laziness gives to itself.   Sri Aurobindo has written a lot on this subject (in his letters) and I too have explained everything in the book on.


The Mother: One must read, study and.  I want you to look attentively into yourself and try to explain to me what exactly it is that you enjoy in detective stories.  It is not useless. You have doubtless a great deal of in your mind and the mental acrobatics of the author shake up this a little and awaken the mind. But this cannot last long and soon you must turn to higher things.


The Mother: Each one does according to his or her nature and if he (or she) follows courageously and sincerely the law of the nature, he or she acts according to truth. Thus it is impossible to judge and decide for others. One can know only for oneself, and even then one has to be very in order not to deceive oneself.  It means that what you do should not be done with a personal, egoistic aim, for success, for glory, for gain, for material proﬁt or out of vanity, but as a service and an offering, in order to become more conscious of the divine will and to give oneself more entirely to it, until one has made enough progress to know and that it is the Divine who acts in you, His force that animates you and His will that supports you — not only a mental knowledge, but the sincerity of a state of consciousness and the power of a living experience.   For that to be possible, all egoistic motives and all egoistic reactions must disappear.


The Mother: It is impossible. Each has his own taste and his own temperament. One can do nothing without — the whole of life is a discipline.  Do not forget — all of you who are here — that we want to realise something which does not yet exist on the earth; so it is absurd to seek elsewhere an example of what we want to do.   The freedom of which I speak is the freedom to follow the soul’s will and not that of mental and vital whims and fancies.