The Mother: One can. But it is quite difﬁcult. But one can do it, because rejecting is not the best method. You see, to do this () is the easiest way; something troubles you, you do this (), as you do for ﬂies; but it is a little as with the ﬂies, it takes a round and then comes back.   But what is necessary is what I explained to you last time in detail: to ﬁnd out why it comes, why it is there, and change it — the cause itself.


The Mother: Then it no longer returns, there is no afﬁnity any longer.  Things come to you because they have an afﬁnity. There is something to which they can cling, a kind of sympathy somewhere, which may not be very conscious or very open, but there is one. And if it were not there, the thing would no longer come.  There is a whole set of things which never come to bother you any longer, once you have changed the essential points in your nature.


The Mother: I wanted to ask, I... I ask you a question: What is the difference between the subliminal and the superconscient? Nolini is going to tell us this.  (Nolini)  Inside, and the superconscient is above.


The Mother: Good, that’s what I thought. But I wasn’t sure.  Now then! No questions this evening?


The Mother: The true way so that it remains is to understand, it is not to learn by heart. You learn something by heart, it is mechanical, you see; but after some time it will be effaced, unless you make use of it constantly. For example, you are made to learn by heart the multiplication tables; if you constantly use them, you will remember them, but if by chance for years you remain without using them, you will forget them completely. But if you understand the principle, you will be able to remember them.


The Mother: You see, the principle of multiplication, if you understand it with a mathematical sense, you will no longer need to learn  it by heart, the operation will be done quite naturally in your brain; and for everything it is the same.  If you understand the thing, if you have the sense of the principle which is behind, you can remember it indeﬁnitely, for hundreds of years if you live for hundreds of years; whereas something you have learnt by heart... after some time the braincells multiply, are replaced, and some things are wiped out. You are still too small for experiences of this kind, but later one realises that in one’s life there are things which remain like landmarks, there are others which are totally effaced to the extent that one doesn’t remember them at all, they are gone. But there are things like that, truly like milestones, like landmarks in life.


The Mother: Well, these things were conscious experiences, that is, they were understood; so the experience remains indeﬁnitely, and with just a tiny movement of the consciousness you can bring it forward.  But something that is learnt mechanically — unless, I tell you, you make use of it daily, it is effaced.  What does it mean?  There are movements of certain vibrations which are vibrations of the species, you see, movements peculiar to the species to which you belong — there is the human species as there are all kinds. Now, some of these movements are not personal movements at all, they are movements of the species.


The Mother: The human species has certain ways of being which are particular to it, which we reproduce almost automatically, as for example, walking upright, like this (), whereas a cat goes on four feet, you see. This instinct of standing on one’s two hind feet, upright, is peculiar to man, it is a movement that  belongs to the species; to sit as we do with the head up, you see, to lie down as we do on the back...  You have only to watch animals: they lie down curled up, don’t they? Almost all. It is with man that this way of lying on one’s back, stretched out, begins, I think; I don’t at all think that monkeys sleep like that, I think they sleep doubled up, that it is man who has started habits of this kind.


The Mother: And this reminds me...  I had a cat — in those days I used to sleep on the ﬂoor — which always came and slipped under the mosquito-net and slept beside me. Well, this cat slept quite straight, it did not sleep as cats do; it put its head here and then lay down like this (), alongside my legs with its two forepaws like this, and its two little hind legs quite straight. And there was something very, very curious about it which I saw one night, like that. I used to ask myself why it was like this, and one night I saw a little Russian woman of the people with a fur bonnet and three little children, and this woman had a kind of adoration for her children and always wanted to look for a shelter for them; I don’t know, I don’t know the story, but I saw that she had her three little children, very small ones, with her... one like this, one like that,


The Mother: one like that (), and she was dragging them along with her and looking for a corner to put them in safety. Something must have happened to her, she must have died suddenly with a kind of very animal maternal instinct of a certain kind, but all full of fear — fear, anguish and worry — and this something must have come from there and in some way or other had reincarnated. It was a movement — it was not a person, you know, it was a movement which belonged to this person and must have come up in the cat. It was there for some reason or other, you see, I don’t know how it happened, I know nothing about it, but this cat was completely human in its ways. And very soon afterwards it had three kittens, like that; and it was extraordinary, it didn’t want to leave them, it refused to leave them, it was entirely...


The Mother: it did not eat, did not go  to satisfy its needs, it was always with its young. When one day it had an idea — nobody had said anything, of course — it took one kitten, as they take them, by the skin of the neck, and came and put it between my feet; I did not stir; it returned, took the second, put it there; it took the third, it put it there, and when all three were there, it looked at me, mewed and was gone. And this was the ﬁrst time it went out after having had them; it went to the garden, went to satisfy its needs and to eat, because it was at peace, they were there between my feet. And when it had its young, it wanted to carry them on its back like a woman. And when it slept beside me, it slept on the back.


The Mother: It was never like a cat.  Well, these things are habits of the species, movements of the species. There are many others of the kind, you see, but this is an example.   Ah!


The Mother: There was a cat... what its name was I don’t know; and I had many cats, you know, so I don’t remember now; there was one called Kiki, it was the ﬁrst son of this cat, and then there was another, its second son (that is to say, born another time) which was called Brownie.  This one was admirable and it died of the cat disease — as there is a disease of the dogs, there is a disease of the kittens — I don’t know how it caught the thing, but it was wonderful during its illness and I was taking care of it as of a child. And it always expressed a kind of aspiration. There was a time before it fell ill... we used to have in those days meditation in a room of the Library House, in the room there — Sri Aurobindo’s own room — and we used to sit on the ﬂoor.


The Mother: And there was an armchair in a corner, and when we gathered for the meditation this cat came every time and settled in the armchair and literally it entered  into a trance, it had movements of trance; it did not sleep, it was not asleep, it was truly in a trance; it gave signs of that and had astonishing movements, as when animals dream; and it didn’t want to come out from it, it refused to come out, it remained in it for hours. But it never came in until we were beginning the meditation. It settled there and remained there throughout the meditation. We indeed had ﬁnished but it remained, and it was only when I went to take it, called it in a particular way, brought it back into its body, that it consented to go away; otherwise no matter who came and called it, it did not move. Well, this cat always had a great aspiration, a kind of aspiration to become a human being; and in fact, when it left its body it entered a human body.


The Mother: Only it was a very tiny part of the consciousness, you see, of the human being; it was like the opposite movement from that of the woman with the other cat. But this one was a cat which leaped over many births, so to say, many psychic stages to enter into contact with a human body. It was a simple enough human body, but still, all the same...  There is a difference in the development of a cat and of a human being...  It happens...


The Mother: I think these are exceptional cases, but still it happens.  The aspiration is conscious, yes, conscious. The aspiration was very conscious in it, very conscious. It is not a formed psychic as when the psychic becomes a completely independent being, it is not that; but it is an aspiration, it is an ardent aspiration for progress — as we, you know, we have the aspiration to become supramental beings instead of remaining human beings, well, it was something absolutely similar: it was a cat doing yoga — exactly — to become a man.  It was perhaps because its mother had in it a movement, a  formation, an emanation of consciousness which had belonged to a human being; it is probably that which had left a kind of nostalgia for the human life which gave it this intensity of aspiration.


The Mother: But truly it did yoga for that.   I think it awakens quite naturally the moment one takes the resolution to do the yoga. If the resolution is sincere and one has an aspiration, it wakes up by itself.  In fact, it is perhaps its awakening which gives the aspiration to do yoga.  It is possible that it is a result of the Grace... or after some conversation or reading, something that has suddenly given you the idea and aspiration to know what yoga is and to practise it.


The Mother: Sometimes just a simple conversation with someone is enough or a passage one reads from a book; well, it awakens this YogaShakti and it is this which makes you do your yoga.  One is not aware of it at ﬁrst — except that something has changed in our life, a new decision is taken, a turning.   It is the energy of progress. It is the energy which makes you do the yoga, precisely, makes you progress — consciously.


The Mother: It is a conscious energy.  In fact, the Yoga-Shakti is the power to do yoga.  I think it is absolutely useless.   Some people think that there are more reserves of energy — I have heard this very often: a great reserve of energy — in the earth, and that if they draw this energy into themselves they will be able to do things; but it is always mixed.  The divine Presence is everywhere, that’s well understood.


The Mother: And in fact, there is neither above nor below. What is called above and below, I think that is rather the expression of a degree of consciousness or a degree of materiality; there is the more unconscious and the less unconscious, there is what is conscious and what isconscious, and so we say above and below for the facility of speech.  But in fact, the idea is to draw from the energies of the earth which, when you are standing up, are under your feet, that is, below in relation to you. But these energies are always mixed, and mostly they are terribly dark.  No questions?


The Mother: () Do you have another?  It is precisely to go down into the darkness, to go far away from the light in order to draw nearer to the darkness, to go farther away from the consciousness in order to go closer to the inconscience.  One has in his consciousness the feeling of rising above what is obscure and ordinary and unconscious, of raising himself — because usually our head is on top and our head is more conscious than the rest of our body — and the impression that there is above him a greater consciousness. So when one makes an effort to progress, at the same time one makes an effort of ascent. Sometimes one has even symbolically the impression of climbing a mountain and wanting to reach the summit, that is, as close as possible to the free expanses of the light, of what is purer.


The Mother: And if one doesn’t take care, quite naturally, spontaneously, one slips back into the ordinary consciousness.  There is a very great power of attraction in low, obscure, ordinary things — the impression of being drawn by the feet into a deep mire... certain contacts, certain actions, certain movements of consciousness give you the impression that you are sliding into a dark and muddy hole.  Often when one has made an effort and progressed, one has the feeling of rising above himself into a purer, clearer, truer light and consciousness. But if one doesn’t keep this aspiration and is not deﬁnitively settled there, a very tiny thing is enough, a kind of physical disharmony, for example, or a meeting, a word exchanged or a movement made unconsciously, for one to feel that something is falling; and one can no longer get hold of that height where one was, that light.


The Mother: So one has to withdraw again, climb the slope, escape from the attraction from below.  Sometimes it takes time; one slides down very fast but usually climbs back with a certain difﬁculty.  It is as when one struggles physically by yogic means with a disease, it goes alternately. One can succeed in pulling himself out, so to say, from the disease, in withdrawing from it, in cutting off the relation one had with it; and then suddenly one emerges above this feeling of unease, disorder and confusion and realises that one is cured. But sometimes it is enough even to remember, a movement of wonder is enough, a memory of what it was is enough for everything to be reversed once more and for one to have to begin the same work over again.


The Mother: Sometimes one has to begin again thrice, four times, ten times, twenty times. And then some people can make the effort once, but the second time they no longer do it well, and the third time they don’t do it at all; and they tell you, “Oh! One can’t be cured by occult means, the divine Force doesn’t cure you, it is better to take medicines.” So for these, it is better to go to the doctor because this means that they have no spiritual perseverance and only material means can convince them of their effectiveness.   When one wants to change something of the material life, whether the character or the functioning of the organs or habits, one must have an unfaltering perseverance, be ready to begin again a hundred times the same thing with the same intensity with which one did it the ﬁrst time and as though one had never done it before.


The Mother: People who are touchy cannot do this. But if one can’t do it, one can’t do yoga, in any case not the integral yoga, one can’t change one’s body.  To change one’s body one must be ready to do millions of times the same thing, because the body is a creature of habits and functions by routine, and because to destroy a routine one must persevere for years.  That’s all?  That doesn’t matter, my child.


The Mother: No. The true self is what is also called the truth of the being.  It is the divine element which is your individual reality. It is the divine element which makes you a separate individuality, and it is at the same time a fragment of the one Being and naturally the one Being itself; that is, while being a particular aspect which makes you an individual, it is an integral part of the One which makes you only an objectivisation of the One.


The Mother: This is the true self. The psychic being is a terrestrial formation. It is human beings who have a psychic being which has been developed upon earth and by earthly life and which is a projection of the divine Consciousness into Matter to awaken Matter out of its inertia so that it takes the path back to the Divine.   But in certain cases the true self is found in the psychic being, that is, it dwells in the psychic being — but not always.  There is always a divine Presence in the psychic being, but


The Mother: it is the divine Presence which was at the origin of the psychic formation, it is an emanation from the divine Consciousness; whereas the true self is not a terrestrial formation. It precedes the terrestrial formation.   Is that all? No more questions?


The Mother: You have one still? You can ask.  If it is not at all possible, you must sit quite alone, try to become silent, call, call me as though I were there, make me come and put the difﬁculty before me absolutely sincerely and objectively; and then remain very silent, very quiet and wait for the result.  And I think the result comes. For it depends on the nature of the difﬁculty.


The Mother: If it is a problem that’s to be solved, then the solution comes; if it is an inner movement, something that has gone wrong, then usually if one does this very sincerely, well, it is put back in its place; and if it is a decision that’s to be taken, if it is something one doesn’t know whether one must do or not do, then this too, if one is very quiet one knows whether it’s a yes or no ; it comes: “Yes” or “No”. Then here you must not discuss any more, the mind must not say, “But if...? and then...”, for then everything becomes foggy. You must say, “Good!” and follow like this. But for this you must be sincere, in the sense that you must have no preferences.


The Mother: If the difﬁculty comes from one part of the being wanting one thing and another part of the being knowing that one must not have it, then it becomes complicated because the part which wants can try to introduce its own will into the answer . So when one sits down, ﬁrst one must begin by persuading it to make a  little act of sincere surrender, and it is here that one can make true progress, saying, “Now I am conscious that it is this that I desire, but I am ready to give up my desire if that should be done.” But you must do this not only in the head, it must be done sincerely, and then you proceed as I said.


The Mother: Then one knows — knows what’s to be done.  Sometimes it is easier when you write it down; you imagine that I am there and then take a paper and write on it what you wanted to tell me. Then just the very fact of formulating it clearly sometimes gives you the true picture of the situation and you can have the answer more easily. It depends, sometimes it is necessary, sometimes not, but if you are in a confusion, a kind of whirlwind, above all, if there is a vital upsurge, the fact of compelling yourself to put it on paper already quietens you, it begins the work of puriﬁcation.  In fact, one should always do this, when he feels that he is caught by an impulse of some kind or other, particularly impulses of anger.


The Mother: If one takes as an absolute discipline, instead of acting or speaking (because speech is an action), instead of acting under the impulse, if one withdraws and then does as I said, one sits down quietly, concentrates and then looks at his anger quietly, one writes it down, when one has ﬁnished writing, it is gone — in any case, most often.   Ah, my child, it is something that was in vogue, very much in vogue at the beginning of the century... no, in the middle of the century!   () Do you know, Pavitra, when it was in fashion?


The Mother: (Pavitra)  At the beginning of the century, that’s it.  This is what Sri Aurobindo says: dangerous, useless, ignorant, superﬁcial; and it was in fashion because people like these things, it corresponds precisely with all that is unhealthy in their nature. You know how children love to waddle in the mud! Well, big people are no better than that.


The Mother: There!  Well, it is what he says, you know. It’s what is behind. I think it is what could be called the subtle physical, the subtle vital, the subtle mind. It is something that’s behind what is manifested.


The Mother: One can imagine that what is manifested is like a layer or like a crust or a bark; it is that which we see and with which we are in touch. And it clothes something, it clothes or expresses something which is more subtle and serves as its support.    When one dreams, one goes very often into his subliminal being, and there things are almost the same and yet not absolutely the same; there is a great resemblance and yet there is a difference; and usually this is greater. One has the impression of entering into something that’s vaster; and, for example, one feels that one can do more, that one knows more, one has a power and clear-sightedness which one doesn’t have in the ordinary consciousness; one has the impression while dreaming that one knows many more things than when one is awake.


The Mother: No?  Doesn’t this happen? You don’t have dreams like that?... when one dreams and knows a lot, for example, about the secret causes of things, about what a movement expresses... all that, one feels that one knows it.


The Mother: For instance, when one dreams of someone, one knows better what he thinks, what he wants, all these things, better than when one is in waking contact with him. This happens when one has entered the subliminal. Very often one dreams in the subliminal.  Not directly, not more directly than the outside being. If externally, in your ordinary consciousness you have a contact with the psychic, that also has a contact with the psychic, or rather one can put it the other way round: if that has a contact with the psychic, it helps you to have a contact with the psychic, but not necessarily, not always; it depends on the degree of development of the being.


The Mother: It is not necessarily more enlightened, more balanced — no. It is more subtle, it is less dull than our outer consciousness. Our external consciousness is so dull, it has no depth; as our outer understanding has no depth, our sensations have no depth; all this is something as though ﬂat. So here it is fuller, but not necessarily more true.


The Mother: Because it is internal. This is what supports the outer. The outer is only an appearance of this. As I said, in a dream when one goes there, one knows things which one doesn’t know, one can do things, one is in touch with things which one doesn’t know in the waking consciousness, because it is too superﬁcial.  It is like the inside of something.


The Mother: The outside is the expression of that, but an altogether surface expression. So naturally it looks the same; in any case more than a resemblance, it has an identity with what we see of it from outside. We see the form, don’t we, the expression; well, this expression has necessarily an analogy — more than an analogy — an identity with what is inside. So if, externally, we see that someone is absolutely ignorant of his psychic being, it is impossible that internally he is quite conscious of it; he can be closer, but he cannot be conscious of the psychic without its being reﬂected outside. Therefore, if it is not reﬂected outside, it means that it is not truly established within.


The Mother: Understand, no?  Then what shall we do? Ask another question about the same subject. Perhaps so you will understand.


The Mother: That, my child, if you begin to ask me things like this, you must ask the gentleman who is seated behind you [Nolini], because these things I forget.  Where is the subliminal self mentioned here?   This is what I have just told you. I have just told you this. How can we explain it?


The Mother: ( )  It is perhaps — perhaps — something like this, like the taste of a fruit. You know, you see a fruit, it has an appearance, it has a certain colour, it seems to you of a certain kind, but you cannot very well know what it tastes like until you taste it, that is, until you have entered inside it. It is something like this, something analogous to this.


The Mother: Or maybe as in a watch — note that it is just to try to make myself understood, it is not really like that, it is only to try to make myself understood — when you see a watch, you see a dial and the hands moving, but if you want to know the watch you must open it and see the working inside.  It is something like that — you see only the effect, here; there is a cause behind. It is somewhat like that.  The world as we see it and our outer consciousness are the result of something which is behind, which Sri Aurobindo calls the subliminal. And this itself, as he says, is set in motion by impulses which come from the subconscient below and the superconscient above, and so it is as though it were assembled there, and once it is organised there it is expressed in the outer consciousness, the ordinary consciousness.


The Mother: The best way is to go there; once you go there you understand what it is. And it is not difﬁcult; one goes there constantly in dreams, very easily, without any effort.  If you remember, you understand. If one remembers the kind of difference of impression one had: one has a certain impression, and when one returns one feels something like a disconnection, the impression is different, even the point of view one had about  things is different. Well, if one remembers this, one understands.


The Mother: If one is in the habit, one can even while speaking or doing something, perceive very well — above all when speaking or thinking or reﬂecting on something — a second layer which is behind, much vaster, in which things are organised much more synthetically (not positively understandable) than in the outer consciousness. If one reﬂects just a little and looks at oneself thinking, one can see this at the back very well, one can see the two things moving together like this ()... like the formulated thought and the source of the thought which is behind.  And then when one thinks, you see, one has a feeling of being like this, enclosed in something; whereas, there, immediately one feels that one is in contact with many other things; and it is much greater.  True psychology, what do you mean by true psychology?


The Mother: Sri Aurobindo says that this is not true psychology, he says that modern psychology has no knowledge. True psychology would be a psychology which has knowledge.  Psychology means... What is the precise meaning of  It is knowing, science; and means soul.


The Mother: So it means the science of the soul or the science of the psychic, you see. This is the original sense. Now one has made of that the knowledge of all the inner movements, of all feelings, all the inner movements which are not purely physical movements, you see, all that concerns the feelings, thoughts, even the sensations in their subtlety.  But true psychology is the knowledge of the soul, that is, the knowledge of the psychic being. And if one has the knowledge of the psychic being, one has at the same time the knowledge of all the true movements of the being, the inner laws of the being.


The Mother: This is true psychology but it is the etymological meaning of the word, not as it is used nowadays.   Oh! Is it about that? These are theories, you know.


The Mother: Is this what I read this evening?   Ah! Good. So, re-read the sentence clearly.


The Mother: Is it written like that?  You can’t ﬁnd it?  Perhaps the other way!...  It is not written? Then where did you pick it up?


The Mother: But there’s no question about its being easier or more difﬁcult.   What does she want to say?   (Pavitra)


The Mother: Yes, but this has no connection with what you were asking.  The safest way is precisely not to go down, it is to remain above and from there to put a pressure on what is below. But if you go down it is very difﬁcult to keep the contact with what is above; so if one forgets one can do nothing, one becomes like the part into which one has gone down. So, as it is something very difﬁcult to do, on the contrary, it is better to remain in one’s higher consciousness and from there act upon the lower movements without going down into them.  For example, it is as when one feels anger rising up from the subconscient; well, if one wants to control it one must be very careful not to be identiﬁed with it.


The Mother: One must not go down into it. One must remain in one’s consciousness, above, quiet, peaceful, and from there look at this anger and put the light and quietude upon it so that it calms down and vanishes. But if one gets identiﬁed with it, one is also in anger, one can’t change it.  Anything? Nothing!


The Mother: Nowhere. Nobody has anything to say?  Nothing! Up there? No?


The Mother: That’s all? You are all convinced? Good, then we’ll stop, if everyone is convinced.  ( )


The Mother: You had something else to ask? Oh! She had prepared a heap of questions. But not like that one! You must at least understand the text before asking.


The Mother: Now, what is your other question?    Yes, and so?  What don’t you understand? You don’t know what “regenerated” means?


The Mother: Regenerated means transformed, made perfect, and puriﬁed, enlightened. And then it is a question, there, of all the levels of consciousness, from the most material to the most subtle. So in these planes of consciousness there are parts which are more enlightened than others.  And so, what is your question? You want to know which parts of your being are more enlightened?


The Mother: Ah! Let us see. We could play a little game like this: Which part of the being in everyone has a more total faith in the divine Grace?   Ah, no!


The Mother: I am speaking of an experience, I am not speaking of a verbal knowledge. I am speaking... which is the part in everyone of you in which you have the greatest faith in the divine Grace?  It can be in the physical, it can be in the vital, it can be in the psychic, and it can be in this part or that, or this activity or that other. There are people, for example, who have absolutely a kind of mental realisation of contact with the Grace, of faith in the Grace; and then, as soon as they are in their vital or physical consciousness, there is nothing any more. There are others, on the contrary, who, even physically, in their body... who perhaps  don’t have much mental knowledge, but who in their physical consciousness have an absolute faith in the divine Grace, and a total trust, and they live like that in this faith and trust.


The Mother: Others still have it only in their deep feelings; and their thoughts are vagabond. And there are others who have even a vital faith — these are rare but they exist — who have a vital faith in the divine Grace, that all will always go absolutely well — with a considerable sense of power.  But haven’t you ever lent yourself to this little exercise, to see? First, have you faith in the divine Grace?  Yes!


The Mother: Good, that’s already good. And where then, in which part of your being? Is it in your thought, is it in your feelings, is it in your sensations, is it in your physical activity? If it is everywhere at the same time, you are perfect beings, and I congratulate you.  Sensations?


The Mother: You have a sensation of this? Then you are a very rare person! ()  Ah, the feeling, that’s different. Usually it is in the feeling, but there are people who have it ﬁrst in thought, who have a kind of mental knowledge, and then that’s all, it stops there. And some people have the feeling and don’t have the mental experience, their mind is like that...


The Mother: This is another phenomenon. It means that this faith, this trust in the divine Grace is in the psychic — behind, there, like that, in the  psychic, always there. So sometimes it is the feeling, sometimes it is the thought, sometimes even it is the body which is in contact with the psychic, under the inﬂuence of the psychic even without knowing it; and at that moment this kind of trust, of faith comes in front like that and supports. This happens when one has momentary contacts with his psychic. For example, when you ﬁnd yourself in a very great difﬁculty or a very great physical danger,


The Mother: and suddenly feel this, this force coming into you, the force of a faith, an absolute trust in the divine Grace which helps you.  So it means that there is a conscious contact with one’s psychic and it comes to help you — it is a special grace bestowed. This is the condition which ought to be the most frequent here, for this contact is established all the time, consciously, deliberately, in everyone. So this instance ought to be the most frequent, it is the most normal — here. That is, according to the part which is active or according to the necessity of the moment, it is here or there or there that suddenly you feel this trust which takes possession of you and guards you.


The Mother: It is like that.  There we are!   Now, has anyone any questions?  It means that he is laughing at them, simply that.  (The child continues reading)


The Mother: “... of their torch-lights”. It is a joke; it’s to say that it is a very tiny light of nothing at all and that they think they can judge spiritual experiences with this light which is no better than a small torch-light; it means something that has no strength. It is a joke.  But what did you want to ask?


The Mother: Yes, that’s it, it means that they want to judge spiritual experiences with a very tiny light which is worthless, which has no strength, a torch-light, a torch-lamp, it is nothing at all. These people want to explain everything by the most material and most ordinary phenomena of human life; and they want to explain everything, including the creation and all the higher phenomena by the help of all the small physical habits of the most ordinary consciousness. It is absolutely ridiculous.   A super-ego means an ego that’s enlarged, swollen, made more important, even, than it can be... This whole letter is full of mockery.


The Mother: Super-ego means an ego that’s still more of an ego than an ordinary ego, something swollen, something which tries to be very big while being nothing at all.  Underground, yes, it means something hidden, that’s very low down in the consciousness, far below, very low down. “Underground” gives the impression of something that’s in a great darkness, lower down, hidden in the shadow: the most material movements — an ego that tries to become an important person.  Yes, that’s what Sri Aurobindo says, doesn’t he? He says that all dreams are not ordinary dreams, associations of memories, that there are dreams which are revelations.


The Mother: He describes all kinds and types of dreams here.  It is very difﬁcult to say on what it depends.  It happens that when you need to dream of something, so that it may enlighten you on a point of your nature, give you an indication about the effort you must make, it comes.  It depends perhaps on a consciousness that watches over everyone; and provided one is just a little open, it can guide him and give sure indications.   I think there is an entire category of dreams which are absolutely commonplace, useless and simply tiring, which one can avoid if, before going to sleep, one makes a little effort of concentration, tries to put himself in contact with what is best in him, by either an aspiration or a prayer, and to sleep only after this is done...


The Mother: even, if one likes, try to meditate and pass quite naturally from meditation into sleep without even realising it... Usually there is a whole category of dreams which are useless, tiring, which prevent you from resting well — all this might be avoided. And then, if one has truly succeeded well in his concentration, it is quite possible that one may have, at night, not exactly dreams but experiences of which one becomes conscious and which are very useful, indications, as I just told you, indications about questions you asked yourself and of which you did not have the answers; or else a set of circumstances where you ought to take a decision and don’t know what decision to take; or else some way of being of your own character which does not show itself to you clearly in the waking consciousness — because you are so accustomed to it that you are not aware of it — but something that harms your development and obscures your consciousness, and which appears to you in a symbolic revelatory dream, and you become clearly aware of the thing, then you can act upon it.  It depends not on what one was during the day, because this doesn’t always have much effect upon the night, but on the way one has gone to sleep. It is enough just to have at the moment of sleeping a sincere aspiration that the night, instead of being a darkening of the consciousness, may be a help to understand something, to have an experience; and then, though it doesn’t come always, it has a chance of coming.


The Mother: There is also, you know, a whole lot of activities of the night which one doesn’t remember at all. Sometimes when one has awakened quite slowly and quietly, when one hasn’t jumped up while awakening, when one wakes up quite gently, quite slowly, without stirring, one has a vague impression of something that  has happened which has left an imprint on one’s consciousness — you have your own way of waking up — particular, sometimes even strange. And so if you remain very quiet and observe attentively, without moving, you notice a kind of half-memory of an activity that took place at night, and if you remain concentrated on it, still motionless for some time, suddenly it may come back like that, like something that appears from behind a veil, and you can get hold of the tail of a dream. When you hold the tail — just a little event — when you hold the tail, you pull it, like this, very gently, and it comes. But you must be very quiet and must not move.


The Mother: And usually these dreams are very interesting; these activities are very instructive.  One does lots and lots of things at night which one doesn’t know, and if one learns, you see, when one becomes conscious, one can begin to have control. Before being conscious you have no control at all. But when you begin to be conscious, you can also begin to have a control. And then if you have control of your activities of the night, you can sleep much better; for the fact that when you wake up you are often at least as tired as when going to bed and have a feeling of lassitude shows that you do any number of useless things during the night; you tire yourself running around in the vital worlds or moving in the mind in a frantic activity.


The Mother: So when you get up you feel tired.  Well, once you have the control you can stop that completely... stop it before going to sleep... make yourself like a vast sea, that is, it is completely calm and still and vast... well, you can make your mind like that, vast, calm, like a ﬂat, motionless surface; then your sleep is excellent.


The Mother: Of course, here too it is a question of people going in their sleep to places of the vital worlds which are very bad, and then, when they return, sometimes they are more than tired, at times they are ill, or they are absolutely exhausted. This is because they were in bad places and had a ﬁght. But this surely has something to do with the state of the consciousness during the  waking hours. If, for example, you have been angry during the day, you see, there are many chances that at night you will be in a vital ﬁght for some time. This happens.


The Mother: That’s all? Nothing?  It means the primal idea of the lotus.  Each thing that is expressed physically was conceived somewhere before being realised materially.  There is an entire world which is the world of the fashioners, where all conceptions are made.


The Mother: And this world is very high, much higher than all the worlds of the mind; and from there these formations, these creations, these types which have been conceived by the fashioners come down and are expressed in physical realisations. And there is always a great distance between the perfection of the idea and what is materialised. Very often the materialised things are like caricatures in comparison with the primal idea. This is what he calls the archetype. This takes place in worlds... not always the same ones, it depends on the things; but for many things in the physical, the primal ideas, these archetypes, were in what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind.


The Mother: But there is a still higher domain than this where the origins are still purer, and if one reaches this, attains this, one ﬁnds the absolutely pure types of what is manifested upon earth. And then it is very interesting to compare, to see to what an extent earthly creation is a frightful distortion. And moreover, it is only when one can reach these regions and see the reality of things in their essence that one can work with knowledge to transform them here; otherwise on what can we take our stand to conceive a better world, more perfect, more beautiful than the existing one? It can’t be on our imagination which is itself something very poor and very material.


The Mother: But if one can enter that consciousness, rise right up to these higher worlds of creation, then with this  in one’s consciousness one can work at making material things take their real form.  In a dream, one sees a person... and a few months later one sees him again?...  One sees a person dying and then some months later one sees him dying a second time, the same person! He is dead or alive?


The Mother: This is becoming disquieting, my child! I don’t know; it depends absolutely upon the case.  It can be a spiritual death, it can be a vital death, it can be the death of something in the being which ought to disappear (and then it means a progress), it can be a premonition, it can be lots of things. Unless you have the context of your dream one can’t explain it. But you should have what we could call a jurisprudence of your dreams.


The Mother: You have never compared the dream with the events which occur? ... for example, hasn’t it happened to you — I know it has — that you see someone dying and this person really dies? But you don’t see him dying again a second time. If you see the same dream twice, it means one of two things: either that he has lost once more another state of being, you see, that he has entered a vital consciousness or later from this vital consciousness he has gone out to enter a psychic consciousness. It can be that.


The Mother: But then there are sure signs. The dream cannot deceive you, and it cannot be similar. Or it may be simply that there was  something which was profoundly impressed in the thought, in the brain, and that in certain circumstances which can have many causes... yet in certain circumstances... this impression begins to be active again and gives you the same dream once more. If it is an identical dream, it can be this, just a cerebral phenomenon.  Many dreams are just phenomena of the brain, that is, of things which go into activity again under some stimulus or other and bring back the same pictures, sometimes exactly the same, sometimes with slightly different associations and connections; so there are differences.


The Mother: At times some dreams are repeated, you know, often dreams which are lessons or indications, dreams which announce something to you or want to draw your attention to something or put you on your guard against something. Very often it happens that they recur either at brief intervals or at a certain distance. And usually it means that the ﬁrst time the impression was very faint, one doesn’t remember it well. The third time or even after the second, one has a vague impression already: “Why! This isn’t the ﬁrst time”, when one sees it.


The Mother: Then the third time it is clear, precise, absolute, and one remembers: “Ah, I have already seen this thrice!”  Usually these dreams are extremely interesting and give you precise indications: either about something to be done or something not to be done, or about precautions to be taken or perhaps about your relations with someone, what you should expect to receive from a person, how you should act towards him or in certain circumstances.  You see it is quite a small detail, a very small detail which recurs in this way; sometimes it comes immediately: one night, the second night, the third night; sometimes it takes weeks to recur.   This depends on each one; but certainly if you want to sleep quietly at night, you must not study till just before sleeping. If you read something which requires concentration, your head will continue to work and so you won’t sleep well.


The Mother: When the mind continues working one doesn’t rest.  The ideal, you see, is to enter an integral repose, that is, immobility in the body, perfect peace in the vital, absolute silence in the mind — and the consciousness goes out of all activity to enter into. If you can do this, then when you wake up you get up with the feeling of an extraordinary power, a perfect joy. But it is not very, very easy to do this. It can be done; this is the ideal condition.


The Mother: Usually it is not at all like this, and most of the time almost all the hours of sleep are wasted in some kind of disordered activities ; your body begins to toss about in your bed, you give kicks, you turn, you start, you turn this way and that, and then you do this () and then this... So you don’t rest at all.  Oh, there are always ﬁfty thousand reasons for doing things!  You must not at all introduce a moral question there.


The Mother: You can do your duty, and in an absolutely... unselﬁsh way, and still it can prevent you from sleeping all the same.  Moral issues have nothing to do with the inner development. I am sorry to tell you this, but one goes one way, the other another. You can make yourself completely ill by doing something absolutely... how to put it?... unselﬁsh, you see, which has nothing selﬁsh about it, and you can be very healthy while being absolutely selﬁsh. That does not come in the way.


The Mother: It is not this kind of morality which is effective.    There is a great difference between having a moral conscience and a consciousness which is the expression of truth. But I must say that it is inﬁnitely more difﬁcult to have a consciousness which expresses the truth than to have a moral conscience, because any fool who knows the social rules and follows them has a moral conscience, while to have a consciousness of truth one must not be an idiot — in any case, it’s the ﬁrst condition!


The Mother: Yes. But don’t you think that all these things are the result of a lack of organisation in your life? One lives from moment to moment, as things come, anyhow. Or else one makes some effort of mental organisation which does not at all correspond to the truth and therefore is thwarted every minute.  But if one organised his life in accordance with a higher principle of consciousness and without the groping one usually tries, that is, with a precise indication at every minute of what is to be done and how it is to be done, I think that one could so manage that things don’t become awkwardly difﬁcult.


The Mother: It is very good to be a good teacher, but perhaps it is not absolutely necessary to correct all the homework just at the time one is going to bed. I don’t know, you see, because I was never a good teacher, so I never prepared the exercises for my students, never corrected the homework of my students. But still, it seems to me this ought to be quite possible.  Usually, instead of choosing one’s work very carefully and taking exactly what one can do and doing it as well as one can, very often one takes too much. And in this too much there are many things which are at least partially useless, which could be considerably reduced, without harming the result (note that I am not making a general rule of it, it is only an experience I have); and when one is very attentive to the inner indication and refuses to be tossed by the waves that come from outside —  these waves are of all kinds of movements arising from the wills of others or from a kind of routine of circumstances or from oppositions coming from forces which are not very favourable — so, instead of being pushed like that and moved by these things, if one receives a very clear, very precise inner indication and follows it without equivocating, you see, without any hesitation, a little strictly — indeed, if it doesn’t please others, so much the worse for them — well, it happens that one becomes in a way the master of circumstances, that they are organised favourably, and that one does much more work in much less time.


The Mother: There’s a way of reducing the time necessary for doing things by increasing the concentration considerably. Some people can’t do this for long, it tires them; but it’s like weightlifting, isn’t it, one can get accustomed to it. And then, if you can succeed in mastering this power of concentration and in making your mind absolutely still — for this indeed is the ﬁrst condition — and if in this quietude you concentrate it, concentrate, concentrate, concentrate on the point you want to make, on the work you have to do or the action you have to perform, well, you can... it comes like a kind of extremely quiet but all-powerful force of propulsion, and you go forward with one movement... without hesitation you can literally do in a quarter of an hour what would otherwise take one hour.


The Mother: And so this has the great advantage that it gives you time and that after this, instead of going from one activity to another, from one agitation to another, you can relax completely for some minutes and have a total rest. This gives you time to rest; and in this repose, naturally, as you are relaxed, all that could have been a little too tense is relaxed and put in order, and this puts you back in a condition in which you are once again able to make another concentration. Try!   There.


The Mother: That’s all? No questions?  Then, my children.   Usually one has a vision when one is not asleep, when one is awake. When one is awake and enters within oneself — whether in meditation or concentration — one has visions.


The Mother: Or at night you can’t sleep... remain stretched out, remain quiet, don’t sleep and you may have visions.  Dreams come when one is asleep, that is, when one has no longer the waking consciousness; whereas in vision one is in the waking consciousness, but one quietens or immobilises it, and it is another more inner consciousness which awakens; yet one is not asleep, the body is not asleep, it is just made quiet.  One can have visions even while remaining active. Some people have visions even amidst activity. Vision is another plane of perception which awakes.


The Mother: It is the senses in the mind or vital or physical which wake up and manage to pass their experiences to the outer consciousness. It is as though one had another pair of eyes behind these, eyes which could see in the vital instead of seeing in the physical. And this is always there. Only, as one is concentrated on the most material life, one doesn’t notice it. But some children have the two conjointly, they see even physically all kinds of things which are not physical.


The Mother: Usually they are told that they are saying stupid things; so they stop speaking about them. But they don’t see just this, only physically, they see other things behind. One can have visions with closed eyes, one can  have visions with open eyes; while when dreaming one is always asleep.   Any other questions?


The Mother: For each one it is different; but it is a question of the impression one has. Usually the symbolic dream is much clearer, more precise, more coordinated, and carries with it a kind of consciousness of something which is true... I don’t know... one remembers it better, it is not distorted in the remembrance.  And then, that’s all?


The Mother: Ah! What does he want to know, that child?  This indeed needs a certain yogic power. The best way — and this one is absolute — is to go out of one’s body.  When the body is in pain, when one has fever or is ill, you see, or the body is very ill, the only thing to do is to come out of it, to bring out one’s vital being.


The Mother: And then, if one is a yogi and knows, one rises just above — so as to see his body; the vital being, if it has come out in a fairly material form, can see the body; one sees his own physical body, and then at that moment, with the consciousness one has and the force one has, one can direct the rays of these forces on the place in the body which is ill. But this of course is the peak, it is the surest way of curing oneself; and if one has the power and the knowledge, it is infallible.   One can cure oneself of anything whatever in a very short time. Only, all this means a great practice, a training of the being.  It does not come all at once, you see.


The Mother: But in fact when the pain is intolerable and people faint, they do this instinctively. To faint is to go out of one’s body. So some people, who are not too closely tied to their body, when something goes wrong, becomes too painful or is not all right, they faint.  Too great a pain makes you faint away, that is, you go out of your body, you really go out and leave the body very inert; and provided someone is there who has enough knowledge not to shake you like this () to wake you up, it is a means of escape from suffering. Of course, if you have beside you someone who is panic-stricken and sprinkles cold water on your head or shakes you, then the result can be disastrous, but otherwise one can...


The Mother: And little by little, naturally, as there is no longer any consciousness there to record the suffering, it becomes calm, and in almost every case the body becomes motionless enough to be able to rest even in spite of the suffering. It doesn’t feel it at all any longer. This is the best way.  There are minor methods and they have smaller results; they are not very easy either, that is, the knowledge of the power to cut the connection between the suffering part and the recording brain. One cuts the connection, then the brain does not register.


The Mother: That’s what one does, what the doctors do with anaesthetics.  They cut the connection of the nerves between the spot that’s ill and the brain; so the brain no longer perceives anything or it is reduced to a minimum. And it always comes back to the same thing, one way or another; and all this calls for an occult power or a training. Some people have it spontaneously; there are not many of these — very few. But obviously, without going so far, there is one thing that one can try to do: it is not to concentrate on one’s pain, to turn the attention away as much as possible, not think at all of one’s pain, think as little as possible and above all not be concentrated on it, not to pay attention — “Oh, I’m in pain”, then it becomes a little worse; “Oh, I’m in  still greater pain”, then it becomes still worse, like that, because one is concentrated on it; and this is the mistake one always makes: to think, be there, attentive, awaiting the sign of pain; then naturally it comes, it comes increased by the concentration of the attention given to it.


The Mother: That is why, when one is not well the best thing to do is to read or have something read, you see; it depends on the condition one is in. But if one can turn one’s attention away, one no longer suffers.  And so, that’s all?  Do we what? ...


The Mother: Need to dream! But it’s not a question of need, my child, one always dreams.  Why do you walk on your feet, with the head in the air, and why do you eat and sleep? It is like that. There is no why about it.


The Mother: There is no why, it is part of the general functioning.  Dreams are not something imposed upon you like that, artiﬁcially. It is not as when you are sent to school to learn something, not like that. They are a part of your normal working, that is, usually it is the head, the brain which goes on working.  Sometimes, when one is in slightly higher states, it is an inner being that enters into activity, goes to its own domain and lives there its own life.


The Mother: But all these things are not artiﬁcially organised for some reason or other. They are a part of the body’s functioning. Dreams are as natural as the activities of the day; and then in a dream one ﬁnds out more or less that one understands nothing about it, but in life it’s exactly the same thing because  — no matter what happens — you are always asking yourself hundreds of questions to know why, how and what it is that’s happened. You know nothing about it. Only, you are in the habit of its being like that.


The Mother: That’s all. No questions?  Still one?  Yes, and so “Why?” ()  But you have never noticed that it is different?


The Mother: For example, your physical consciousness or your subtle physical consciousness, your vital consciousness or the consciousness of your higher or lower vital, your psychic consciousness, your mental consciousness, each one is completely different! So when you sleep you have one consciousness, and when you are awake you have another. In your waking state you look at things projected outside you, in your sleep state you see them interiorised. So it is as though in one case you were pushed altogether outside yourself, in front, and in the other it is as though you were looking at yourself in an inner mirror.  Don’t understand?


The Mother: Not very well!  Well, it’s something one must learn to distinguish, one’s states of consciousness, because otherwise one lives in a perpetual confusion.  In fact, it is the ﬁrst step on the path, it is the beginning of the thread, if one doesn’t hold on to the end of the thread, one is lost on the way. This is only to hold the end of the thread.   That’s all?


The Mother: Ah! I have already been asked this several times. It depends on the context.  It can mean that one has made enough progress to get rid totally of an old way of being which has no longer any reason for existing.


The Mother: This, I think, is the most frequent case. Otherwise it depends absolutely on the context, that is, the circumstances surrounding the dream.  That is... one sees himself dead... How does he see himself dead?


The Mother: Does he simply see the inert body or himself already dead, or does he take for dead what is not dead?  You see, if you leave your body — by going out of the body as I explained a while ago — if you have gone out materially enough, in a very material vital, well, the body which is lying on the bed seems absolutely dead, but it is not dead for all that. But if you look at it or see it while you are outside and you don’t know, it seems absolutely dead, it is in a cataleptic state. Then if you know what is necessary and what you ought to do it is very easy; but if you don’t know and the imagination starts roaming, then you open the door to fear and anything may happen.  But in fact, I don’t think that once in a million times it is a premonitory dream.


The Mother: I think it much more likely that it is a fragment of the being which has stopped being useful and so disappears; so the fragment takes the form of the whole and one sees himself dead because this fragment has stopped existing in him. This is the most frequent and the most logical instance.  Now, one may see not a death but, for example, an accident or an assassination or things like that... Then it is a very real violent dream, you know, and this may mean that one is attacked by bad forces sent by someone with a precise purpose. Then one has only to strike hard and react violently.


The Mother: This happens when one has gone out of his body, and one must not force things, one must quite simply, slowly, concentrate his consciousness in his body and wait a while for the fusion to be made normally; one must not force things.  And one can’t move!  It means that only a fragment of the consciousness has come back, not enough to bring back the full movement in the body.  You must not shake yourself, because you risk losing a bit of yourself. You must remain quite still and concentrate slowly, slowly, on your body; it can take a minute or two at the most.


The Mother: Anything at all, something that has gone out, you see. It’s because one part of the being has gone out; so if you shake yourself, it doesn’t have the time to get back. Why, there’s someone behind you () who has had an experience of this kind — someone startled him out of his sleep, and when he came back he had truly the feeling that something was missing. Isn’t that so? ( )


The Mother: (Nolini)  Then I told him to concentrate quietly; it came back. Only, if one is afraid it can become complicated, you see.   But one must never startle anyone out of his sleep because he must have time to get back into his body. It is not good, for instance, when getting up to jump out of bed — hop!


The Mother: You must remain quiet for a while, like this (), as though you were bringing yourself back into yourself, like that, quietly... quietly.  When you are quite calm, when you feel that everything is there, then you get up and it is over. But you must never jump out of bed abruptly, it is not good. Besides, sometimes it happens that those who wake up abruptly and jump out of bed feel giddy and risk falling. You must always make a movement like this (), as though you were gathering your consciousness or all kinds of things which may be gathered in one’s body; you remain very quiet for a few seconds of assimilation and when it is done properly, you get up quietly, composedly.


The Mother: What else? Nothing?  So it is ﬁnished!   One can do it in many ways.


The Mother: First of all, you must know that it exists and that one can enter into contact with it. Secondly, you must try to make this contact, to feel it circulating everywhere, through everything, in all persons and all circumstances; to have this experience, for example, when you are in the countryside among trees, to see it circulating in the whole of Nature, in trees and things, and then commune with it, feel yourself close to it, and each time you want to deal with it, recall that impression you had and try to enter into contact.   Some people discover that with certain movements, certain gestures, certain activities, they enter into contact more closely.


The Mother: I knew people who gesticulated while walking... this truly gave them the impression that they were in contact — certain gestures they made while walking... But children do this spontaneously: when they give themselves completely in their games, running, playing, jumping, shouting; when they spend all their energies like that, they give themselves entirely, and in the joy of playing and moving and running they put themselves in contact with this universal vital force; they don’t know it, but they spend their vital force in a contact with the universal vital force and that is why they can run without really feeling very tired, except after a very long time. That is, they spend so much that if they were not in contact with the universal force, they would be absolutely exhausted, immediately. And that is why, besides, they grow up;  it is also because they receive more than they spend; they know how to receive more than they spend.


The Mother: And this does not correspond to any knowledge. It is a natural, spontaneous movement.  It is the movement... a movement of joy in what they are doing — of joyful expenditure. One can do many things with that.  I knew young people who had always lived in cities — in a city and in those little rooms one has in the big cities in which everyone is huddled.


The Mother: Now, they had come to spend their holidays in the countryside, in the south of France, and there the sun is hot, naturally not as here but all the same it is very hot (when we compare the sun of the Mediterranean coasts with that of Paris, for example, it truly makes a difference), and so, when they walked around the countryside the ﬁrst few days they really began to get a terrible headache and to feel absolutely uneasy because of the sun; but they suddenly thought: “Why, if we make friends with the sun it won’t harm us any more!” And they began to make a kind of inner effort of friendship and trust in the sun, and when they were out in the sun, instead of trying to bend double and tell themselves, “Oh! How hot it is, how it burns!”, they said, “Oh, how full of force and joy and love the sun is!” etc., they opened themselves like this (), and not only did they not suffer any longer but they felt so strong afterwards that they went round telling everyone who said “It is hot” — telling them “Do as we do, you will see how good it is.” And they could remain for hours in the full sun, bare-headed and without feeling any discomfort. It is the same principle.  It is the same principle.


The Mother: They linked themselves to the universal vital force which is in the sun and received this force which took away all that was unpleasant to them.  When one is in the countryside, when one walks under the trees and feels so close to Nature, to the trees, the sky, all the leaves, all the branches, all the herbs, when one feels a great friendship with these things and breathes that air which is so good, perfumed with all the plants, then one opens oneself, and  by opening oneself communes with the universal forces. And for all things it is like that.  Yes, I think so. I think one can always do the same thing in all cases.


The Mother: The sun is a very powerful symbol in the organisation of Nature. So it is not altogether the same thing; it possesses in itself an extraordinary condensation of energy. Cold seems to me a more negative thing: it is an absence of something. But in any case, if one knows how to enter the rhythm of the movements of Nature, one avoids many discomforts. What makes men suffer, what disturbs the balance of the body is a narrowness, it is always a narrowness.


The Mother: It happens because one is shut up in limits, and so there is, as Sri Aurobindo writes here, a force which presses too strongly for these limits — it upsets everything.  Well, the other day we had this question in connection with the subliminal. It is the same thing, you see.  The outer physical, what we see of the body, the appearance is, so to say, supported, upheld by a kind of inner existence and substance, which is expressed through the outer thing. You feel this clearly when something from outside hits you, and it is not pleasant; then when you draw back from that, you recoil from that contact with circumstances or things; well, the ﬁrst impression is of drawing back inside into your physical being itself, a physical being which is there, which presses, so to say, on the outer form in order to create a new form.


The Mother: This is what makes children grow up, it is a kind of inner thing which pushes, pushes for action, pushes for movement, pushes for progress. But it is physical, it is not a vital or mental consciousness, it is purely physical. It is something which pushes  from within towards manifestation and is concentrated and channelled in the manifestation. It is vaster and more imprecise within. It is what Sri Aurobindo calls “the inner physical”.


The Mother: It is more vague, more imprecise. One can dream there. For example, one dreams, one sees a room, one’s own room. Well, it is one’s own room but still there are little differences; it is not absolutely what one sees with his two eyes when he is completely awake.  It is a physical vision but with just a little shade of difference; compared with the most material there are slight changes.


The Mother: That’s all?  I don’t think that forces have a limit, because in comparison with us they are certainly unlimited. But it’s our capacity of reception that is limited. We cannot absorb them beyond a certain measure, and then we must keep a balance between the expenditure and the capacity to receive. If one spends suddenly in a kind of impulse — for example, in an impulsive movement — if one spends much more than one has received, one needs a brief moment of concentration, calm, receptivity to absorb universal forces.


The Mother: You must put yourself in a certain condition to receive them; and then, they last for a certain time, and once you have spent them you must begin again to receive them. It is in this sense that there are limits. It isn’t the forces that are limited, it is the receptivity.   Each person has a different receptivity.


The Mother: No two receptivities are the same in quality and quantity, but specially in quality.  One enters into contact with very pure, very intense forces — what could be already called converted forces, that is, universal vital forces which are in contact with the Divine and not only receive the Divine but aspire to receive Him. So if you absorb these forces it gives you a great strength for progress. It is in this that the quality is much more important. And for the quality of  the universal vital forces, it depends naturally a great deal on what one is, but also much on what one does.


The Mother: If one uses these forces for a purely selﬁsh action of a base kind, well, one makes it almost totally impossible for himself to receive any new ones of as ﬁne a quality. All depends on the utilisation of the forces one receives. If, on the other hand, you use them to make progress, to perfect yourself, it gives you... it increases your capacity of receiving enormously, and the next time you can have a lot more. All depends (in any case, principally) on the use made of them.


The Mother: There are people, for instance, who are short-tempered by nature and haven’t succeeded in controlling their anger. Well, if with an aspiration or by some method or other they have managed to receive some higher vital forces, instead of this calming their irritation or anger... because they have no self-control it increases their anger, that is, their irritability, their movement of violence is full of a greater force, a greater energy, and becomes much more violent. So it is well said that to be in contact with universal forces does not make one progress. But this is because they make a bad use of them. Yet naturally in the long run, this bad use diminishes the capacity of receiving; but it takes time, it is not immediate.


The Mother: So it is very important to put yourself in a good condition to receive the higher forces and not the lower ones, and secondly, when you have received them use them for the best thing possible, in order to prepare yourself to receive those which are of a higher quality.  But if you open yourself, receive the forces and afterwards, being satisﬁed with having received them you let yourself fall into all the ordinary movements, well, you close the door and the force no longer returns.  How can we increase the receptivity? By progressing.  One must ﬁrst know how to open himself and then, in a great quietude know how to assimilate the forces one has  received, not to throw them out again.


The Mother: One must know how to assimilate them.  So the progress lies in a normal but progressive equilibrium, periods of assimilation — reception, assimilation — and periods of expenditure, and knowing how to balance the two, and alternate them in a rhythm which is your personal one. You must not go beyond your capacity, you must not remain below it, because the universal vital forces are not something which you could put into a strong box. They must circulate. So you must know how to receive and at the same time to spend, but to increase the capacity of reception so as to have more and more of the things which are to be used up, to be spent.


The Mother: Besides, this is what happens, as I said, this is what happens quite naturally with children. They begin, make a certain effort, receive a certain force spontaneously, assimilate it and then after a few days, two days, ten days, twenty days they can spend more. After a year they can do much more, because quite naturally they alternate the reception and the expenditure, and they progress in their stature. They of course do it unconsciously, but when one is older it becomes more difﬁcult; one stops growing up, for example. So this means that there’s a certain period of expansion which has stopped.


The Mother: But it can be prolonged, then, with an inner discipline, a method one ﬁnds: it has to be one’s own method.    Who is going to ask questions today?  Well, Sri Aurobindo has written it later, hasn’t he? He says that only the descent of the supramental Force can make the body immune to every attack.


The Mother: He says that otherwise it is only momentary and that it doesn’t always work. He says that it can be practically immune but not absolutely so; and to be absolutely so, it is only by transforming the nature as it is into a supramental nature that one can make the body absolutely immune to all attacks.  What do you mean by stronger?  It has a greater power. Well, just because it is subconscient it is everywhere, everything seems steeped in the subconscient.


The Mother: And so, “subconscient” means half conscious: not conscious and not unconscious. It is just between the two; it is like that, half-way; so things slide down into it, one doesn’t know that they are there, and from there they act; and it is because one doesn’t know that they are there that they can remain there. There are many things  which one doesn’t wish to keep and drives out from the active consciousness, but they go down there, hide there, and because it is subconscious one doesn’t notice them; but they haven’t gone out completely, and when they have a chance to come up again, they come up. For example, there are bad habits of the body, in the sense that the body is in the habit of upsetting its balance — we call that falling ill, you know; but still, the functioning becomes defective through a bad habit. You manage by concentrating the Force and applying it on this defect, to make it disappear but it doesn’t disappear completely, it enters the subconscient.


The Mother: And then, when you are off your guard, when you stop paying attention properly and preventing it from showing itself, it rises up and comes out. You thought for months perhaps or even for years, you thought you were completely rid of a certain kind of illness which you suffered from, and you no longer paid any attention, and suddenly one day it returns as though it had never gone; it springs up again from the subconscient and unless one enters into this subconscient and changes things there, that is, unless one changes the subconscient into the conscient, it always happens like this. And the method is to change the subconscient into the conscient — if each thing that rises to the surface becomes conscious, at that moment it must be changed.  There is a more direct method still: it is to enter the subconscient in one’s full consciousness and work there, but this is difﬁcult.  Yet so long as this is not done, all the progress one has made — I mean physically, in one’s body — can always be undone.


The Mother: ( ) You are sleeping? Almost!


The Mother: No questions?... You? Nothing!   Ah!


The Mother: First of all, you must not want it and nothing in the body must want it. You must have a very strong will not to be ill. This is the ﬁrst condition.   The second condition is to call the light, a light of equilibrium, a light of peace, quietude and balance, and to push it into all the cells of the body, enjoining them not to be afraid, because that again is another condition.  First, not to want to be ill, and then not to be afraid of illness.


The Mother: You must neither attract it nor tremble. You must not want illness at all. But you must not because of fear not want it; you must not be afraid; you must have a calm certitude and a complete trust in the power of the Grace to shelter you from everything, and then think of something else, not be concerned about this any longer. When you have done these two things, refusing the illness with all your will and infusing a conﬁdence which completely eliminates the fear in the cells of the body, and then busying yourself with something else, not thinking any longer about the illness, forgetting that it exists... there, if you know how to do that, you may even be in contact with people who have contagious diseases, and yet you do not catch them.


The Mother: But you must know how to do this.  Many people say, “Oh, yes, here I am not afraid.” They don’t have any fear in the mind, their mind is not afraid, it is strong, it is not afraid; but the body trembles, and one doesn’t know it, because it is in the cells of the body that the trembling goes on. It trembles with a terrible anxiety and this is what attracts the illness. It is there that you must put the force and the quietude of a perfect peace and an absolute trust in the Grace.


The Mother: And then, sometimes you are obliged to drive away with a similar force in your thought all suggestions that after all, the physical world is full of illnesses, and these are contagious, and because one was in contact with somebody who is ill, one is sure to catch it, and then, that the inner methods are not powerful enough to act on the physical, and all kinds of stupidities of which the air is full. These are collective suggestions which are passed on from one person to another by everybody. And if by chance there are two or three doctors, then it becomes terrible.  ()   It is a kind of vibration made up of a mental suggestion, a vital force of disorder and certain physical elements which are the materialisation of the mental suggestion and the vital vibration.


The Mother: And these physical elements can be what we have agreed to call germs, microbes, this and that and many other things.  It may be accompanied by a sensation, may be accompanied by a taste, also by a smell, if one has very developed subtle senses.  There are these formations of illness which give a special taste to the air, a special smell or a slight special sensation.  People have many senses which are asleep. They are terribly tamasic.


The Mother: If all the senses they possess were awake, there are many things they would perceive, which can just pass by without anyone suspecting anything.  For example, many people have a certain kind of inﬂuenza at the moment. It is very wide-spread. Well, when it comes close, it has a special taste, a special smell, and it brings you a certain contact (naturally not like a blow), something a little more subtle, a certain contact, exactly as when you pass your hand over something, backwards over some material... You have never done that?


The Mother: The material has a grain, you know; when you pass your hand in the right direction or when you pass it like this (), well, it makes you... it is something that passes over your skin, like this, backwards. But naturally, I can tell you, it doesn’t come like a staggering blow. It is very subtle but very clear. So if you see that, you can very easily...


The Mother: Besides, there is always a way of isolating oneself by an atmosphere of protection, if one knows how to have an extremely quiet vibration, so quiet that it makes almost a kind of wall around you. But all the time, all the time one is vibrating in response to vibrations which come from outside. If you become aware of this, all the time there is something which does this (), like this, like this, like this (), which  responds to all the vibrations coming from outside. You are never in an absolutely quiet atmosphere which emanates from you, that is, which comes from inside outward (not something which comes from outside within), something which is like an envelope around you, very quiet, like this — and you can go anywhere at all and these vibrations which come from outside do not begin to do this () around your atmosphere.  If you could see that kind of dance, the dance of vibrations which is there around you all the time, you would see, would understand well what I mean.


The Mother: For example, in a game, when you play, it is like this ( ), and then it is like the vibrations of a point, it goes on increasing, increasing and increasing until suddenly, crash!... an accident. And it is a collective atmosphere like that; we come and see it, you are in the midst of a game — basketball or football or any other — we feel it, see it, it produces a kind of smoke around you (those vapours of heat which come at times, something like that), and then it takes on a vibration like that, like that, more and more, more and more, more and more until suddenly the equilibrium is broken: someone breaks his leg, falls down, is hit on the mouth by a ball, etc. And one can foretell beforehand that this is going to happen when it is like that. But nobody is aware of it.  Yet, even in less serious cases, each one of you individually has around him something which instead of being this very individual and very calm envelope which protects you from all that you don’t want to receive...


The Mother: I mean, your receptivity becomes deliberate and conscious, otherwise you do not receive;  and it is only when you have this conscious extremely calm atmosphere, and as I say, when it comes from within (it is not something that comes from outside), it is only when it’s like this that you can go with impunity into life, that is, among others and in all the circumstances of every minute...  Otherwise if there is something bad to be caught, for example, anger, fear, an illness, some uneasiness, you are sure to  catch it. As soon as it starts doing this (), it is as though you called all similar vibrations to come and get hold of you.  What is to be wondered at is the unconsciousness with which men go through life; they don’t know how to live, there’s not one in a million who knows how to live, and they live like that somehow or other, limping along, managing, not managing; and all that for them, bah!


The Mother: What is it? Things that happen.   They don’t know how to live. All the same one should learn how to live.


The Mother: That’s the ﬁrst thing one ought to teach children: to learn how to live. I have tried but I don’t know if I have succeeded very much. I have told you all these things very often, I think, haven’t I? Haven’t I?  That’s all?


The Mother: Still another question?  The last part speaks of the Supermind, doesn’t it?  Ah, yes, you mean you did not understand the difference between yogic forces and the supramental nature. But Sri Aurobindo explains it.  In the outer consciousness, mental and physical — corporal — in order to get a result like the one we were speaking about just now (for example, to have a protective personal atmosphere which can keep you safe from any undesirable contact), you must have the yogic force, that is, the force given by the practice of yoga; whereas if your body were supramentalised, if it had the supramental nature instead of the ordinary physical nature, there would be no need of the intervention of any yogic knowledge or any yogic force to protect you, because you would be quite  naturally protected by the very fact of this supramental nature.


The Mother: That’s what Sri Aurobindo says.  But the supramental nature in the body is something yet to be realised. In the physical consciousness it is possible but in the body, not yet.  Besides, Sri Aurobindo has told us that it would take three hundred years, so we have time to wait. We must only learn to wait, learn to last it out.


The Mother: That’s all?   Ah! But that’s not something to be done, my children. I shall certainly not give you the method!


The Mother: It is a perversion.  The ﬁrst thing and the most indispensable is to nullify the pain by cutting the connection. You see, one becomes conscious of the pain because it is there.   For example, you have cut your ﬁnger, there’s a nerve that has been affected, and so the nerve quickly goes to tell the brain, up there, that something has happened which is wrong, here.


The Mother: That is what gives you the pain to awaken your attention, to tell you: “You know, there’s something wrong.” Then the thought immediately feels anxious: “What is wrong? Oh! How it hurts”, etc., etc. — then returns to the ﬁnger and tries to arrange what is not yet destroyed. Usually one puts a small bandage. But in order not to have the pain, if it hurts very much, you must quite simply cut the connection by thought, saying to the nerve, “Now remain quiet, you have done your work, you have warned me, you don’t need to say anything any longer; ploff!


The Mother: I am stopping you.” And when you do it well, you suffer no longer, it is ﬁnished, you stop the pain completely. That is the best thing. It is inﬁnitely preferable to telling yourself that it is painful.  I knew someone who had...


The Mother: I don’t know if you have ever had an ingrowing nail — an ingrowing nail means a nail which  enters the skin, it hurts very much when it is in the foot; it grows into the skin; so naturally, especially if one wears tight shoes, it hurts very much. Well, I knew a boy who started pressing his nail, like this (), with the idea that pain is simply an incapacity to bear certain intensities of vibrations, you see; so he went beyond the measure, and in fact he pressed, it hurt abominably at ﬁrst, he pressed until his hurt was changed into a kind of pleasure, and this succeeded very well.  If you have some pain, and you give yourself much more pain still, then ﬁnally there’s a moment when you either faint away (people who are a little weak and not very enduring faint) or else it changes into pleasure; but this is not recommendable.  I am just telling you that it can be done. I saw a boy — he was twelve — who was doing that, and he was doing it very deliberately, very consciously.


The Mother: He had never heard of yoga but he had found it out all by himself. But this is not recommendable because his toe became worse. This didn’t make it better at all.  But my own method which consists in saying to the nerve, “Now you have done your job, keep quiet, you don’t need to tell me anything more”, is much better. One cuts it and then it’s over.


The Mother: When one has a very bad toothache (I don’t know if you have a toothache sometimes or not; a toothache hurts terribly because the nerve is quite, quite close to the brain, so it doesn’t lose its intensity on the way, it is very direct and hurts very much), the best way — in fact there’s no other — the best way is to cut it: “It is good, you have done your work, you told me that something was wrong there, that’s enough, don’t move now.”  And one cuts, cuts it like this (), cuts the connection, it doesn’t transmit again. Naturally you must think of something else. If afterwards you start saying, “Do I still have the pain?...”


The Mother: ()   Yes, but everything, everything is a degradation. He has said, pleasure also. Pleasure and pain are equally a degradation of Ananda. Besides, the capacity for balance of the human physical consciousness is very small.


The Mother: If you have a pleasure which you push a little too far, whatever it may be, it immediately becomes a pain — whatever it may be. And there is always a place where one no longer knows whether it is a pleasure or a pain, it can as well be this or that. But wait a bit, eat something that’s too sweet and you will see the effect. At ﬁrst you say that it’s very good, then suddenly it becomes something which... oh!


The Mother: it is almost unbearable. For everything it is like that, for everything. They are very close relations, you see.  That’s all? You still have something to ask?


The Mother: Yes, not only in the Ashram. Unfortunately, ﬁrst it comes in the town and then someone very kindly... people who spend their time frequenting the town, you see, bring it along here, and then here people are like Panurge’s sheep, when there’s one who has caught it, it is considered smart, it is an elegance, everybody catches it.  ()


The Mother: What did you want to ask?  Why? There! I have answered you.  Spirit of imitation!


The Mother: Panurge’s sheep!  Do you know what Panurge’s sheep are? You don’t? Oh! It is...


The Mother: I think the ﬁrst story... I don’t know if he took it from old traditions, it is possible, but still... you have heard of Rabelais?   Yes? Well, it was told in France by Rabelais in a book — it is... ()


The Mother: Perhaps Nolini knows!  (Nolini)  “Pantagruel”! Well, I know nothing about it. It is one of the famous books of Rabelais... which I haven’t read, besides...


The Mother: but he tells the story of a ﬂock of sheep which were transported on a boat and then... I don’t know whether it did so deliberately or it happened by chance, I don’t remember this now because I have read the story as told by several different persons... I mean, there are even old Hindu traditions like this, I think, there are Persian stories like this, there are Arab stories like this; so I don’t exactly know what Rabelais has said; however, the story goes like this: For some reason or other one of the sheep falls from the boat into the sea, and all the rest follow one after another ().  Because one has gone over, all rush headlong into the water. So it has become famous.


The Mother: They are called Panurge’s sheep.  But there is only one way, it is to do as I said, it is the individual atmosphere, calm, luminous, quiet... Then one no longer becomes the sheep of Panurge.  There we are, my children. That’s all?


The Mother: Now, no questions! I have nothing to add. I have said everything.  You wanted to ask something?


The Mother: Yes, because it is difﬁcult to separate them. I didn’t mean that it is a problem that women have to solve; I meant that it is the problem which life on earth has posed because of women.  Men, until not very long ago, were perfectly satisﬁed with themselves and what they had done. It is a little more than a century ago that women began to protest. Before, they seemed to say nothing or in any case they had no opportunity to say something.


The Mother: However, quite recently — it is not so long ago — women began to say, “Excuse us, but we indeed are not satisﬁed.” Formerly, if ever they dared to say such a thing, probably they received a knock and were told, “Keep quiet, it’s no business of yours.” Yet things went on in spite of everything, and it was at the end of the century that there began a public protest of women against the way men treated them; because all the laws made by men were to man’s advantage, and all the social organisations made by men were to man’s advantage, and woman always had a lower position and sometimes an absolutely detestable one. In certain countries it is still like that...  However, till then, if they had protested it must have been either individually or in a rather hidden fashion, because it did  not become a public question.


The Mother: But at the end of the last century there was a movement called feminism and women began to protest violently against things as they were, saying, “Excuse us, we ﬁnd that you have failed in all your affairs, and you have not managed anything well. All that you have done seems absolutely bad. You have not succeeded in doing anything, except in ﬁghting among yourselves, killing one another and making life unbearable for everybody. We are beginning to say that we have something to say, and we mean that this won’t do and that it must improve.” That is how it began.


The Mother: Then, you see, protestations, ﬁghts, mockery... They tried to stiﬂe them with ridicule. But it was the men who made fools of themselves, it was not the women (), and ﬁnally, they gained one thing: they can now put in their word in the affairs of State.  It began... it was a frightful scandal but now it is a recognised fact, and we even ﬁnd that in certain countries, slightly less backward than others, women are admitted in the government.


The Mother: And I must say that, as far as I know, the ﬁrst country where this happened was Sweden. I knew it at the beginning of this century. It was then that it happened. Women were admitted into Parliament in Sweden, and in the government, and the ﬁrst thing they did, that they managed to do, was to abolish drunkenness.


The Mother: Drunkenness, you don’t know what drunkenness is? Drunkenness means to drink alcohol, and it is something very widespread, unfortunately, over the whole earth, and it is men who drink, usually. Among the working classes, as soon as they have received their pay they go and drink away more than half of it, and when the wife goes to ask them for money to get food for them, she gets a beating. That’s how things usually occur. And the Swedish Government had tried for a very long time, because these people were quite reasonable and found that it was one of the things which most harmed social peace; but they had never  succeeded.


The Mother: But it seems that within something like two or three years of government, women succeeded in doing it. And it was ﬁnished, one heard no more about it. How they did it I don’t remember now. Someone had told me then. Naturally, not by prohibition, because wherever that has been tried, it has never succeeded.


The Mother: But they succeeded. It is there. Now it is there. It took more than half a century to spread. Now there are many countries in which women are in the Government.


The Mother: ( ) Are there any in France? Are there women members of Parliament?  (Pavitra)  There are?


The Mother: (Pavitra)  No. Secretary of State, not minister. There were some, they have tried.  (Pavitra)


The Mother: No, not that, but Secretary of State; there was one. In fact I say this because France was one of the most backward countries, and it is still so. And this is something very interesting: it is perhaps the country which had the most advanced ideas from the political point of view; it is from France that the ideas of Equality, Fraternity and Liberty have come; it is there that this has taken birth and from there it has spread over the world, but from the point of view of the relations between man and woman, it was certainly the most backward of all. There are psychological reasons for this, but I don’t want to speak about them here. There, then!


The Mother: Yes, there is no pure type.  Because they don’t know themselves. They don’t know themselves and then they are the slaves of their form. Because when they look at themselves in a mirror they see that they are men, and the women see that they are women — and they are slaves of the physical form. It is only because of that.


The Mother: But moreover, I have often met men who were extremely feminine from certain points of view, but not in a very pleasant way, and it was they who asserted most their masculine rights and had most the sense of their superiority. Besides, I have also met, especially at the beginning of the feminist movement... all the women who wanted to take part in feminism used to wear false collars, cravats, vests, they cut their hair, they looked... they tried to look as masculine as they could. But they were deplorably feminine,!


The Mother: ( ) They wanted to please, wanted to attract attention; and if by ill-luck a man treated them like men, they were extremely angry. ( )


The Mother: For this — much time is needed to be transformed.   And then?  Yes.  No.


The Mother: But I have never said that it was purely human. I said that it was the formulation which was human. I haven’t said that it was purely human; nowhere have I said that it was purely human.  One could say that this explanation is a little too human but I don’t mean that she is purely human.  Beyond the manifestation there is no differentiation, that is, there are not, there is only.


The Mother: It was at the moment of creation that it became two. But before that it was one, and there was no difference; as it was one, it was only one. There were countless possibilities, but it was one, in fact it was one, and it was only in the creation that it became two. The differentiation is not something eternal and co-existent. It is for the creation, and in fact for the creation of this world only.


The Mother: There were perhaps many worlds created in an absolutely different way from this our universe. Not only were they there, but perhaps at this moment there are countless universes with which we have no contact and of which therefore we are totally ignorant and which may exist.  I am telling you it is possible. ( )


The Mother: We can say nothing about it. We know nothing about it. All that we know, if we know it at all, is our own universe, that’s all. But there is no reason why there could not be others — one can’t say, “There aren’t any others”, one knows nothing about it — where all things are absolutely different, perhaps so different that we have no relation. What I say at the end is this, isn’t it?


The Mother: I say at the end that... There will be a new creation, the supramental creation.  Well, there’s no reason why this creation may not have... may not take a different form from the one which has been here up till now. And as for me, what I say there is that this is the only solution to the problem, that instead of there being this division,  it may be a creation, a being which will be... which will unite “conception and execution, vision and creation in one single consciousness and action” — because that’s what has produced the differentiation, the fact that there was the conception and then the execution of this conception, the vision of what had to be and the creation of this vision, that is, the objective realisation of this vision; well, there is no reason why it should be divided; the two things can be done by the same being and therefore there should be only one single being.  Instead of there being two lines, one masculine and one feminine, there should be one single being, and that’s what I conceive as the solution of all problems — all problems, not only this one — and as the prototype of the supramental creation.


The Mother: But Sri Aurobindo has said that the Supreme Mother is the mother of Brahma. She is the Mother of all the gods.   No, no! Why should they be human formations?


The Mother: I have never said that they were of human formation. The gods and goddesses of the Overmind are gods and goddesses differentiated in their form. It is not man who has created the gods of the Overmind, the gods of the Overmind come of a direct creation. I don’t know if they preceded men, but I think so. I think terrestrial creation, the terrestrial formation was made by the godheads of the Overmind, and that in fact there are many godheads of the Overmind who were fashioners upon earth, not incarnated upon earth but fashioners of what occurred upon earth, who gave the ideas, the forms.


The Mother: Sri Aurobindo always used to say that  what was formerly called “god” was a being of the Overmind, that the supreme godhead was a being of the Overmind.   Ah! This, my child, you may ask them; but if we are to believe the stories we have been told, between them there are disputes and difﬁculties and quarrels and all kinds of things, things like that and even jealousies. There are times when they are not much wiser than men.