The Mother: Yesterday or the day before, throughout the day, from morning till night, something was saying, “I am — I am or I have the consciousness of the dead on earth.” I am translating it into words, but it was as if I was being told, “This is what the consciousness of a dead person is like, relative to the earth and physical things... I am a dead person living on earth.” According to the position of the consciousness — for the consciousness is always changing its position — according to the position of the consciousness, it was, “This is how dead people are, relative to  the earth”; then, “I am absolutely like a dead person relative to the earth”; then, “I am living as a dead person lives in the consciousness of the earth”; then, “I am exactly like a dead person living on earth...” and so on. I went on behaving, speaking, acting as usual.


The Mother: But it has been like this for a long time.  For a long time, for more than two years, I have been seeing the world like this () and now I see it like this (). I do not know how to explain this because there is nothing mentalised about it, and non-mentalised sensations have something hazy about them which is hard to deﬁne. But the words and the thought were a certain distance away (), like something that watches and evaluates, that is to say, which says what it sees — something that is all around. And today, two or three times, it was extremely strong — I mean that this state dominated the whole consciousness — a kind of impression or sensation or perception — but it is none of these: I am a dead person living on earth.


The Mother: How to explain that?  And so, for example, with regard to sight, there is no objective precision ( ). I see through and by the consciousness. As regards hearing, I hear in a very different way; there is a kind of “discrimination” — it is not “discernment” — something in the perception which chooses, something which decides — decides, but not automatically — what is heard and what is not heard, what is perceived and what is not perceived. It already exists with sight but it is even stronger with hearing: for some things one can only hear a continuous hum and others are crystal-clear; others are vague, scarcely audible.


The Mother: With sight it is the same thing: everything is behind a luminous mist, as it were — very luminous, but still a mist, that is to say, there is no precision — and then, suddenly, there is something absolutely precise and clear, an extraordinarily precise vision of detail. Usually, the vision is the expression of the consciousness in things. That is to say, everything seems  more and more subjective, less and less objective.... And they are not visions that impose themselves on the sight or sounds that impose themselves on the hearing; there is a kind of movement of consciousness which makes some things perceptible and others a kind of very vague background.  There is nothing personal — nothing personal.


The Mother: Of course there is a feeling of choice and decision, but there is no feeling of personal choice and decision. Besides, the “personal” becomes little more than the need to introduce this (). For example, eating is very queer, very queer.... It is as if someone were looking on at a body — which is not even something very precise and very deﬁnite, but a kind of conglomeration that holds together — and were looking on... at something that is happening! No, it is really a queer state.


The Mother: Today, it was very strong, it dominated the whole consciousness. And there are even moments when one has the feeling that the slightest thing would make you lose the contact ( ) and it is only when one keeps very still and very indifferent — indifferent — that it can continue.  These experiences are always preceded by a kind of very intimate and very inward closeness to the Supreme Presence, with a kind of suggestion: “Are you ready for anything?” Naturally I reply, “Anything.” And the Presence becomes so marvellously intense that there is a kind of thirst in the whole being: that it should be like that constantly.


The Mother: Only That exists, only That has any reason to exist. And in the midst of it comes the suggestion: “Are you ready for anything?”  I am speaking of the body, not of the inner beings, but of the body.  And the body always says yes. It does this ( ): no choice, no preference, not even aspiration, a total,  total surrender.


The Mother: And then things like this come to me; all day yesterday, it was: “A dead person living on earth.” With the perception — not yet very marked, but quite clear — of the very great difference between this way of living and that of other people — all of them. It is not yet clear-cut or distinct or very precise, but it is very clear. It is very clear, very perceptible. It is another way of living.


The Mother: It can only be a transition. It is a transitional state.  From the point of view of consciousness, it is a tremendous gain! Because every bondage, every attachment to outer things, all that is ﬁnished, it has fallen away completely — fallen away completely: an absolute freedom. That is to say, only That — the Supreme Master — is master.


The Mother: From this point of view, it can only be a gain. It is such a radical realisation.... This seems to be an absolute of freedom, something that is considered to be impossible to realise while leading an ordinary life on earth.  This corresponds to the experience of absolute freedom one has in the higher parts of the being when one is no longer at all dependent on the body. But what is remarkable — I insist strongly on this — is that the consciousness has these experiences and it is a body which is still visibly here!


The Mother: Obviously, there is nothing left of what gives “conﬁdence in life” to human beings. Apparently there is no longer any support from the outer world, there is nothing but... the supreme Will.  To translate this into plain words, well, the body has the feeling that it lives only because the supreme Lord wants it to live, otherwise it could not live.   But that does not abolish it!  That is a purely human and superﬁcial perception.


The Mother: I don’t at all feel that I have lost anything, on the contrary! I feel it is a much higher state than the one I had before.  What the Lord wants is done — that is all; that is the beginning and the end of it.  If He told me... Whatever He wants the body to do, it can do it; it no longer depends on physical laws.


The Mother: Beyond all question.   Oh! Perfectly.


The Mother: There are moments when the sight is more precise than it has ever been. But it is ﬂeeting, it comes and goes; because, probably, it is only like an assurance of what is to come.  But for example, the perception of the inner reality of people — not what they think they are or what they pretend to be or what they seem to be: all that disappears — but the perception of their inner reality is inﬁnitely more precise than before. I see a photograph, for example; it is no longer a matter of seeing  “through” something: I see almost nothing but what the person . The “through” diminishes to such an extent that sometimes it does not exist at all.


The Mother: Naturally, if a human will wanted to act on this body, if a human will said, “Mother must do this or Mother must do that, or she should be able to do this, she should be able to do that...”  it would be completely disappointed; it would say, “She is no longer good for anything”, because the body would not obey it any more.... And human beings constantly exert their will on one another, or the human being himself receives suggestions and manifests them as his own will, without noticing that all that is the outer Falsehood.  ()  There is a kind of certainty in the body that if even for a few seconds I were to lose contact — “I” means the body — with the Supreme, it would instantly die.


The Mother: Only the Supreme keeps it alive. That’s how it is. So, naturally, for the ignorant and stupid consciousness of human beings this is a pitiful condition — to me it is the true condition! Because for them, instinctively, spontaneously, in an absolute way, so to say, the sign of perfection is the power of life, ordinary life.... Well, that no longer exists at all — it has completely gone.


The Mother: Yes, many times, several times, the body has asked the question, “Why do I not feel Thy Power and Thy Force in me?”  And the reply has always been a smiling one — one puts it into words, but it is without words — the reply is always: “Patience, patience, for that to happen you must be.”   This is the experience I have had these last few days, yesterday or the day before. The feeling of an irresistible Power governing everything: the world, things, people, everything, without needing to move materially, and that this excessive material activity is only like the foam that forms when water ﬂows very fast — the foam on the surface; but that the Force runs on underneath like an all-powerful stream.  There is nothing else to say.


The Mother: One always comes back to that: to know is all right, to speak is good, to do is all very well, but to is the only thing which has any power.   You see, people are restless, because things do not move quickly; so I had this vision of the formation, of the divine creation in the making, under the surface, all-powerful, irresistible, and in spite of everything, of all this outer turmoil.  A brain.  Each time I have been conscious of the Power, the experience has been similar. The Will from above is translated into a vibration which certainly takes on some vital force but which acts in a subtle physical domain.


The Mother: One perceives a certain quality of vibration which is difﬁcult to describe, but which gives the impression of something coagulated, not fragmented, something which seems to be denser than air, but which is extremely homogeneous, with a golden luminosity, with a tremendous driving power, and which expresses a certain will — which is not of the same nature as human will, which has the nature of vision rather than of thought; it is like a vision that imposes itself in order to be realised — in a domain that is very close to material Matter, but invisible, except to the inner sight.  And that vibration exerts a pressure on people, things, circumstances, to mould them according to its vision. And it is irresistible. Even people who think the opposite, who want the opposite, do what is wanted without wanting to; even the  things that by their very nature are opposed to it are turned around.  For national events, relations among nations, world circumstances, it acts like that, constantly, constantly, as a tremendous Power.


The Mother: And so if one is oneself in a state of union with the divine Will, without any intervention of thought, or any conception or idea, one can follow it, one sees and knows.  The resistances of the inertia that is in every consciousness and in Matter mean that this Action, instead of being direct and perfectly harmonious, becomes confused, full of contradictions, clashes and conﬂicts; instead of everything resolving itself “normally”, so to say, smoothly — as it should be — all this inertia that resists and opposes, gives it a tangled movement in which things collide and there is disorder and destruction, which become necessary only because of the resistance, but which were , which might not have existed — which truly speaking should not have been — because this Will, this Power is a Power of perfect harmony where each thing is in its place,  and it organises things wonderfully. It comes as an absolutely luminous and perfect organisation, which one can see when one has the vision; but when it comes down and presses on Matter, everything begins to seethe and resist. Therefore, to attempt to impute the disorders and confusions and destructions to the divine Action, to the divine Power, is another human foolishness.


The Mother: It is the inertia — not to mention the bad will — which the catastrophe. It is not that the catastrophe was intended, nor even foreseen, it is by the resistance.   And then, there is added the vision of the action of Grace, which comes to moderate the results wherever possible, that is to say, wherever it is accepted. And this explains why aspiration, faith, complete trust on the part of the earthly human element, have a harmonising power, because they allow the Grace to come and set right the consequences of this blind resistance.  This is a clear vision — clear, clear, even in the details.


The Mother: One could, if one wanted to, make prophecies by saying what has been seen. But there is a kind of super-compassion which prevents this prophecy, because the Word of Truth has a power of manifestation and to express the result of the resistance would make that state concrete and diminish the action of the Grace. That is why even when one sees, one cannot speak, one .  But Sri Aurobindo certainly meant that it is this Power, this Force which does everything — which does everything. When one sees it or is one with it, one knows at the same time, one knows that is really the only thing that acts and creates; everything else is the result of the domain or the world or the material or the substance in which it acts — the result of the resistance, but not the Action.


The Mother: And to unite with means to unite with the Action; to unite with what is below means to unite with the resistance.  And so because it wriggles and tosses and turns, wants and thinks and makes plans... it imagines that it is doing something — it is resisting.   Later, a little later, I shall be able to give examples for very small things, showing how the Force acts and what interferes and mixes with it, or is moved by this Force and distorts its movement, and the result, that is to say, the physical appearance as we see it.


The Mother: Even the example of a very small thing with absolutely no importance for the world, gives a clear idea of the way in which everything happens and is distorted here.  And this applies to everything, everything, all the time, all the time. And so, when one is doing the yoga of the cells, one  notices the same thing: there is the Force that acts, and then () what the body does with this Action!...  ()  Immediately there comes the how and why.


The Mother: But that belongs to the domain of mental curiosity, because the important thing is to stop the resistance. That is the important thing, to stop the resistance so that the universe can become what it should be: the expression of a harmonious, luminous, wonderful power, of an unparalleled beauty. Afterwards, when the resistance has stopped, if out of curiosity we want to know why it happened... it won’t matter any more. But now, one cannot ﬁnd the remedy by seeking the reason why, but by taking the true attitude. That is the only thing that matters.


The Mother: To stop the resistance by a total surrender, a total self-giving in every cell, if one can do that.  They begin to feel the intense delight of existing only by the Lord, for the Lord, in the Lord.  When this is established everywhere, all will be well.   ()  I was trying to ﬁnd out in what way opinions are serviceable....


The Mother: Sri Aurobindo says that they are “serviceable” or “unserviceable” — in what way can an opinion be serviceable?   No, this is precisely what I deplore; people act according to their opinion, and that is worthless. I am constantly receiving letters from people who want or do not want to do something and tell me: “This is my opinion, this is true, that is not true”, and always, more than ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is wrong, it is nonsense.  One feels very clearly — in fact, it is visible — that the opposite opinion has just as much value, that it is simply a question of attitude, nothing more.


The Mother: And naturally the ego’s preferences are always involved: you like it better like that and so you have the opinion that it is like that.  It would be better to have some wisdom rather than an opinion, that is, to consider all the possibilities, all the aspects of the question and then try to be as unegoistic as possible and to see, for example, in the case of an action, which one can be of service to the greatest number of people or is the least destructive, the most constructive. Anyway, even from a standpoint that is not spiritual, but merely utilitarian and unselﬁsh, it is better to act according to wisdom than according to one’s opinion.   I think it is to consider all the aspects of the problem, to lay them before your consciousness as disinterestedly as possible and to see which one is the best — if this is possible — or which one is the least harmful if there are unpleasant consequences.  Ah, that’s just it, to intervene you must be sure that you are right; you must be sure that your vision of things is superior, preferable or truer than the vision of the other person or people.


The Mother: Then it is always wiser not to intervene — people intervene without rhyme or reason, simply because they are in the habit of giving their opinion to others.  Even when you have the vision of the true thing, it is  wise to intervene. It only becomes indispensable when someone wants to do something which will necessarily lead to a catastrophe. Even then, intervention () is not always very effective.  In fact, intervention is justiﬁed only when you are absolutely sure that you have the vision of truth.


The Mother: Not only that, but also a clear vision of the consequences. To intervene in someone else’s actions, one must be a prophet — a prophet. And a prophet with total goodness and compassion. One must even have the vision of the consequences that the intervention will have in the destiny of the other person. People are always giving each other advice: “Do this, don’t do that.”


The Mother: I see it: they have no idea how much confusion they create, how they increase confusion and disorder. And sometimes they impair the normal development of the individual.   I consider that opinions are always dangerous and most often absolutely worthless.  You should not meddle with other people’s affairs, unless ﬁrst of all you are inﬁnitely wiser than they are — of course, one always thinks that one is wiser! — but I mean in an objective way and not according to your own opinion; unless you see further and better and are yourself above all passions, desires and blind reactions. You must be above all these things yourself to have the right to intervene in someone else’s life — even when he asks you to do so.


The Mother: And when he does not, it is simply meddling with something which is not your business.  ( .)  I have just seen a curious image! It looked like a very steep mountain slope and someone — like the symbol of Man — was  climbing.


The Mother: A being... It’s strange, I have seen this several times: beings without clothes who are not naked! I mean, they have a kind of robe of light. But it does not look like a radiating light or anything of that kind. It is like an atmosphere, or rather the aura, the aura made visible.


The Mother: And this transparence does not conceal the form and at the same time the form is not naked.... And then from the sky — there was a vast sky stretching from top to bottom, like a painting, a very clear, very luminous, very pure sky — there were countless... hundreds of birdlike things ﬂying towards him and he was beckoning them to him. The picture was mainly pale blue, white; from time to time there was something a little darker like a wing-tip or the top of a crest, but that was incidental. And they kept coming in hundreds and he summoned them together with a gesture, then he sent them down to earth — he was standing on a steep slope — he sent them down, into the valley. And there, they became...


The Mother: () they were opinions! They became opinions! There were dark ones, light ones, brown ones, blue ones....   They were like birds ﬂying down towards earth, like that.  But it was a picture — and yet it was not a picture, because it was moving.


The Mother: It was very amusing.  And he said: “Look, that is how opinions are formed”....  They came from the sky, a vast sky — vast and luminous and clear, neither blue nor white nor pink nor... it was luminous, simply luminous; and from this sky, it was... I said they came in hundreds, but they came in thousands, and he was there, he received them, and then he gestured with his hands and sent them down to earth, and...


The Mother: they became opinions! I think I began to laugh, it amused me.  It is strange.  They were all going down, going down — one could not see the bottom — they were going down.  So then it may be that opinions come from a sky of light!


The Mother: ( )  In truth, images are much more expressive than words.      There is no law of Nature that cannot be overcome and changed, if we have the faith that all is ruled by the Lord and that it is possible for us to come into direct contact with Him, if we know how to escape from the prison-house of age-old habits and give ourselves unreservedly to His will.  In truth, nothing is ﬁxed, everything is in perpetual change; and this ascending transformation will lead this inconscient and mortal creation back step by step to the eternal and all-powerful consciousness of the Lord.


The Mother: The laws of Nature are imperative for the physical nature only so long as this nature is not under the inﬂuence of the psychic being (the soul); for the psychic being is in possession of the  divine power which can, for its own ends, use all processes and formulas and transform them at will.  The nature which exceeds the body is the nature which goes on living even after the disappearance of the body; it is the psychic nature which is immortal and divine in essence. The psychic can and must become conscious of the Divine at its centre and consciously unite with Him.  In each domain (physical, vital and mental) everything is foreseen; but the intrusion of a higher domain (overmental and  beyond) introduces another determinism into events and can change the course of things. This is what aspiration can achieve.


The Mother: As for human effort, it is one of the things that are determined and its role is foreseen in the overall play of forces.  For one who has fully realised that the world is nothing but the One Supreme in His manifestation, all human moral notions necessarily disappear to give way to a vision of the whole in which all values are changed — oh, how greatly changed!   To understand rightly what Sri Aurobindo truly means, one must know the wonderful sense of humour in his way of thinking.  What Sri Aurobindo writes here is a paradox to awaken sluggish minds.


The Mother: But one must understand all the irony these phrases contain and above all the intention he puts behind the words.  Besides, cowardly or not, I see no need for us to worship the gods, great or small. Our worship must go to the Supreme Lord alone, one in all things and beings.   One has only to attempt the experience and to persevere in one’s effort, then one will ﬁnd that what is stated here is perfectly true.


The Mother: It is obvious that the same event or the same contact causes pleasure in one and pain in another, depending on the inner attitude taken by each one.  And this observation leads towards a great realisation; for once one has not only understood but also felt that the Supreme Lord is the originator of all things and one remains constantly in contact with Him, all becomes the action of His Grace and is changed into calm and luminous bliss.   Human beings are in the habit of basing their relationships with others on physical, vital and mental contacts; that is why there is almost always discord and suffering. If, on the contrary, they based their relationships on psychic contacts (between soul and soul), they would ﬁnd that behind the troubled appearances there is a profound and lasting harmony which can express itself in all the activities of life and cause disorder and suffering to be replaced by peace and bliss.


The Mother: The superman is now in the making and a new consciousness has very recently manifested on earth to bring this process to perfection.  But it is unlikely that any human being has yet arrived at this fulﬁlment, especially since it must be accompanied by a transformation of the physical body, and this has not yet been accomplished.  This naturally implies that all the ambitious people who now declare themselves to be supermen can only be impostors or people  full of pride who deceive themselves and try to deceive others.  To be the slave of all mankind means to be ready to serve mankind; and to make oneself as the cow of plenty means to be able to pour forth abundantly all the force, the light, the power that mankind needs in order to emerge from its ignorance and incapacity; for if this were not so, a superhuman being would be a burden rather than a help to earth.  These are the qualities needed for the growth of the being until its divinisation; it is also a reminder that no transformation can be complete without the ascent of humanity.


The Mother: It all depends on the way in which photography is used. Its natural purpose and common use is documentary; the more exact and precise it is, the more useful it is.  But undeniably, there are artists who use photography as a medium of expression. But then what they do is no longer an exact copy of Nature, it is an arrangement of forms and colours intended to express something else which is usually hidden by physical appearances.   The eternal symbol is the secret soul of Nature and it is the Truth of this soul that the poet and the artist must seek and express.


The Mother: Everything that happens, happens by the will of the Supreme Lord in order to lead the whole creation to the knowledge of the Supreme.  But by far the greatest part of this action works by contrast and negation. This is how religions work for most so-called believers, who follow their religion with no faith and even less experience.   Scientists, who are mostly materialists, use the same procedures to refute occult and spiritual knowledge as ignorant imbeciles use to refute science.  What is clear proof to a man of goodwill is imposture to one who refuses to learn.


The Mother: One cannot and it would not be good.   Sri Aurobindo does not mention here the consciousness that is higher than either of the two consciousnesses in question (material and immaterial), that is, the supramental consciousness which contains all the other consciousnesses in itself and can thus know everything on all planes of being. This is the consciousness we should aspire for, this is the consciousness which can teach us the total Truth.  Sri Aurobindo seems to be referring here to a school of philosophy which holds that the Idea has created the worlds.


The Mother: Naturally, this is wrong.  Idealists who refuse to be the slaves of Matter need not be proponents of this philosophy and can, by their idealism, help  men to be no more the slaves of material desires.  This question will be easier to answer when the supermind is manifested in living beings on earth.  I had always heard that Sri Aurobindo was “the last Avatar”; but he is probably the last Avatar in a human body — afterwards, we do not know....


The Mother: One who truly follows the path given by Sri Aurobindo, as soon as he begins to have the experience of this path, will ﬁnd it impossible to conﬁne his consciousness to the worship of any god or goddess or even of all of them together.  If intellectual culture is carried to its furthest limit, it leads the mind to the unsatisfactory acknowledgement that it is incapable of knowing the Truth and, in those who aspire sincerely, to the necessity of being quiet and opening in silence to the higher regions which can give you knowledge.   I would like to see the English to know which tense Sri Aurobindo used for the verb — whether it is present or future?  If it is in the future, it is a promise we all know and for whose realisation we are working. If it is in the present...


The Mother: I have nothing to add.  I suppose that Sri Aurobindo is referring to the various disciplines of initiation practised in the various initiatory schools in the days when they had some importance and authority.  Our age has become very materialistic and no longer gives  the same importance and authority to these schools.  True liberty is to be in constant union with the Divine and to do only what the Divine wants us to do.  But until then, it is better to impose on ourselves a higher law of action and conduct and to observe it scrupulously rather than to obey the law of other men or of moral and social conventions.


The Mother: It is obvious that if you have chosen or accepted to live in a community, you must observe the laws of that community, otherwise you become an element of disorder and confusion.  But a discipline willingly accepted cannot be harmful to the inner development and the growth of the higher consciousness.   As Sri Aurobindo says, the law of sin and virtue was certainly necessary for the progress of humanity when it was given several thousand years ago. But today it no longer has any meaning or usefulness and should no longer be heeded.  It belongs to a past which should no longer have any authority.


The Mother: But for this to be possible, it must be replaced by a more luminous and truer law and not by disorder and corruption.  Perfect and spontaneous obedience to the divine order that must replace all law.  What has value at one period no longer has any at another as human consciousness goes on progressing. But one must take great care to replace a law one no longer obeys by a higher and truer law that fosters progress towards the future realisation.   One has no right to abandon a law until one is capable of knowing and following a higher and better law.


The Mother: P.S. Read again what I wrote yesterday, I had already explained this to you.  At every moment, do what God wants.


The Mother: The goal foreseen by the Divine is always attained, but only those whose consciousness is united with the Divine Consciousness attain it directly and knowingly ; the others — the vast majority of those who are conscious only of their external being — attain this goal only after having made many detours, which often seemed to be going in the opposite direction.   The sword of God is the power that nothing can resist.  Love alone as preached by Christ failed to transform man. Force alone as preached by Mahomed did not transform man, far from it.


The Mother: That is why the consciousness which is at work to transform mankind, unites Force with Love, and the One who must realise this transformation will come on earth with the Power of Divine Love.   This is irrefutably clear and it is exactly what we are trying to do. But human nature is rebellious and ﬁnds it difﬁcult to win freedom at the price of renouncing desire and ignorance and egoism.  Most human beings prefer the slavery of desire and ignorance and egoism to freedom without them.  To the human way of understanding, the world is terribly immoral, full of suffering and ugliness, especially since the appearance of the human race.


The Mother: So it is difﬁcult for the human consciousness to accept that this world could be the work of a personal God, because for man it seems to be the work of an omnipotent monster.   But Sri Aurobindo adds that it is better to try to understand instead of condemning.  And surely the best way to understand is to unite with this Supreme Consciousness so as to see as It sees and understand as It understands. This is certainly the only true wisdom.  And Yoga is the true way of uniting with the Supreme.


The Mother: First, once and for all, you should know that luck, good or bad, does not exist.  What to our ignorance looks like luck is simply the result of causes we know nothing about.  It is certain that for someone who has desires, when his desires are not satisﬁed, it is a sign that the Divine Grace is with him and wants, through experience, to make him progress rapidly, by teaching him that a willing and spontaneous surrender to the Divine Will is a much surer way to be happy in peace and light than the satisfaction of any desire.   This simply means the vision of the whole earth at the same time and the sentiment which is the result of this vision of the whole. This whole contains all things, light and darkness, suffering and pleasure, happiness and unhappiness, and all together makes a vibration of adoration turned towards the Divine, just as all sounds heard together make the supreme invocation to the Divine: OM.


The Mother: To be free, one must come out of the prison. The prison is the ego, the sense of separate personality. To be free, one  must unite consciously and totally with the Supreme and through this identiﬁcation break the limits of the ego and eradicate the very existence of the ego by universalising oneself, even though the individualisation of the consciousness is preserved.  There is nothing to add. It is true — very obviously true — and to be sure, you must experience it, for only experience is absolutely convincing.


The Mother: By uniting with the Eternal, that is to say, with the Divine.   The only remedy is to learn to think before you speak and to say only the words that are absolutely indispensable to express your thought.    And if it is indispensable to communicate something to anyone else, it would be wise to speak only the words that are indispensable, no more.


The Mother: Any exaggeration, any exclusiveness, is a lack of balance and a breach of harmony, and therefore an error in one who seeks  perfection. For perfection can only exist in supreme harmony.   Sri Aurobindo means that there is a height in the consciousness where the ordinary notions of good and bad lose all their value.  And he advises us, instead of being affected by the way things happen on earth, to rise in consciousness to communion with the Divine; then we shall understand why things are as they are.


The Mother: Vice and virtue are inventions of human thought for the needs of evolution and progress — but in the Divine Consciousness, vice and virtue do not exist.   The whole universe is in a slow ascending evolution towards That which it must manifest.  To live within in a constant aspiration for the Divine enables us to look at life with a smile and to remain peaceful whatever the outer circumstances may be.  As for the poor, Sri Aurobindo says that to come to their help is good, provided that it is not a vain ostentation of charity, but that it is far nobler to seek a remedy for poverty so that there may be no poor left on earth.


The Mother: In the beginning, about six thousand years ago, this was absolutely true, and each individual was classed . Afterwards it became a rigid and more and more arbitrary social convenience (according to birth), which completely ignored the true nature of the individual. It became a false conception and had to disappear.  But gradually, with human progress, human activities are being classiﬁed more and more in a similar, less rigid but much truer way (according to each one’s nature and capacity) .


The Mother: That is absolutely certain for all those who understand Sri Aurobindo’s teaching and have faith in him.  It is with the intention of creating a place where this can come about that we want to establish Auroville.  But for this realisation to be possible, each one of us must make an effort to transform himself, for most of the sufferings of men are the result of their own mistakes, both physical and moral.  I have never thought that there would no more be suffering in Auroville, because men, as they are, love suffering and call it to them even while they curse it.  But we shall try to teach them to truly love peace and to try to practise equality.


The Mother: What I meant was involuntary poverty and begging.  Life in Auroville will be organised in such a way that this does not exist — and if beggars come from outside, either they will have to go away or they will be given shelter and taught the joy of work.   There is no fundamental difference in the attitude towards the  future and the service of the Divine.  But the people in the Ashram are considered to have consecrated their lives to Yoga (except, of course, the students who are here only for their studies and who are not expected to have made their choice in life).


The Mother: Whereas in Auroville simply the goodwill to make a collective experiment for the progress of humanity is sufﬁcient to gain admittance.  This is quite obvious and this is what we are trying to make people understand. A safe and quiet life is not enough to make people happy. Inner development is necessary, and the peace that comes from a conscious contact with the Divine.


The Mother: Sri Aurobindo used the words philosophy and religion so that everyone could understand. But he knew very well that the effective remedy for human egoism lies beyond philosophy and religion, in a true spiritual life accepted and lived on earth by the physical consciousness itself — this makes it truly capable of getting rid of the ego once and for all.   There is nothing to add. Sri Aurobindo has clearly and masterfully stated ﬁrst the evil and then its remedy. All we have to do is to put into practice what he has taught us.


The Mother: Man ﬁnds his full power for progress when he no longer feels bound to Nature or limited by her laws.  Nature is only a limited expression of the Divine, whereas man was created to become the conscious expression of the Divine, with all the possibilities of power and light which that implies.  No doubt, this is the description of man when he reaches the summit of his being. But it is only the ﬁrst step of the superman.


The Mother: The only safety in life, the only way to escape from the consequences of past errors, is an inner development leading to conscious union with the Divine Presence; the only effective guide, the Truth of our being and of all beings.  For those who want to live according to Truth, the only way is to become conscious of the Divine Presence and to live exclusively according to Its Will.  This is the only way to escape from evil and suffering, the only way to be always in peace, light and joy.   Man has a right to beatitude since that is what he was created for. But any egocentric movement is the very opposite of this beatitude; so that if you seek it for yourself alone, you repel it instead of attracting it.


The Mother: By self-forgetfulness, by self-giving, without asking anything in return, by merging, so to say, into this beatitude so that it may shine upon all, you ﬁnd the inner peace and joy which never leave you.  Self-forgetfulness may simply be a passive state resulting from a total lack of egoism. Self-giving, which takes its full value when it is directed towards the Divine, is an active movement which includes love in its purest and highest form.  A total self-giving to the Divine is the true purpose of existence.   Anger and vengeance belong to a lower humanity, the humanity of yesterday and not of tomorrow.


The Mother: Usually man is not afﬂicted with the only thing truly tragic, the failure to ﬁnd one’s soul and to live according to its law.  In truth, the only thing that is truly tragic is not to become conscious of one’s soul, the psychic being, and not to be entirely guided by it in one’s life.  To die before having found one’s soul and lived according to its law, that is the true failure.


The Mother: And the true epic, the true glory is to ﬁnd the Divine in oneself and to live according to His law.   It is the narrowness of the human consciousness that makes tragedies out of events which for the Divine Consciousness are only movements in the general evolution. But even when one  sees that, one can and must keep a profound sympathy for those who are still living in the throes of ignorance.  Once a man becomes conscious of the Divine and unites with Him, he certainly becomes abnormal to ordinary eyes, for he no longer has the weaknesses that make up ordinary human nature.


The Mother: But fortunately for him, by the very fact of his inner realisation, he loses man’s habit of boasting and is thus able to avoid the ill will of others.  It is indeed wise to look at everything with the calm smile of perfect trust. For, with his present consciousness, man can hardly understand the aims of the Supreme Lord.   This is a charming and most expressive way of saying that only the conscious Divine Presence is capable of mastering and conquering all violence.  All this is written to awaken mankind to the sense of its own unity.


The Mother: When one has become conscious of this Unity and when one sees the Divine in all beings, it is easy to feel as Sri Aurobindo recommends.   This means that sweetness without strength and goodness without power are incomplete and cannot totally express the Divine.  I could say in keeping with the kind of image used by Sri Aurobindo, that the charity and generosity of a converted Asura are inﬁnitely more effective than those of an innocent angel.  By helping others materially (altruism), if at the same time you want to impose your own viewpoint on them, you will kill their  soul, because moral and social rules can be no substitute for the inner law which each one must receive from his soul.  This is a question I cannot answer, because God has never asked me to slay.


The Mother: 1. Courage is the total absence of fear in any form.  2. Love is self-giving without asking anything in return.  3. Meanness is a weakness that calculates and demands from others the virtues one does not possess oneself.  4. Selﬁshness is to put oneself at the centre of the universe and to want everything to exist for one’s own satisfaction.


The Mother: 5. Nobleness is to refuse all personal calculation.   6. Generosity is to ﬁnd one’s own satisfaction in the satisfaction of others.   The soul belongs to the Divine, and owes obedience and service to the Divine alone.


The Mother: If the Divine commands it to work for family, country or humanity, then it is all right and it can do so without being imprisoned.  If the command does not come from the Divine, to serve these things is only to obey social and moral conventions.   The greatness and nobleness of an event do not depend on material success, but on the feelings which inspire it and the goal which men have pursued.  It is not success that confers greatness but the motive of action and the nobleness of the feelings which inspire it.


The Mother: So long as religions exist, atheism will be indispensable to counter-balance them. Both must disappear to make way for a sincere and disinterested search for Truth and a total consecration to the object of this search.   Personal will and power of choice are necessary qualities for those who live in the ordinary ignorance and illusion.  True self-giving to the Divine of course means their surrender. But unfortunately, many people live in the illusion that they have entirely given themselves to the Divine, and yet preserve in themselves a very active “ego” which prevents them from clearly perceiving the Divine Will; if these people abandon their personal will and discernment, they are in danger of becoming incoherent and erratic.


The Mother: You must ﬁrst acquire a perfect sincerity in order to be sure of not deceiving yourself, and you must have clear evidence that it is truly the Divine Will which moves and guides you.  The ﬁrst thing needed is to become conscious of the Divine Will,  and in order to do that one must no longer have any desires or personal will.  The best way to achieve this is to direct one’s whole aspiration towards the Divine Perfection, to give oneself to it without reserve and to rely on That alone for all satisfaction.   All the rest will follow as a result.


The Mother: This is to tell us that the only choice to be made is to unite with the Divine in spite of everything, even the opposition of the whole world, because the world only has an apparent strength in the mental and the physical, whereas the Divine possesses the eternal power of Truth.   Surely Sri Aurobindo did not say that “God” to circle about, because he is all-powerful; but his power is not an arbitrary one as men understand it.  To begin to understand anything about this, one must know and feel that in the whole universe which is not an expression of his omnipotent and omnipresent will; and only by consciously uniting with Him can one begin to understand this, not mentally, but through an experience of consciousness and vision.   In his ordinary consciousness, even with the widest intelligence, man can only grasp an inﬁnitesimal part of creation and so he cannot understand it and still less judge it.


The Mother: And if we want to hasten the transformation of the world, the best we can do is to give ourselves without reserve or calculation to That which knows.   What men usually call blind faith is in fact what the Divine Grace sometimes gives to those whose intelligence is not developed enough to have true knowledge. So blind faith can be something very respectable, although it is of course clear that one who has  knowledge is in a far superior position.  Faith is an exclusively psychic phenomenon.   Each one has his own aims according to his nature and the goal he wants to attain in ordinary life.


The Mother: As for spiritual life, it has only one goal: to know the Divine and to unite with Him, by every possible means and with the help of faith, which is certainly the most powerful motive-force for beginners.   It is obviously in the silence of the mind that it is possible to perceive the Divine Command. The true way of knowing is above words and thoughts.  When this phenomenon occurs, it becomes very clear, because one knows the Divine Command, and the words to describe it come later.  It is indeed of utmost importance not to accept each and every voice as coming from the Divine, because one is liable to obey the command of an imposter.


The Mother: There is only one guarantee which is a complete absence of all personal desire, even the desire of  serving the Divine, and the fact of being immersed in a total peace. Only then can one be sure of one’s discernment.  This is to encourage us not to allow ourselves to be inﬂuenced by appearances and to persist in our effort even if it seems to have no result.  In life, we must do what is revealed to us as the true thing to be done, even if others mock and criticise; for the opinion of men has no value, the Divine Will alone is true and will triumph.   Truth is a difﬁcult and strenuous conquest.


The Mother: One must be a true warrior to make this conquest, a warrior who fears nothing, neither enemies nor death, for, against the whole world, with or without a body, the struggle continues and will end in Victory.  This is simply to show us that the power of the spirit is far greater than all material powers. But both are indispensable for the realisation.   This tells us again that That which causes action, the Consciousness and Power which are manifested in action, are quite different from the individuals who carry it out materially and who think in their ignorance that they are the originators of action.  For one who is totally consecrated to the Divine, there can be neither shame nor suffering, for the Divine is always with him and the Divine Presence changes all things into glory.


The Mother: Here, what Sri Aurobindo calls the soul is the Divine Presence in each one of us; and the certitude of this constant Presence within us will alleviate all our sorrow by convincing us of the ultimate victory which is certain.   Sri Aurobindo does not use the word purity in the ordinary moral sense. For him, “purity” means “exclusively under the inﬂuence of the Divine”, expressing only the Divine.  At present, no action on earth can be like this.


The Mother: Human ignorance and egoism are the cause of sorrow. But this sorrow has also played its part in the evolution of humanity.  Sorrow, desire, suffering, ambition and every other similar reaction in the feelings and sensations have all contributed to make  consciousness emerge from the inconscience and to awaken this consciousness to the will for progress.  This is to teach man not to be dominated or frightened by the gods of the various religions; for, as a human being, man carries within himself the possibility of uniting with the Supreme Lord and becoming conscious of Him.


The Mother: Sri Aurobindo tells us that to radiate love in all circumstances is a sign of the Divine who has equal love for the one who strikes him and the one who worships him — what a lesson for humanity!  All this makes us feel very deeply the foolishness of human judgments based on self-interest and the reactions of the ego.  So long as men remain in their present state of ignorance, their judgments and opinions are worthless in the face of Truth and should be considered as such.   Conscious self-deceit is rare because it implies a great development of consciousness together with a perverted will to deceive, which leads to the most dangerous kind of falsehood; but it is perhaps also the easiest to cure, for the consciousness is already awakened and it only has to be made aware of its mistake and to take the decision to correct it in order to have the power to do so.  Others must ﬁrst become conscious of what they are doing and this usually takes a long time.


The Mother: Sri Aurobindo tells us that man is a transitional being and that from all the sufferings of the world will emerge a being of light capable of manifesting the Divine.  Thus, all those who are not satisﬁed with the world as it is, know that their aspiration does not rise in vain and that the world is changing.  If consecration and effort are associated with the aspiration, things will move faster.   It is certain that in the present state of the physical world, appearances are still very deceptive; physical beauty is not always the sign of a beautiful soul, and an ugly or grotesque body may conceal a genius or a resplendent soul.


The Mother: But for one who has more inner sensitivity, appearances are no longer deceptive and he can perceive the ugliness hidden beneath a pretty face and the beauty concealed beneath a mask of ugliness.  There are also cases, and these are becoming more and more numerous, where the appearance reveals the inner reality which then becomes discernible to all.   If you sincerely want to live according to the Truth, you must know that you can learn from everything and that you have the possibility of making progress at every moment. A great stupidity can often reveal a great light to you, if you know how to see it.  In ordinary life, women can have all the ideas they like, it is not very important.


The Mother: From the spiritual point of view, men and women are equal in their capacity to realise the Divine. Each one must do so in his (or her) own way and according to his (or her) own possibilities.   Sri Aurobindo shows us that one can be an ascetic by preference and not out of abnegation; and so he makes us understand that to be a servant of the Lord and to act only according to His will is a far higher state than any personal choice, no matter how saintly it may seem.  The Lord laughed when this man, who thought himself so wise, complied with conventions, wrote useless words and gave an example of overactivity in order to preach inaction.


The Mother: Certain essential qualities can only develop through suffering and difﬁculties. Men run away from them in their ignorance, but the Supreme Lord imposes them on those He has chosen to represent Him on earth in order to hasten their development — for he is the Supreme Wisdom.  This is exactly the attitude we should all have towards transformation: as much energy and ardour as if we were certain of achieving it in our present life, as much patience and endurance as if we needed centuries to realise it.   Here again, as always, Sri Aurobindo sees every aspect of the question and while preaching calm and patience to the restless, he rouses and preaches energy to the indolent. In the union of opposites lies true wisdom and total effectiveness.


The Mother: Certainly, we all carry in our souls the divine end of the eternal journey, and our personal incapacity is the only thing that prevents us from being immediately aware of it.  Total and unconditional surrender to the Supreme Lord (Brahman) is the sole and wonderful way to cure this incapacity.   One could say it in this way: everything exists from all eternity, and we become conscious of it progressively in what we call the material world.  This way of seeing and speaking is a complete reversal of the ordinary human consciousness.  Yes, but the will of Brahman that we should take part in this event dates back to the same moment and their relation remains the same.


The Mother: So the only thing that matters is not to act on personal impulse, but on the order received from Brahman.   The Anarchic state is the self-government of each individual.  And it will be the perfect government only when each one becomes conscious of the inner Divine and obeys Him and Him alone.  As Sri Aurobindo tells us so well, individualism is a kind of selfjustiﬁed jealousy, the reign of each one for himself.  But the only true remedy is the exclusive and universal reign of the Supreme Lord, present and conscious in all beings, with a transitional government by those who are truly conscious of Him and entirely surrendered to His will.


The Mother: As yet liberty, equality, fraternity are only words loudly proclaimed but never yet put into practice, and they cannot be put into practice so long as men remain what they are, ruled by their ego and all its desires instead of being ruled only by the One Supreme and supremely Divine.   Sri Aurobindo writes here in a clear and deﬁnite way what I tried to express before: no perfection can be attained so long as the government of the Supreme Lord is not recognised and admitted everywhere and in all things.      Liberty can only be manifested when all men know the liberty of the Supreme Lord.  Equality can only be manifested when all men become conscious of the Supreme Lord.


The Mother: Fraternity can only be manifested when men feel that they are equally born of the Supreme Lord and one in His Oneness.  It is obvious that the greatness of an action does not depend on its scope, and its perfection does not depend on circumstances or on external conditions, but on the sincerity of the consecration with which it is done.  To do what the Divine wants you to do, in a total consecration of the being: this is the only thing that matters; the outer scope of the action is of no account.   Thus Sri Aurobindo reveals to us the great political secret whose realisation can lead us to the union of all nations and ﬁnally to human unity.   As Sri Aurobindo has predicted, things are moving fast, and the situation of humanity has changed much since Sri Aurobindo began to work in the subtle physical: the idea of human unity has made great headway and is more widely understood.


The Mother: This applies to artists and writers — nearly all are imitators and copyists. And yet only creators, those who have something new to say or show, should create.  This is a supremely elegant way of saying that all notions of good and evil are exclusively human and are worthless in the eyes of the Divine.   This is to teach us never to despair. Because, for those who are pure of heart and have an unshakable faith, the worst apparent defeat is only a veiled path leading to ﬁnal victory.


The Mother: All human governments are a falsehood or a chimera. One can hope that one day the earth will be governed by the Truth only if the Supreme Lord makes this Truth evident to all.  No law or government can save us from meeting in life the consequences of what we are.   Submit exclusively to the Divine Truth and It will govern life outside all human laws and governments.


The Mother: This is perfect! True saintliness is to want and realise what the Divine wants for you, and true wisdom is to unite with Him so that you can clearly know what He wants of you and for you. All the rest is nothing but human convention and theory.  Yes, that is what Sri Aurobindo says. The soul does not wear any disguise, it shows itself as it is and cares nothing for men’s  judgments, because it is the faithful servant of the Divine whose abode it is.


The Mother: Step by step and from every angle, Sri Aurobindo shows us how the Truth is above and beyond all contraries and opposites, beyond divisions — in a radiant and total Unity.   There is nothing to say. Everything is clearly explained — only the divine government can be a true government.   This state of things must change for the supramental consciousness to reign on earth. But although the supramental consciousness has been at work on earth for more than a year, has anything changed in this miserable condition?


The Mother: Naturally, the ﬁrst effect will be a change of consciousness, ﬁrst among the most receptive, and then in a greater number of people.  A change in the general conditions of collective life can only come later, perhaps long after individual reactions have been transformed. The ﬁrst noticeable result is a heightening of the general confusion, because the old principles have lost their authority, and men (except for a very few) are not ready to obey the Divine Command, because they are incapable of perceiving it.   This is to free us from so-called religious conventions which tell us what to do and what not to do. We must recover the true wisdom and receive directly from the Divine the precise indications for living in and for the Truth.


The Mother: Strive exclusively to hear the command of the Supreme Lord, and if you are perfectly sincere, He will ﬁnd a way to make you hear and recognise this command with certainty.  Such is the assurance given to all those who want to live according to the supreme Truth.   In short, the divine grace is so marvellous that, whatever you do, it will lead you more or less quickly towards the Divine Goal.   This is what the unsatisﬁed ego asks itself when it ﬁnds that things are not going as it desires.  But someone who belongs to the Divine and wants to live in the truth knows that the Divine will keep him on earth as long as He perceives his usefulness on earth and will make him leave the earth when he has nothing more to do there.


The Mother: So the question cannot arise, and he will live quietly in the certitude of the Divine’s supreme wisdom.  When I say, “someone who belongs to the Divine”, I mean a being who has abolished the ego within himself, who is constantly conscious of the Divine, who no longer has any personal will, who acts only under the divine impulsion and who has no other aim than to do what the Divine wants him to do.  I do not think there are many people in this state. And certainly these people will never worry whether their life is useful or not, since they exist only for and by the Divine and no longer have any personal life.   When these forces of destruction attack us, it proves that we are ready to be liberated from the ego and to emerge consciously into the Divine Presence which is at the centre of our being, in full light, in peace and joy, free at last from the sufferings imposed upon us by the ego.


The Mother: It is the ego which changes all the contacts of life into suffering, it is the ego which prevents us from being conscious of the Divine Presence within us and from becoming His calm, strong and happy instruments.  Let us make a complete offering of this ego with all its desires to the Divine, let us be conﬁdent and wait for the liberation that is sure to come.   Excess in any direction is a violence; and only in peace, poise and harmony can the truth be discovered and lived.  All the circumstances of life are arranged to teach us that, beyond mind, faith in the Divine Grace gives us the strength to go through all trials, to overcome all weaknesses and ﬁnd the contact with the Divine Consciousness which gives us not only peace and joy but also physical balance and good health.   So long as the mind governs life with the presumptuous certitude that it knows, how can the reign of the Divine be established?


The Mother: DISEASE AND MEDICAL SCIENCE  How absolutely true!   Wonderful!  One could say in conclusion that it is the faith of the patient which gives the remedy its power to heal.  If men had an absolute faith in the healing power of Grace, they would perhaps avoid many illnesses.


The Mother: As always Sri Aurobindo’s words are prophetic. For only when humanity is cured of its mental aberrations will it be able to manifest the supramental consciousness and recover the natural health which the mind has lost for it.   The sovereignty of mind has made humanity the slave of doctors and their remedies. And the result is that illnesses are increasing in number and seriousness.


The Mother: The only true salvation for men is to escape from mental domination by opening to the Divine Inﬂuence which they will obtain through a total surrender.   We cannot counteract the harm done by mental faith in the need for drugs by any external measures. Only by escaping from the mental prison and emerging consciously into the light of the spirit, by a conscious union with the Divine, can we enable Him to give back to us the balance and health we have lost.  The supramental transformation is the only true remedy.   Sri Aurobindo gives us a striking description of the nightmare in which we live, in order to awaken within us an unwearying aspiration towards the salvation that comes from the true consciousness and an exclusive faith in the Divine’s omnipotence.


The Mother: Sri Aurobindo had a genius for humour and all we can do is admire and remain silent.  I cannot answer because, while he was in his body, he never told me anything about this.  If anyone knows the exact date on which he wrote this, it might be an indication.  Perhaps N could tell you when this was written, or whether Sri Aurobindo told him anything about it.  This is the most perfect way in which Sri Aurobindo, with his marvellous sense of humour, could ridicule human morality.


The Mother: This sentence is a whole satire in itself.   Here too I have to say that I do not know exactly, because he never told me.  But I can tell you about my own experience. Until the age of about twenty-ﬁve, all I knew was the God of religions, God as men have created him, and I did not want him at any price.  I denied his existence but with the certitude that if such a God did exist, I detested him.


The Mother: When I was about twenty-ﬁve I discovered the inner God  and at the same time I learned that the God described by most Western religions is none other than the Great Adversary.   When I came to India, in 1914, and became acquainted with Sri Aurobindo’s teaching, everything became very clear.  If Sri Aurobindo is speaking of moral pain, of any kind, I can say from experience that the four stages he mentions correspond to four states of consciousness which are the result of inner development and the degree of union with the divine consciousness which the individual consciousness has achieved. When the union is perfect, there only remains “a ﬁercer form of delight”.


The Mother: If it is the physical pain endured by the body, the experience does not follow such a clearly deﬁned order; especially because union with the Divine most often causes the pain to disappear.  Someone who has experienced love for the Divine can no longer love anything but the Divine, and it is the Divine he loves in all those for whom he feels affection ; besides, this is the best way to love, because in this way one can be a powerful help for others to become conscious of the Divine who manifests in them.  Sri Aurobindo always had his own way of saying things, always original and always unexpected.


The Mother: Nothing to say.   As always, this is Sri Aurobindo’s wonderful way of making clear to us the inanity of human assertions by which each one arrogantly denies anything that is not his own discovery or his own personal experience.  Wisdom begins with the capacity to admit all theories, even the most contradictory.  In his writings, Sri Aurobindo had a genius for expressing the most extraordinary experiences in the most ordinary words,  thus giving the impression that his experiences are simple and obvious.   There is nothing to say.


The Mother: One can only bow before the perfection of the experience.  In this way Sri Aurobindo reveals and formulates the secret of existence. All that remains is to understand and live it.   This is the most charming criticism one can make of jealousy and also the best way to cure it by overcoming the limits of the ego and by uniting with the Divine Love which is eternal and universal.   In the Supreme, opposites are reconciled and complement each other.


The Mother: It is division in the manifestation which has made them  into opposites; but once one’s consciousness is united to the Divine Consciousness, opposition disappears.  So long as man prides himself on his virtue , the Supreme Lord will make him fall into sin to teach him the necessity of modesty.   For the moment, the world still seems to be in contradiction with the pure and luminous divine joy; but a day will come when the world too will manifest this joy. This is what we must prepare it for.


The Mother: Life is given to us to ﬁnd the Divine and unite with Him.  The mind tries to persuade us that it is not so. Shall we believe this liar?   When man becomes a little wiser, he will not complain about anything and will take the things the Divine sends him as a manifestation of His all-compassionate Grace.  The more surrendered we are, the more we shall understand.


The Mother: The more grateful we are, the happier we shall be.   Beyond words, beyond thoughts, the Supreme Presence makes itself felt and compels our wonder.  Let us beware of all mental constructions that limit and distort. Let us strive to keep the contact pure.  To the Divine Vision, all sincere human aspirations are acceptable, whatever diversity or even apparent contradiction there may be in their forms.


The Mother: And all of them together are not enough to express the Divine Reality.   The divine splendours are too marvellous for human littleness, which ﬁnds it hard to bear them, and an eternity of delight may well be intolerable for a human being.   There is nothing to add. It is a perfect programme.


The Mother: It only remains for us to realise it.   Ridicule is the strongest weapon against the powers of falsehood. With a single sentence, Sri Aurobindo annihilates the power of one of these man-made gods.  With sparkling humour Sri Aurobindo endeavours to make us understand the falsehood of the ordinary human consciousness and the luminous and all-powerful joy of the Divine Consciousness we must acquire.


The Mother: Let us drop our robe of virtue so that we may be ready for the Truth.   As always, in his striking and humorous way, Sri Aurobindo tells us that the Divine truth is above both virtue and sin.   All the human reasons that are given for solidarity and mutual love are of little value and also of little effect. Only by becoming conscious of the Divine and uniting with Him can one attain and realise true Unity.


The Mother: To know how to keep the Divine contact in all circumstances is the secret of beatitude.   To make himself understood, Sri Aurobindo uses images that are accessible to everyone; but the marvels of Union inﬁnitely exceed these human images.   It is the same lesson that the Supreme Lord wants to teach the body which He is transforming.   There is only one true wisdom, the wisdom of the Supreme Lord.


The Mother: Thus, to surrender all personal will and to want only what the Divine wants, is the only way to be truly wise.   Never forget that so long as you are capable of preference in your relations with life and men, you cannot be a pure and perfect instrument of the Divine.  In our sorrowful age, almost withered by the excessive domination of the intellect, nothing can be at once more necessary and more precious than Divine Love.  How can one be of service to the Divine since we exist by Him alone — all we can do is to clumsily return to Him a little of all that He has given us.   No doubt one must have a vision as total as the Divine Vision to be able to laugh at this world as it is.


The Mother: Human science makes very exact observations; but the ﬁeld is open to imagine the true causes — why not occult causes?  Lord, and when You want the image to change into your likeness, what do You do?  What Sri Aurobindo calls “the image” is the physical body. So I asked the Lord what He does when He wants to transform the physical body, and last night He gave me two visions in answer.   One concerned the liberation of the body consciousness from all the conventions regarding death; and in the other He showed me what the supramental body will be.


The Mother: You see that I did well to ask Him!  Sri Aurobindo gives us the true way to understand the Scriptures, which thus become universal symbols.   That is why, rather than to serve, it is better to belong totally, absolutely to the Divine.  Certainly, to place all one’s work at the service of the Divine is a very good way of approach, but it doesn’t go much further than what Sri Aurobindo describes, and for some it is not satisfying.  Sri Aurobindo’s effort was always directed towards liberating his disciples or even his readers from all preconceptions, all conventional morality.


The Mother: Wouldn’t it be good, once and for all, to get rid of all our limitations and weaknesses, if we truly want to draw close to the Divine?  Whatever the nature of an individual may be, ultimately, in one way or another, whether he ﬁghts him or loves him, the End is always the Divine.   Shall we complain when we see this helpless little “ego” disappearing and giving way to a luminous spark capable of understanding the universe?   Sri Aurobindo is trying to make us understand how the limitations of our vision prevent us from perceiving the Divine Wisdom.


The Mother: When we no longer have any afﬁnity with suffering and are  cured of all perverse attachment to it, the Divine will help us to discover that it conceals the supreme bliss.  The Supreme Lord alone should be the Master and it is He, as a rule, whom the psychic being obeys.  To be conscious of the Divine Consciousness is the supreme fulﬁlment offered to human realisation; all the rest are only inessentials.   To understand the divine intention and to work for its fulﬁlment — isn’t this the surest way to help humanity?


The Mother: Can there be any greater misfortune than to live without knowing the Supreme Lord? And yet this almost universal ill rarely excites any pity. Because one who knows that he is suffering from it also knows that the cure depends on him alone — for the Lord’s compassion is inﬁnite.   By tireless constancy in effort and faith, we can unite with the Divine Consciousness which is constant and perfect beatitude.


The Mother: There is only one love.  Human love is nothing but divine love perverted and distorted by the instrument through which it is expressed. The same holds true for strength and knowledge. In their essence they are eternal and unlimited. It is the limitations and deﬁciencies  of human nature which distort them and alter them beyond recognition.


The Mother: What Sri Aurobindo calls the divine mind is the prototype of the mental function which is totally and perfectly surrendered to the Divine and works only under divine inspiration.  When a human being exists only by and for the Divine, his mind necessarily becomes a divine mind.  One drop of true knowledge can create a revolution if it falls into a world of ignorance.   Until, tired of the ignorance and stupidity of the ego, we lay ourselves at the feet of the Lord and ask Him to become the sole master.


The Mother: All mental ways of knowing the Divine are incomplete and insufﬁcient, even if we accept them all. Only a knowledge that is lived can give us a glimpse of the truth.   All is the Divine and the Divine alone exists.


The Mother: ALTHOUGH my whole being is in theory consecrated to Thee, O Sublime Master, who art the life, the light and the love in all things, I still ﬁnd it hard to carry out this consecration in detail. It has taken me several weeks to learn that the reason for this written meditation, its justiﬁcation, lies in the very fact of addressing it daily to Thee. In this way I shall put into material shape each day a little of the conversation I have so often with Thee; I shall make my confession to Thee as well as it may be; not because I think I can tell Thee anything — for Thou art Thyself everything, but our artiﬁcial and exterior way of seeing and understanding is, if it may be so said, foreign to Thee, opposed to Thy nature. Still by turning towards Thee, by immersing myself in Thy light at the moment when I consider these things, little by little I shall see them more like what they really are, — until the day when, having made myself one in identity with Thee, I shall no more have anything to say to Thee, for then I shall be Thou. This is the goal that I would reach; towards this victory all my efforts will tend more and more.


The Mother: I aspire for the day when I can no longer say “I”, for I shall be .  How many times a day, still, I act without my action being consecrated to Thee; I at once become aware of it by an indeﬁnable uneasiness which is translated in the sensibility of my body by a pang in my heart. I then make my action objective to myself and it seems to me ridiculous, childish or blameworthy; I deplore it, for a moment I am  sad, until I dive into Thee and, there losing myself with a child’s conﬁdence, await from Thee the inspiration and strength needed to set right the error in me and around me, — two things that are one; for I have now a constant and precise perception of the universal unity determining an absolute interdependence of all actions.   ET Thy Light be in me like a Fire that makes all alive;  let Thy divine Love penetrate me.


The Mother: I aspire with all my being for Thy reign as sovereign and master of my mind and heart and body; let them be Thy docile instruments and Thy faithful servitors.    SAID yesterday to that young Englishman who is seeking for Thee with so sincere a desire, that I had deﬁnitively found Thee, that the Union was constant. Such is indeed the state of which I am conscious. All my thoughts go towards Thee, all my acts are consecrated to Thee; Thy Presence is for me an absolute, immutable, invariable fact, and Thy Peace dwells constantly in my heart. Yet I know that this state of union is poor and precarious compared with that which it will become possible for me to realise tomorrow, and I am as yet far, no doubt very far, from that identiﬁcation in which I shall totally lose the notion of the “I”, of that “I”, which I still use in order to express myself, but which is each time a constraint, like a term unﬁt to express the thought that is seeking for expression.


The Mother: It seems to me indispensable for human communication, but all depends on what this “I” manifests; and how many times already, when I pronounce it, it is Thou who speakest in me, for I have lost the sense of separativity.  But all this is still in embryo and will continue to grow towards perfection. What an appeasing assurance there is in this serene conﬁdence in Thy All-Might!  Thou art all, everywhere, and in all, and this body which acts is Thy own body, just as is the visible universe in its entirety; it is Thou who breathest, thinkest and lovest in this substance which, being Thyself, desires to be Thy willing servant.   HAT a hymn of thanksgiving


The Mother: should I not be raising at each moment unto Thee! Everywhere and in everything around me Thou revealest Thyself and in me Thy Will and Consciousness express themselves always more and more clearly even to the point of my having almost entirely lost the gross illusion of “me” and “mine”. If a few shadows, a few ﬂaws can be seen in the great Light which manifests Thee, how shall they bear for long the marvellous brightness of Thy resplendent Love? This morning, the consciousness that I had of the way Thou art fashioning this being which was “I” can be roughly represented by a great diamond cut with regular geometrical facets, a diamond in its cohesion, ﬁrmness, pure limpidity, transparency, but a brilliant and radiant ﬂame in its intense ever-progressive life. But it was something more, something better than all that, for nearly all sensation inner and outer was exceeded and that image only presented itself to my mind as I returned to conscious contact with the outer world.


The Mother: It is Thou that makest the experience fertile, Thou who renderest life progressive, Thou who compellest the darkness to vanish in an instant before the Light, Thou who givest to Love all its power, Thou who everywhere raisest up matter in this ardent and wonderful aspiration, in this sublime thirst for Eternity.   everywhere and always; nothing but in the essence and in the manifestation.  O Shadow and Illusion, dissolve! O Suffering, fade and disappear! Lord Supreme, art Thou not there?


The Mother: HE outer life, the activity of each day and each instant,  is it not the indispensable complement of our hours of meditation and contemplation? And is not the proportion of time given to each the exact image of the proportion which exists between the amount of effort to be made for the preparation and realisation? For meditation, contemplation, Union is the result obtained — the ﬂower that blooms; the daily activity is the anvil on which all the elements must pass and repass in order to be puriﬁed, reﬁned, made supple and ripe for the illumination which contemplation gives to them. All these elements must be thus passed one after the other through the crucible before outer activity becomes needless for the integral development.


The Mother: Then is this activity turned into the means to manifest Thee so as to awaken the other centers of consciousness to the same dual work of the forge and the illumination. Therefore are pride and satisfaction with oneself the worst of all obstacles. Very modestly we must take advantage of all the minute opportunities offered to knead and purify some of the innumerable elements, to make them supple, to make them impersonal, to teach them forgetfulness of self and abnegation and devotion and kindness and gentleness; and when all these modes of being have become habitual to them, then are they ready to participate in the Contemplation, and to identify themselves with Thee in the supreme Concentration. That is why it seems to me that the work must be long and slow even for the best and that striking conversions cannot  be integral. They change the orientation of the being, they put it deﬁnitively on the straight path; but truly to attain the goal none can escape the need of innumerable experiences of every kind and every instant.


The Mother: . . . O Supreme Master who shinest in my being and each thing, let Thy Light be manifest and the reign of Thy Peace come for all.   O long as one element of the being, one movement of the thought is still subjected to outside inﬂuences, not solely under Thine, it cannot be said that the true Union is realised; there is still the horrible mixture without order and light, — for that element, that movement is a world, a world of disorder and darkness, as is the entire earth in the material world, as is the material world in the entire universe.   AST night I had the experience of the effectivity of conﬁdent surrender to Thy guidance; when it is needful that something should be known, one knows it, and the more passive the mind to Thy illumination, the clearer and the more adequate is its expression.  I listened to Thee as Thou spokest in me, and I would have liked to write down what Thou saidst so that the formula in all its precision might not be lost, — for now I should not be able to repeat what was said.


The Mother: Then I thought that this care for conservation was again an insulting lack of conﬁdence towards Thee, for Thou canst make of me all that I need to be, and in the measure in which my attitude allows Thee to act on me and in me, Thy omnipotence has no limits. To know that at each instant what must be surely is, as perfectly as is possible, for all those who know how to see Thee in everything and everywhere! No more fear, no more uneasiness, no more anguish; nothing but a perfect Serenity, an absolute Conﬁdence, a supreme unwavering Peace.   N Peace and Silence the Eternal manifests; allow nothing to disturb you and the Eternal will manifest; have perfect equality in face of all and the Eternal will be there. . . . Yes, we should not put too much intensity, too much effort into our seeking for Thee; the effort and intensity become a veil in front of Thee; we must not desire to see Thee, for that is still a mental agitation which obscures Thy Eternal Presence; it is in the most complete Peace, Serenity and Equality that all is Thou even as Thou art all, and the least vibration in this perfectly pure and calm atmosphere is an obstacle to Thy manifestation.


The Mother: No haste, no inquietude, no tension, Thou, nothing but Thou, without any analysis or any objectivising, and Thou art there without a possible doubt, for all becomes a Holy Peace and a Sacred Silence.  And that is better than all the meditations in the world.   IKE a ﬂame that burns in silence, like a perfume that rises straight upward without wavering, my love goes to Thee; and like the child who does not reason and has no care, I trust myself to Thee that Thy Will may be done, that Thy Light may manifest, Thy Peace radiate, Thy Love cover the world. When Thou willest I shall be in Thee, Thyself, and there shall be no more any distinction; I await that blessed hour without impatience of any kind, letting myself ﬂow irresistibly toward it as a peaceful stream ﬂows toward the boundless ocean.  Thy Peace is in me, and in that Peace I see Thee alone present in everything, with the calm of Eternity.


The Mother: SUPREME Master, Eternal Teacher, it has been once more granted me to verify the unequalled effectivity of a full conﬁdence in Thy leading. Thy Light was manifested through my mouth yesterday and it met no resistance in me; the instrument was willing, supple, keen of edge.  It is Thou who art the doer in each thing and each being, and he who is near enough to Thee to see Thee in all actions without exception, will know how to transform each act into a benediction.  To abide always in Thee is the one thing that matters, always and ever more and more in Thee, beyond illusions and the deceptions of the senses, not drawing back from action, refusing it, rejecting it — a struggle useless and pernicious — but living Thee alone in the act whatever it may be, ever and always Thee; then the illusion is dispelled, the falsehoods of the senses vanish, the bond of consequences is broken, all is transformed into a manifestation of the glory of Thy Eternal Presence.  So let it be.


The Mother: Amen.    AWAIT, without haste, without inquietude, the tearing of another veil, the Union made more complete. I know that the veil is formed of a whole mass of small imperfections, of attachments without number. . . . How shall all these disappear? Slowly, as the result of countless small efforts and a vigilance not faltering even for a moment, or suddenly, through a great illumination of Thy AllPuissant Love?


The Mother: I know not, I do not even put to myself the question; I wait, keeping watch as best I can, in the certitude that nothing exists save Thy Will, that Thou alone art the doer and I am the instrument; and when the instrument is ready for a completer manifestation, the manifestation will quite naturally take place.  Already there is heard from behind the veil the wordless symphony of gladness that reveals Thy sublime Presence.   HY voice is heard as a melodious chant in the stillness of my heart, and is translated in my head by words which are inadequate and yet replete with Thee. And these words are addressed to the Earth and say to her: — Poor sorrowful Earth, remember that I am present in thee and lose not hope; each effort, each grief, each joy and each pang, each call of thy heart, each aspiration of thy soul, each renewal of thy seasons, all, all without exception, what seems to thee sorrowful and what seems to thee joyous, what seems to thee ugly and what seems to thee beautiful, all infallibly lead thee towards me, who am endless Peace, shadowless Light, perfect Harmony, Certitude, Rest and Supreme Blessedness.


The Mother: Hearken, O Earth, to the sublime voice that arises, Hearken and take new courage!    LORD, Thou art my refuge and my blessing, my strength, my health, my hope, and my courage. Thou art supreme Peace, unalloyed Joy, perfect Serenity. My whole being prostrates before Thee in a gratitude beyond measure and a ceaseless worship; and that worship goes up from my heart and my mind towards Thee like the pure smoke of incense of the perfumes of India.  Let me be Thy herald among men, so that all who are ready may taste the beatitude that Thou grantest me in Thy inﬁnite Mercy, and let Thy Peace reign upon earth.


The Mother: Y being goes up to Thee in thanksgiving, not because Thou usest this weak and imperfect body to manifest Thyself, but because, and that is the Splendour of splendours, the Joy of joys, the Marvel of marvels. All who seek Thee with ardour should understand that Thou art there whenever there is need of Thee; and if they could have the supreme faith to give up seeking Thee, but rather to await Thee, at each moment putting themselves integrally at Thy service, Thou wouldst be there whenever there was need of Thee; and is there not always need of Thee with us, whatever may be the different, and often unexpected, forms of Thy manifestation?  Let Thy glory be proclaimed, And sanctify life; Let it transform men’s hearts, And Thy Peace reign on earth.   S soon as all effort disappears from a manifestation, it becomes very simple, with the simplicity of a ﬂower opening, manifesting its beauty and spreading its fragrance without clamour or vehement gesture. And in this simplicity lies the greatest power, the power which is least mixed and least gives rise to harmful reactions.


The Mother: The power of the vital should be mistrusted, it is a tempter on the path of the work, and there is always a risk of falling into its trap, for it gives you the taste of immediate results; and , in our ﬁrst eagerness to do the work well, we let ourselves be carried away to make use of this power. But very soon it deﬂects all our action from the right course and introduces a seed of illusion and death into what we do.   Simplicity, simplicity!


The Mother: How sweet is the purity of Thy Presence! . . .   . . .ET the pure perfume of sanctiﬁcation burn always, rising higher and higher, and straighter and straighter, like the ceaseless prayer of the integral being, desiring to unite with Thee so as to manifest Thee.   S soon as I have no longer any material responsibilities, all thoughts about these things ﬂee far away from me, and I am solely and entirely occupied with Thee and Thy service.


The Mother: Then, in that perfect peace and serenity, I unite my will to Thine, and in that integral silence I listen to Thy truth and hear its expression. It is by becoming conscious of Thy Will and identifying ours with Thine that there is found the secret of true liberty and all-puissance, the secret of the regeneration of forces and the transﬁguration of the being.  To be constantly and integrally at one with Thee is to have the assurance that we shall overcome every obstacle and triumph over all difﬁculties, both within and without.  O Lord, Lord, a boundless joy ﬁlls my heart, songs of gladness surge through my head in marvellous waves, and in the full conﬁdence of Thy certain triumph I ﬁnd a sovereign Peace and an invincible Power. Thou ﬁllest my being, Thou animatest it, Thou settest in motion its hidden springs, Thou illuminest its understanding, Thou intensiﬁest its life, Thou increasest tenfold its love; and I no longer know whether the universe is I or I the universe, whether Thou art in me or I in Thee; Thou alone art and all is Thou; and the streams of Thy inﬁnite grace ﬁll and overﬂow the world.


The Mother: Sing O lands, sing O peoples, sing O men, The Divine Harmony is there.   VEN he who might have attained a perfect contemplation in silence and solitude would have arrived at it only by withdrawing from his body, by disregarding it; and so the substance of which the body is constituted would remain as impure, as imperfect as before, since he would have left it to itself; and by a misguided mysticism, through the lure of supraphysical splendours, the egoistic desire to unite with Thee for his own personal satisfaction, he would have turned his back upon the very reason of his earthly existence, he would have refused like a coward to accomplish his mission — the redemption and puriﬁcation of Matter. To know that a part of our being is perfectly pure, to commune with this purity, to be identiﬁed with it, can be useful only if this knowledge is later used to hasten the transﬁguration of the earth, to accomplish Thy sublime work.   RANT, O Lord, that I may be like a ﬁre that illumines and gives warmth, like a spring of water that quenches thirst, like a tree that shelters and protects.


The Mother: . . . Men are so unhappy and ignorant and have so great a need of help.  My trust in Thee, the certitude within me grow deeper day by day; and day by day too I feel Thy love more ardent within my heart, Thy light more brilliant and yet also more sweet; and more and more am I unable to distinguish Thy Work from my life and my individual being from the entire earth.


The Mother: O Lord, Lord, Thy Splendour is inﬁnite, marvellous is Thy Truth; and Thy all-powerful Love shall save the world.   O turn towards Thee, unite with Thee, live in Thee and for Thee, is supreme happiness, unmixed joy, immutable peace; it is to breathe inﬁnity, to soar in eternity, no longer feel one’s limits, escape from time and space.  Why do men ﬂee from these boons as though they feared them? What a strange thing is ignorance, that source of all suffering! How miserable that obscurity which keeps men away from the very thing which would bring them happiness and subjects them to this painful school of ordinary existence fashioned entirely from struggle and suffering!


The Mother: HY voice is so modest, so impartial, so sublime in its patience and mercy that it does not make itself heard with any authority, any force of will but comes like a cool breeze, sweet and pure, like a crystalline murmur that brings a note of harmony to a discordant concert.  Yet, for him who knows how to listen to the note, to breathe that breeze, it holds such treasures of beauty, such a fragrance of pure serenity and noble grandeur, that all foolish illusions vanish or are transformed into a joyful acceptance of the marvellous truth that has been glimpsed.   . . .ET what patience is needed!


The Mother: How imperceptible the stages of progress! . . .   Oh! how I call Thee from the very depths of my heart, True Light, Sublime Love, Divine Master who art the source of our light and of our living, our guide and our protector, the Soul of our soul and the Life of our life, the Reason of our being, the supreme Knowledge, the immutable Peace!    LORD, inconceivable Splendour, may Thy Beauty spread through all the earth, may Thy Love be kindled in every heart and Thy Peace reign over all.


The Mother: A deep and solemn chant, smiling and subtle, rises from my heart, and I do not know whether this chant goes from me to Thee or comes from Thee to me or whether Thou and I and the entire universe are this marvellous chant of which I have just become conscious. . . . Surely there is no longer any Thou or I or any separate universe; only an immense harmony is there, sublime and inﬁnite, which is all things and of which all things will one day grow aware. It is the harmony of boundless Love, Love victorious over all suffering and all obscurity.  By this law of Love, Thy law, I want to live more and more integrally; to it unreservedly I give myself.  And all my being exults in an inexpressible Peace.


The Mother: HIS morning, as I was glancing over the month that is beginning and wondering how I could serve Thee better, I heard the small voice within like a murmur in the silence, and this is what it said to me: “See how very little all outer circumstances matter. Why strive and strain so to realise thy own conception of Truth? Be more supple, more trusting. The only duty is not to let oneself be troubled by anything. To torment oneself about doing the right thing causes as much harm as a bad will.


The Mother: Only in a calm as of deep waters can be found the possibility of True Service.”  And this reply was so luminous and pure, it carried within itself such a striking reality, that the state it described was communicated without any difﬁculty. It seemed to me I was ﬂoating in the calm of deep waters; I understood; I saw clearly what the best attitude would be; and now I have only to ask Thee, O Sublime Master, my Supreme Teacher, to give me the strength and clear-sightedness I need to remain constantly in this state.   “Do not torment thyself, child.


The Mother: Silence, peace, peace. ”    SWEET harmony that dwellest in all things, sweet harmony that ﬁllest my heart, manifest thyself in the most external forms of life, in every feeling, every thought, every action.  All is to me beautiful, harmonious, silent, despite the outer turmoil. And in this silence it is Thou, O Lord, whom I see; and I see Thee in so unique a way that I can express this perception only as that of an unvarying smile.


The Mother: In truth, the real nature of the feeling experienced in the presence of the sweetest, most calm, most compassionate smile has a poor resemblance to what I feel when I see Thee in this way.  May Thy Peace be with all.   N this even-fall, Thy Peace deepens and grows more sweet and Thy Voice more clear and distinct in the silence that ﬁlls my being.  O Divine Master, Thine is all our life, our thought, our love, all our being. Take unto Thyself once more what is Thine; for Thou art ourselves in our Reality.


The Mother: LOVE, divine Love , Thou ﬁllest my whole being and overﬂowest on every side. I am Thyself even as Thou art I, and I see Thee in each being, each thing, from the soft breath of the passing breeze to the glorious sun which gives us light and is a symbol of Thee.  O Thou whom I cannot understand, in the silence of the purest devotion I adore Thee.    LORD, Master of our life, let us soar very high above all care for our material preservation.


The Mother: Nothing is more humiliating and depressing than these thoughts so constantly turned towards the preservation of the body, these preoccupations with health, the means of subsistence, the framework of life. . . . How very insigniﬁcant is all this, a thin smoke that a simple breath can disperse or a single thought turned towards Thee dispel like a vain mirage!   Deliver those who are in this bondage, O Lord, even as those who are the slaves of passion. On the path that leads to Thee


The Mother: these obstacles are at once terrible and puerile — terrible for those who are yet under their sway, puerile for one who has passed beyond.  How shall I describe that utter relief, that delightful lightness which comes when one is free from all anxiety for oneself, for one’s life and health and satisfaction, and even one’s progress?  This relief, this deliverance Thou hast granted to me, O Thou, Divine Master, Life of my life and Light of my light, O Thou who unceasingly teachest me love and makest me know the purpose of my existence.  It is Thou who livest in me, Thou alone; and why should I be preoccupied with myself and what might happen to me? Without Thee the dust constituting this body that strives to manifest Thee, would disperse amorphous and inconscient; without Thee this sensibility which makes possible a relation with all other centres of  manifestation, would vanish into a dark inertia; without Thee this thought that animates and illumines the whole being, would be vague, vacant, unrealised; without Thee the sublime love which viviﬁes, coordinates, animates and gives warmth to all things would be a yet unawakened possibility.


The Mother: Without Thee all is inert, brute or inconscient.  Thou art all that illumines and enraptures us, the whole reason of our existence and all our goal. Is this not enough to cure us of every personal thought, to make us spread our wings and soar above the contingencies of material life, so as to ﬂy away into Thy divine atmosphere and be able to return as Thy messengers to the earth to announce the glorious tidings of Thy approaching Advent?  O Divine Master, sublime Friend, marvellous Teacher, in a fecund silence I bow to Thee.   HIS return after an absence of three months to the house which is consecrated to Thee, O Lord, has been the occasion of two experiences.


The Mother: The ﬁrst is that in my outer being, my surface consciousness, I no longer have the least feeling of being in my own home and the owner of anything there: I am a stranger in a strange land, much more of a stranger here than in the open countryside among the trees; and I smile, now that I have learnt what l did not know, I smile at the idea of having felt myself “mistress of the house”, an idea I had before my departure; it was necessary for all pride to be broken, crushed, trampled down deﬁnitively so that I could at last understand, see and feel things as they are. I used to offer to Thee this dwelling, O Lord, as though it were possible that l should possess something and consequently be able to make an offering of it to Thee. All is Thine, O Lord, it is Thou who placest all things at our disposal; but how blind we are when we imagine that we can be owners of any one of these! I am a visitor here as elsewhere, as everywhere, Thy messenger and Thy servant upon earth, a stranger among men, and yet the very soul of their life, the love of their heart. . . .  Secondly, the whole atmosphere of the house is charged with a religious solemnity