The Mother: And each time it is the same experience: what appeared as a depth becomes a surface, a surface with all that it means, something inaccurate, artiﬁcial, an artiﬁcial transcription, something that gives one the impression that it is not truly living: it is a copy, an imitation — it is an image, a reﬂection, not the thing itself. You pass into another zone and you have the impression that you have discovered the Source  and the Power, the Truth of things; and then, this source, this power and this truth become in their turn an appearance, an imitation, a transcription in relation to the new realisation.  Meanwhile, we must indeed recognise that we have not got the key yet; it is not within our hands. Or rather we know quite well where it is, and we have only one thing to do: the perfect surrender of which Sri Aurobindo speaks, the total self-giving to the Divine Will, whatever happens, even in the midst of the night.  There is the night and there is the sun, the night and the sun, again the night, many nights; but one must cling to this will to surrender, cling to it as in a tempest, and give up everything into the hands of the Supreme Lord, until the day when the Sun will come for ever, the total victory.


The Mother: KARMA  This sort of fatality that one sometimes feels weighing heavy on one’s life, which is called Karma in India, is the result of past lives; indeed, it is something that has to be exhausted, something that weighs on one’s consciousness.  This is how things happen: the psychic being passes from one life to another, each life on earth being the occasion and means for a further progress, for a further growth. But it can happen that the psychic takes birth with the intention of going through a certain experience, of learning a certain thing, of developing a certain faculty through a deﬁnite experience.


The Mother: Then, in that life, in the life in which that experience has to be gone through, for one reason or another — there may be several — the soul does not fall exactly on the spot where it should: a displacement of some kind can occur, a set of contrary circumstances — it can happen — and in that case the incarnation miscarries totally and the soul goes away to wait for a better occasion. But in other cases, the soul simply does not ﬁnd it possible to do exactly what it wants and ﬁnds itself dragged into untoward circumstances — untoward not merely from the objective point of view, but untoward for its own growth. And that makes it necessary to begin the experience again, often under much more difﬁcult conditions.  And if — anything can happen, you see — if this second attempt is also a failure, if conditions make it impossible once again for what the psychic wants to do, if, for example, it is in a body with an inadequate will or a deformation in the thought or too tough an egoism and the attempt ends in suicide, then it is something frightful.


The Mother: I have seen it many times; it creates a dreadful Karma which may repeat itself life after life before the  soul becomes capable of conquering and doing what it wants to do. And each time the conditions become more and more difﬁcult, each time a considerably greater effort is demanded.  It has sometimes been said that one cannot get out of it. Indeed, the subconscious memory of the past creates a sort of irresistible desire to avoid the difﬁculty and one begins again the same stupidity or an even greater stupidity, and to the difﬁculty already so great is added yet another. Also, there are moments — moments or circumstances — when nobody is there to help you, to instruct you, to guide you.


The Mother: You are all alone, not knowing what to hang on to. The situation then becomes so terrible, the circumstances are so abominable.  But if only once the soul has made an appeal, if once it has made contact with the Grace, then in the following life, one immediately ﬁnds oneself in conditions where everything can be swept away at one stroke. At that moment you need to have a great courage, a great endurance, though at times a true love is sufﬁcient.


The Mother: And if there is faith — a little, a very very little is enough — then everything is swept away. But in most cases what you need is a great stoic courage, a capacity to endure and to hold out: the resistance, especially in the case of a previous suicide, resistance to the temptation to again begin this foolishness — because it makes a terrible formation. There is also this habit of not looking the difﬁculty straight in the face, which is translated by taking ﬂight. When suffering comes, ﬂy, ﬂy, instead of absorbing the difﬁculty, instead of holding tight, that is to say, not stirring within, not yielding, yes, above all, not yielding when you feel within: “I cannot bear it any longer.” Hold your head as quiet as possible, do not follow the movement, do not obey the vibration.


The Mother: That is what is needed, just that: faith in the Grace, perception of the Grace, or else, intensity of call, or better still, the response, the response, the knot opening, breaking, the response to this wonderful love of the Grace.  It is difﬁcult without a strong will, and above all, above  all, the capacity to resist the temptation which has been the fatal temptation through all the lives because of its accumulated power. Each defeat gives fresh force to it. A small victory can dissolve it.  The most terrible thing is when you do not have the strength, the courage, something indomitable.


The Moth/home/jaredquek/Python/axolotl/src/axolotl/promptersBU.pyer: How often they come and tell me: “I want to die, I want to run away, I want to die.” They get the answer: “Well, then, die to yourself! You are not asked to let your ego survive! Die to yourself since you want to die!  Have that courage, the true courage to die to your egoism.”


The Mother: But because it is a Karma, you have to do something yourself. Karma is a construction of the ego; the ego must do something, everything cannot be done for it. The truth is this: Karma is the result of the actions of the ego, and it is only when the ego abdicates that Karma is dissolved. You can aid the ego, you can assist it, you can give it force and infuse it with courage, but it must use them.  There is such a gulf between what we truly are and what we are at present that it turns your head giddy at times.


The Mother: You must not yield to the giddiness. Do not move. Be still like a stone until the thing passes away.   Generally, when the time has come for a Karma to be conquered and absorbed by the Grace, there also comes the image or the knowledge or the experience of the exact facts that are the cause of the Karma, and then at that moment you can start the cleaning.


The Mother: But it is just at the most painful point, there where the suggestions are the strongest, that you must bear the blow. Otherwise you will always have to start over again, always start over again.  One day a moment comes when the thing has to be done, when one must make the true inner gesture that liberates. To tell the truth, just now there is upon earth an opportunity which presents itself only after thousands of years, a conscious help with the necessary power. It was once believed that nothing had  the power to wipe away the consequences of a Karma, that it was only by exhausting it through a series of puriﬁcatory acts that the consequences could be transformed, exhausted, effaced.


The Mother: But with the supramental power, this can be done without the need of going through all the steps of the process of liberation.   Everything is possible, it could have happened, but I do not believe it did. We cannot always believe what is said in books.  Nor is there a necessary connection between such phenomena and sainthood. Some “mediums”, as they are called, have an unusual capacity.


The Mother: They are put in a chair, tied to it, guarded by people, and the room is locked securely from outside. Then darkness is created in the room. After some time — longer or shorter according to the medium’s power — the knots are found untied, the chair is seen empty: the occupant has disappeared.  Then, in an adjoining room, the person is found lying down in a deep trance. Through closed doors and thick walls the medium has passed.


The Mother: It is by a power of deconcentration and reconcentration of the physical substance.  Phenomena like these have taken place under the strictest scientiﬁc control. So they do genuinely occur in rare instances, but they are no sign of sanctity. There is nothing spiritual about them. What is at work is purely a capacity of the vital being.


The Mother: And often the mediums are people of very low character, with not a trace of anything saintly.  But to come back to the point. In connection with great or holy men all sorts of stories get started. When Sri Aurobindo had not left his body, there was circulated a story that he used to go out of the roof of his room — yes, physically — and move about in all kinds of places. It is even written down in a book.


The Mother: He told me about it himself.   Don’t other books tell other stories?  There you are!   THE TRUE REASON  Those who want to follow the true path will naturally be exposed to the attacks of all the forces of ill-will, which not only do not understand but generally hate what they do not understand.


The Mother: If you are troubled, vexed, even discouraged by all the spiteful stupidities that people may say about you, you will not be able to advance much on the way. And these things come to you not because you are unlucky or because your lot is not a happy one, but because on the contrary the divine Consciousness and Grace take your resolution seriously and allow circumstances to become the touchstones on the way, to see if your resolution is sincere and you are strong enough to face the difﬁculties.  Therefore, if someone laughs at you, or says something which is not kind, the ﬁrst thing to do is to look within yourself and see what is the weakness or imperfection which has allowed such a thing to happen, and not to be disconsolate or indignant or sad because people do not appreciate you for what you consider to be your proper value ; on the contrary, you should thank the divine Grace for having pointed out to you the weakness or imperfection or deformation that you have to rectify.  So instead of being unhappy, you can be fully satisﬁed and take advantage, a great advantage, of the harm that someone wanted to do to you


The Mother: .  Besides, if you truly wish to follow the path and to do the yoga, you should not do it so that people will appreciate and honour you; you should do it because it is an imperative need of your being and because you can be happy only in that way. Whether people appreciate you or do not appreciate you has absolutely no importance whatever. You can tell yourself beforehand that the farther you are from the ordinary man, the  more foreign to the way of the ordinary creature, the less you will be appreciated — quite naturally, for they will not understand you. And I repeat that this has no importance whatever.


The Mother: True sincerity consists in following the way because you cannot do otherwise, in consecrating yourself to the divine life because you cannot do otherwise, in endeavouring to transform your being and emerge into the Light because you cannot do otherwise, because it is the very reason for which you live.   When it is like that, you can be sure that you are on the right path.   If you wake up tired in the morning, it is because of tamas, nothing else, a formidable mass of tamas; I myself noticed it when I began to do the yoga of the body. It is inevitable so long as the body is not transformed.


The Mother: You must lie ﬂat on your back and relax all the muscles and all the nerves — it is an easy thing to learn — to be like what I call a rag on a bed: nothing else remains. And if you can do that with the mind also, you get rid of all those stupid dreams that make you more tired when you get up than when you went to bed. It is the cellular activity of the brain that continues without control, and that tires one much. So, a total relaxation, a sort of complete calm, without tension, in which everything is stopped.  But this is only the beginning.


The Mother: Afterwards, you make a self-giving as total as possible, of everything, from top to bottom, from outside to inside, and an eradication, as total as possible, of all the resistance of the ego.  And you begin repeating your mantra — your mantra, if you have one, or any word which has a power for you, a word leaping forth from the heart spontaneously, like a prayer, a word which sums up your aspiration. After repeating it a certain number of times, if you are accustomed to do so, you enter into trance. And from that trance you pass into sleep. The trance lasts as long as it should and quite naturally, spontaneously, you pass into sleep.


The Mother: But when you come back from this sleep, you remember everything; the sleep was like a continuation of the trance.  Fundamentally, the sole purpose of sleep is to enable the body to assimilate the effect of the trance so that the effect may be received everywhere, and to enable the body to do its natural  nocturnal function of eliminating toxins. And when you wake up, there is not that trace of heaviness which comes from sleep: the effect of the trance continues.  Even for those who have never been in trance, it is good to repeat a mantra, a word, a prayer before going into sleep. But there must be a life in the words; I do not mean an intellectual signiﬁcance, nothing of that kind, but a vibration.


The Mother: And its effect on the body is extraordinary: it begins to vibrate, vibrate, vibrate... and quietly you let yourself go, as though you wanted to go to sleep. The body vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and away you go. That is the cure for tamas.  It is tamas which causes bad sleep.


The Mother: There are two kinds of bad sleep: the sleep that makes you heavy, dull, as if you lost all the effect of the effort you put in during the preceding day; and the sleep that exhausts you as if you had passed your time in ﬁghting. I have noticed that if you cut your sleep into slices (it is a habit one can form), the nights become better. That is to say, you must be able to come back to your normal consciousness and normal aspiration at ﬁxed intervals — come back at the call of the consciousness. But for that you must not use an alarm-clock!  When you are in trance, it is not good to be shaken out of it.


The Mother: When you are about to go to sleep, you can make a formation; say: “I shall wake up at such an hour” (you do that very well when you are a child). For the ﬁrst stretch of sleep you must count at least three hours; for the last, one hour is sufﬁcient. But the ﬁrst one must be three hours at the minimum. On the whole, you have to remain in bed at least seven hours; in six hours you do not have time enough to do much (naturally I am looking at it from the point of view of sadhana) to make the nights useful.  To make use of the nights is an excellent thing.


The Mother: It has a double effect: a negative effect, it prevents you from falling backward, losing what you have gained — that is indeed painful — and a positive effect, you make some progress, you continue your progress. You make use of the night, so there is no trace of fatigue any more.   Two things you must eliminate: falling into the stupor of the inconscience, with all the things of the subconscient and inconscient that rise up, invade you, enter you; and a vital and mental superactivity where you pass your time in ﬁghting, literally, terrible battles. People come out of that state bruised, as if they had received blows. And they did receive them — it is not “as if”!


The Mother: And I see only one way out: to change the nature of sleep.   Naturally, dates are put on these old talks, but nobody pays any attention to the dates. How can they be mixed up with the things of today, which are on an entirely different plane?  There is an experience where you are altogether outside time, that is to say, in front, behind, above, below, it is all the same. In this identiﬁcation, at the moment of identiﬁcation, there is no more past or present or future.


The Mother: And in truth, this is the only way of knowing.  As the experiences develop, these old talks give me the impression of someone who walks all around a garden telling about what is there within it. But there comes a time when you enter into the garden and then you know a little better what is there.  And I am beginning to enter. I am beginning.


The Mother: Drive out? But will it “drive out” anything? If we accept Sri Aurobindo’s idea, it will put each thing in its place, that’s all.  One thing must necessarily cease, and that is the distortion, that is to say, the veil of falsehood upon Truth, because that is what is responsible for everything we see here. If this is removed, things will be completely different, completely.


The Mother: They will be what we feel them to be when we come out of this consciousness.  When one comes out of this consciousness and enters into the Truth-consciousness, the difference is such that one wonders how there can be anything like suffering and misery and death and all that. There is a kind of astonishment in the sense that one does not understand how it can happen — when one has really tipped over to the other side. But this experience is usually associated with the experience of the unreality of the world as we know it, whereas Sri Aurobindo says that this perception of the unreality of the world is not necessary in order to live in the supramental consciousness — it is only the unreality of Falsehood, not the unreality of the world. That is to say, the world has a reality of its own, independent of Falsehood.


The Mother: I suppose that is the ﬁrst effect of the Supermind — the ﬁrst effect in the individual, because it will begin with the individual.   It is probable that this state of new consciousness will have to become a constant state. But then a problem arises: how can one remain in contact with the world as it is in its deformation?  Because I have noticed one thing: when this state is very strong in me, very strong, so strong that it is able to resist anything that comes to bombard it from outside, then when I say something, people do not understand at all, not at all; so this state inevitably does away with a useful contact.  Taking only the earth, for example, how could there be a little supramental creation, a nucleus of supramental action and radiation upon earth?


The Mother: Is it possible? One can conceive very well of a nucleus of superhuman creation and of supermen, that is to say, men who were men and who through evolution and transformation (in the true sense of the word) have succeeded in manifesting the supramental forces; but their origin is human and since their origin is human there is necessarily a contact; even if everything is transformed, even if the organs are transformed into centres of force, there remains nonetheless something human, like a colouring. It is these beings, according to the traditions, who will discover the secret of direct supramental creation, without passing through the process of ordinary Nature, and it is through them that the truly supramental beings will take birth, the ones who must necessarily live in a supramental world. But then how would the contact be made between these beings and the ordinary world? How is one to conceive of the transformation of Nature, a transformation sufﬁcient to bring about the supramental creation upon earth?


The Mother: I do not know.  Naturally, for such a thing to happen, a considerably long time is needed, this we know; and there will probably be stages, steps, things which will appear, things which for the moment we do not know or do not conceive, and they will change the conditions of the earth — but that means seeing some thousands of years ahead.  There remains the problem: is it possible to make use of  this notion of space, I mean the space on the terrestrial globe?


The Mother: Is it possible to ﬁnd a spot where one could create the embryo or seed of the future supramental world? The plan came in all the details, but it is a plan which in its spirit and consciousness does not at all conform to what is possible on earth at present; yet in its most material manifestation, it was based on terrestrial conditions. It is the concept of an ideal town which would be the nucleus of an ideal country, a town which would have contacts, purely superﬁcial and extremely limited in their effect, with the outside world. One would therefore already have to conceive — but this is possible — of a power sufﬁciently strong to be at the same time a protection against aggression or ill-will (this would not be the most difﬁcult protection to obtain) and against inﬁltration and admixtures. But if necessary, one can conceive of that.


The Mother: From the social point of view, from the point of view of organisation, from the point of view of the inner life, these are not problems. The problem is the relation with what is not supramentalised, to prevent the inﬁltration, the admixture: that is to say, to prevent the nucleus from falling back into an inferior creation — it is a problem about the period of transition.  All those who have given thought to the problem have always imagined something unknown to the rest of humanity, like a gorge in the Himalayas, for example, a place unknown to the rest of the world. But this is not a solution; it is not a solution at all.  No, the only solution is an occult power, but this already implies that before anything can be done, a certain number of individuals must have reached a great perfection of realisation.


The Mother: But one can conceive that if this can be done, one can have a spot which is in the midst of the outside world and yet isolated (without any contacts, you see), a spot where everything would be exactly in its place — as an example. Each thing is exactly  in its place, each person exactly in his place, each movement exactly in its place — and in its place in an ascending progressive movement, without any relapse, that is to say, quite the contrary to what happens in ordinary life. Naturally, this presupposes a kind of perfection, this presupposes a kind of unity, this presupposes that the different aspects of the Supreme can be manifested and, of course, an exceptional beauty, a total harmony and a power strong enough to command obedience from the forces of Nature. For example, even if this spot were surrounded by forces of destruction, they would not have the power to act; the protection would be sufﬁcient. All this requires the utmost perfection in the individuals who would be the organisers of such a thing.


The Mother: ( )  Indeed, nobody knows how the ﬁrst men were formed, the ﬁrst mental realisation. One does not know whether they were isolated individuals or groups, whether this happened in the midst of others or in isolation. I do not know.


The Mother: But there may be an analogy with the future case of the supramental creation. It is not difﬁcult to conceive that in the solitude of the Himalayas or in the solitude of a virgin forest an individual would begin to create around him his little supramental world. It is easy to conceive. But the same thing would be necessary: he would have to have reached such a perfection that his power would act automatically to prevent intrusion, so that automatically his world would be protected; that is to say, all contrary or foreign elements would be prevented from approaching.  Stories of the kind have been told, of people who lived in an ideal solitude.


The Mother: It is not impossible at all to conceive that. When one is in contact with this Power, at the moment it is in you, you see quite well that it is child’s play; it is even possible to change certain things, to exert an inﬂuence on surrounding vibrations and forms, which automatically begin to be supramentalised. All  that is possible, but it is on an individual scale. Whereas, take the example of what is happening here, the individual dwelling at the very centre of all this chaos: there lies the difﬁculty! Does it not follow from this very fact that it is impossible to reach a kind of perfection in the realisation?


The Mother: But then too, the other example, that of the solitary in the forest, does not at all prove that the rest of mankind will be able to follow; whereas what is happening here is already a much more radiating action. This is what must happen at a given moment, this must happen inevitably. But the problem remains: can this happen at the same time or before the other thing is realised — at the same time or before the individual, the one individual is supramentalised?  Evidently, the realisation under the conditions of community or the group is much more complete, integral, total and probably more perfect than any individual realisation, which is always, , on the external, material plane, absolutely limited, because it is only one mode of being, one mode of manifestation, one microscopic set of vibrations that is touched.  But from the point of view of the easiness of the work, I believe there is no comparison.


The Mother: ()  The problem remains. All people like Buddha and the others, had realised and then entered into contact with the world: well, this is very simple. But with regard to what I have in view, is it not an indispensable condition, for the realisation to be total, that one remains in the world?


The Mother: Just between 11:00 and 12:00 last night, I had an experience by which I discovered that there is a group of people — purposely their identity was not revealed to me — who want to create a kind of religion based on the revelation of Sri Aurobindo. But they have taken only the side of power and force, a certain kind of knowledge and all that could be utilised by Asuric forces.  There is a big Asuric being that has succeeded in taking the appearance of Sri Aurobindo. There is only an appearance. This appearance of Sri Aurobindo has declared to me that the work I am doing is not his.


The Mother: It has declared that I have been a traitor to him and to his work and has refused to have anything to do with me.  There is in that group a man whom I must have seen once or twice, who is not with them in spirit, but only in appearance. But he is without knowledge, he does not know what kind of being is there. And he always hopes to make this being accept me, believing it is truly Sri Aurobindo. This being I saw last night.


The Mother: I won’t tell all the details of the vision — it is not necessary.  But I must say that I was fully conscious, aware of everything, knowing that an Asuric force was there — but not rejecting it because of the inﬁnity of Sri Aurobindo. I knew that everything is part of him and I do not want to reject anything. I met this being last night three times, even apologised for sins that I have not committed and in full love and surrender. I woke at 12:00, remembering everything.


The Mother: Between 12:15 and 2:00 I was with the true Sri Aurobindo in the fullest and sweetest relation — there also in perfect consciousness, awareness, calm and equanimity.   At 2:00 I woke and noted just before that Sri Aurobindo himself  had shown me that still he was not completely master of the physical realm. I woke up at 2:00 and noticed that the heart had been affected by the attack of this group that wants to take my life away from this body, because they know that so long as I am in a body upon earth their purpose cannot succeed. Their ﬁrst attack was many years ago in vision and action.


The Mother: I had it in the night and spoke of it to nobody. I noted down the date, and if I can come out of this crisis, I will ﬁnd it and give it out. They would have liked me dead years ago. It is they who are responsible for these attacks on my life. Up till now I am alive because the Lord wanted me to be alive, otherwise I would have gone long ago.


The Mother: I am no more in my body. I have left it for the Lord to take care of it, to decide if it is to have the Supramental or not. I know and I have said also that now is the last ﬁght. If the purpose for which this body is alive is to be fulﬁlled, that is to say, the ﬁrst steps taken towards the Supramental transformation, then it will continue today. This is the Lord’s decision.


The Mother: I am not even asking what he has decided. If the body is incapable of bearing the ﬁght, if it has to be dissolved, then humanity will pass through a critical time. What the Asuric Force that has succeeded in taking the appearance of Sri Aurobindo will create, is a new religion or thought, perhaps cruel and merciless, in the name of the Supramental Realisation. But everybody must know that it is not true, it is not Sri Aurobindo’s teaching, not the truth of his teaching. The truth of Sri Aurobindo is a truth of love and light and mercy.


The Mother: He is good and great and compassionate and Divine. And it is He who will have the ﬁnal victory.  Now, individually, if you want to help, you have only to pray. What the Lord wants will be done. Whatever He wills, He will do with this body, which is a poor thing.


The Mother: The ﬁght is within the body. This can’t go on. They must be  defeated or this body is defeated. All depends on what the Lord will decide.  It is the battleﬁeld.


The Mother: How far it can resist, I don’t know. After all, it depends on Him. He knows if the time has come or not, the time for the beginning of the Victory — then the body will survive; if not, in any case, my love and consciousness will be there.   EXPERIENCE ON THE NIGHT OF 12 APRIL 1962  Suddenly in the night I woke with the full awareness of what we could call the Yoga of the World.


The Mother: The Supreme Love was manifesting through big pulsations, and each pulsation was bringing the world further in its manifestation. It was the formidable pulsations of the eternal stupendous Love, only Love. Each pulsation of the Love was carrying the universe further in its manifestation.  And there was the certitude that what is to be done is done and that the Supramental Manifestation is realised.  Everything was impersonal, nothing was individual.


The Mother: This was going on and on and on and on.   The certitude that what is to be done is.  All the results of the falsehood had disappeared: death was an illusion, sickness was an illusion, ignorance was an illusion — something that had no reality, no existence .


The Mother: Only Love and Love and Love and Love — immense, formidable, stupendous, carrying everything.  And how to express it in the world? It was like an impossibility, because of the contradiction. But then it came: “You have accepted that the world should know the Supramental Truth... and it will be expressed totally, integrally.” Yes, yes....


The Mother: And the thing is ()  The individual consciousness came back: just the sense of a  limitation, a limitation of pain; without that, no individual.  And we set out again on the way, sure of Victory.  The skies are full of the songs of Victory.  The Truth alone exists; it alone shall be manifested.


The Mother: Forward!   Glory to Thee, Lord, Supreme Triumpher!  ()  Now, to the work.


The Mother: Patience, endurance, perfect equality, and an absolute faith.  ( )  What I am saying is nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing but words if I compare it to the experience.  And our consciousness is the same, absolutely the same as that of the Lord.


The Mother: There was no difference, no difference.  We are That, we are That, we are That.  ()  Later I shall explain better. The instrument is not yet ready.


The Mother: This is only the beginning.  The experience lasted for at least four hours.  There are many things which I shall say later.    DIALOGUE WITH A MATERIALIST


The Mother: The other day, in dealing with a question of work, I had occasion to explain my position from the standpoint of the materialists’ conviction. I do not know where they stand now, for I do not concern myself with that generally.  For them, all the experiences that men have are the result of a mental phenomenon — it is that. We have attained a progressive mental development.


The Mother: They would be quite unable to say why or how! — but in brief, it is Matter that has developed Life, and Life that has developed Mind, and all the so-called spiritual experiences of man are mental constructions — they use other words, but I believe that this is their idea. In any case, it is a negation of all spiritual existence in itself and a negation of a Being or of a Force or of Something higher which governs everything.  I repeat, I do not know where they stand now, but I was faced with a conviction like that.


The Mother: And so I said: “But it is very simple! I accept your point of view. There is nothing else except what we see, humanity as it is, and all the so-called inner phenomena are due to a mental, a cerebral action; and when you die, you die — that is to say, when the phenomenon of agglomeration reaches the end of its life and dissolves, everything dissolves. It is all right.”  Probably if things had been like that, life would have appeared so disgusting that I would have gone out of it long ago.


The Mother: But I must immediately say that it is not for a moral or even a spiritual reason that I disapprove of suicide. It is for me a  cowardice, and there is something in me that does not like cowardice, and therefore I would not... I would never run away from the problem.  That is point number one.  And then, once you are here, you ought to go to the end, even if the end is nothingness — you go till the end, and it is better to go in the best way possible, that is to say, the way most satisfactory to you.


The Mother: It happens that I had some philosophical curiosity and studied a little about all these problems. I found myself in the presence of Sri Aurobindo’s teaching, and what he says is for me the most satisfactory of all. What he has taught (I should say revealed, but not to a materialist) is, among the systems formulated by man, by far the most satisfactory for me, the most complete, answering in the most satisfactory way all the questions that can be put, the one that helps me most in life to have the feeling that it is worth something. Therefore I try to conform entirely to what he teaches and to live it integrally in the best possible way to live — best for me. It is all the same to me if others do not believe in it — whether they believe in it or not makes no difference for me.


The Mother: I do not need to be supported by the conviction of others; my own satisfaction is enough. Well, there is nothing more to say.  The experiment lasted for a long time. In complete detail, to all problems I answered like that. And when I had ended, I told myself, “But this is marvellous as an argument!”


The Mother: Because all the elements of doubt, ignorance, incomprehension, ill-will, negation, all those things that come — immediately they go away with that argument; they are annulled, they have no effect.  And afterwards, everything was securely grasped, solid.  What have you got to say?   (


The Mother: )  It is much easier to reply to materialists who are uncompromising, convinced, sincere (that is to say, sincere within the limits  of their consciousness) than to people having a religion — much easier!  But naturally, from the intellectual point of view, all human convictions have an explanation and a place. There is nothing men have thought which is not the deformation of a truth. The difﬁculty is not there, but rather in the fact that for religious people there are things which it is their duty to believe and it is a sin to let the mind discuss them — and so they shut themselves up, naturally, and they can never make any progress.


The Mother: Whereas the materialists, on the contrary, are supposed to know everything, explain everything: they explain everything rationally. And thus () by the very fact that they explain everything, they can be led to wherever one wants to go.   Yes.  But after all, that also is not good.


The Mother: If they have been clinging to a religion, it is because that religion has helped them in one way or another, it has helped in them precisely something which wanted to have a certitude, not to have to search but to be able to rest on something solid without being responsible for the solidity — somebody else is responsible () and it goes on like that. It is a lack of compassion to want to pull them out of that — it is better to leave them where they are. I never dispute with someone who has a faith — let him keep his faith! I take care not to tell him anything that might shake his faith, because it would not be good — they are not capable of having another.  But to a materialist: “I do not dispute, I accept your standpoint; only, you have nothing to say — I have taken my position; you take yours.


The Mother: If you are satisﬁed with what you have, keep it.  If it helps you to live, it is quite all right.  “But you have no right to blame me or criticise me, because it is on your own basis. Even if all that I imagine is simply an imagination, I prefer my imagination to yours.”


The Mother: There!   TO CHOOSE THE TRUTH  You want a mental deﬁnition of the Truth. The Truth cannot be expressed in mental terms. Yes, it is so.


The Mother: And all the questions put are mental questions.  The Truth cannot be formulated, it cannot be deﬁned — it is to be.  And one who is wholly consecrated to the Truth, who wants to live the Truth, serve the Truth, will know at each moment what must be done: it will be a kind of intuition or revelation (most often without words, but sometimes also expressed in words) which will make you know at every minute what is the truth of that minute. And it is this that is so interesting. You want to know “the Truth” as a thing well deﬁned, well classiﬁed, well established, and after that you are at rest:


The Mother: there is no need to seek any more! You take it up, you say: “Here, this is the Truth” and then it is ﬁxed. This is what all the religions have done. They have established their truth as a dogma. But it is not the Truth any more.


The Mother: The Truth is something living, moving, expressing itself at each second, and it is way of approaching the Supreme.  Each one has his way of approaching the Supreme. There are perhaps some who are able to approach him from all sides at the same time, but there are those who approach through Love, those who approach through Power, those who approach through Consciousness and those who approach through Truth. But each of these aspects is as absolute, imperative and undeﬁnable as the supreme Lord himself is.   The supreme Lord is absolute, imperative and undeﬁnable, unseizable in his action, and his attributes have this same quality.


The Mother: Once one knows this, he who puts himself at the service of one of these aspects will know (it is expressed in life, in time, in the movement of time), will know at each moment what Truth is, and will know at each moment what Consciousness is, and will know at each minute what Power is, and he will know at each minute what Love is. And it is a multiform Power, Love, Consciousness, Truth that expresses itself innumerably in the manifestation, even as the Lord expresses himself innumerably in the manifestation.   You see, in the present condition of the world, circumstances are always difﬁcult. The whole world is in a condition of strife, conﬂict, between the forces of truth and light wanting to manifest and the opposition of all that does not want to change, which represents in the past what is ﬁxed, hardened and refuses to go.  Naturally, each individual feels his own difﬁculties and is faced by the same obstacles.


The Mother: There is only one way for you. It is a total, complete and unconditional surrender. What I mean by that is the giving up not only of your actions, work, ambitions, but also of all your feelings, in the sense that all that you do, all that you are, is exclusively for the Divine. So, you feel above the surrounding human reactions — not only above them but protected from them by the wall of the Divine’s Grace. Once you have no more desires, no more attachments, once you have given up all necessity of receiving a reward from human beings, whoever they are — knowing that the only reward that is worth getting is the one that comes from the Supreme and that never fails — once you give up the attachment to all exterior beings and things, you at once feel in your heart this Presence, this Force, this Grace that is always with you.


The Mother: And there is no other remedy. It’s the only remedy, for  without exception. To all those who suffer, it is the same thing that has to be said: all suffering is the sign that the surrender is not total. Then, when you feel in you a “bang”, like that, instead of saying, “Oh, this is bad” or “This circumstance is difﬁcult,” you say, “My surrender is not perfect.” Then it’s all right.


The Mother: And then you feel the Grace that helps you and leads you, and you go on. And one day you emerge into that peace that nothing can trouble. You answer to all the contrary forces, the contrary movements, the attacks, the misunderstandings, the  bad wills, with the same smile that comes from full conﬁdence in the Divine Grace. And that is the way out, there is no other.  This world is a world of conﬂict, suffering, difﬁculty, strain; it is made of it.


The Mother: It has not yet changed, it will take some time before changing. And for each one there is a possibility of getting out. If you lean back on the presence of the Supreme Grace, that is the way out. That I have been telling you since two or three days, like that constantly.  Now?


The Mother: What? For your work there is nothing to say. You are doing it perfectly well, exactly as it has to be done; it is all right. Your work is quite all right.  Excellent, go on doing it.


The Mother: You do it perfectly well. Don’t expect human appreciation — because human beings don’t know on what grounds to appreciate something, and, moreover, when there is something that is superior to them, they don’t like it.   Within you. The Divine Presence is in you.


The Mother: It is in you. You look for it outside; look inside. It is in you. The Presence is there. You want the appreciation of others to get strength — you will never get it.


The Mother: The strength is in you. If you want, you can aspire for what seems to you the supreme goal, supreme light, supreme knowledge, supreme love. But it is in you — otherwise you would never be able to contact it. If you go deep enough  inside you, you will ﬁnd it there, like a ﬂame that is always burning straight up.  And don’t believe that it is so difﬁcult to do.


The Mother: It is because the look is always turned outside that you don’t feel the Presence.  But if, instead of looking outside for support, you concentrate and you pray — inside, to the supreme knowledge — to know at each moment what is to be done, the way to do it, and if you give all you are, all you do in order to acquire perfection, you will feel that the support is there, always guiding, showing the way.   And if there is a difﬁculty, then instead of wanting to ﬁght, you  hand it over, hand it over to the supreme wisdom to deal with it — to deal with all the bad wills, all the misunderstandings, all the bad reactions.


The Mother: If you surrender completely, it is no more your concern: it’s the concern of the Supreme who takes it up and knows better than anybody else what is to be done. The only way out, only way out. There, my child.  Your own people are all mixed up, as everybody is.


The Mother: What! You expect the world to understand that?  If you consider this: that I can understand and know, then you  have my full support. I never told you that you were doing wrong, did I? Now, once and for all you must understand that unless people are true yogis, out of the ego, completely surrendered to the Supreme, they can’t understand.


The Mother: How could  they? They see with all the exterior eyes and knowledge; they see exterior things and appearances. They don’t see the inside.  When we have stopped expecting appreciation from the outside, that is from human beings, we have no reason to complain.


The Mother: They appreciate, so much the better for them. They don’t appreciate, it doesn’t matter. It’s their own look-out. We do things not to please them, we do things because we feel that that is to be done.  Perhaps things are coming to compel you to take up that position — because that is the liberation, that is the true liberation.


The Mother: sadhu  That is all right, but also you must not need the appreciation of your own family.  Then you can’t suffer. Because the only thing that you need is the support of the Divine, and you have it. Then you can’t suffer.


The Mother: Yes, there is a conﬂict in your being. One part of your consciousness knows but there is still one part that is the slave of circumstances.   ()  Perhaps all that has been coming upon you for the supreme and the total liberation. And if you take it as the expression of the Grace, you will see the result.


The Mother: Peace, a peace that nothing can disturb, perfect equanimity and a strength that never fails.  ( )  Take it as a new birth today. The new life that is beginning.


The Mother: I took my seat, it was almost time, perhaps half a minute before, and all of a sudden, without preparation, like that, like a hammer blow: a descent so powerful — completely immobile — of something... It was as though Sri Aurobindo spoke to me at the same time (because the deﬁnition came at the same time as the experience: it was a vision that was not a vision, it was wholly concrete) and the word was: But so strong!  And then it did not move. During the whole half-hour, it did not move. It is something new that I had never felt before.


The Mother: I cannot say... It was perceived, but not like an objective vision. And spontaneously, other persons told me that as soon as they were seated for meditation (), something came down with a tremendous power, completely immobile, and a feeling of peace that they had never felt in their life.  Golden peace. And it is true, it gave the impression of the golden supramental light.


The Mother: But it was... a peace! Concrete, you know, not the negation of disorder and activity, no: concrete, concrete peace. I did not want to stop. The time was over, still  I remained two minutes, three minutes.


The Mother: When I stopped, it was gone. And it has made a great difference for the body — the body itself — such a difference that when it had gone, I felt quite uneasy, I needed half a minute to regain my equilibrium.  It came and it went away. It came for the meditation and then it went away. For more than half an hour, thirty-ﬁve minutes.


The Mother: And in the evening, at the balcony, there was a crowd. I believe it was the biggest crowd that we have ever had: it spread  out into all the streets; as far as I could see, the streets were full of people. Then I came out, and as I came out, there arose from this crowd like a... something between an imploring, a prayer and a protest about the condition the world is in, particularly this country. And that rose up in waves. I looked at it, and then (it was extremely insistent) I said to myself: “It is not my day, it is Sri Aurobindo’s day.”


The Mother: I went like this () and I put Sri Aurobindo in front. And when he was put in front, standing in front he simply said, simply: “The Lord knows best what he is doing.” ( ) Immediately, I began to smile (I did not laugh, but I began to smile) and there came the same peace as in the morning.


The Mother: There you are.  “The Lord knows best what he is doing”, with his most perfect sense of humour. And immediately everything became calm.   What must be done to pull the country out of its difﬁculty? Sri


The Mother: Aurobindo has foreseen all the troubles and he has given the solution. Just now we are approaching his Centenary; it seems arranged, you know, divinely arranged, because this would be a wonderful occasion to spread his teaching all over the country: the teaching, the practical teaching, his teaching about India, how to organise India, the mission of India. It seems to me that taking the Centenary as an occasion, his teaching could be spread all over the country with a little more organising — so that his ideas get spread. Those people who are interested can take it up and teach it, hold meetings and give the light and the knowledge to the people. It is a wonderful occasion.


The Mother: And it is only this that gives a clue to all these difﬁculties.  About all that has happened and all that is happening now, he has said clearly that to go back to it is useless. We must give the country its true position, that is, the position of relying on the Divine. Naturally, this is at the other end of what people try to believe now. But Sri Aurobindo explains it in such a way that even those who are against it can agree.


The Mother: You understand?  He has found a way of saying it which can be understood by everybody. That’s the only solution, as far as I can see; it is the only solution. All the rest will mean complication, contradiction and ﬁghting.  Just now we have two years in front of us to organise a kind of demonstration of what he was teaching.


The Mother: And this is above politics, you see. It is not a question of party, it’s not that: because some are for it, others will naturally not be. It is above all politics. It is to organise the country beyond politics. And it is the only way.


The Mother: In politics it is always ﬁght and ugly ﬁght — ugly.  And it has become so bad. He was telling me always that things would become worse and worse, because it is the of this  age. We are entering into an age where things must be organised differently. It is a difﬁcult time because of that.


The Mother: Because we know what will come, we can help to make it come sooner and with less turmoil. There is no hope in going backwards; it would make things last endlessly. We must go forward, absolutely, and go beyond, beyond party. And nobody can explain that better than Sri Aurobindo, because he was so much, much beyond party; he saw the advantages and disadvantages of all parties and he stated them exactly.  If you read carefully what he has written — so much — you will ﬁnd the answer to all these questions.


The Mother: And at the same time you will know that you will have the full support of the Divine Power. The Power that was behind him is behind this transformation. It is time for transformation. We can’t cling to the past.  The best way to go beyond politics is to spread the message of Sri Aurobindo.


The Mother: Because he is no more a political element wanting to take power; there are only his ideas and ideals. And, of course, if people could understand and realise his programme, the country could be very strong, very strong.  Those who understand the teaching can take up the work of organising and spreading it.  ( )


The Mother: They will break. And they themselves will feel so restricted.  If there is a man who feels like going in for politics, that is different; but I think the others will be stronger without being inside.  But they must be political people in temperament.   Politics is always limited by party, by ideas, by duties also — unless we prepare a government that has no party, a government that admits all ideas because it is above parties.


The Mother: Party is limitation; it is like a box: you go into the box ().  Of course, if there were some people who had the courage to be in the government without a party — “We represent no party!  We represent that would be magniﬁcent.   Pull the consciousness up, up, above party.


The Mother: And then, naturally, certain people who couldn’t come into political parties — that! that is truly working for tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be like that. All this turmoil is because the country must take the lead, must go above all these old political habits.