The Mother
with Letters on the Mother

The Mother's Help and the Hostile Forces

There are times when I think myself to be a simple vessel and imagine that things coming from the outside have no importance, for the adhar can be purified and what is not wanted can either be thrown out or allowed to end in a natural way. But at other times I feel that every outside contact may have harmful effects, and care and tapasya are needed to avoid confusion. I want to know which view is correct.

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It is not possible to make a fixed rule covering all cases and circumstances; sometimes one has to remain quiet waiting for the Mother's light and force to act, sometimes it is necessary to use an active tapasya. But one thing is always necessary, to refuse to accept the adverse forces and suggestions that try to disorganise and disturb the system; for the basis of the Yoga must be peace, quiet, clarity, self-possession and nothing should be allowed to invade and upset the basis and substitute confusion and disorder.

13 September 1931

It might be charitable to warn X not to listen to imbecile remarks [about the Mother] of this kind, from whomsoever they may come, and, if he hears them, to do nothing to propagate them. He had been progressing extremely well because he opened himself to the Mother; but if he allows stupidities like that to enter his mind, it may influence him, close him to the Mother and stop his progress.

As for Y, if he said and thought a thing like that, it explains why he has been suffering in health so much lately. If one makes oneself a mouthpiece of the hostile forces and lends oneself to their falsehoods, it is not surprising that something in him should get out of order.

7 January 1932

I see now the damage I have done by my disobedience in work. I must go about my work consciously, performing it as a service to the Mother. I must work with full concentration and feel a connection with the Mother.

The difficulty this time must have come from this very act of distrust and disobedience. For distrust and disobedience are like falsehood (they are themselves a falsity, based on false ideas and impulses),—they interfere in the action of the Power, prevent it from being felt or working fully and diminish the force of the Protection. It was the same thing that made you lose touch for a while—for the adverse vital Formation always makes use of

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these wrong movements to cloud the consciousness. Not only in your inward concentration, but in your outward acts and movements you must take the right attitude. If you do that and put everything under the Mother's guidance, you will find that difficulties begin to diminish or are much more easily got over and things become steadily smoother.

Now that these things have happened you should learn from them and feel the necessity of being, as you say, conscious in your work. In your work and acts you must do the same as in your concentration. Open to the Mother, put them under her guidance, call in the peace, the supporting Power, the protection and, in order that they may work, reject all wrong influences that might come in their way by creating wrong, careless or unconscious movements.

Follow this principle and your whole being will become one, under one rule, in the peace and sheltering Power and Light.

17 March 1932

At 4.30 in the afternoon, while serving vegetables in the Dining Room, I suddenly fell into a very unhappy condition. My consciousness entered into a world of obscurity and uneasiness and wild vital forces. Innumerable hostile suggestions pierced my helpless consciousness. Then the form of X appeared and he threatened me, saying that my fate would be the same as his—I would have to leave the Asram. Later, while in this condition I passed by Y's room and felt that the Mahakali forces of the Mother were around me; I also felt that her very name would create fear in the hostile forces. As I thought of her with feeling, suddenly all was clear.

It is the Force that attacks everyone in the Asram who can at all be attacked in this way—the X form is merely an appearance which it took for the sake of having a more concrete effect. It is a vital violence which suggests always a catastrophic breaking of the personal sadhana or of my work. Such a Force is naturally met by the power of Mahakali. You felt it while passing Y's room because it is always there with Y, and it is by that that he meets the suggestions of this Force when it comes. The Mother's name

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called with faith is usually enough to meet it. It disappeared at once because it is a Falsehood which cannot stand once the light of the Truth touches it. It prevailed with X because he welcomed its suggestions of pride, revolt, hostility to the Mother, even clung to them—otherwise it would have had no chance.

2 October 1933

This hostile force is still trying to attack me and it also wants to harm you and the Mother. When I utter your name and Mother's name, it tries to finish me and make wrong impressions about Mother and turn me against her. Why is it still troubling me?

This Force is one that is there to break the Yoga if it can—it is not only you it attacks but all who do the sadhana. It hates the Mother and myself because we bring the Light into the consciousness of the physical world and it wants to keep the physical world in darkness. It knows that the only way it can succeed in preventing the success of the sadhak in his sadhana is, first, by turning him against the Mother, or, if it cannot do that, by persuading him that he is unfit and so disturbing him that he gets upset and loses faith and courage. What you have to do is always to remain calm and call in the Mother's force and to refuse steadily all the suggestions whether against yourself or against the Mother. Preserve your calm always, keep an entire faith in the Mother and in your own spiritual destiny. Reply always that whatever it may say, you are the Mother's child and cannot fail in the sadhana.

5 November 1933

These suggestions are what we call hostile suggestions—they come from a Force which is wandering about in the atmosphere trying to do harm to the sadhana. Its suggestions are always the same, to whomever they come—the suggestion of going away, the suggestion of unfitness and failure, this suggestion of madness, and a certain fixed number of others with the same purpose. There is only one thing to do with them—never to

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listen to them; one must reply as you have done and dismiss them summarily from the consciousness. If one takes this simple stand, "I have come for the Yoga—I will allow nothing to divert me from my aim; I have the demand of the soul within and the help and protection of the Mother", then these things can no longer approach or approach in vain.

I am glad you have the aspiration and the push awake; it is always bound to revive after every interval and to carry you farther. Keep it and progress.

17 March 1934

A few sadhaks here are supposed to be using the occult process. But when it is done to harm a fellow sadhak, is this not an egoistic use of occult power, more like the use of black magic? I told X that when occult power is used, without asking Mother, to satisfy one's like or dislike, a clash may occur on the vital plane and some disembodied being there may give a dangerous hit. He said it is not really like this—rather it happens naturally as the result of a play of forces on the vital plane.

It is obviously a wholly Asuric thing to do when it is turned to egoistic purposes or against fellow sadhaks. It is certainly not a natural play of forces over which one has no control. Anybody doing that may get a serious back-blow, especially if it is done against people protected by the Mother—for, knocking against a wall of protection the force put out may automatically recoil on the sender.

10 September 1934

It will not do to yield to these attacks which are without reason and obviously are only waves from outside. You should recognise them as such, things not your own but forced on you by a Force from outside and when they come remain still, reject and call the Mother's force to liberate you.

15 July 1936

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