The Mother
with Letters on the Mother

Comments on Specific Conversations

These conversations of 1929 were first published in 1931 as Conversations with the Mother. They now form the first part of Questions and Answers 1929-1931 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 2003), volume 3 of the Collected Works of the Mother. The page numbers given after quoted passages in this subsection refer to the 2003 edition.—Ed.

The Mother asks: "What do you want the Yoga for? To get power?" [p. 1] Does "power" here mean the power to communicate one's own experience to others?

Power is a general term—it is not confined to a power to communicate. The most usual form of power is control over things, persons, events, forces.

"What is required is concentration—concentration upon the Divine with a view to an integral and absolute consecration to its Will and Purpose" [p. 1]. Is the Divine's Will different from its Purpose?

The two words have not the same meaning. Purpose means the intention, the object in view towards which the Divine is working. Will is a wider term than that.

"Concentrate in the heart" [p. 1]. What is concentration? What is meditation?

Concentration here means gathering of the consciousness into one centre and fixing it on one object or on one idea or in one condition. Meditation is a general term which can include many kinds of inner activity.

1 January 1937

In Conversations the Mother says: "A fire is burning there, in

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the deep quietude of the heart" [p. 1]. Is this the psychic fire or the psychic being?

A fire is not a being—it is the psychic fire, an intense condition of aspiration.

"A fire is burning there.... It is the divinity in you—your true being. Hear its voice, follow its dictates" [p. 1]. I have never seen this fire in me. Yet I feel I know the divinity in me. I feel I hear its voice and I try my utmost to follow its dictates. Should I doubt my feeling?

No, what you feel is probably the intimation from the psychic being through the mind. To be directly conscious of the psychic fire, one must have the subtle vision and subtle sense active or else the direct action of the psychic acting as a manifest power in the consciousness.

"We have all met in previous lives" [p. 3]. Who precisely are "we"? Do both of you remember me? Did I often serve you for this work in the past?

It is a general principle announced which covers all who are called to the work. At the time the Mother was seeing the past (or part of it) of those to whom she spoke and that is why she said this. At present we are too much occupied with the crucial work in the physical consciousness to go into these things. Moreover we find that it encouraged a sort of vital romanticism in the sadhaks which made them attach more importance to these things than to the hard work of sadhana, so we have stopped speaking of past lives and personalities.

2 January 1937

In Conversations the Mother says: "We have all met in previous lives.... We are of one family and have worked through ages for the victory of the Divine" [p. 3]. Is this true of all people who come and stay here? But there have been many who came and went away.

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Those who went away were also of these and still are of that circle. Temporary checks do not make any difference to the essential truth of the soul's seeking.

In what way have we "worked through ages for the victory of the Divine"? How much has been achieved till now?

By the victory is meant the final emergence of the embodied consciousness on earth from the bondage of the Ignorance. That had to be prepared through the ages by a spiritual evolution. Naturally the work up till now has been a preparation of which the long spiritual effort and experience of the past has been the outcome. It has reached a point at which the decisive effort has become possible.

18 June 1933

"There are two paths of Yoga, one of tapasyā (discipline) and the other of surrender" [p. 4]. Once you interpreted a vision I had as Agni, the fire of purification and tapasya, producing the Sun of Truth. What path do I follow? What place has tapasya in the path of surrender? Can one do absolutely without tapasya in the path of surrender?

There is a tapasya that takes place automatically as the result of surrender and there is a discipline that one carries out by one's own unaided effort—it is the latter that is meant in the "two paths of Yoga". But Agni as the fire of tapasya can burn in either case.

4 January 1937

The Mother, in her Conversations, says that "the first effect of Yoga ... is to take away the mental control" [p. 5] so that the ideas and desires which were so long checked become surprisingly prominent and create difficulties. Would you not call these forces the consequence of yogic pressure?

They were not prominent because they were getting some satisfaction or at least the vital generally was getting indulged in one way or another. When they are no longer indulged then they

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become obstreperous. But they are not new forces created by the Yoga—they were there all the time.

What is meant by the mental control being removed, is that the mental simply kept them in check but could not remove them. So in Yoga the mental has to be replaced by the psychic or spiritual self-control which could do what the mental cannot. Only many sadhaks do not make this exchange in time and withdraw the mental control merely.

12 May 1933

"The strength of such impulses as those of sex lies usually in the fact that people take too much notice of them" [p. 5]. What are the other impulses referred to?

It refers to strong vital impulses.

"The whole world is full of the poison. You take it in with every breath. If you exchange a few words with an undesirable man or even if such a man merely passes by you, you may catch the contagion from him" [p. 6]. How long is a sadhak subject to this fear of catching contagion? I feel I won't catch such a contagion now. Is my feeling trustworthy?

I don't know that it is. One has to go very far on the path before one is so secure as that.

4 January 1937

In Conversations the Mother says that if the central being has surrendered, then the chief difficulty is gone [p. 7]. What is this central being? Is it the psychic?

The central being is the Purusha. If it is surrendered, then all the other beings can be offered to the Divine and the psychic being brought in front.

18 April 1933

In Conversations the Mother says: "One who dances and jumps and screams has the feeling that he is somehow very unusual in his excitement; and his vital nature takes great

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pleasure in that" [p. 11]. Does she mean that one should be usual instead of unusual in one's excitement during spiritual experience?

The Mother did not mean that one must be usual in one's excitement at all—she meant that the man is not only excited but also wants to be unusual (extraordinary) in his excitement. The excitement itself is bad and the desire to seem extraordinary is worse.

7 June 1933

"But to those who possess the necessary basis and foundation we say, on the contrary, 'Aspire and draw'" [p. 11]. Does this capacity to aspire and draw indicate a great advance already made towards perfection?

No. It is a comparatively elementary stage.

5 January 1937

In the chapter on dream in the Conversations, I came across the following passage: "In sleep you fell into the grip of these subconscient¹ regions and they opened and swallowed all that you had laboriously built up in your conscious hours" [p. 15]. If these regions swallow all one has achieved during the day, is it not necessary to be conscious at night as well as in the day?

At night, when one sinks into the subconscient after being in a good state of consciousness, we find that state gone and we have to labour to get it back again. On the other hand, if the sleep is of the better kind, one may wake up in a good condition. Of course, it is better to be conscious in sleep, if one can.

25 June 1933

"Spiritual experience means the contact with the Divine in oneself (or without, which comes to the same thing in that domain)" [p. 17]. What is meant by the Divine "without"?

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Does it mean the cosmic Divine or the transcendental Divine or both?

It means the Divine seen outside in things, beings, events etc. etc.

Was Jeanne d'Arc's nature transformed even a little because of her relation with the two archangels, the two beings of the Overmind? [pp. 17-18]

I don't see how the question of transformation comes in. Jeanne d'Arc was not practising Yoga or seeking transformation.

5 January 1937

"You have no longer anything that you can call your own; you feel everything as coming from the Divine, and you have to offer it back to its source. When you can realise that, then even the smallest thing to which you do not usually pay much attention or care, ceases to be trivial and insignificant; it becomes full of meaning and it opens up a vast horizon beyond" [p. 23]. Is this as elementary a stage as the stage of "aspire and draw"?²

Not so elementary.

"But if we want the Divine to reign here we must give all we have and are and do here to the Divine" [p. 25]. If one does this completely, has he anything more to do?

No. But it is not easy to do it completely.

How can we recognise someone who gives all he has and is and does to the Divine?

You can't, unless you have the inner vision.

14 January 1937

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What does Mother mean by this sentence in Conversations: "When you eat, you must feel that it is the Divine who is eating through you" [p. 23]?

It means an offering of the food not to the ego or desire but to the Divine, who is behind all action.

11 January 1935

In Chapter 7 of Conversations, there is a paragraph which I quote below: "The condition to be aimed at, the real achievement of Yoga, the final perfection and attainment, for which all else is only a preparation, is a consciousness in which it is impossible to do anything without the Divine; for then if you are without the Divine, the very source of your action disappears; knowledge, power, all are gone. But so long as you feel that the powers you use are your own, you will not miss the Divine support" [p. 26]. I am unable to follow the last line. Will my lord explain it to me?

It means that in the full spiritual consciousness the sense of separate existence and my and mine disappear. All depends on the Divine and exists only by the Divine. The ordinary consciousness does not feel or miss this Divine support because it takes as its own the knowledge and power that are given to it; it is quite satisfied with that and is not aware of the Divine Existence behind it, or the Divine Force and Knowledge.

19 April 1937

"For there is nothing in the world which has not its ultimate truth and support in the Divine" [p. 27]. To know this perfectly by experience is to have a very great attainment, perhaps the final attainment, I think. Am I right?

Yes.

"Obviously, what has happened had to happen; it would not have been, if it had not been intended" [p. 28]. Then what is the place of repentance in man's life? Has it any place in the life of a sadhak?

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The place of repentance is in its effect for the future—if it induces the nature to turn from the state of things that brought about the happening. For the sadhak however it is not repentance but recognition of a wrong movement and the necessity of its not recurring that is needed.

"... you are tied to the chain of Karma, and there, in that chain, whatever happens is rigorously the consequence of what has been done before" [p. 30]. Does "before" mean all the past lives, beginning from the very first up to this one?

That is taking things in the mass. In a metaphysical sense whatever happens is the consequence of all that has gone before up to the moment of the action. Practically, particular consequences have particular antecedents in the past and it is these that are said to determine it.

From where are these quotations? In the exact intention of a sentence much sometimes depends on the context.

19 January 1937

"The intellect that believes too much in its own importance and wants satisfaction for its own sake, is an obstacle to the higher realisation.

"But this is true not in any special sense or for the intellect alone, but generally and of other faculties as well. For example, people do not regard an all-engrossing satisfaction of the vital desires or the animal appetites as a virtue; the moral sense is accepted as a mentor to tell one the bounds that one may not transgress. It is only in his intellectual activities that man thinks he can do without any such mentor or censor!" [p. 33]

The subject is too large for any special instances to be usefully given, as an instance can only illustrate one side or field of a very various action. The point is that people take no trouble to see whether their intellect is giving them right thoughts, right conclusions, right views on things and persons, right indications about their conduct or course of action. They have their idea and accept it as truth or follow it simply because it is their idea.

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Even when they recognise that they have made mistakes of the mind, they do not consider it of any importance nor do they try to be more careful mentally than before. In the vital field people know that they must not follow their desires or impulses without check or control, they know that they ought to have a conscience or a moral sense which discriminates what they can or should do and what they cannot or should not do; in the field of intellect no such care is taken. Men are supposed to follow their intellect, to have and assert their own ideas right or wrong without any control; the intellect, it is said, is man's highest instrument and he must think and act according to its ideas. But this is not true; the intellect needs an inner light to guide, check and control it quite as much as the vital. There is something above the intellect which one has to discover and the intellect should be only an intermediary for the action of that source of true Knowledge.

23 March 1937

"Many people would tell you wonderful tales of how the world was built and how it will proceed in the future, how and where you were born in the past and what you will be hereafter, the lives you have lived and the lives you will still live. All this has nothing to do with spiritual life" [p. 40]. Is what such people say complete humbug? Is there a process other than the spiritual by which one can know all these things?

Often it is, but even if it is correct, it has nothing spiritual in it. Many mediums, clairvoyants or people with a special faculty, tell you these things. That faculty is no more spiritual than the capacity to build a bridge or to cook a nice dish or to solve a mathematical problem. There are intellectual capacities, there are occult capacities,—that is all.

20 January 1937

"They [human beings who are like vampires] are not human; there is only a human form or appearance.... Their method is to try first to cast their influence upon a man; then they enter

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slowly into his atmosphere and in the end may get complete possession of him, driving out entirely the real human soul and personality" [p. 42]. My younger brother has married a girl who, the Mother has said, is vampirelike to some extent. Is he then under all these risks? What precautions should he take? Shall I warn him?

First of all what is meant is not that the vampire or vital being even in possession of a human body tries to possess yet another human being. All that is the description of how a disembodied (vampire) vital being takes possession of a human body without being born into it in the ordinary way—for that is their desire, to possess a human body but not by the way of birth. Once thus humanised, the danger they are for others is that they feed on the vitality of those who are in contact with them—that is all.

Secondly in this case, Mother only said vampirelike to some extent. That does not mean that she is one of these beings, but has to some extent the habit of feeding on the vitality of others. There is no need to say anything to your brother—it would only disturb him and not help in the least.

27 January 1937

In Conversations the Mother speaks of the power of thought: "Let us say, for instance, that you have a keen desire for a certain person to come and that, along with this vital impulse of desire, a strong imagination accompanies the mental form you have made.... And if there is a sufficient power of will in your thought-form, if it is a well-built formation, it will arrive at its own realisation" [pp. 50-51]. In the example given, suppose one has no strong desire that a person should come, but still thoughts or imaginations loosely form in the mind. Would that loose formation go and induce that person to come?

It might; especially if that person were himself desirous of coming, it could give the decisive push. But in most cases desire or will behind the thought-force would be necessary.

26 August 1936

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In Conversations the Mother says about the hostile forces: "If you have overlooked in your own being even a single detail, they will come and put their touch upon that neglected spot and make it so painfully evident that you will be forced to change" [p. 66]. When sadhaks overlook even a single detail on the path of transformation, is it not possible that the Divine will make them conscious of it rather than becoming conscious through a painful wound by the hostile forces?

If they are sufficiently open to the Divine it can be done—but most sadhaks have too much egoism and lack of faith and obscurity and self-will and vital desires,—it is that that shuts them to the Mother and calls in the action of the hostile forces.

Those who cannot reject their lower nature fully are made to suffer at the hands of the hostile forces and get wounded by them. What is the best means for them to go forward?

Faith in the Mother and complete surrender.

"This illusion of action is one of the greatest illusions of human nature. It hurts progress because it brings on you the necessity of rushing always into some excited movement" [p. 67]. What is meant by "illusion of action"?

Illusion means that they think their action is all-important and its egoistic objects are the truth that must be followed.

17 June 1933

In Conversations the Mother says about the nervous envelope: "Depression and discouragement have a very adverse effect; they cut out holes in it, as it were, in its very stuff, render it weak and unresisting and open to hostile attacks an easy passage" [p. 89]. In one sense this means that a man with goodwill should not discourage anyone from his wrong ideas, impulses or movements. There is also the way of keeping silent when dealing with such a person—but even that sometimes hurts him more than a point-blank discouragement.

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The knowledge about the bad effect of depression is meant for the sadhak to learn to avoid these things. He cannot expect people to flatter his failures or mistakes or indulge his foibles merely because he has the silly habit of indulging in depression and hurting his nervous envelope if that is done. To keep himself free from depression is his business, not that of others. For instance some people have the habit of getting into depression if the Mother does not comply with their desires—it does not follow that the Mother must comply with their desires in order to keep them jolly—they must learn to get rid of this habit of mind. So with people's want of encouragement or praise for all they do. One can be silent or non-intervening, but if even that depresses them, it is their own fault and nobody else's.

Would the bad effects of depression and discouragement indicated by the Mother happen in ordinary life also?

Of course, it is the same in ordinary life—depression is always hurtful. But in sadhana it is more serious because it becomes a strong obstacle to the smooth and rapid progress towards the goal.

18 July 1936

In Conversations the Mother writes: "Surrender will not diminish, but increase; it will not lessen or weaken or destroy your personality, it will fortify and aggrandise it" [p. 114]. Is this meant in an external sense or in an internal sense only?

It is meant in the inner sense only—no outer greatness is meant. All submission is regarded by the ego as lowering and lessening itself, but really submission to the Divine increases and greatens the being, that is what is meant.

25 August 1937

It seems difficult to understand when the Mother says that spiritual sacrifice is joyful [p. 114].

She was speaking of the true spiritual sacrifice of self-giving, not the bringing of an unwilling heart to the altar.

17 October 1935

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