The Mother
with Letters on the Mother

Progress in Sadhana and the Mother's Force

When you say to someone, "You are open to the Mother", do you mean open in a general way? Are not all in the Asram more or less open to the Mother as soon as they have accepted her as the Mother? And when the Mother has accepted a sadhak, does her Force not begin to work in him and is it not always with him?

All are not open to the Force. X never was in the least degree and there are others who shut themselves up in their own self-will or their own formations, ideas or desires. If there is no opening, the Force may act for a long time without response—and if there is an insufficient opening then the progress will be slow and chequered by great difficulties.

Let nothing and nobody come between you and the Mother's force. It is on your admitting and keeping that force and responding to the true inspiration and not on any ideas the mind may form that success will depend. Even ideas or plans which might otherwise be useful, will fail if there is not behind them the true spirit and the true force and influence.

23 March 1928

Page 193

The illnesses you have are the signs of the resistance of your physical consciousness to the action of the Divine Power.

If you cannot advance in your sadhana, it is because you are divided and do not give yourself without reserve. You speak of surrendering everything to the Mother but you have not done even the one thing which she asked of you and which you have promised more than once. If after having called the action of the Divine Force, you allow other influences to prevail, how can you expect to be free from obstruction and difficulties?

20 November 1928

Nowadays my vital nature gets excited about anything and everything, even trifles. From morning to night it is in an unhappy condition. I have my doubts whether it can be changed. I know that it is not in my power to do the work; the Mother's Grace alone can do it. My outer mind needs some rays of hope.

It is to be assumed that you are capable of the change since you are here in the presence and under the protection of the Mother. The pressure and help of the Mother's Force is always there. Your rapidity of progress depends upon your keeping yourself open to it and rejecting calmly, quietly and steadily all suggestions and invasions of other forces. Especially the nervous excitement of the vital has to be rejected; a calm and quiet strength in the nervous being and the body is the only sound basis. It is there for you to receive, if you open yourself to it always.

27 August 1932

When I look at the way the Mother deals with people, I feel that she does not love them equally in an outward way. Is this feeling true?

The Mother's Force is working in all alike, according to their capacity they will receive it and it will work in them; if there is any difference, it is their own nature that makes it.

6 February 1933

Page 194

This restless mind and unquiet vital are not peculiar to you; they are the human nature from which every sadhak starts. What you have to get is the Mother's force and grace bringing with it deliverance, peace and Ananda which you say you from time to time experience. That in the beginning does come only for a short time, but as you persist in the path, it increases in frequency and stays longer until it can be made a permanent experience. It is this that will cure the defects of which you complain.

16 June 1933

Once you wrote, "Before you read offer it to the Mother and call down her force." Is her force not already in us and working?

If it is, then you will have no difficulty.

4 August 1933

Is not every sadhak ready to receive and contain the Mother's force at any time and in any circumstance? Who would not want to hold its constant action?

It is not a question of mental wish but of capacity and whether all the parts of the being are ready and can retain it. If everybody were containing the constant action of the Mother's force, the sadhana would be finished by now and the siddhi complete.

7 August 1933

Is it not time for me to let the Mother's Force take charge of the Yoga, instead of allowing the Adhar to think it is doing the Yoga?

That can be only when all is ready.

In that case is it necessary for the mind to aspire? Because once the Force is there, it will set everything right.

Page 195

The system has first to be accustomed to the Force working.

9 May 1934

All has to be done by the working of the Mother's force aided by your aspiration, devotion and surrender.

30 October 1934

The Mother has already given you orally the answer to your letter and the directions you asked for. As she told you, your concentration should be in the heart centre and all the rest—the rising above the head etc.—should come of itself in the natural process of the sadhana. Through the heart you will get the closer and closer touch of the Mother and the working of her Force in the whole being.

9 December 1934

In a dream yesterday I was walking in the street, carrying some kind of big flat drum. Just for fun I touched it with my fingers and very sweet musical sounds were produced. Perhaps it was a broken drum, for no one expected any music to come from it, but as I went on playing, fine music was coming out.

It is a symbol of the harmony that can be brought out of the human nature in spite of its present imperfection when one gives it the true touch, that is, puts it under the true psychic influence.

People around me were charmed by the music. I was very happy and played more and more; many new fine tunes were coming from the drum as if they were simply ready made.

Always keep open to the Mother's Force—let the inner consciousness develop—only that will help and deliver from all difficulties as the openness in the physical grows in you.

12 January 1935

Page 196

There are some people here who remain constantly in despair and gloom because they have become conscious of their minutest imperfections, but they are unable to get rid of them.

They are unable for two reasons: (1) because they yield to despair and gloom and the illusion of impotence, (2) because they try only with their own strength and do not care or know how to call in the working of the Mother's force.

10 June 1936

Sometimes I feel a thick wall between me and the Divine. At other times there is a pressure on me and I feel quietude come into me.

Persevere in spite of the fluctuations. The Mother's force is at work all the time, even when the thick wall is there, so that there may be no wall in future.

24 June 1936

You have written that "the Force is there". Why then do I not feel it except for a short time after pranam? Formerly I felt that the Force above was doing the sadhana. Why do I not feel it now?

The Mother's Force is not only above on the summit of the being. It is there with you and near you, ready to act whenever your nature will allow it. It is so with everybody here.

15 November 1936

This evening X told me, "Fill your entire nature with the Mother's power." In my past sadhana I have never consciously invoked power; the entire stress has been on purity and clarity. But if that is the need of my nature, I will pray for power along with other things.

It is not necessary to ask for Power. It is the Mother's Force that must work in the being and if it is there, all necessary power will come.

c. 1936

Page 197

When a sadhak works with the right attitude and the higher Force acts in him directly, how does the Force work to purify or remove his defects and imperfections?

It acts by awakening the inner consciousness gradually or swiftly, by replacing the principle of ego-service by the principle of service of the Divine, by making him watch his actions and see his own defects and pushing him to rectify them, by establishing a connection between his consciousness and the Mother's consciousness, by preparing his nature to be taken up more and more by the Mother's consciousness and force, by giving him experiences which make him ready for the major experiences of Yoga, by stimulating the growth of his psychic being, by opening him to the Mother as the Universal Being, etc. etc. Naturally it acts differently in different persons.

7 May 1937