The Mother
with Letters on the Mother

General Comments on the Mother's Prières

First published in 1932 as Prières et Méditations de la Mère, this book is now published as Prières et Méditations (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1990). The page numbers given after phrases quoted from the prayers in this subsection refer to the 1990 edition. Translations of the French words are given in the Note on the Texts.—Ed.

There are some prayers of the Mother written before she came here in 1914 in which there are ideas of transformation and manifestation. Did she have these ideas long before she came here?

The Mother had been spiritually conscious from her youth, even from her childhood, upward and she had done sadhana and developed this knowledge very long before she came to India.

23 December 1933

In some of the Mother's prayers which are addressed to "divin Maître" I find the words: "avec notre divine Mère". How can the Mother and "divin Maître" have a "divine Mère"? It is as if the Mother was not the "divine Mère" and there was some other Mother, and the "divin Maître" was not the Transcendent and had also a "divine Mère"! Or is it that all these are addressed to something impersonal?

The Prayers are mostly written in an identification with the earth-consciousness. It is the Mother in the lower nature addressing the Mother in the higher nature, the Mother herself carrying on the sadhana of the earth-consciousness for the transformation praying to herself above from whom the forces of transformation come. This continues till the identification of the earth-consciousness and the higher consciousness is effected. The word "notre" is general, I believe, referring to all born into the earth-consciousness—it does not mean "the Mother of

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the 'Divin Maître' and myself". It is the Divine who is always referred to as Divin Maître and Seigneur. There is the Mother who is carrying on the sadhana and the Divine Mother, both being one but in different poises, and both turn to the Seigneur or Divine Master. This kind of prayer from the Divine to the Divine you will find also in the Ramayan and the Mahabharat.

21 August 1936

Mother, I have started reading your prayers in the French original with X. May I get one copy for myself?

The rule is that Mother never gives a copy unless she gets a letter in French written by the person without help asking for it. He must know enough French to do that.

14 September 1936