Guidance on Education

THE ARTS

BEAUTY

On the physical plane it is in beauty that the Divine expresses Himself.

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In the physical world, of all things it is beauty that expresses best the Divine. The physical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested nature in contact with the Eternal, through the perfection of form, through harmony and a sense of the ideal which uplifts and leads towards something higher.

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Let beauty be your constant ideal.

Beauty of the soul

Beauty of sentiments

Beauty of thoughts

Beauty of action

Beauty in work

So that nothing comes out of your hands which is not an expression of pure and harmonious beauty.

And the Divine Help shall always be with you.

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Supreme art expresses the Beauty which puts you in Contact with the Divine Harmony.

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True art means the expression of beauty in the material world. In a world wholly converted, that is to say, expressing integrally the divine reality, art must serve as the revealer and teacher of this divine beauty in life.

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In art also we must remain on the heights.

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Good taste is the aristocracy of art.

PAINTING

The true painting aims at creating something more beautiful than the ordinary reality.

3 April 1932

Would you like me to draw birds or animals some times?

If you like  but drawings from nature are best for learning.

23 December 1932

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I have done this picture without anybody's help. How is it? Will I be able to learn?

If you are ready to study hard and regularly, then

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you can begin, otherwise it is better not to try.

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If these painters were sincere, if they truly painted what they feel and see, the picture would be the expression of a confused mind and an unruly Vital. But, unhappily, the painters are not sincere and then these pictures are nothing else than the expression of a falsehood, an artificial imagination based only on the will to be strange and to bewilder the public in order to attract attention and that has indeed very little to do with beauty.

27 March 1955

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The largest of the flower paintings is the best because it is more spontaneous and free. You must feel what you paint and do it with joy.

Copy many beautiful things, but try even more to catch the emotion, the deeper life of things.

12 August 1962

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My dear child,

I have seen your paintings  they are almost perfect. But what they lack is not technique it is consciousness. If you develop your consciousness you will spontaneously discover how to express yourself.

Nobody, and especially not official teachers, can teach you that.

So to leave here and go anywhere else, to any of

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the "Art Academies", would be to leave the light and step into a pit of obscurity and unconsciousness.

You cannot learn to be an artist with tricks  it is as if you wanted to realise the Divine by imitating religious ceremonies.

Above all and always the most important thing is sincerity.

Develop your inner being find your soul, and at the same time you will find the true artistic expression.

With my blessings.

25 May 1963

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I have seen your paintings and certainly there has been progress over the last year.

Modern art is an experiment, still very clumsy, to express something other than the simple physical appearance. The idea is good but naturally the value of the expression depends entirely on the value of that which wants to express itself.

At present almost all artists live in the lowest vital and mental consciousness and the results are quite poor

Try to develop your consciousness, endeavour to discover your soul, and then what you will do will be truly interesting.

This is the programme I am giving you for the year which starts for you today.

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I am sorry to have to say that in the paintings, I do not See much improvement on last year. They lack sincerity

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and spontaneity; it: is not seen, it is thought and thought in a childish way. What I said last year has yet to be achieved. The consciousness must grow in light and sincerity and the eyes must learn to see artistically.

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I was not able to look at your paintings until today. Certainly they represent an effort, and the one which is framed is pleasing to the eye. But you think too much and you do not see enough. In other words, your vision is not original, spontaneous or direct, which means that your execution is still conventional and lacks originality an imitation of What others do.

There is, behind all things, a divine beauty, a divine harmony: it is with this that we must come into contact; it is this that we must express.

12 August 1965

MUSIC

I do not know who is spreading the rumour that I do not like music. That is not true at all  I like music very much, but it should be heard in a small circle, that is, played for five or six people at the most. When there is a crowd it becomes a social gathering, more often than not, and the atmosphere that is created is not good.

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To keep yourself occupied with music and writing is always good; for your nature finds there its inborn occupation

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and that helps to maintain the vital energy and keep the balance.

About sadhana I should like to ask you: why not do sadhana through your music? Surely meditation is not the only way of doing sadhana. Through your music bhakti and aspiration can grow and prepare the

nature for realisation.

If moments of meditation and concentration come of themselves then it is all right; but there is no need to force it.

23 January 1939

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Music follows the rule of all things on earth unless they are turned to the Divine they cannot be divine.

25 May 1941

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Sweet Mother, how can one enter into the feelings of a piece of music played by someone else?

In the same way that one can share the emotions of another person  by sympathy, spontaneously, by an affinity more or less deep, or else by an effort of concentration which ends in identification. It is this latter process that we adopt when we listen to music with an intense and concentrated attention, to the point of stopping all other noise in the head and obtaining a complete silence into which fall, drop by drop, the notes of the music whose sound alone remains; and With the sound all the feelings, all the movements of emotion can be captured, experienced, refelt as if they

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20 October 1959

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What should one try to do when one meditates with your music at the Playground?

This music aims at awakening certain profound feelings.

In listening to it, one should make oneself as silent and passive as possible. And if, in the mental silence, a part of the being can take the attitude of the witness who observes without reacting or participating, then one can notice the effect that the music produces on the feelings and emotions; and if it produces a state of deep calm and semi-trance, that is very good.

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What is it we should look for in music?

How to judge the quality of a piece of music?

How to develop good taste (for music)?

What do you think of the light music (cinema, jazz, etc.) which our children like very much?

The role of music lies in helping the consciousness to uplift itself towards the spiritual heights.

All that lowers the consciousness, encourages desires and excites the passions, runs counter to the true goal of music and ought to be avoided.

It is not a question of name but of inspiration and the spiritual consciousness alone can be the judge there.

22 July 1967

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POETRY

Poetry is sensuality of the spirit.

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For me true poetry is beyond all philosophy and beyond all explanation.

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Well, I think it would be better not to lay too much Stress, in your studies of poetry, on the human side of love as it is not helpful for sadhana and for some it is distinctly harmful.

13 July 1943

PHOTOGRAPHY

Modern photography has become an art and, like all other arts, it can effectively express the inner feelings and the soul, with a true sense of beauty.

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Photography is an art when the photographer is an artist.

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Photography is said to be a medium of modern art. What is your opinion about this?

It all depends on the way in which photography is used. Its natural purpose and common use is documentary; the more exact and precise it is, the more useful it is.

But undeniably, there are artists who use photography

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as a medium of expression. But then what they do is no longer an exact copy of Nature, it is an arrangement of forms and colours intended to express something else which is usually hidden by physical appearances.

4 September 1969

CINEMA

Sweet Mother,

We see too many films these days and I fail to see how they educate us!

When one has the true attitude, everything can be an opportunity to learn.

In any case, this abundance should make you understand that the desire to see films, which is so imperious in some people, is just as pernicious as any other desire.

11 May 1963

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We would like to be able to show the children pictures of life as it should be, but we have not reached that point, far from it. These films have yet to be made. And at present, most of the time, the cinema shows life as it should not be, so strikingly that it makes you disgusted with life.

This too is useful as a preparation.

Films are permitted in the Ashram not as an amusement but as part of education. So we are faced with the problem of education.

If we consider that the child should learn and know

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only what can keep him pure of every low, crude, violent and degrading movement, we would have to eliminate at a stroke all contact with the rest of humanity, beginning with all these stories of war and murder, of conflict and deception which go under the name of history; we would have to eliminate all present contact with family, relatives and friends; we would have to exercise control over all the vital impulses of their being.

This was the idea behind the enclosed monastic life of convents, or the ascetic life in caves and forests.

This remedy proved to be quite ineffectual and failed to pull mankind out of the mire.

According to Sri Aurobindo, the remedy is quite different.

We must face life as a whole, with all the ugliness, falsehood and cruelty it still contains, but we must take care to discover in ourselves the source of all goodness, all beauty, all light and all truth, in order to bring this source consciously into contact with the world so as to transform it.

This is infinitely more difficult than running away or shutting our eyes so as not to see, but it is the only truly effective way the way of those who are truly strong and pure and capable of manifesting the Truth.

29 May 1968

Sweet Mother,

How should we watch a film? If we identify with the characters and if the film is tragic or full of suspense, we get so involved that we cry or feel

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frightened. And if we keep aloof we cannot appreciate it properly. So what should we do?

It is the vital that gets touched and moved.

If you watch mentally, the interest is no longer the same; instead of being moved or troubled, you can calmly judge the value of the film, whether it is well made or well acted or whether the scenes have any

artistic value.

In the first case you are a "good audience", in the second case you are more peaceful.

Blessings.

30 January 1970

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