...I have had a sort of spiritual ambition... to bring to the world a sunlit path in order to eliminate the need for suffering and struggle...' - The Mother
Integral Yoga
There is always (it is probably inevitable) the path of struggle and then there is the sunlit path. And after much study and investigation, I have had a sort of spiritual ambition, if it may be called that, to bring to the world a sunlit path in order to eliminate the need for suffering and struggle…' — The Mother The passages of this compilation have been selected from the 'Collected Works of the Mother'. Almost all the passages have been taken from her conversations, a few from her writings.
THEME/S
There is one thing you must learn, never to rely on anyone or anything whatever except the Divine. For if you lean upon anyone for support, that support will break, you may be sure of that. From the minute you start doing yoga (I always speak of those who do yoga, I do not speak about ordinary life), for those who do yoga, to depend upon someone else is like wanting to transform that person into a representative of the Divine Force; now you may be sure there is not one in a hundred millions who can carry the weight: he will break immediately. So never take the attitude of hoping for support, help, comfort from anyone except the Divine. That is absolute; I have never, not once, met anyone who tried to cling to something to find a support there (someone doing yoga or who has been put into touch with yoga) and who was not deceived—it breaks, it stops, one loses one's support. Then one says, "Life is difficult"—it is not difficult but one must know what one is doing. Never seek a support elsewhere than in the Divine. Never seek satisfaction elsewhere than in the Divine. Never seek the satisfaction of your needs in anyone else except the Divine—never, for anything at all. All your needs can be satisfied only by the Divine. All your weaknesses can be borne and healed only by the Divine. He alone is capable of giving you what you need in everything, always, and if you try to find any satisfaction or support or help or joy or... heaven knows what, in anyone else, you will always fall on your nose one day, and that always hurts, sometimes even hurts very much.
Source
If, for example, one wants to know something or one needs guidance, or something else, how can one have it from the Divine, according to one's need?
By asking the Divine for it. If you do not ask Him, how can you have it?
If you turn to the Divine and have full trust and ask Him, you will get what you need―not necessarily what you imagine you need; but the true thing you need, you will get. But you must ask Him for it.
You must make the experiment sincerely; you must not endeavour to get it by all sorts of external means and then expect the Divine to give it to you, without even having asked Him. Indeed, when you want somebody to give you something, you ask him for it, don't you? And why do you expect the Divine to give it to you without your having asked Him for it?
Sweet Mother, how can we find the Divine who is hidden in us?
This we have explained many, many times. But the first thing is to want it, and know precisely that this comes first, before all other things, that this is the important thing. That is the first condition; all the rest may come later, this is the essential condition. You see, if once in a while, from time to time, when you have nothing to do and all goes well and you are unoccupied, suddenly you tell yourself, "Ah, I would like so much to find the Divine!"—well, this—it may take a hundred thousand years, in this way.
But if it is the important thing, the only thing that matters, and if everything else comes afterwards, and you want nothing but this, then—this is the first condition. You must first establish this, later we may speak of what follows. First this, that all the rest does not count, that only this counts, that one is ready to give up everything to have this, that it is the only thing of importance in life. Then one puts oneself in the condition of being able to take a step forward.
Do you know, the only way of knowing the Divine is by identifying oneself with Him. There is no other, there is only one, one single way. Hence, once you are master of this method of identification, you can identify yourself. So you choose your object for identification, you want to identify yourself with the Divine. But so long as you do not know how to identify yourself, a hundred and one things will always come across your path, pulling you here, pulling you there, scattering you, and you will not be able to identify yourself with Him. But if you have learnt how to identify yourself, then you have only to direct the identification, place it where you want it, and then hold on there until you get a result. It will come very fast if you are master of your power of identification. Yes, it will come very quickly. Ramakrishna used to say that the time could vary between three days, three hours and three minutes. Three days for very slow people, three hours for those who were a little swifter, three minutes for those who are used to it.
Someone has asked me, "How is it possible for God to reveal Himself to an unbeliever?" That's very funny; because if it pleases God to reveal Himself to an unbeliever, I don't see what would prevent Him from doing so!
On the contrary, He has a sense of humour—Sri Aurobindo has told us many times already that the Supreme has a sense of humour, that we are the ones who want to make Him into a grave and invariably serious character—and He may find it very amusing to come and embrace an unbeliever. Someone who has only the day before declared, "God does not exist. I do not believe in Him. All that is folly and ignorance....", He gathers him into His arms, He presses him to His heart—and He laughs in his face.
Everything is possible, even things which to our small and limited intelligence seem absurd.
32—The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself; but is the Theist any other? Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it.
Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms
What does "God playing at hide and seek with Himself" mean?
In the game of hide and seek, one person hides and the other seeks. So God hides from the atheist who says, "God? I do not see him, I do not know where he is; therefore he does not exist." But the atheist does not know that God is also in him; and therefore it is God who is denying his own existence. Isn't that a game? And yet a day will come when he will be brought face to face with himself and will be obliged to recognise that he exists.
The believer thinks himself very superior to the atheist, but all that he has been able to seize of God is His shadow and he clings to this shadow imagining that it is God himself. For if he truly knew God, he would know that God is all things and in everything; then he would cease to think himself superior to anybody.
Is not this material world of ours very low down in the scale in the system of worlds that form the creation?
Ours is the most material world, but it is not necessarily "low down", at least, not for that reason; if it is low down, it is because it is obscure and ignorant, not because it is material. It is a mistake to make "matter" a synonym for obscurity and ignorance. And the material world too is not the only world in which we live: it is rather one of many in which we exist simultaneously, and in one way the most important of them all.
For this world of matter is the point of concentration of all the worlds; it is the field of concretisation of all the worlds; it is the place where all the worlds will have to manifest. At present it is disharmonious and obscure; but that is only an accident, a false start. One day it will become beautiful, rhythmic, full of light; for that is the consummation for which it was made.
But why does the Divine want to manifest Himself on earth in this chaos?
Because this is why He has created the earth, not for any other motive; the earth is He Himself in a deformation and He wants to establish it back again in its truth. Earth is not something separated from Him and alien to Him. It is a deformation of Himself which must once again become what it was in its essence, that is, the Divine.
Then why is He a stranger to us?
But He is not a stranger, my child. You fancy that He is a stranger, but He is not, not in the least. He is the essence of your being—not at all alien. You may not know Him, but He is not a stranger; He is the very essence of your being. Without the Divine you would not exist. Without the Divine you could not exist even for the millionth part of a second.
People are so deeply imbued with the Christian idea of "God the Creator"—the creation on one side and God on the other. When you think about it you reject it, but it has penetrated into the sensations and feelings; so, spontaneously, instinctively, almost subconsciously, you attribute to God everything you consider to be best and most beautiful and, above all, everything you want to attain, to realise. Naturally, each one changes the content of his God according to his own consciousness, but it is always what he considers to be best. And that is also why instinctively and spontaneously, subconsciously, you are shocked by the idea that God can be things that you do not like, that you do not approve of or do not think best.
I put that rather childishly, on purpose, so that you can understand it properly. But it is like that—I am sure, because I observed it in myself for a very long time, because of the subconscious formation of childhood, environment, education, etc. You must be able to press into this body the consciousness of Oneness, the absolute exclusive Oneness of the Divine—exclusive in the sense that nothing exists except in this Oneness, even the things we find most repulsive...
But it is Him. There is nothing but Him. This is what we should repeat to ourselves from morning to evening and from evening to morning, because we forget it at each moment.
There is only Him. There is nothing but Him—He alone exists, there is no existence without Him, there is only Him!
There is only one single solution to the problem—not to make any distinction between God and the universe at the origin. The universe is the Divine projected in space, and God is the universe at its origin. It is the same thing under one aspect or another. And you cannot divide them. It is the opposite conception to that of the "creator" and his "work". Only, it is very convenient to speak of the creator and his work, it makes explanations very easy and the teaching quite elementary. But it is not the truth. And then you say: "How is it that God who is all-powerful has allowed the world to be like this?" But it is your own conception! It is because you yourself happen to be in the midst of a set of circumstances that seems to you unpleasant, so you project that upon the Divine and you tell him: "Why have you made such a world?"—"I did not make it. It is you yourself. And if you become Myself once again, you will no longer feel as you do. What makes you feel as you do is that you are no longer Myself." This is what He could tell you in answer. And the fact is that when you succeed in uniting your consciousness with the divine consciousness, there is no problem left. Everything appears quite natural and simple and all right and exactly what it had to be.
And yet if one looks attentively, one has to think that the Lord is staging a fantastic play for Himself! That the Manifestation is a play which He is acting for Himself and with Himself.
He has taken the stand of the spectator and He looks at Himself. And so in order to look at Himself, He must accept the concept of time and space, otherwise He cannot! And immediately the whole comedy begins. But it is a comedy, nothing more.
But we take it seriously, because we are puppets! But as soon as we stop being puppets, we can see quite clearly that it is a comedy.
For some people it is also a real tragedy.
Yes, we are the ones who make it tragic. We are the ones who make it tragic.
You see, only the one who is watching the play is not worried, because he knows everything that is going to happen and he has an absolute knowledge of everything—everything that happens, everything that has happened and everything that is going to happen—and it is all there, as one presence for him. And so it is the others, the poor actors who do not even know, they do not even know their parts! And they worry a great deal, because they are being made to act something and they do not know what it is. This is something I have just been feeling very strongly: we are all acting a play, but we do not know what the play is, nor where it is going, nor where it comes from, nor what it is as a whole; we barely know—imperfectly—what we are supposed to do from moment to moment. Our knowledge is imperfect. And so we worry! But when one knows everything, one can no longer worry, one smiles—He must be having great fun, but we... And yet we are given the full power to amuse ourselves like Him.
We simply do not take the trouble.
But when one has the positive experience of the one and only existence of the Supreme and that all is only the Supreme playing to Himself, instead of being something disquieting or unpleasant or troubling, it is on the contrary a sort of total security.
The one reality is the Supreme. And all this is a game He plays to Himself. I find this much more comforting than the opposite view.
And after all, this is the only certitude that all this may become something marvellous; otherwise...
You will see, there is a moment when one cannot bear oneself or life unless one takes the attitude that it is the Lord who is everything. You see, this Lord, how many things He possesses, He plays with all this—He plays, He plays at changing the positions. And so, when one sees this, this whole, one feels the illimitable marvel, and that all our most wonderful aspirations, all these are quite possible and will even be surpassed. Then one is comforted. Otherwise, existence... it is inconsolable...
The present way of being is a past which truly should no longer be there. While the other: "Ah! At last! At last! It is for this that there is a world."
And everything else remains quite as concrete and real—it does not become hazy! It is just as concrete, just as real, but... but it becomes divine, because... because it is the Divine. It is the Divine who plays.
Now, when I start looking like this (Mother closes her eyes), two things are there at the same time: this smile, this joy, this laughter are there, and such peace! Such full, luminous, total peace, in which there are no more conflicts, no more contradictions. There are no more conflicts. It is one single luminous harmony—and yet everything we call error, suffering, misery, everything is there. It eliminates nothing. It is another way of seeing.
(Long silence)
There can be no doubt that if you sincerely want to get out of it, it is not so difficult after all: you have nothing to do, you only have to allow the Lord to do everything. And He does everything. He does everything. It is so wonderful, so wonderful!
He takes anything, even what we call a very ordinary intelligence and he simply teaches you to put this intelligence aside, to rest: "There, be quiet, don't stir, don't bother me, I don't need you." Then a door opens—you don't even feel that you have to open it; it is wide open, you are taken over to the other side. All that is done by Someone else, not you. And then the other way becomes impossible.
All this... oh, this tremendous labour of the mind striving to understand, toiling and giving itself headaches!... It is absolutely useless, absolutely useless, no use at all, it merely increases the confusion.
You are faced with a so-called problem: what should you say, what should you do, how should you act? There is nothing to do, nothing, you only have to say to the Lord, "There, You see, it is like that"—that's all. And then you stay very quiet. And then quite spontaneously, without thinking about it, without reflection, without calculation, nothing, nothing, without the slightest effort—you do what has to be done. That is to say, the Lord does it, it is no longer you. He does it, He arranges the circumstances, He arranges the people, He puts the words into your mouth or your pen—He does everything, everything, everything, everything; you have nothing more to do but to allow yourself to live blissfully.
I am more and more convinced that people do not really want it.
But clearing the ground is difficult, the work of clearing the ground beforehand.
But you don't even need to do it! He does it for you.
But they are constantly breaking in: the old consciousness, the old thoughts...
Yes, they try to come in again, by habit. You only have to say, "Lord, You see, You see, You see, it is like that"—that's all. "Lord, You see, You see this, You see that, You see this fool"—and it is all over immediately. And it changes automatically, my child, without the slightest effort. Simply to be sincere, that is to say, to truly want everything to be right. You are perfectly conscious that you can do nothing about it, that you have no capacity. I feel more and more that this amalgam of matter, like this, of cells, all that, is pitiful. It is pitiful! I do not know whether there are certain states in which people feel powerful, wonderful, luminous, capable; but for me it is because they do not really know what they are like! When you really see how you are made—it is really nothing, nothing. But it is capable of everything, provided... provided that you allow the Lord to act. But there is always something that wants to do it by itself; that's the trouble, otherwise...
No, you may be full of an excellent goodwill and then you want to do it. That's what complicates everything. Or else you don't have faith, you believe that the Lord will not be able to do it and that you must do it yourself, because He does not know! (Mother laughs.) This, this kind of stupidity is very common. "How can He see things? We live in a world of Falsehood, how can He see Falsehood and see..." But He sees the thing as it is! Exactly!
I am not speaking of people of no intelligence, I am speaking of people who are intelligent and who try—there is a kind of conviction, like that, somewhere, even in people who know that we live in a world of Ignorance and Falsehood and that there is a Lord who is All-Truth. They say, "Precisely because He is All-Truth, He does not understand. (Mother laughs.) He does not understand our falsehood, I must deal with it myself." That is very strong, very common.
Finally, I am fully convinced that the confusion is there to teach us how to live from day to day, that is to say, not to be preoccupied with what may happen, what will happen, just to occupy oneself day by day with doing what one has to do. All thinkings, pre-plannings, arrangements and all that, are very favourable to much disorder.
To live almost minute by minute, to be like that (gesture upward), attentive only to the thing that is to be done at the moment, and then to let the All-Consciousness decide.... We can never know things even with the widest vision: we can know things only very partially—very partially. So our attention is drawn this way and that, and still other things are there. By giving great importance to things dangerous and harmful, you only add strength to them.
(Mother goes into contemplation.)
When you are assailed by the vision of such disorder and confusion, you have to do only one thing, to enter into the consciousness where you see only one Being, one Consciousness, one Power—there is only a single Unity—and all this is taking place within this Unity. And all our insignificant visions and knowings and judgments and... all that is mere nothing, it is microscopic in comparison with the Consciousness presiding over All. Therefore, if one had the least sense of the reason why separate individualities existed, one would see that it was only for allowing aspiration, the existence of aspiration, of this movement of self-giving and surrender, trust and faith. And it is this that is the very reason why individuals were built up; and then, for you to become that in all sincerity and intensity... it is all that is needed.
It is all that is needed, it is the only thing, the only thing that stays; all the rest... phantasmagoria.
And it is the only thing valid in every case: when you want to do a thing, when you cannot do a thing, when you move, when the body is no more able to move... in every, every case, that only, only that: to come in conscious contact with the Supreme Consciousness, to be united with it; and... to wait. There!
It is then that you receive the exact indication of what you ought to do at each minute—to do or not to do, to act or to be stone still. That is all. And even to be or not to be. That is the only solution. More and more, more and more, the certitude is there: this is the only solution. All the rest is mere childishness.
Is it enough to let oneself be filled with That, is there nothing else to do?
I think, I think that it is the only thing. I am repeating always: "What Thou willest, what Thou willest, what Thou willest... let it be what Thou willest, may I do what Thou willest, may I be conscious of what Thou willest."
And also: "Without Thee it is death; with Thee it is life." By "death" I do not mean physical death—it may be so; it may be that now if I lost the contact, that would be the end, but it is impossible! I have the feeling that it is... that I am That—with all the obstructions that the present consciousness may still have, that's all. And then, when I see someone (Mother opens her hands as though to offer the person to the Light), whoever he may be: like that (same gesture).
(Silence)
All the while (it is amusing), all the while I have the feeling that I am a little baby who nestles—nestles within... (what to call it?) a Divine Consciousness... all-embracing.
You know, I do not believe in external decisions. I simply believe in one thing only: the force of the Consciousness which is making a pressure like that (crushing gesture). And the pressure goes on increasing... which means that it will sift out the people. I believe only in that―the pressure of the Consciousness. All the rest are things that men do. They do them more or less well, and then it lives, and then it dies, and then it changes, and then it gets distorted, and then... everything they have done. It is not worth the trouble. The power of execution must come from above, like that, imperative (gesture of descent)! And for that, this (Mother points to her forehead), this must keep quiet. Not to say, "Oh, that must not be, oh! this must be, oh! we ought to do..." Peace, peace, peace. He knows better than you do what is needed.
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