On Education

Studies Elsewhere

I intended to let you go for your studies to England without telling you anything about it, because each one must be free to follow the path he has chosen. But after what you have written I feel compelled to write to you.

No doubt from the exterior point of view, you will find in England all that you want for learning what human beings generally call knowledge, but from the point of view of Truth and Consciousness, you can find nowhere the atmosphere in which you are living here. Elsewhere you can meet with a religious or a philosophic spirit, but true spirituality, direct contact with the Divine, constant aspiration to realise Him in life, mind and action are in the world realised only by very rare and scattered individuals and not as a living fact behind any university teaching however advanced it may be.

Practically, as far as you are concerned, there will be a great risk of drifting away from the experience you have realised and then you cannot know what will happen to you.

That is all I wanted to say—now it is left to you to choose and decide.

22 October 1952

We see many people leaving the Ashram, either to seek a career or to study; they are those who have been here since childhood. There is a kind of uncertainty in our young people when they see others leave here and they say cautiously: "Who knows whether it will not be my

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turn one day!" I feel there is a force behind all that. What is it?

This uncertainty and these departures are caused by the lower nature which resists the influence of the yogic power and tries to slow down the divine action, not through ill-will, but in order to be sure that nothing is forgotten or neglected in the haste to reach the goal. Few are those ready for a total consecration. Many children who have studied here need to come to grips with life before they can be ready for the divine work and that is why they leave in order to go through the test of the ordinary life.

11 November 1964

(A student received an invitation to follow a course of practical studies in Calcutta.)

Those who sincerely wish to learn, have here all the possibilities to do so. The only thing that one has outside, but does not have here, is the moral constraint of an external discipline.

Here one is free and the only constraint is the one that one sets oneself, when one is SINCERE.

Now it is for you to decide.

3 August 1966

What answer should we give or what attitude should we take with regard to some of the boys and girls who say that they have come here only for studies, not for sadhana and that therefore they can do what they like?

They can be told that they should not be here. We are not imposing any Yoga on them; but they should lead a hygienic and decent life, and if they do not want it, they should go elsewhere.

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Mother, can they be sent away from here?

You can bring me one of them who is really very poor in studies. I shall not speak, but I'll try something. If it succeeds, then you can bring me the others.¹

(A teacher wrote that some students were not satisfied with the Centre of Education.)

You can tell them that if they do not believe they can learn here something that is not taught elsewhere, they can very well change schools. We shall not miss them.

It is better to have a selected few than a commonplace mass.

(A student had nearly completed his course of studies. Uncertain whether to attend college in the United States or to remain at the Ashram to live and work, he asked the Mother to make the decision.)

I can tell you immediately that all depends on what you expect from life. If it is to live an ordinary or even successful life according to the usual old type, go to America and try your best.

If, on the contrary, you aspire at getting ready for the future and the new creation it prepares, remain here and prepare yourself for what is to come.

17 January 1969

We want here only those children who want to prepare themselves for a new life and who put progress before success in life. We do not want those who want to prepare themselves to earn a living and to achieve worldly success. They can go elsewhere.

The children—to understand what we expect of them, they should be over ten years of age—who are ready for a new

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adventure, who want a new life, who are ready for a higher realisation, who want that the world should change and no longer be what it has been for so long, these are welcome.

We shall help them.²

January 1972

Au revoir, my child, never forget what your experience was, and do not let any external darkness penetrate and veil your consciousness.

I am with you.

Au revoir, my children, I wish that life may prove happy for you, and that one day you may be born into the Light and Truth.

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