Questions and Answers (1929-1931)

Note on the Text

Questions and Answers 1929. This collection of fifteen conversations of 1929 was first published in 1931 for private circulation under the title Conversations of the Mother. The conversations were first made available to the public in 1940 as the main part of the book Words of the Mother. This book was reprinted in 1943, 1946 and 1949. The 1929 conversations appeared separately in 1956 under the title Conversations. That book was reprinted in 1961, 1966, 1971, 1973 and 1982. In 1989 it was printed together with the Mother’s conversations of 1930 – 1931 under the title Conversations 1929, 1930 – 1931; a second impression of that book was issued in 1997.

The conversations of 1929 were also published in 1977 as the first part of Questions and Answers, Volume 3 of the Collected Works of the Mother (first edition); in that volume the conversations were titled Questions and Answers 1929. The present volume contains the same text.

Questions and Answers 1930 – 1931. These twenty-six reports of the Mother’s conversations with disciples in 1930 and 1931 were recorded by a disciple in abbreviated long-hand and later reconstructed and elaborated. Several of them were published in 1949 in two journals of the Ashram, the monthly Mother India and the annual Sri Aurobindo Circle. Twenty-five talks were published under the title Words of the Mother: Third Series in 1951 and in 1966. A new talk, “Difficulties in Yoga”, was included in the collection when it was brought out in 1977 as part of Questions and Answers, Volume 3 of the Collected Works of the Mother (first edition). In that volume the talks were entitled Questions and Answers 1930 – 1931. The present volume contains the same text. In 1989 these talks were printed together with the Mother’s 1929 conversations under the title Conversations 1929, 1930 – 1931; a second impression was printed in 1997.

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Commentaries on the Dhammapada. The Mother based her commentaries on the Dhammapada on a French translation of the Pali text made by a French disciple. The commentaries, given in French, were tape-recorded and then transcribed. The text and commentaries were first published in 1960 under the title Commentaires sur le Dhammapada. A second edition appeared in 1964. An English translation was serialised in the quarterly journal Advent from November 1960 to February 1965. This translation was revised when the work was published in 1977 as part of Questions and Answers, Volume 3 of the Collected Works of the Mother. The present volume contains the same text. In 1989 the text and commentaries were first published independently as a book in English; a second impression of the book was issued in 1995.

Appendix to Questions and Answers 1929. These explanations by Sri Aurobindo were written in answer to queries posed by various disciples between 1933 and 1937. Most of them were addressed to a particular disciple in January 1937. The collection was published in 1972 in The Mother with Letters on the Mother, Volume 25 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library.

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