Questions and Answers (1954)

25 August 1954

This talk is based upon Chapter 6 of The Mother by Sri Aurobindo.

"There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realisation,—most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divinest Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe."

Sweet Mother, what Personality is this and when will she manifest?

I have prepared my answer. I knew someone would ask me that, because of all things this is the most interesting in this passage, and I have prepared my answer. I have prepared my answer to this and my answer to another question also. But first I am going to read this one.

You asked: "What personality is this and when will she come?" (Silence) And this is my reply:

"She has come, bringing with her a splendour of power and love, an intensity of divine joy unknown to the earth so far.

"The physical atmosphere was completely changed by it, saturated with new and marvellous possibilities.

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"But for her to be able to settle and act down here, she needed to meet with at least a minimum of receptivity, to find at least one human being having the requisite qualities in the vital and physical nature, a kind of super-Parsifal endowed with a spontaneous and integral purity, but at the same time having a strong and balanced body in order to bear the intensity of the Ananda she had brought without giving way.

"Till now she has not obtained what was necessary. Men obstinately remain men and do not want to or cannot become supermen. They can only receive and express a love cut to their measure—a human love! And the marvellous joy of the divine Ananda escapes their perception.

"So, at times, she thinks of withdrawing, finding that the world is not ready to receive her. And this would be a cruel loss. It is true that for the moment her presence is more nominal than active, for she does not have the opportunity to manifest herself. But even so, she is a powerful help in the Work. For, of all the aspects of the Mother, this is the one which has the greatest power for the transformation of the body. Indeed, the cells which are able to vibrate to the contact of divine joy, to receive and preserve it, are regenerated cells on the way to becoming immortal. But the vibration of divine joy and those of pleasure cannot lodge together in the same vital and physical system. So one must have totally renounced experiencing all pleasure in order to be in a state to receive the Ananda But very few are those who can renounce pleasure without, by the very fact, renouncing all participation in active life and plunging into a rigorous asceticism. And among those who know that it is in active life that the transformation must take place, some try to see pleasure as a more or less warped form of Ananda, and thus justify in themselves the quest for personal satisfaction, creating in themselves an almost insuperable obstacle to their own transformation."

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Shall we stop here? We shall finish next time. That will give me time to find out.

There, then. Now, if you want to ask something... (Long silence) Speak!

Whoever wants to say something may speak... anybody who wants to say something, not only the students.

If one has not succeeded, Mother, one can try?

What?

If one hasn't succeeded so far, one can try?

Oh, one can always try... The world is recreated at every moment. You can recreate a new world this very moment if you know how to create it, that is, if you are capable of changing your nature.

I have not said that she has gone away. I said that she thinks of going away, sometimes, from time to time.

But, Mother, she came down because she must have seen some possibility!

Eh?

She came down because there was a possibility, because things had come to a certain stage and the time had come when she could descend.

In fact she came down because I thought it was possible that... she could succeed. (Silence) There are always possibilities, only... they must materialise. You see, a proof of what I told you is that it happened at a given moment and during... for two or three weeks, the atmosphere, not only of the Ashram but of the earth, was surcharged with such power, precisely, with so intense a divine joy, which creates so wonderful a power that things which were difficult to do before could be

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done almost instantaneously! There were repercussions in the whole world. I don't think there was one among you who was aware of it. You couldn't even tell me when it happened, could you?

When did it happen? (Laughter)

I don't know the dates. I don't know. I don't remember dates. I could tell you approximately, like that.... (Silence) Perhaps if I consult my papers I would find the dates. But I don't know the dates. These, for me, are things which... All I know is that it happened before Sri Aurobindo left the body, that he had been told beforehand and recognised the fact....

(Silence)

There was a terrible fight with the inconscient; for, as I saw that the receptivity was not what it ought to be, I put the responsibility for it on the inconscient and it was there that I tried to give battle. I don't say that this had no result, but between the result obtained and the result hoped for, there was a great difference.

But I tell you this, you see... you are all so close, you bathe in the atmosphere, but... who was aware of anything? You continued to live your little life as usual, didn't you?

(Silence)

I think it was in 1946, Mother, for you told us so many things at that time!

Right!

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(Long silence)

Sweet Mother, now that she has come, what should we do?

Eh?

What should we do?

You do not know? You... (Silence) Try to change your consciousness.

(Long silence)

There! Now ask the questions you wanted to ask me... (Turning to a child) Nothing to say?

Mother, there isn't even a single person?

Eh?

There isn't even a single person?

I don't know!

So you waste your time with all these people in the Ashram now?

Oh, but you see, from the occult point of view, it is a selection! From the external point of view you may tell me that there are people in the world who are much superior to you, I won't contradict you. But from the occult point of view it is a selection. There are here... one can say without being mistaken that most of the young people who are here have come because they have been promised that they will be here at the time of

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the Realisation. They do not remember this. (Mother laughs.) I have already said quite often that when one comes down upon earth he falls headlong and this stuns him. (Laughter) It's a pity. But still, one can get out of this stupefaction, can't he? What is necessary is to enter into oneself, find the immortal consciousness within, and then one becomes very keenly aware, one can remember very clearly the circumstances in which he aspired to be here when the Work is accomplished. But after all, to tell the truth, I think you have such an easy life that you don't take much trouble!... Are there many among you who really feel an intense need to find your psychic being, to know what you really are, what you have to do, why you are here? One just goes on living or even complains when things are not too easy. And then one takes like that things as they come, and sometimes, if some aspiration arises and one meets a difficulty in oneself, one says, "Oh, Mother is there, she will manage this for me", and then thinks of something else!

But Mother, formerly you were very strict in the Ashram; now you are not, why?

Yes. I have always said this: that happened since we were obliged to admit little children. You can't imagine an ascetic life with little children of this height! (Gesture) It is not possible. That was the gift of the war! When people found out that Pondicherry was the safest place on earth, naturally... when people came with a flock of babies, and asked if they could find shelter, as they could not be sent back, well!... That's how it happened, not otherwise.

At the beginning, first of all, the first condition was that one no longer had anything to do with one's family; if a man was married, he had to be totally unaware from that moment that he had a wife and children, to cut off all relationship; he had nothing to do with them. And if ever a woman asked to come because her husband was here, she was told, "You have no business here."

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At the beginning we were very, very, very strict. For a long time the first condition was this: "You have no longer anything to do with your family." Well, we are now far from that, aren't we? And I tell you it was only in this way that it happened. It doesn't mean that we didn't see that it was necessary; it was a very necessary condition. So long as one keeps all the ties which bind one to life, you understand, which make you a slave of the ordinary life, how can you belong only to the Divine? That's childishness, it is not possible! But if you take the trouble to read the first rules of the Ashram, even friendship among people was considered dangerous and not very desirable. We had tried to create an atmosphere where only one thing counted, the divine life. But as I said, you know, little by little... it has changed.

This has one advantage. We were too much outside life. Many problems did not occur which, when the full manifestation is wanted, would suddenly appear. We have taken up the problems a little too soon. But it was necessary to solve them. One learns many things in this way. Many difficulties are overcome. But it becomes more complicated. And perhaps, in the present condition, with such a large number of elements which don't have the least idea of the purpose for which they are here... it asks much more effort from the disciples than before.

Formerly, you see, we began with thirty-five, thirty-six; but even till a hundred and fifty, even till a hundred and fifty it was so like... they were as though held in an egg-shell in my consciousness, so close, you know, that I could direct all their movements, both inner and outer, all the time, everything was under complete control, at every moment, night and day. And naturally, I believe, in those days they made some progress. It was altogether true that I did the sadhana for them, all the time! But then, you see, with this invasion, one can't do sadhana for little chits of three or four or five, you understand. It is out of the question; all I can do is to put the consciousness

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upon them and try to see that they grow up in the best possible conditions.

So, this has an advantage. It is that instead of being so totally and passively dependent, each one must make his own little effort and, truly speaking, this is excellent!

I don't remember now to whom I said today—I think it was a "birthday" person... No, I don't know... it was someone who told me he was eighteen.

It is Jaya.

Yes, I know it is her birthday today. But I don't know if it was to her I said it. I said it to someone this morning.

I said that between the age of eighteen and twenty I had attained a conscious and constant union with the divine Presence and that I had done it all alone, with absolutely nobody to help me, not even books, you understand! When I found one—here came to my hands a little later Vivekananda's Raja Yoga—it seemed to me so wonderful a thing, you see, that someone could explain something to me. This made me gain in a few months what would have perhaps taken me years to do.

I met a man. I was perhaps twenty-one then, I think, either twenty or twenty-one. I met a man who was an Indian, who came from here, and he spoke to me about the Gita. There was a translation, which, by the way, was quite bad, and he advised me to read it and gave me the key—his key, it was his key—he told me: "Read the Gita, this translation of the Gita which is not up to much, but still that's the only one in French." At that time I wouldn't have been able to understand anything in any other language. Besides, the English translations were as bad and I did not have... Sri Aurobindo had not yet written his.

He said, "Read the Gita, and take Krishna as the symbol of the immanent God, the inner Godhead." This was all that he told me. He said to me, "Read it with that—the knowledge that Krishna represents the immanent God in the Gita, the God

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who is within you." Well, in one month the whole work was done!

Now you, just see, you have been here since your very childhood, some of you, everything has been explained to you, the whole work has almost been chewed up for you, you have been—not only with words but with psychic aids, with all kinds of... in all possible ways—you have been put on the path to this inner discovery, and still you let yourselves live, like that... (gesture) it will come when it comes... if you think about it at all!

There, then. But this does not at all discourage me. Why, I find it... quite amusing. Only, there are other things which I find much more serious. That is when you try to deceive yourselves... That indeed is not nice. You must not take one thing for another. As it is said, you must call a spade a spade, and human instinct human instinct, and not speak to me about divine things when they are purely human. There! You must not pretend to have supramental experiences when you are living in an altogether ordinary consciousness.

So here we are. If you see yourself face to face and know what you are like, and if by chance you make up your mind...

I am even astonished that you don't feel an intense need for it: "How can one know?" For you know—you have been told, told repeatedly, it has been dinned into your ears—you know that you have a divine consciousness within you, and you can sleep night after night and play day after day and learn day after day, and not have the enthusiasm and intense will to enter into contact with yourself, yes, with yourself, here within!... (Mother points to the centre of her chest.) This, this indeed, is beyond me!

The first time I knew—and nobody told me this, I knew it by experience—the first time I knew that there was a discovery to make within me, well, that was the most important thing. This had to be put before everything. And when I found, as I said, a book, a man, just to give me a little indication, to tell me, "Here you are. If you do this the path will open before you",

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why, I rushed headlong like a... like a cyclone, and nothing could have stopped me.

And how many years you have been here, half asleep! You think about it, of course, from time to time, especially when I speak to you about it; at times when you read. But that ardour, that will which conquers all obstacles, that concentration which overcomes everything!

Who asked me just now what you should do?

I.

Well, this is what you should do, my child. I have just told you.

Sweet Mother, how can we be plastic to your touch?

I can't hear!

How can we become plastic to your touch?

Oh, plastic? When you are full of goodwill, when you know that you know nothing, that you have everything to learn, then you begin to become a little plastic and when there is a force which puts a pressure, you answer.

But, you see, the description here... you have only to take the book and re-read the last description, that's all. It is a very exact picture of the condition people are in. That's on the last page... the description of the physical, the description of the mind, of the vital, all that is here; besides, he gives it very often, doesn't he? (Long silence. Mother takes the book and looks for the paragraph.) Here it is, in this paragraph: "But be on your guard and do not try to understand and judge the Divine Mother by your little earthly mind that loves to subject even the things that are beyond it to its own norms and standards, its narrow reasonings and erring impression, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self-confident knowledge." This you may

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re-read from time to time, it will bring you back to your good sense.

There we are. Is that all? Nothing more to ask? Nobody has anything to ask? Whoever wants to speak this evening may do so. (To a child) You have nothing to say? Nor you? No one? Nobody is saying a word!

Doesn't ascetic discipline help us to overcome attachment?

No, it inflates and strengthens your pride.

But you said, "Renounce pleasure." Then...

Renounce pleasure... but it isn't through an ascetic discipline that one renounces pleasure! It is through an inner illumination and a kind of sublimation of the being which makes you feel all that is gross and obscure and unpleasant in pleasure.

If we are living in gross pleasures, how should we overcome them?

But you are not living exclusively in gross pleasure; otherwise, I suppose you wouldn't be here.

But everything is pleasure, isn't it? Pleasure, that means...pleasure. We live comfortably, we eat, etc. All that, isn't that pleasure?

(Surprised) You do all that for pleasure? (Laughter) That's perhaps your conception, I have nothing to tell you. If you can't feel the difference between something that aspires to a higher life and something which finds itself altogether comfortable in the ordinary life, well, I cannot help you. You must first have found that in yourself.

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But doesn't some outer discipline help?

If you impose a discipline upon yourself and if it isn't too stupid, it may help you. A discipline, I tell you—disciplines, tapasyas, all ascetic disciplines are, as ordinarily practised, the best means of making you proud, of building up in you such a terrific pride that never, never will you be converted. It will have to be broken down with hammer-strokes.

The first condition is a healthy humility which makes you realise that unless you are sustained, nourished, helped, enlightened, guided by the Divine, you are nothing at all. There now. When you have felt that, not only understood it with your mind, but felt it down to your very body, then you will begin to be wise, but not before.

What is that other thing, Mother, that you have written?

I thought someone would ask me, "Why doesn't she stay because of you, since she has come at your call; why doesn't she stay because of you?" But I have not been asked this.

Tell us, Mother!

For her this body is only one instrument among so many others in the eternity of times to come, not having for her any other importance than what is given to it by the earth and men and the measure in which it can serve as an intermediary to help in her manifestation and in her diffusion.

If I am surrounded by people who cannot receive her, I am useless—for her. This is very clear. So it is not that which will make her stay; and it is certainly not for any selfish reason that I can ask her to stay. And then, all those aspects, all those personalities constantly manifest, but never manifest for personal reasons. Not a single one among them has ever thought of helping my body and I do not ask them, for they do not come

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for that. But it is obvious that if I had around me receptivity and they could constantly manifest because there were people capable of receiving, this would help my body enormously. For, you see, all the vibrations would go through my body, and that would help it. But she has no opportunity to manifest, she has no chance. She only meets people who don't even feel that she is here, they are not even aware of it. It makes no difference at all to them! So, how could she manifest?

And I am not going to ask her, "If you please, come and change my body." We don't have that kind of relation... and the body itself would not want it. It has never thought of itself, it has never cared for itself. And it is only through work that it can be transformed. Yes, surely, when she came, if there had been a receptivity and if she could have manifested with the power she came with... Even before her arrival... I can tell you one thing, that is, when I began with Sri Aurobindo to descend for the yoga, to descend from the mind into the vital, when we brought down our yoga from the mind into the vital, within one month—I was forty at that time, I didn't look old, I looked younger than forty, but still I was forty—and after a month's yoga I looked exactly eighteen. And someone who had seen me before, who had lived with me in Japan and came here, found it difficult to recognise me. He asked me, "But really, is it you?" I said, "Obviously!"

Only when we descended from the vital into the physical, then it was gone, for in the physical the work is much harder. It was because there were many more things to change. But if a force like that could be manifested and received, it would have a tremendous action! Still, you see, it is... I am speaking about it because I thought you would ask the question... otherwise it is not... I am not in that kind of relation. You see, I mean, you take my body, this poor body; it is quite harmless, it does not at all try to draw either any attention or the forces, nor even to do anything else except its work as well as it can. And that's how it is, you know. Its importance for the work is in proportion to

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its usefulness and the importance the world gives it, because the action is for this world. In itself it is one body among countless others.

If you could have taken a small decision to feel your psychic, I wouldn't have wasted my time.

That's all. There we are! Now it is over.

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