Questions and Answers (1955)

23 November 1955

Mother reads from The Synthesis of Yoga, "The Four Aids".

I did not understand the last part very well.

Which last part, my child?

"... the sadhak of the integral Yoga will not be satisfied until he has included all other names and forms of Deity in his own conception...."

Yes.

Why? It says what it means. What is it that you don't understand there? What don't you understand?

I don't understand the meaning.

(Silence)

But my child... You are told: there is only one reality and all that is is only a multiple expression of a single reality. Therefore, all the divine manifestations, all the forms it has taken in the course of time, all the names which men have given it, are only manifestations, forms and names of one sole, unique Godhead.

As human beings are very limited, it is usually easier for them to follow one path rather than another. But that is just a tiny little beginning; and if one wants to attain the heights, one must be able to find the Divine equally through all the paths, and understand that it is the sole and same Divine, whatever the different appearances may be.

This is what Sri Aurobindo tells you: that you cannot stop, you cannot be satisfied until you have felt absolutely concretely

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that there is only one single Divine, there is only one single Reality, and that, from whatever angle It is seen or whatever path is taken to attain It, it will always be one sole and same thing which you will meet. So one who is developed enough, vast enough to be able to follow what we call the Integral Yoga, must have the capacity to approach the Divine by all possible paths. If he doesn't want to follow them himself because it takes time... though there is a certain degree of development which enables one in a few days or a few hours to follow a path which would otherwise take a whole lifetime... still, if one has no taste for this kind of gymnastics, at least one should have an understanding open enough to be aware that all this is fundamentally one sole and identical thing. And whether you give it this name or that or no name at all, you understand, or several names, you are always speaking of the same thing which is the single Divine who is all things.

Don't you catch it?

It is only the mind and the limited human consciousness which make distinctions. And through these differences you get into a confusion. You distinguish only by differences, and differences mean just the illusory outer consciousness. As soon as you really enter within, you immediately have the sense of a total identity and all these divergences seem absolutely ridiculous to you.

Sweet Mother, what is the difference between the supreme man and the divine man?

In one case it is the peak of humanity. "Supreme" means the human being who is at the peak of humanity, that is, the perfect man.

In the other case, it is God who has entered a human body. What is human is only the body, the outer form, not the consciousness. In the first case it is the human consciousness which has attained its perfection.

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That's all?

Something over there?

Sri Aurobindo says here: "The divine working is not the working which the egoistic mind desires or approves; for it uses error in order to arrive at truth, suffering in order to arrive at bliss, imperfection in order to arrive at perfection." How?

Like that. As the world is today.

He explains it at great length afterwards. He says that the human mind would accept to have faith only if the Divine acted in accordance with its conception; and man's ordinary conception of what is divine is that of a perpetual miracle—what he calls a miracle, that is, something that takes place without rhyme or reason. And so, as he is not in the presence of this... But it is much more subtle than that... If we arrived from another world where things happen altogether differently, which is difficult for us to conceive... but which would happen in a way where the logic would be totally different—the logic of events, causes, consequences and effects—if we arrived suddenly from another world into this one, all that we would see would appear absolutely miraculous to us, because we wouldn't be able to understand the logic of events.

We are habituated to what occurs as it occurs; it is simply a matter of habit, for from the first breath we drew upon earth we have been accustomed to see things in this way, and so it seems quite ordinary to us, because it occurs in this way. But if we could manage to get out of this habit, if we could see things from another point of view, we would immediately be able to feel that kind of impression of the miraculous, because we would no longer see the logic of events with the habitual sense.

We have a certain habit of a particular logic of causes and effects, of the consequences of all things, the relation between all movements. It is for us a fact which we accept, even without

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thinking about it, because we have always lived inside it. But if we had not always lived inside it, we would see it in another way. And one can make this experiment: if one goes out of the determinism of the world as it is at present—this world which is a mixture of the physical, vital, mental and of something of a spiritual influence or infusion (quite veiled), everything that happens is the combination of all this—if we go out of all that (we can do it), if we rise above the physical, material world as it is, and enter another consciousness, we perceive things totally differently.

And then we see that behind these appearances which seem to us absolutely logical and extremely natural, and almost necessary, there is an action which, if perceived in one's ordinary consciousness, would seem all the time miraculous.

There is an intervention of forces, consciousnesses, movements, influences, which is invisible or imperceptible for our ordinary consciousness and constantly changes the whole course of circumstances.

We don't need to go very far; it is enough to take just a step outside the ordinary consciousness in order to realise this. I have already said several times that if one finds the psychic consciousness within oneself and identifies oneself with it, well, immediately one feels a complete reversal of circumstances and sees things almost totally differently from the way one ordinarily sees them. For one perceives the force which is acting instead of the result of this action.

At present you see only the result of the action of the forces, and this seems to you natural, logical. And it's only when something a little abnormal occurs—or it's a little abnormal for you—that you begin to feel surprised. But if you were in another state of consciousness, what seems abnormal to you now would no longer be so. You would see that it is the effect of something else, of another action than the one you perceive.

But even from the purely material point of view, you are used to certain things, they have been explained to you: for

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example, electric light, or that it is enough to press a button to start a car. You can explain it, you have been told why, and so it seems absolutely natural to you. But I had instances of people who did not know, who were completely ignorant, who came from a place where these things had not yet penetrated, and who were suddenly shown a statue being lighted up by rays of light; they fell on their knees in adoration: it was a divine manifestation.

And I have seen someone else who was in the same state, it was a child who knew nothing. In front of him a button was pressed and the car started; it seemed a tremendous miracle to him. Well, it is like that. You are used to certain things, they seem absolutely natural to you. If you were not used to them, you would see, you would think them miracles.

Well, turn over the problem. There is a heap of things you cannot explain to yourself, there is a host of interventions which change the course of circumstances and which you don't even notice. And so everything seems to you ordinary, monotonous and without any particular interest. But if you had the knowledge and could see that all these things which seem absolutely normal to you because you are used to them and have not even asked yourself "How does this happen in this way?"—if you had the knowledge and saw how it happens, what it is that acts, why for example someone who acts so imprudently that he would have broken his head does not break it, why everything seems arranged for a frightful accident to take place and it does not occur, and thousands, millions of things like that which happen every day and everywhere—if you had enough knowledge to see why it is like that, then at the same time you could say, "Look, there is something like a force, a consciousness, a power which acts and which is not from the material domain. Materially, logically, this is what should have happened, and it did not happen." You say, "Ah! It was his good luck", don't you? And then you are satisfied, it's all right for you.

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(Silence)

It is the ignorant, limited, egoistic consciousness which demands miracles. As soon as one is enlightened, one knows that everywhere and always there is miracle.

And the more faith one has in this miracle and this Grace, the more capable one becomes of seeing it, or perceiving it constantly at every place where it is. It is ignorance and lack of faith, it is blind egoism which prevents one from seeing.

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