The Mother's brief written statements on various aspects of spiritual life including some spoken comments.
This volume consists primarily of brief written statements by the Mother on various aspects of spiritual life. Written between the late 1920s and the early 1970s, the statements have been compiled from her public messages, private notes, and correspondence with disciples. About two-thirds of them were written in English; the rest were written in French and appear here in English translation. The volume also contains a small number of spoken comments, most of them in English. Some are tape-recorded messages; others are reports by disciples that were later approved by the Mother for publication.
If the sense of unworthiness fills you with overflowing gratitude and throws you at Sri Aurobindo's feet in an ecstasy of joy, then you can know that it comes from a true source; if, on the contrary, it makes you miserable and brings an impulse to hide or to run away, then you can be sure that its origin is hostile. To the first you can open freely; the second must be rejected.
4 February 1933
One must not torment oneself over errors that one may commit, but one must keep a perfect sincerity in one's aspiration and in the end everything will be all right.
4 January 1934
Thinking too much about one's impurities does not help. It is better to keep the thought fixed on the purity, light and peace that one wants to acquire.
7 February 1934
It is always our weaknesses that make us sad, and we can easily recover by advancing one step more on the way.
12 May 1934
The more I try to become conscious of Your presence within me, the more something in me comes in the way.
You must not worry about these little things―they have no importance in themselves; their value is to show us where unconsciousness still exists in our nature, so that we can bring the light there.
13 July 1934
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It is all right to see the imperfections and deficiencies but only on condition it brings a greater courage for a new progress, an increase of energy in the determination and a stronger certitude of victory and future perfection.
22 January 1935
These ideas of incapacity are absurd, they are the negation of the truth of progress―what cannot be done today, will be done another day, if the aspiration is there.
6 February 1935
Even if things are not as they ought to be, worry does not help to make them better. A quiet confidence is the source of strength.
11 November 1936
Whenever you have made a mistake I always told you very frankly without hiding anything from you. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody has to learn and to progress. Moreover I have given you a big responsibility. I appreciate fully what you have done but there is still much to learn and I am sure that you will be quite glad to acquire knowledge and experience. With my love and blessings.
13 October 1943
It is quite wrong to go on brooding about the past. The true attitude is to remember that nothing happens but by God's will and to submit to that will quietly. If you have made mistakes in the past it is by lack of true surrender and the only way to repair the mistakes is to surrender truly.
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But it is not a reason for being upset about it. There is only to remain quite cool and do our best within the limits that the human nature ascribes to us.
After all, the whole, entire responsibility is the Lord's and nobody else's. So there is nothing to worry about.
It is good to recognise your mistakes, but you must not torment yourself.
You must not suffer, you must correct yourself instead.
Mother, I am tired because every day some new catastrophe befalls me.
My dear child,
You must not torment yourself about these little mishaps. Keep very calm and these accidents will not happen any more.
My blessings are always with you.
The buns did not rise today. We don't know why. We are afraid that the buns are not good. So at the last minute we prepared a kind of sablé [biscuit] which burned too.
Tell us, Mother, why do things go against us?
You must not worry about these little things, and above all do not believe in fatality. These little failures always have a cause that can be avoided with a little more experience, which is sure to come.
I tasted the bun―the taste is very good. They did not rise because they are not cooked enough. The oven must have been too hot, the bun burned and the outside began to brown before the inside was cooked.
As for the sablés, they are not burnt, they are very good.
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