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.
Mind: its true worth depends on its surrender to the Divine.
Purified mind: mind ready to surrender to the Divine.
Mental surrender: this happens when the mind has understood that it is only an instrument.
Conversion of the mind: the mind has liberated itself from its arrogance and knows it is only an instrument.
Clear mind: the first step on the road to conversion.
Birth of true mental sincerity: with its birth the mind will understand that it is only a means and not an end in itself.
The mind must learn to express only what is dictated by the Divine.
Power of mental expression has no value unless it is in the service of the Divine.
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Reason: an excellent instrument when at the Divine's service.
Physical mind becomes a good instrument of action when it is content to be that alone.
When the mind turns towards the Divine, it becomes a powerful instrument.
Work of the enlightened mind: it is very powerful for leading the being to the Divine and can be very useful for progress.
Higher mind: its superiority consists in its capacity to open to the divine light.
Voice of the higher mind: in quest of Truth.
The mind attains its full utility when it knows how to listen to the higher inspiration.
Aspiration of the mind for the supramental guidance: the mind feels that its complexity is powerless and asks for a greater light to illumine it.
Response of the mind to the supramental light: represents an important step towards realisation.
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Victory in the mind is the reign of the supramental Truth in the mind.
Supramentalised mind: mind has become an instrument for transformation.
Does one enter a temple with dirty feet?
Likewise, one does not enter the temple of the spirit with a sullied mind.
In human beings, along with the growth of the mental activities grows the subtlety of self-deception. The more they are intellectual the more they are, in their self-deception, completely candid and insincere at the same time.
[There is] the habit of always furnishing in the presence of a mistake a favourable explanation—this favourable explanation seems to jump out from the mind spontaneously and automatically—trying to obviate any sincere recognition of the error.
Your mind is driven by passion and to support the passion it gives a twist which prevents you from seeing the truth of things. Guard against the twist, be conscious of the passion.
Action perverted by such a twist looks like insincerity. Be always on your guard against this persistent defect. This is my gift for the New Year.
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May this new year bring you the liberation and enlightenment of an ignorant and arrogant mind which thinks it can judge everything without even having the elements of the problems that it judges according to its own preferences and attachments.
The whole world may perish provided my whims are gratified! Such is the attitude of the egoistic mind which seeks to impose its principles upon all.
In the divine sight, principles and desires are one and the same thing: principles are whims of the mind just as desires are whims of the vital.
Mental fantasy: wild, disorderly, it usually lacks coordination.
Imagination: abundant and varied, it may be charming but must not be substituted for the Truth.
Those who think falsely will live in falsehood and misery. Get out of wrong thinking and you will get out of suffering.
An old wise man in China has written, "Thought creates for itself its own suffering."
Ugly thoughts bring ugly feelings—ugly feelings take you away from the Divine and throw you defenceless into the arms of the devil who wants only to swallow you up—and that is the source of endless sorrow and suffering.
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I feel a darkness obstructing the back of my head. My head feels heavy and dark. Why has this happened to me and what is it?
Most often these attacks are the result of bad thoughts you have had, which fall back on you.
31 May 1935
We are always surrounded by the things of which we think.
Your mind also is full of doubts and has to be blamed as much as the vital because it believes in falsehood.
One of the chief functions of the physical mind is to doubt. If you listen to it, it will always find a thousand reasons for doubting. But you must know that the physical mind is working in ignorance and full of falsehoods.
It is only love that can understand and get at the secrets of the Divine Working. The mind, the physical mind especially, is incapable of seeing correctly and yet it always wants to judge. It is only a true, sincere humility in the mind, allowing the psychic to rule the being, that can save human beings from ignorance and obscurity.
Each time that I try to rise a little, there is a setback.
As for your progress—it is because you are trying mentally and the mental is always a limitation to the consciousness. It is only the aspiration from the heart and the psychic that can be
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effective. (And when you stop trying, you let me work in you and I know the proper way!)
Your mind is too active. It comes in the way of your being automatically guided by my will.
2 September 1937
Beloved Mother,
It seems I am not receiving sufficient protection in the vital and physical, in spite of calls and firm attempts on my part to open for progress.
My dear child, it is your mind that prevents you from receiving the help in the vital and the physical. Quiet as much as you can this galloping mind and you will see the results.
With love and blessings.
17 January 1962
Above all the complication of so-called human wisdom there is the luminous simplicity of the Divine Grace ready to act if we allow it to act.
Life could be quite simple and easy if man's mind did not introduce in it so many useless complications.
29 December 1962
Once the mind has started its working, it hampers the action of the Grace.
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Beloved Aditi:
At 8:15 a.m. today the mental words clearly came, "You must go back to Teachers' College now." This is an idea which I have never consciously entertained. Is He behind this?
Beware of fanciful mental suggestions!
Love.
3 April 1965
Formative faculty in the mind: it is a natural and very spontaneous gift.
Mother, sometimes when I use my mental will to become aware of Your universal presence and to link myself with You, I feel the peace and assurance of Your touch. Mother, is it true or is it my mental construction?
In this case, it is of no importance, because there are mental constructions which can be true and which lead safely to the experience.
You want to make me speak and mentalise the experience until a new "system" is established and you can sit down comfortably in your new mental construction.
Mind is so lazy that it wants convenient answers. But it is not like that. Each one is different.
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Perhaps there is an explanation which can give peace to your mind. In fact there is probably an explanation for each case—and the explanations also can be contradictory!... Poor mind! This is indeed a test!!
To make progress you must throw aside all the old constructions, demolish all the preconceived ideas. Preconceived ideas are the innumerable habitual mental constructions in which you live, which are fixed and therefore have no plasticity and cannot progress. All this must be thrown aside. Then new ideas are born, active thought which is creative.
Energy of a plastic mind does not draw back from any effort to progress.
Mental plasticity: indispensable for true knowledge.
In modern civilisation, men work on the surface. The mind is the surface of existence; they work on the surface and they try to find the Truth that is behind by studying more and more deeply. Whereas the true method is to enter into direct contact with the inner Truth, and impelled by that, guided by that, to make an outer construction which is not a seeking for the Truth, but a creation of the Truth; that is to say, the Truth-force realises itself outwardly through the human instrument.
Men always make plans, mental constructions and attempt to create on that basis, but not one human creation is a total realisation of their mental construction. They always add something, or else it is always altered by a force they do not understand; they think it is chance, fortune, circumstances, all sorts of things, but it is in fact the Truth-force which is trying to manifest on earth
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and which is exerting a pressure, and naturally this changes the mental and vital creations which are only superficial ones. In the Bulletin there was a quotation from Sri Aurobindo on this subject.1 He said: first one must know and then act, whereas men act and then try to know through their action.
26 August 19662
The more we know the more we can see that we do not know.
Quiet mind: the best way of learning.
Perfect quietness in the mind: essential condition for true progress.
Quietness established in the mind: the essential condition of its transformation.
You should not confuse a calm mind with a silent mind. You can calm your mind and stop its ordinary activity, but it may still be open to ideas coming from outside and that too disturbs the calm. And for the mind to be completely silent, you must not only stop its own activity but shut out all that comes from other minds. This is not easy.
Moreover, you must learn to distinguish between a phenomenon of consciousness and a mental phenomenon. One can
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be conscious of an experience in such a way that this consciousness is not formulated into a thought or thoughts. This is very important if the mind is to remain absolutely quiet and silent.
26 September 1963
But one thing is indispensable if they want a result: the mind must be silent. Then there is hope for the consciousness to be concentrated.
To begin with, they must know by experience the difference between mind and consciousness, two quite different things.
Unless they have the experience of it nothing can be done.3
12 April 1964
Practise silence of mind, it gives power of understanding.
Always I answer your letters but rarely I have time to put my answer on paper. You are capable of receiving these answers directly, but for that you must learn to keep your mind silent—this is the true meditation—the brain blank, immobile and turned upward. This is the necessary condition to receive the answers. If you can hand over the care of your existence and your development to the Supreme Consciousness, then peace will enter your heart and your problems will be solved.
16 June 1966
What exactly should I do to accelerate the sadhana?
Wait quietly for the exact indication; all mental intervention and decisions are arbitrary. The clear indication comes in the silence of the mind.
31 March 1970
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Mother, Your Voice said to me, "The Supermind is coming down in you." Mother, is it a false voice? Because I know that I am not at all ready for the Supermind.
It is only in mental silence that you can hear the voice without distorting it—be very peaceful.
29 May 1971
Don't torment yourself, and keep your mind very quiet. True knowledge comes from beyond.
Blessings.
13 September 1972
(A sadhak asked how to get rid of the invasion of wrong suggestions.)
The only radical way is to concentrate and go beyond your mental.
Silence and contemplation.
5 January 1973
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