Amal Kiran's Correspondence with The Mother

3 August 1967

Dearest Mother,

Kindly look at what follows. I shall be very thankful if you permit me to publish it in the Mother India of August 15. It will be most appropriate.

You can publish both after corrections. These corrections are important and must not be forgotten.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SRI AUROBINDO’S BIRTH

SOME WORDS OF THE MOTHER

Till the birth of Sri Aurobindo, religions and spiritualities were always centred on past figures, and they were showing as “the goal” the negation of life upon earth. So, you had a choice between two alternatives: either

— a life in this world with its round of petty pleasures and pains, joys and sufferings, threatened by hell if you were not behaving properly, or

— an escape into another world, heaven or paradise.²⁰

Between these two there is nothing much to choose.²¹

Sri Aurobindo has told us that this was a fundamental mistake which accounts for the weakness and degradation of India. It was sufficient²² to sap all energy out of the country.

True, India is the only place in the world which is still aware that something else than matter exists. The other countries have quite forgotten it: Europe, America and elsewhere . . . That is why she still has a message to preserve and deliver to the world. But at present she is splashing and floundering in the muddle.

Sri Aurobindo has shown that the truth does not lie in running away from earthly life but in remaining in it, to transform it, divinise it so that the Divine can manifest HERE, in this PHYSICAL WORLD. (31 March 1967)

3 August 1967