Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

3. The Mother and the Practice of the Integral Yoga

Fragment ID: 19615

When X complained to me about her difficulty, I told her that it could be removed by calling the Mother’s help. But she argued that there was no hope for the calls of a newcomer like herself to be heard by the Mother. There were so many calls coming from the older and advanced sadhaks that fresh calls from a beginner like herself would be but calls in the wilderness and go unheard in that clamour. I replied that if the Mother does not come in answer to our calls she must have her reasons; possibly she has more important work to do than to act according to our bidding. Why should we insist that she should leave that work and attend to us? The Mother has never been known to fail in answering when a real call is sent to her straight from the heart, for the very force in the call presupposes her presence. When I told this to X , I felt a strong pressure and vibrations from the centre of my forehead downwards between the eyebrows. What is the reason for this?

X ’s reasonings are not very sound; yours are better if not altogether flawless. The Mother is not limited by the physical mind, so even if she has “more important” work to do, that would not in the least stand in the way of her listening to a call from the wilderness or anywhere else. Also spiritual things do not go by seniority; so why should the clamour of “older cases” keep her? She can be and is with all who need her. So your “Mother does not come? will not come?” is not quite to the point, but the rest of your answer is. Mother is there even now and working in you, it is only your inner vision and feeling that are not opened so that you cannot see or feel her.

What came down to the centre of the forehead was the answer, let us say the touch of the Mother’s presence,– her consciousness, her force working in you to open the centre of the inner vision. For in the centre of the forehead between the eyebrows is the centre of the inner mind, inner will, the inner vision and when that opens one begins to see and know what is to the physical eye invisible and to the surface mind unknowable.

11 October 1935