consciousness, not human turning into divine. The Mother was inwardly above the human even in childhood, so the view held by “many” is erroneous.SRI AUROBINDO
The Mother
with Letters on the Mother
Section One
The Mother: Individual, Universal, Transcendent
The Mother and the Purpose of Her Embodiment
Who Is the Mother?
1
Do you not refer to the Mother (our Mother) in your book The Mother?
Yes.
Is she not the “Individual” Divine Mother who has embodied “the power of these two vaster ways of her existence”1 – Transcendent and Universal?
Yes.
Has she not descended here (amongst us) into the Darkness and Falsehood and Error and Death in her deep and great love for us?
Yes.
There are many who hold the view that she was human but now embodies the Divine Mother and her Prayers, they say, explain this view. But to my mental conception, to my psychic feeling, she is the Divine Mother who has consented to put on herself the cloak of obscurity and suffering and ignorance so that she can effectively lead us – human beings – to nowledge and Bliss and Ananda and to Him.
The Divine puts on an appearance of humanity, assumes the outward human nature in order to tread the path and show it to human beings, but does not cease to be the Divine. It is a manifestation that takes place, a manifestation of a growing divine consciousness, not human turning into divine. The Mother was inwardly above the human even in childhood, so the view held by “many” is erroneous.
I also conceive that the Mother’s Prayers are meant to show us – the aspiring psychic – how to pray to the Divine.
Yes.
17 August 1938
The Mother and the Supramental Descent
2
Am I right in thinking that the Mother as an individual embodies all the Divine Powers and brings down the Grace more and more to the physical plane...
Yes.
and that her embodiment is a chance for the entire physical to change and be transformed?
It is a chance for the earth-consciousness to receive the supramental into it and to undergo first the transformation necessary for that to be possible. Afterwards there will be a farther transformation by the supramental, but the whole earth-consciousness will not be supramentalised – there will be first a new race representing the supermind, as man represents the mind.
The more we open individually to the Mother’s Light and Force, the more her power is established in the universal – is it not so?
It is the transforming power that is established – the universal Power is always there.
13 August 1933
*
3
The Mother has come down to work on the earth, not in another world. The thousand petalled lotus and the plane or world that corresponds to it is only a means of communication between the Truth and the earth-existence. But it is true that the consciousness of each has to rise to that level if the work on earth is to be successfully done.
1 October 1933
*
4
I know that all here is unreal. The Mother alone is real.
It is the higher reality that the Mother brings into the world – without it all else is ignorant and false.
3 August 1934
*
5
The Mother does not work on the sadhak directly from her own plane above, though she can do so if she wants to – she can even supramentalise the world in a day; but in that case the supramental Nature created here would be the same as it is above, and not the earth in Ignorance evolving into the supramental earth, which will not be quite the same in appearance as what the Supermind is.
That is a very important truth.
17 June 1935
*
6
Some people seem to be quite misled in understanding the Mother’s status with regard to the higher planes. When they are in these planes or receive something from them, they begin to think that they have reached a great height, and that the higher planes have nothing to do with the Mother. They value them more than they value the Mother! Especially about the Supermind they have such queer notions – that it is something greater than the Mother.
If they have a greater experience or consciousness than the Mother, they should not stay here but go and save the world with it.
18 September 1935
*
7
Is there any difference between the Mother’s manifestation and the descent of the supramental?
The Mother comes in order to bring down the supramental and it is the descent which makes her full manifestation here possible.
23 September 1935
*
8
Is the attitude that I am the Brahman not necessary in the Integral Yoga?
It is not enough to transform the whole nature. Otherwise there would be no need of the embodiment. It could be done by simply thinking of oneself as the Brahman. There would be no need of the Mother’s presence or the Mother’s force.
27 December 1935
Sri Aurobindo’s Recognition of the Mother
9
I believe that on the 24th November 1926 Sri Aurobindo realised that the Mother is the Divine Consciousness and Force.
No. I knew that long before.
2 November 1935
The Mother: Some Events in Her Life
The Mother’s Year of Birth
10
I asked Mother last night to kindly let me know the correct year of her birth. I am waiting to hear from her.
I don’t see why.
22 February 1934
*
11
The reason why I want to know the year of the Mother’s birth is, for the moment, only a certain curiosity, though there may be something deeper behind.
Curiosity is hardly a proper motive – people ask these things because they want to gossip about the Mother as about all things and in the same spirit. It is this constant action from the lower human motives of the ordinary consciousness which keeps people from living within and prevents the transformation of the physical nature.
22 February 1934
*
12
Today something deeper than curiosity has awakened in me. I long to know the year of the Mother’s birth in order to keep it as a loving memory in my heart. Everything about her is dear and sweet to me.
You can have the loving memory without knowing the year. At that rate you could insist on the Mother telling you all the details of her private life so that you may have a loving memory of them.
23 February 1934
Early Visions and Experiences
13
When Ramakrishna was doing sadhana, Mother was on earth physically for the first eight years of her childhood, from 1878 
to 1886. Did he know that Mother had come down? He must have had some vision at least of her coming, but we do not read anywhere definitely about it. And when Ramakrishna must have been intensely calling Mother, she must have felt something at that age.
In Mother’s childhood’s visions she saw myself whom she knew as “Krishna” – she did not see Ramakrishna.
It was not necessary that he should have a vision of her coming down as he was not thinking of the future nor consciously preparing for it. I don’t think he had the idea of any incarnation of the Mother.
11 July 1935
*
14
The Mother is not a disciple of Sri Aurobindo2. She has had the same realisation and experience as myself.
The Mother’s sadhana started when she was very young.
When she was twelve or thirteen, every evening many teachers came to her and taught her various spiritual disciplines. Among them was a dark Asiatic figure. When we first met, she immediately recognised me as the dark Asiatic figure whom she used to see a long time ago. That she should come here and work with me for a common goal was, as it were, a divine dispensation.
The Mother was an adept in the Buddhist yoga and the yoga of the Gita even before she came to India. Her yoga was moving towards a grand synthesis. After this, it was natural that she should come here. She has helped and is helping to give a concrete form to my yoga. This would not have been possible without her co-operation.
One of the two great steps in this yoga is to take refuge in the Mother3.
17 August 1941
Studying Occultism with Max Théon
15
I should like to know something about Théon: what role has he played in this new manifestation of yours?
Théon was merely the Mother’s guru in occultism – he had some idea of the aim to be achieved, but got much of it wrong. Moreover what was true came from his wife and was not originally his.
Undated
*
16
In your letter this morning you say, “There are some who get a complete control in sleep.” This sentence evoked a doubt in me: “If ordinary people – Coué’s patients, for example – could make their suggestions effective and cure themselves wonderfully, why is the will of people here so weak even when the Divine is here?” My answer was that those people had only a simple objective and not the aim of a complex change of consciousness; there was no pressure from above and no consequent resistance from below.
When I spoke of some, I was thinking not of people in the Asram but of occultists who make such things their main method. The Mother herself was taught to do it by a great occultist under whom she first practised these things. As to Coué, your answer was the right one. Coué’s work was on the mental and vital level and to that there is only a very minor opposition from the vital world because it does not seriously endanger their rule.
31 October 1933
Early Occult Experiences
17
X asked me whether Mother can materialise herself at a distance. Y seems to have said something like that.
Y probably referred to an experience in which the Mother being in Algeria appeared to a circle of friends sitting in Paris and took up a pencil and wrote a few words on a paper. Having satisfied herself that it was possible she did not develop it any farther. That was at a time when she was practising occultism 
with Théon in Algeria. Materialisation is possible but it does not happen easily – it demands a very rare and difficult concentration of forces or else an occult process with vital beings behind it such as materialises objects, like the stones that were daily thrown in the Guest House when we were there. In neither case it is a miracle. But to do as you suggest, make it a common or everyday phenomenon, would be hardly practicable and spiritually not useful, as it is not a spiritual force which gives the power but an occult mental-vital force. It would turn the Yoga into a display of occultism, rather than a process of spiritual change.
20 October 1935
*
18
You have said that the Mother’s materialising herself in Paris while she was living in Algeria was not a miracle. What could be called a miracle, then?
A miracle means something without a process or law which gets done by a sort of magical power or feat – at least that is the impression given by the use of the word. This kind of manifestation is not that, it is a thing well-known at least in theory and sometimes successfully accomplished.
21 October 1935
Meeting Jnan Chakrabarti
19
I never met Chakrabarti personally and know nothing about Krishnaprem’s Guru. Chakrabarti’s father came here to see me, but even that I had forgotten till the Mother reminded me of it. I know Chakrabarti only through the Mother, but that is better than any personal acquaintance. The Mother met him in Paris when he was there once with his sons on his way to England; it was before the deluge, in pre-war days. She meditated with him and they were able inwardly to meet each other with a brief but living spiritual interchange. He told her that he had an extraordinary meditation which was entirely due to her, and she was aware of his state of consciousness and discovered in 
him a remarkable spiritual realisation and a considerable insight on the inner plane. It was the realisation of the Gita or part of it which he had built up in himself, peace, equanimity, the sense of the Divine within, and the atmosphere of peace was so strongly formed and living and real in him that he could convey it to others. On the other hand, he was externally a very worldly man, accepting the not very exalted outward personal life and surroundings he had as the milieu given him and not in the least wishing to change it. It was his theory that this was the teaching of the Gita – to feel Krishna within, to have the inner spiritual life and realisation,– the rest was the Lila and could be left as it was unless or until the Divine himself in the automatic movement of his play chose to change it. This explains the double character of the impression he conveyed to others, which so much surprised you. Those who had themselves some development or aspired to it could, I suppose, feel the sadhak in him; others might see only the worldly man, able, strong, rich, social, successful, accepting, even perhaps drawing to himself enjoyment of riches and power. Others felt both sides, but could understand neither, like your friend in Geneva. Your account of him interested myself and the Mother greatly; it was so evidently the same man, even if the external facts were not there to identify the husband of Krishnaprem’s Guru with the spiritual-worldly Chakrabarti of Paris. Not a complete spiritual hero, no doubt, but a remarkable sadhak all the same.
1 April 1932
Arrival in Pondicherry
20
In Prayers and Meditations, the Mother mentions her seeing you first on the 29th March 1914; in other words she met you when she first came to Pondicherry. How is it then that the 24th April 1920 is considered to be the day on which Mother saw you first?
The 24th April is the day on which Mother came from Japan to Pondicherry finally – not the day of her first seeing me. On the 29th March she came first from France, that visit lasting till February of the next year.
19 March 1936
Some Occult and Spiritual Experiences
21
I have been wondering whether the Mother has been able to establish a direct connection with Mars or any other far-off planet which is probably habitable and inhabited.
A long time ago Mother was going everywhere in the subtle body but she found it of a very secondary interest. Our attention must be fixed on the earth because our work is here. Besides, the earth is a concentration of all the other worlds and one can touch them by touching something corresponding in the earth-atmosphere.
13 January 1934
*
22
Why do we feel that the Mother is experiencing this or that? Has she still to go on experiencing?
Experiencing what? She has her own experiences in bringing down the things that have to be brought down – but what the sadhaks experience she had long ago. The Divine does the sadhana first for the world and then in others.
3 January 1935
*
23
I am afraid I don’t know much about Narad. Mother once saw him standing between the Overmind and Supermind where they join as if that was his highest station. But he has his action on the lower plane also – only I don’t quite know what it is. In the Puranic tales pure love and Bhakti on the one hand and, on the other hand, a pleasure in making human beings quarrel seem to be his salient characteristics.
5 May 1935
*
24
Yesterday evening I went to bed at 9.30. When I lay down, suddenly my heart stopped for a second and I felt a shock, as if I had fallen down from up above. Is this some kind of Yogic experience or is it due to some weakness of the heart? (I went to Dr. X, but he found nothing wrong with the heart.)
A feeling like that of the shock and the stopping of the breath for a second and as if of falling down comes to many when the consciousness for a moment or a longer time exteriorises itself (goes up out of the body); the shock comes from the going up of the consciousness or from the return into the body. The Mother used to have that hundreds of times. It is not anything physical (the Doctor, as you say, found nothing). When this movement of the consciousness is more normal, the feeling will probably disappear.
1 October 1935
*
25
If some things are easier to do in samadhi, then is not samadhi a very good state even for this Yoga? But some months ago when I spoke of samadhi, you said something like, “It is not samadhi that is needed but a new consciousness.”
Certainly, samadhi is not barred from this Yoga. The fact that the Mother was always entering into it is proof enough of that. What I said then was not a general statement that samadhi is never needed and never helpful, but referred to your then need. Particular statements must not be converted by the mind into exclusive and absolute laws.
10 June 1936
The Mother’s Illness in 1931 and Her Temporary Retirement
26
In the first place why on earth do you put any belief in the “reports circulated in the Asram” and, in the second, why on earth do you allow them to depress you? I thought you knew the value or rather the entire absence of value of this kind of gossip and rumour? What about the “scepticism” which makes you unwilling to believe everything people tell you – why not make a useful use of it in refusing to believe these things? That would be better than to make a useless use of it in doubting the experiences of your own inner being which are a thousand times more reliable than this imaginative chit-chat built upon nothing. If the Mother makes you a communication when you are in your inner consciousness, why not put your faith in that and not in all this external noise and blather? And who, by the way, told you that the Mother is seeing those for whom she has love and confidence and that for others, like yourself, she has no love and confidence? The Mother has been “seeing” nobody and even now and for some time to come all visits and talk must be refused until she is stronger. Certain people come here for their usual work, or to do necessary things, or to bring food or letters etc. (dealt with by me, not by the Mother!), but the Mother has not been wasting her strength in receiving them or in chatting with anybody, I can assure you. I do not think I need say more about all that you have built on what “they say”; you ought to see that the foundation is unsubstantial mist and that therefore the structure you have built on it has no right to exist. As for my not answering questions, I have naturally been too busy all these days, but I thought everyone would easily understand that; I did not expect that a theory would be built on it that I was “disappointed”, had turned tail and was running away from my work. At any rate, since they say so, please reassure them and tell them that such is not the case. For yourself, cheer up and throw sadness to the dogs. How can you be sad when you have such beautiful dreams and messages from the Mother?
2 November 1931
*
27
As for all the rest you write, you should realise that the Mother has had a very severe attack and that she must absolutely husband her forces in view of the strain the 24th November will mean for her. It is quite out of the question for her to begin seeing everybody and receiving them meanwhile – a single morning of that kind of thing would exhaust her altogether. You must remember that for her a physical contact of this kind with others is not a mere social or domestic meeting with a few superficial movements which make no great difference one way or the other. It means for her an interchange, a pouring out of her forces and a receiving of things good, bad and mixed from them which often involves a great labour of adjustment and elimination and, in many cases though not in all, a severe strain on the body. If it had been only a question of two or three people, it would have been a different matter; but there is the whole Asram here ready to enforce each one his claim the moment she opens her doors. You surely do not want to put all that upon her before she has recovered her health and strength! In the interests of the work itself – the Mother has never cared in the least for her body or her health for its own sake and that indifference has been one reason, though only an outward one, for the damage done – I must insist on her going slowly in the resumption of the work and doing only so much at first as her health can bear. It seems to me that all who care for her ought to feel in the way I do.
12 November 1931
*
28
I had hoped to write shortly, but I have not been able to do so. Therefore, for the moment, since I have promised you this letter in the morning, I can only repeat, on the other matter, that I have not said that you in any degree or the sadhaks generally were the cause of the Mother’s illness. To another who wrote something of the kind from the same personal standpoint, I replied that the Mother’s illness was due to a strife with universal forces which far overpassed the scope of any individual or group of individuals. What I wrote about the strain thrown on the Mother by the physical contacts was in connection with her resumption of work – and it concerns the conditions under which the work can best be done, so that these forces may not in future have the advantage. Conditions have been particularly arduous in the past owing to the perhaps inevitable development of things, for which I do not hold anyone responsible; but now that the sadhana has come down to the most material plane on which blows can still be given by the adverse forces, it is necessary to make a change which can best be done by a change in the inner attitude of the sadhaks; for that alone now can make – until the decisive descent of the supramental Light and Force – the external conditions easier. But of this I cannot write at the tail end of a letter.
16 November 1931
*
29
I really don’t know, my dear X, why you read into what I have written such extravagant things which I certainly never intended to be there. I was trying to explain in one letter why, practically, the Mother could not see anyone until she was strong enough; why should you deduce from it a principle intended to govern her action for all the future? I did not at all mean that you were henceforth to be confounded in the mass and never see the Mother in private! I have not, I think, anywhere insisted on a “silent expressionless love” and I cannot even remember having used the phrase. On the contrary, I thought I had made it clear, first, that divine love and psychic love both needed a complete expression and that vital and physical love were their necessary complements and were both a part of that complete expression. At any rate, if that was not clear in my letter, I want to make it clear now,– as also that physical darshan etc. are quite legitimate means of expression of the psychic love itself and, a fortiori, of the complete love which embraces all the parts of the nature. Therefore, you were never asked to stop seeing the Mother and to give up all personal private contact with her; on the contrary when from some misunderstanding you made the proposal, both the Mother and myself strongly objected and said it would be a wrong movement. How then can you imagine that I wanted you to do anything of the kind? As for killing the vital, that would be in absolute contradiction to the whole principle of the sadhana and we would never dream of asking anybody to do such a thing. We have always said that the vital was absolutely indispensable to any realisation and without it nothing,– neither the Divine nor anything else – could be established in life. All that I ventured to suggest was that the vital movements which lead to trouble and suffering and disturbance should be eliminated or transformed as soon as possible, and even this I would not have stressed in your case if you had not had these violent fits of misery and despondency and what seemed to me unnecessary suffering. You can surely understand that I do not like to see you suffer and, knowing from long experience that it is the cravings and imaginations of the lower vital consciousness that cause men needlessly to torture themselves, wanted you to get free from the 
cause. It was not the joy of seeing and talking with the Mother that I wanted you to suppress but this contrary element in you that makes you think she does not love you, does not want to see you or to smile on you, prefers others to yourself, etc., etc. However, I will not insist; I will wait for these disturbances to pass away from you in the due course of the Yoga, as the inner being develops and takes charge of the lower vital nature....
Finally, I will call your attention to what I have said very plainly that you have in no degree contributed to bring about the Mother’s illness; why then persist in thinking that you have done so or may do it? As for my dark hints about the necessity of a radical change in the sadhana – I spoke, in fact, of a needed change in the inner attitude of the sadhaks,– it was not a reference to you, but to much that had been going wrong within the atmosphere. You yourself speak of certain persons shaping funnily before the eyes of all, especially during the Mother’s illness; there is nothing unreasonable in our wanting to make the inner mistakes to cease which cause such funny shapings to be possible. There is nothing in that that touches you or need alarm you.
I have not yet said anything about the Mother’s illness4 because to do so would have needed a long consideration of what those who are at the centre of a work like this have to be, what they have to take upon themselves of human or terrestrial nature and its limitations and how much they have to bear of the difficulties of the transformation. All that is not only difficult in itself for the mind to understand but difficult for me to write in such a way as to bring it home to those who have not our consciousness or our experience. I suppose it has to be written, but I have not yet found the necessary form or the necessary leisure.
19 November 1931
*
30
There will always be doubts, upsettings and confusion of the physical mind and vital, so long as the vital approaches the Mother from the wrong standpoint,– e.g. if it insists on judging her by her response to its demands and ideas of what she ought to give it. Not to impose one’s mind or vital will on the Divine but to receive the Divine’s Will and follow it, is the true attitude of sadhana. Not to say “This is my right, want, claim, need, requirement, why do I not get it?”, but to give oneself, to surrender and to receive with joy whatever the Divine gives, not grieving or revolting, is the right way. Then what one receives will be the right thing for one. All this you know very well; why do you constantly allow your outer vital to forget it and drag you back towards the old wrong attitude?
As for the Mother drawing back from the old course, routine etc. of her action with regard to the sadhaks, it was a sheer necessity of the work and the sadhana. Everything had got into a wrong groove, was full of mixed movements and a mistaken attitude – and consequently things were going on in the same rajaso-tamasic round without any chance of issue, like a squirrel in a cage. The Mother’s illness was an emphatic warning that this could not be allowed to go on any longer. A new basis of action and relations has to be built up in which no further sanction will ever seem to be given to the past mistaken movements of the sadhaks which were standing in the way of the descent of the Truth into the physical (material) nature. The basis cannot be built in a day, but the Mother had to stand back, otherwise to build it at all would be impossible.
7 December 1931
*
31
If it is the same part of the vital that was on the right side and has now turned against the Mother, the explanation is very obvious. It gave its adhesion formerly because it thought that by its adhesion it could make her satisfy its desires; finding its desires not indulged, it turns against her. That is the usual vital movement in ordinary man and in ordinary life, and it has no true place in Yoga. It was just the introduction of this attitude into Yoga by the sadhaks and its persistence which has at last made it necessary for the Mother to draw back as she has done. What you have to do is to get these lower parts to understand that they exist not for themselves but for the Divine and to give their adhesion, without claim or arrière-pensée or subterfuge. It is the whole issue at the present moment in the sadhana; for it is only if this is done that the physical consciousness can change and become fit for the descent. Otherwise there will always be these ups and downs in some part of the being at least, delay, confusion and disorder. This is the only true basis for fixity in the true consciousness and for a smooth course in the sadhana.
14 December 1931
*
32
For the rest, it is not a fact that the Mother is retiring more and more or that she has any intention of going inside entirely like me. Your remarks about the privileged few are incomprehensible to me; we are not confiding in a few at the expense of others or telling them what is happening while keeping silent to you. I have, I think, written more to you than to anybody else about these matters and the Mother has not been confiding to anybody anything in that field which has been held back from you. This – about the privileged few – is an old complaint of yours and it has no foundation. If anybody claims to have the special confidence of the Mother, he is making an egoistic claim which is not justifiable. Your real point seems to be about the Mother’s not taking up the soup and its accompaniments again. I have told you already why she was compelled by the experience of her illness to stand back from the old routine – which had become for most of the sadhaks a sort of semi-ecclesiastical routine and nothing more. It was because of the mistaken attitude of the sadhaks which had brought about an atmosphere full of movements contrary to the Yoga and likely to lead to disaster – as it had already begun to do. To resume the soup on the old footing would be to bring back the old conditions and end in a repetition of the same round of wrong movements and the same results. The Mother has been slowly and carefully taking steps to renew on another footing her control of things after her illness, but she can take no step which will allow the old dark movements to return – movements of some of which I think you yourself were beginning to take notice. The next step is for the sadhaks themselves to take; they must make it possible (by their change of attitude, by their resolution to rise on the lower vital and physical plane into the true consciousness) for a union with the Mother on that plane in the right way and with the right result to become possible. More I cannot say just now; but I fully intend to be more explicit hereafter – so far as I can without special reference to individuals; for these are things personal to people’s Yoga that can often be spoken of only to themselves and not to others.
As for your other questions I shall consider them in another letter; it is too late tonight. It is already 3.30 a.m. I will only say that what happens is for the “best” in this sense only that the end will be a divine victory in spite of all difficulties – that has been and always will be my seeing, my faith and my assurance – if you are willing to accept it from me. But that does not mean that your sadness and depression are necessary to the movement! The sooner they disappear never to recur again, the more joyously the Mother and I will advance on the steep road to the summits, and the easier it will be for you to realise what you want, the complete Bhakti and Ananda.
28 December 1931
*
33
You will say, “But at present the Mother has drawn back and it is the supramental that is to blame, because it is in order to bring down the supramental into matter that she retires.” The supramental is not to blame; the supramental could very well have come down into matter under former conditions, if the means created by the Mother for the physical and vital contact had not been vitiated by the wrong attitude, the wrong reactions in the Asram atmosphere. It was not the direct supramental Force that was acting, but an intermediate and preparatory force that carried in it a modified Light derived from the supramental; but this would have been sufficient for the work of opening the way for the highest action, if it had not been for the irruption of these wrong forces on the yet unconquered lower (physical) vital and material plane. The interference was creating adverse possibilities which could not be allowed to continue. The Mother would not have retired otherwise; and even as it is it is not meant as an abandonment of the field but is only (to borrow a now current phrase from a more external enterprise) a temporary strategic retirement, reculer pour mieux sauter. The supramental is therefore not responsible; on the contrary, it is the descent of the supramental that would end all the difficulty.
12 January 1932
Three Aspects of the Mother
Individual, Universal, Transcendent
34
I am or was under the impression that Mother is the Cosmic and Supracosmic Mahashakti.
I don’t quite understand the question. I have explained in The Mother that there are three aspects, transcendent, universal and individual, of the Mother.
31 May 1933
*
35
As I see it, there are two Shaktis in the world: the Cosmic Shakti and the individual Shakti – our Mother. I believe it is difficult to remain in direct connection with the Cosmic Shakti, while the individual Shakti is always here before us. I would like to know more about these Shaktis.
There is one divine Force which acts in the universe and in the individual and is also beyond the individual and the universe. The Mother stands for all three, but she is working here in the body to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here – it is so that you should regard her as the Divine Shakti working here for that purpose. She is that in the body, but in her whole consciousness she is also identified with all the other aspects of the Divine Force.
16 June 1933
The Universal Mother and the Individual Mother
36
The universal and individual Mother are the same – these are two aspects of the Supreme Mother – but the differentiation is for the multiple action and play. So also one feels the self as one’s own self in an individual way but also that there is the same self-individualised in others and all are one.
4 November 1934
*
37
What people mean by the formless svarūpa of the Mother,– they mean usually her universal aspect. It is when she is experienced as a universal Existence and Power spread through the universe in which and by which all live. When one feels that Presence one begins to feel a universal peace, light, power, bliss without limits – that is her svarūpa. One meets this more often by rising in consciousness above the head where one is liberated from this limited body consciousness and feels oneself also as something wide, calm, one self with all beings – free from passion and disturbance in an eternal peace. But it can be felt through the heart also – then the heart too feels itself wide as the world, pure and blissful, filled with the Mother’s presence.
There is also the Mother’s personal and individual presence in the heart which brings immediately love and bhakti and the sense of a close intimacy and personal oneness.
9 June 1935
The Mother’s Universal Action and Her Embodied Physical Action
38
Being sincere to the Mother demands communication of all our secret thoughts. There should be no secrecy between the mother and the child. But apart from this, is there any other utility of confessions?
There is the utility of the physical approach to the Mother – the approach of the embodied mind and vital to her embodied Power. In her universal action the Mother acts according to the law of things – in her embodied physical action is the opportunity of a constant Grace,– it is for that that the embodiment takes place.
12 August 1933
*
39
Is there any law of the working of the Mother’s Grace? Why does the Mother in her universal action act according to the law of things, but in her embodied physical by constant Grace?
It is the work of the Cosmic Power to maintain the cosmos and the law of the cosmos – transforming it by a slow evolution. The greater transformation comes from the Transcendent above the universe, and it is that transcendent Grace which the embodiment of the Mother is there to bring into action.
13 August 1933
Concentration on the Embodied Mother
40
When calling down the Force, should I concentrate on the embodied Mother or open to and concentrate on the consciousness of the Universal Mother?
The embodied Mother must be the foundation of the concentration – even when you receive from the universal Consciousness above you, it is from her consciousness that you are receiving.
5 March 1934
The Transcendental Mother and the Embodied Mother
41
There are many Mothers in the cosmic and spiritual planes who help people in their search for the Divine. Above them, I have read, is the transcendental Mother and above her comes the supreme Mother. X and Y profess to have seen and spoken to the transcendental Mother in her embodied aspect. This is hard to believe.
There are not many Mothers, there is One in many forms. The transcendental is only one aspect of the Mother. I don’t know what is meant by the embodied aspect of the transcendental Mother. There is the embodied aspect of the One Mother – what she manifests through it depends on herself.
7 July 1936
The Transcendent Mother and the Higher Hemisphere
42
“At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power.”5 The Transcendent Mother thus stands above the Ananda plane. There are then four steps of the Divine Shakti:
(1) The Transcendent Mahashakti who stands above the Ananda plane and who bears the Supreme Divine in her eternal consciousness.
(2) The Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of Sat-Chit-Ananda where all beings live and move in an ineffable completeness.
(3) The Supramental Mahashakti immanent in the worlds of Supermind.
(4) The Cosmic Mahashakti immanent in the lower hemisphere.
Yes; that is all right. One speaks often however of all above the lower hemisphere as part of the transcendence. This is because the Supermind and Ananda are not manifested in our universe at present, but are planes above it. For us the higher hemisphere is पर [para], the Supreme Transcendence is परात्पर [parātpara]. The Sanskrit terms are here clearer than the English.
27 January 1932
*
43
X asked me the meaning of the term “transcendent”. He also asked if the Supermind is a world of transcendence. So far as I can see, the gradations of the upper hemisphere are, in a sense, the heights of transcendence, with the Mother at the summit.
Yes.
Is it here at the summit that the Mother is the Transcendent Mother and the Divine is the Transcendent Divine?
Yes; but from the point of view of the present triple world of mind, life and body governed by the Overmind (Maya), the Supermind and the supramental Divine (all the upper hemisphere in fact) can be spoken of as Transcendent.
27 January 1932
The Eternal Mother
44
X came to our house. I asked him, “First, one Mother must be born, then another Mother, then another Mother, is it not so? Who is the Mother who was first born before the others were born? How did She come to exist?” He said he did not know, but that Sri Aurobindo and Mother would know and can tell me. Therefore please reply so that I can know everything clearly.
The first mother is the “Mother” – the eternal Mother; she always exists, she has no beginning or end.
4 March 1933
The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature
The Consciousness and Force of the Divine
45
Please explain to me what is meant by the Divine Mother.
The Divine Mother is the Consciousness and Force of the Divine – which is the Mother of all things.
24 June 1933
*
46
You have written in The Mother that the Mother is the consciousness and force of the Ishwara, but here my experience is that the Ishwara is the consciousness and force of the Supreme Mother. Could you please make it clear to me?
The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Divine – or, it may be said, she is the Divine in its consciousness-force. The Ishwara as Lord of the Cosmos does come out of the Mother who takes her place beside him as the cosmic Shakti – the cosmic Ishwara is one aspect of the Divine. The experience therefore is correct so far as it goes.
16 November 1934
The Mother in the Tantra
47
The experience of the Mother being the Supreme is the Tantrik experience – it is one side of the Truth.
Undated
*
48
The Tantrics used to invoke Shakti in their sadhana. Was it the same Force and Consciousness that is in the Mother here?
It depends on what they invoked – it was usually some aspect of the Mother that they called.
Undated
The Mother in the Gita
49
The Gita does not speak expressly of the Divine Mother; it speaks always of surrender to the Purushottama – it mentions her only as the Para Prakriti who becomes the Jiva, i.e., who manifests the Divine in the multiplicity and through whom all these worlds are created by the Supreme and he himself descends as the Avatar. The Gita follows the Vedantic tradition which leans entirely on the Ishwara aspect of the Divine and speaks little of the Divine Mother because its object is to draw back from world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation beyond it; the Tantrik tradition leans on the Shakti or Ishwari aspect and makes all depend on the Divine Mother, because its object is to possess and dominate the world-nature and arrive at the supreme realisation through it. This Yoga insists on both the aspects; the surrender to the Divine Mother is essential, for without it there is no fulfilment of the object of the Yoga.
In regard to the Purushottama the Divine Mother is the supreme divine Consciousness and Power above the worlds, Adya Shakti; she carries the Supreme in herself and manifests the Divine in the worlds through the Akshara and the Kshara. In regard to the Akshara she is the same Para Shakti holding the Purusha immobile in herself and also herself immobile in him at the back of all creation. In regard to the Kshara she is the mobile cosmic Energy manifesting all beings and forces.
18 August 1932
The One and the Supreme Mother
50
The Shankara knowledge is, as your Guru pointed out, only one side of the Truth; it is the knowledge of the Supreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the pure Existence. It was because he went by this side only that Shankara was unable to accept or explain the origin of the universe except as illusion, a creation of Maya. Unless one realises the Supreme on the dynamic as well as the static side, one cannot experience the true origin of things and the equal reality of the active Brahman. The Shakti or Power of the Eternal becomes then a power of illusion only and the world becomes incomprehensible, a mystery of cosmic madness, an eternal delirium of the Eternal. Whatever verbal or ideative logic one may bring to support it, this way of seeing the universe explains nothing; it only erects a mental formula of the inexplicable. It is only if you approach the Supreme through his double aspect of Sat and Chit-Shakti, double but inseparable, that the total truth of things can become manifest to the inner experience. The other side was developed by the Shakta Tantrics. The two together, the Vedantic and the Tantric truth unified, can arrive at the integral knowledge.
But philosophically this is what your Guru’s teaching comes to and it is obviously a completer truth and a wider knowledge than that given by the Shankara formula. It is already indicated in the Gita’s teaching of the Purushottama and the Parashakti (Adya Shakti) who becomes the Jiva and upholds the universe. It is evident that Purushottama and Parashakti are both eternal and are inseparable and one in being; the Parashakti manifests the universe, manifests too the Divine in the universe as the Ishwara and herself appears at his side as the Ishwari Shakti. Or, one may say, it is the Supreme Consciousness-Power of the Supreme that manifests or puts forth itself as Ishwara Ishwari, Atma Atmashakti, Purusha Prakriti, Jiva Jagat. That is the truth in its completeness as far as the mind can formulate it. In the Supermind these questions do not even arise – for it is the mind that creates the problem by erecting oppositions between aspects of the Divine which are not really opposed to each other but are one and inseparable.
This supramental knowledge has not yet been attained, because the supermind itself has not yet been attained, but the reflection of it in intuitive spiritual consciousness is there and that was what was evidently realised in experience by your Guru and what he was expressing in mental terms in the quoted passage. It is possible to go towards this knowledge by beginning with the experience of dissolution in the One, but on condition that you do not stop there, taking it as the highest Truth, but proceed to realise the same One as the supreme Mother, the Consciousness Force of the Eternal. If on the other hand you approach through the supreme Mother, she will give you the liberation in the silent One also as well as the realisation of the dynamic One and from that it is easier to arrive at the Truth in which both are one and inseparable. At the same time the gulf created by Mind between the Supreme and his Manifestation is bridged and there is no longer a fissure in the truth which makes all incomprehensible. If in the light of this you examine what your Guru taught, you will see that it is the same thing in less metaphysical language.
Undated
The Cosmic Divine and the Mother
51
What is the difference between the cosmic Divine and the Mother?
It is a matter of realisation. In the yoga of the Gita the cosmic Divine is realised as Vasudeva (Krishna). The Vaishnavas realise it as Vishnu, the Shaivas as Shiva. The Tantrics (Shaktas) realise the Devi (Goddess) as the Cosmic and even as the Transcendent Divine.
22 October 1935
The Self, the Divine and the Mother
52
My heart is aspiring for the Self, the Atman. I feel this Atman as the Lord of my being. I have to do all that I do for its sake, in order to make it the absolute master of myself.
It is the Divine who is the Master – the Self is inactive, it is always a silent wideness supporting all things – that is the static aspect. There is also the dynamic aspect through which the Divine works – behind that is the Mother. You must not lose sight of that, that it is through the Mother that all things are attained.
Again I feel that this Self is not only the Lord of this being, but that I myself am this Self. All these feelings are within myself, not above me; they come down from above.
Essentially everybody is the Self – but take care to avoid the idea that you are the Lord – for that may raise up the ego.
8 October 1934
*
53
After getting your letter [above], I was frightened, thinking that all my experiences about the Self were untrue and were misleading influences. Then I thought I would not aspire for the higher opening any more; what is necessary for me now is the growth of the psychic. So I began to concentrate on the heart and have been trying to depend on the psychic strength.
You must not try to stop any opening. My remarks were only meant to keep you on your guard against certain errors that sadhaks often make when the cosmic consciousness opens. If there is the psychic opening with its surrender and the higher opening with its wideness and self-realisation, the two together, there is little danger of any such error.
11 October 1934
*
54
You have told me to keep on my guard against errors. What is your opinion of my recent higher experiences? I used to feel a Consciousness, a vast Wideness which has become each individual. This Consciousness contains all and is in all. I used to feel that each is a part of me since I am that vast Consciousness. I felt that whatever I was doing, I was doing for myself, which is above. Will you tell me what all this means and why you warned me to take care? Was there a chance of making an error?
The experiences were all right – but they give only one side of the Divine Truth, that which one attains through the higher mind – the other side is what one attains through the heart. Above the higher mind these two truths become one. If one realises the silent Atman above, there is no danger, but there is also no transformation, only Moksha, Nirvana. If one realises the cosmic self, dynamic and active, then one realises all as the Self, all as myself, that self as the Divine, etc. This is all true; but the danger is of the ego catching hold of the “my” in that conception of all as “myself”. For this “myself” is not my personal self but everybody’s self as well as mine. The way to get rid of any such danger is to remember that this Divine is also the Mother, that the personal “I” is a child of the Mother with whom I am one, yet different, her child, servant, instrument. I have said that you should not stop realising the Self or the cosmic consciousness, but should at the same time remember that all this is the Mother.
13 October 1934
The Mother and Self-Realisation
55
What is remarkable today is that the consciousness is turning more and more towards oneness with the Mother’s Self in the silent peace. I write “Self” simply out of my perception, so I would like to be a little clear about it.
You are seeking for Self-realisation – but what is that Self if not the Mother’s self? There is no other.
29 September 1934
*
56
As the soul is in direct connection with the Divine, is not our Self also in direct connection with it? Why then does one not feel intimacy with the Mother while realising the Self as one does during the soul-realisation?
The Self has two aspects, passive and active. In the first it is pure silence, wideness, calm, the inactive Brahman – in the second it is the Cosmic Spirit, universal not individual. One can feel in it union or oneness with the Mother. Intimacy is a feeling of the individual, therefore of the psychic being.
12 October 1934
The Mother, the Jivatman and the Soul
57
In the Chandi it is said that the Devi is in everyone in the form of consciousness. This is the Bhagavat Chetana in all beings. In the true state, in the psychic and the Jivatman, it is united, a divine portion. In the fallen state, it is the ego. Is this correct?
I don’t understand exactly. Chitshakti or Bhagavat Chetana is the Mother – the Jivatman is a portion of it, the psychic or soul a spark of it. Ego is a perverted reflection of the psychic or the Jivatman. If that is what you mean, it is correct.
Undated
*
58
Sometimes I feel as if I am a portion of the Mother come down into the manifestation for her work. As a result, I have to pass through various human births and experience pain, separation, suffering, falsehood and ignorance.
It is true of every soul on earth that it is a portion of the Divine Mother passing through the experiences of the Ignorance in order to arrive at the truth of its being and be the instrument of a Divine Manifestation and work here.
15 February 1937
The Mother’s Interest in the World
59
Is it possible for the Mother or anyone living above the Overmind or even in the silence to take any interest in the world, since the world would be felt from there as a mere speck?
It all depends upon what basis one lives in the silence or above. A speck can be of as much interest to the Divine Consciousness as an infinity.
8 August 1934
The Mother and the Lower Prakriti
60
The higher Prakriti is the true nature of the Divine, so it can show Light and Ananda to people who are trying to reach the highest Truth; it is a help to sadhaks. But the lower Prakriti is impure and blind and can only show a limited Truth and a brief Ananda.
Everything comes from the Divine; but the lower Prakriti is the power of the Ignorance – it is not therefore a power of Truth, but only of mixed truth and falsehood. The Mother here stands not for the Power of the Ignorance, but for the Power that has come down to bring down the Truth and rise up to the Truth out of the Ignorance.
12 April 1933
*
61
In the past I committed one grand mistake – a total subordination of the consciousness of the Purusha to that of the Prakriti alone. There was not that strong drive of the Will to make the Purusha consciousness dynamic and living.
In order to get the dynamic realisation it is not enough to rescue the Purusha from subjection to Prakriti; we must transfer the allegiance of the Purusha from the lower Prakriti with its play of ignorant Forces to the Supreme Divine Shakti, the Mother.
Sometimes when I feel the necessity of standing apart from the play of Prakriti, I also have the counteracting feeling that this would mean a belittlement of the Mother.
It is a mistake to identify the Mother with the lower Prakriti and its mechanism of forces. Prakriti here is a mechanism only which has been put forth for the working of the evolutionary Ignorance. As the ignorant mental, vital or physical being is not itself the Divine, although it comes from the Divine – so the mechanism of Prakriti is not the Divine Mother. No doubt something of her is there in and behind this mechanism maintaining it for its evolutionary purpose – but what she is in herself is not a Shakti of Avidya, but the Divine Consciousness, Power, Light, Para Prakriti to whom we turn for the release and the divine fulfilment.
26 April 1933
*
62
X told me that whatever we do, it is the Divine who acts through us. But it seems to me that the Divine cannot be behind all we do, because we do not always do the right thing. Is there any truth in what X says?
There is this much truth that the cosmic Force works out everything and the Cosmic Spirit (Virat Purusha) supports her action. But this cosmic Force is a Power that works under the conditions of the Ignorance,– it appears as the lower nature and the lower nature makes you do wrong things. The Divine allows the play of these Forces so long as you do not yourself want anything better. But if you are a sadhak, then you do not accept the play of the lower nature, you turn to the Divine Mother instead, and ask her to work through you instead of the lower Nature. It is only when you have turned entirely in every part of your being to the Divine Mother and to her alone that the Divine will do all actions through you.
27 May 1933
*
63
How can I know that the Mother is working in me? I believe that everything is done by the Mother, the good things and the bad, but X believes that very few things are done according to her will. How can I know what is divine and what is undivine?
Why should the Mother do bad things in you? It is Nature that acts for that, not the will of the Mother. You can at least know that anger, jealousy, envy, restlessness, despair, indolence etc. are not divine things and that purity, peace, harmony, zeal, unselfishness etc., are good things and help the growth to the Divine.
Undated
Forms, Powers, Personalities and Appearances of the Mother
Nirguna and Saguna (Formless and with Form)
64
My being rose higher and higher. I saw God’s power of creation, and from there worlds, beings and gods were spreading out. Even God, through this power of creation, was getting expressed as different forms: Saguna, Nirguna, etc. God and this creative power are one; this creative power is his Shakti, the Mother. Is this correct?
It is right. There is no difficulty about it. Nirguna, Saguna are only aspects taken by the Divine in the manifestation. It is the Mother who manifests (creation is only manifestation) the Saguna or the Nirguna Ishwara.
28 June 1933
*
65
This morning I perceived the Mother both as with Form and as the Formless.
Both experiences are correct. What is opposite and incompatible to the mind which thinks by limitations is not so to the Higher Consciousness. Neither Form nor Formlessness is the sole truth by itself excluding the other; the Divine manifests through both, but is bound by neither.
4 September 1933
*
66
My wife wishes to have explicit instructions from the Mother as to which of the following two procedures would be most conducive to her spiritual evolution:
(1) Should she meditate on the Lotus of the Heart and think of Mother as the Light of Lights situated therein, which is the real Bliss, Omnipresent and Omniscient, which supports everything in the universe and which sustains all by giving support and life to every variety of existence?
(2) Or should she think of Mother in her present form which she sees during Pranam, as separate from her physically and apart from her in her suite at the Ashram?
She has been brought up and moulded spiritually in the first way. She always cognises the Divine as Formless, Immanent and Omnipresent. But now if you advise it, she is willing to worship the Mother in her heart in a personal way.
To meditate on the Mother as the formless Divine is a good meditation and can be continued, but for the full effect in this Yoga it is not enough. To meditate on the personality of the Mother in the heart is also necessary – but whether she should do that now or not depends on the feeling in herself – whether she needs it or feels ready for it.
28 May 1935
Many Powers and Forms
67
I see the Mother in various forms but I am unable to understand their meaning. Is it true that she shows herself to us in different forms and aspects?
Of course. The Mother has many forms on the supraphysical planes.
12 March 1933
*
68
Sometimes when I see the Mother I feel as if she is the image of divine Ananda and her form looks like that of a young girl. Is there any truth in my feeling?
Ananda is not the only thing – there is Knowledge and Power and Love and many other powers of the Divine. As a special experience only it may stand.
30 April 1933
*
69
I can see the Mother in different forms, on every level, in my ādhāra. I cannot understand what is the purpose of her taking different forms.
It is always so – the Mother manifests in many forms according to the need of what has to be done.
29 January 1934
Adyashakti
70
Adyashakti is the original Shakti, therefore the highest form of the Mother. Only she manifests in a different way according to the plane from which one sees her.
22 July 1933
Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati
71
Yesterday night I saw Maheshwari above my head, Mahakali in my vital being and Mahalakshmi seated in my mind and heart. Each one radiated a different light from her body. Then I saw a few subtle powers descending into my being.
Maheshwari’s natural place is in the higher consciousness above mind, for she is the wideness and largeness and wisdom of the Divine. Mahakali acts most naturally through the higher vital which is the instrument of force and power. Mahalakshmi acts through the heart – in your case at present she is acting through the mind also, though that is less usual – ordinarily it is Mahasaraswati.
31 August 1933
Maheshwari
72
Is Maheshwari on the Intuitive and the Overmind levels?
These Powers can manifest on all levels from the Overmind to the Physical.
25 August 1933
*
73
I had a talk with X in which he said that Athena is a form or representation of Maheshwari. Some of my visions of Gods like Shiva were in forms resembling human forms, but I thought this was due to my having seen them on the planes relating to the human mind and so my mind saw them in that way. Before the material creation took place, the vital and mental worlds existed and before that the planes of the higher hemisphere existed. But did the Gods on these planes exist with forms and shapes or did they only exist as impersonal forces without forms?
As to the Gods, man can build forms which they will accept; but these forms too are inspired into man’s mind from the planes to which the God belongs. All creation has the two sides, the formed and the formless; the Gods too are formless and yet have forms, but a Godhead can take many forms, here Maheshwari, there Pallas Athene. Maheshwari herself has many forms in her lesser manifestations, Durga, Uma, Parvati, Chandi etc. The Gods are not limited to human forms – man also has not always seen them in human forms only.
1 September 1935
Mahakali
74
Why is the Mother working in the form of Maheshwari in me? Why is she working so slowly? If she worked in the form of Mahakali, everything troubling me would flee from fear and the Mother’s luminous Sun would rise in me.
Mahakali can work only when there is a calm inner being and a resolute will facing without disturbance all the difficulties. When there is not that, then it is only possible for Maheshwari to work in order to bring her calm and wideness into the being.
20 November 1933
*
75
Has anyone here concretely experienced the intense action of Mahakali and successfully come through that?
Yes. There is at least one instance in which it was called down by the sadhaka and he met it full. There was a violent action shattering his old sanskaras, attachments etc. into atoms and he came through it all right.
13 January 1934
Krishna-Mahakali
76
The Mother in her cosmic power is all things and all divine Personalities, for nothing can be in manifestation except by her and as part of her being. But what was meant in the Visions6 was that the Ishwara and the Divine Shakti were one Person or Being in two aspects and it puts forward this union of them as Krishna-Mahakali as of great power for the manifestation.
20 October 1936
Mahakali and Kali
77
What is the essential difference between the Mahakali form as described in the Chandi and the Shyama form?
These – Kali, Shyama, etc. – are ordinary forms seen through the vital; the real Mahakali form whose origin is in the Overmind is not black or dark or terrible, but golden of colour and full of beauty, even when formidable to the Asuras.
10 February 1934
*
78
Sometimes I see the Mother in the form of Mahakali or as the Transcendent and Universal Mother. But I see her in a white colour. I know that Kali is called Shyama because her colour is black, but I saw white. Why is this?
Mahakali and Kali are not the same, Kali is a lesser form. Mahakali in the higher planes appears usually with the golden colour.
13 March 1934
Kali
79
While praying today I saw the image of Mother Kali. She was black and naked and standing with her foot on the back of Shiva. Why is Kali seen in such a form and on what plane is she seen like this?
It is in the vital. It is Kali as a destroying Force – a symbol of the Nature Force in the ignorance surrounded by difficulties, trampling and breaking everything in a blind struggle to get through till she finds herself standing with her foot on the Divine itself – then she comes to herself and the struggle and destruction are over. That is the significance of the symbol.
9 February 1934
Durga
80
The lion is the attribute of the Goddess Durga, the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother.
12 July 1929
*
81
Durga is the Mother’s power of Protection.
15 April 1933
*
82
The lion with Durga on it is the symbol of the Divine Consciousness acting through a divinised physical-vital and vital-material force.
November 1933
*
83
What aspect of the Mother’s personality comes out on Prosperity day? Is it something like the goddess Annapurna, who satisfies one’s material needs?
I suppose it would be some aspect like that – an aspect of Durga.
2 March 1934
*
84
Your attitude towards any divine manifestation in the Mother’s external consciousness is illuminating, “terrifying not only to the Asuras, but to the sadhaks”. And yet it was only a limited and particular force – the Durga power! Others did not go so far as that, but they found her high, far-away, aloof, severe – asked what was the cause of her displeasure against them. And that comes to the same – to be severe against the Asuras is also to be severe against the sadhaks. A few struck a different note, delight at the greatness of the Power they felt, or, even when feeling nothing of that, a sense of the sudden lifting of obstacles. But that is not the general tone. It follows that the Mother cannot manifest anything in her external material because she has to keep on a level with the sadhaks. And what then? If she is not to be allowed to protect herself, the work, the sadhaks, against the attacks of the Asuras on the physical plane – for it is there that there is the whole question,– then what is to be done? what can be done? Nothing. We can only wait for the supramental descent – and that descent is methodical but slow, for the opposition to that too is obstinate in the material Nature.
However, we must go on and do what can be done under these difficult conditions. I do not know how far it is wise not to come to pranam,– the results in others have not been brilliant but if it is only for a few days, and you insist, I shall not refuse. The real thing is however a change of the mental attitude – getting out of the world of ideas and feelings built by your mind which is a prison into a freedom and openness to the Divine that would be the most helpful to you. There would soon then be a compass and a rudder.
17 October 1934
*
85
Is Durga a form and name of Mahalakshmi? Recently I heard the name “Durga” repeating itself in me and I felt release from heavy oppression. I am also attracted to the name “Krishna” and sometimes in a semi-sleep condition I find myself repeating “Durga-Mahakali-Krishna”.
Durga combines the characteristics of Maheshwari and Mahakali to a certain extent,– there is not much connection with Mahalakshmi. The combination of Krishna and Mahakali is one that has a great power in this Yoga and if the names rise together in your consciousness, it is a good sign.
21 March 1938
*
86
Averse from the Chandi on Mahalakshmi came tome a minute or two after the Mother began to meditate with me. Afterwards the Mother explained that three forms of Mahalakshmi appeared in the meditation in response to my invocation. The first, the Mother said, was the original (Overmental) form of Mahalakshmi, and the second was the traditional one. About the third, the Mother did not speak fully. The form was three-faced with something like a crown on top. Is there any tradition in India or outside of a three-faced form of Mahalakshmi? And what is the significance of the same goddess-personality of the Mother – Mahalakshmi – appearing in three successive forms?
The Mother told you all that she saw about the last form – it disappeared almost immediately. The first form was the true one, that which she wears on the Overmind Plane which is the home of the greater Gods – as soon as it touched your mind, it took the traditional form which is the one with which your mind is familiar. The third shape must be a symbolic one (not traditional) – it would seem to be a correspondent one on the Shakti side to the Trimurti, indicating the unity in difference of three powers in the Cosmic Consciousness – in it is the same manifestation in different forms,– the Overmind Power, the traditional Lakshmi and the One Power in the Mother here.
3 September 1936
Mahalakshmi
Mahasaraswati
87
Today, immersed in deep meditation, I saw a beautiful chakra opening above my head, and on that chakra two lotuses were blooming and on those lotuses you and the Mother were sitting. After that, I invoked the Mother in my entire being and then I saw Mahasaraswati descending. Why did Mahasaraswati descend at my call and why did the chakra open above my head?
It is Mahasaraswati’s work to use the power and light and experiences that come in from above so as to change in detail the whole outer nature.
24 April 1933
*
88
Is it mostly the Mahasaraswati aspect of the Mother that works in our sadhana here?
At present since the sadhana came down to the physical consciousness – or rather it is a combination of Maheshwari-Mahasaraswati forces.
25 August 1933
*
89
What is the wisdom that brought deeper gyri in the human brain, the perfect septa in the ventricles of the heart and such other details of structure? Is it the work of Mahasaraswati?
Yes – all perfection in intricacy of detail shows the touch of Mahasaraswati.
19 September 1933
*
90
Sitting in meditation today I saw a river flowing from the higher consciousness level to the heart level in me. On this river was a golden boat and seated in it was Mahasaraswati, travelling down the river in golden and white light. What is the meaning of this?
That is the work of Mahasaraswati to move between the higher consciousness and the heart and through them establish the rule of the Truth in all details of the mind and life and physical nature.
7 December 1933
The Radha-Power
91
In the Chandi the names of the four Cosmic Powers of the Mother – Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati – are mentioned along with others, but the name Radha is not mentioned. This is a clear proof of the fact that when the Chandi was composed the Radha-Power was not manifested to the vision of the saints and that the Chandi mentions only the Cosmic Powers of the Mother and not her supramental Powers. In the book The Mother, after describing the four Powers of the Mother, you have said: “There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the supramental realisation,– most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divinest Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.” [pp. 23 – 24] Is not the Personality referred to in this passage the Radha-Power, which is spoken of as Premamayi Radha, Mahaprana Shakti and Hladini Shakti?
Yes – but the images of the Radha-Krishna lila are taken from the vital world and therefore it is only a minor manifestation of the Radha Shakti that is there depicted. That is why she is called Mahaprana Shakti and Hladini Shakti. What is referred to is not this minor form, but the full Power of Love and Ananda above.
7 February 1934
The Mother’s Vibhutis
92
You write in The Mother that there are Vibhutis of the powers and personalities of the Ishwara and Vibhutis of the Mother, but that in both cases it is the action of the Grace of the Mother that alone can effect a transformation of the Vibhuti [p. 16]. I would like to know the difference. Take for example Christ, Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Confucius, Zarathustra, Buddha, Shankara, Mohammed, Alexander, Napoleon – among these well-known figures, which are Vibhutis of the Mother and which are Vibhutis of the Ishwara? And what about the Mother’s action in Avatars like Rama and Krishna?
The Mother’s Vibhutis would normally be feminine personalities most of whom would be dominated by one of the four personalities of the Mother. The others you mention would be personalities and powers of the Ishwara, but in them also as in all the Mother’s force would act. I do not quite catch the question about the transformation of the Vibhutis. All creation and transformation is the work of the Mother.
29 October 1935
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93
Since all creation is the Mother’s work, can it be taken that it is the personalities of the Mother who, behind the veil, prepare the conditions for the descent of the Avatar or Vibhuti?
If you mean the divine Personalities of the Mother – the answer is yes. It may even be said that each Vibhuti draws his energies from the Four, from one of them predominantly inmost cases, as Napoleon from Mahakali, Rama from Mahalakshmi, Augustus Caesar from Mahasaraswati.
31 October 1935
Different Appearances of the Mother
94
When I look at the Mother during the morning pranam, she looks different than in the evening when she walks on the terrace or when I go to see her. Is it only my eyes or does she actually do something?
The Mother has not only one appearance, but many at different times.
14 May 1933
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95
Today while seeing the Mother on the terrace, I clearly saw the Mother’s light and that her height was a bit taller than normal. Was this true?
Yes. Many see like that, as if the Mother were taller than her ordinary physical appearance.
29 September 1933
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96
The Mother has many different personalities and her appearance varies according as one or another predominates. The something common, of course, exists. There is first, the one whom all these personalities manifest but that cannot be expressed in name or word – there is also the supramental personality which from behind the veil presides over the aim of the present manifestation.
9 November 1933
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97
Why does the Mother appear different at different times, as at Pranam or Prosperity or while giving interviews? Sometimes even anatomical differences are visible. What is the reason for these differences in her appearance? Does it depend on the extent to which she turns outwards?
It is rather, I think, dependent on the personality that manifests in front – as she has many personalities and the body is plastic enough to express something of each when it comes forward.
4 December 1933
False Appearances of the Mother
98
In a dream I saw the Mother and made pranam to her. She was weeping and pitying me in my unfortunate state. But now I feel that the personality to whom I made pranam was not the Mother, but someone disguised as her.
It must obviously have been some force taking the form of the Mother – that often happens on the vital plane. Suggestions are given by these disguised forces which have to be rejected as you rejected this one.
7 September 1938
1 Sri Aurobindo, “The Mother”, p. 14. Other letters on the book “The Mother” are published in Letters on Himself and on the Ashram, volume 35 of “The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo”, pp. 102 – 17. – Ed.
2 This letter was dictated by Sri Aurobindo, who referred to himself in the third person. – Ed.
3 When Sri Aurobindo was asked, on a later occasion, what the second great step is, he replied, “Aspiration of the sadhak for the divine life.” – Ed.
4 About your dream I think I have already intimated that you could accept it as true.
5 Sri Aurobindo, “The Mother, p. 15”.
6 By K. Amrita. Published in “Amrita” (Pondicherry: Sri Mira Trust, 1995), pp. 49 – 67.