THE MOTHER Questions and Answers 1957-1958 Questions and Answers 1957 – 1958 i ii The Mother Questions and Answers 1957 - 1958 Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry VOLUME 9 COLLECTED WORKS OF THE MOTHER Second Edition ISBN 81-7058-670-4 Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1977, 2004 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Pondicherry - 605 002 Website: http://sabda.sriaurobindoashram.org Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA The Mother Kali Puja, 10 November 1958 ii Publisher’s Note This volume contains the conversations of the Mother in 1957 and 1958 with the members of her Wednesday evening French class, held at the Ashram Playground. The class was composed of sadhaks of the Ashram and students of the Ashram’s school. The Mother usually began by reading out a passage from a French translation of one of Sri Aurobindo’s writings; she then commented on it or invited questions. For most of 1957 the Mother discussed the second part of Thoughts and Glimpses and the essays in The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth.From October 1957 to November 1958 she took up two of the final chapters of The Life Divine. These conversations comprise the last of the Mother’s “Wednesday classes”, which began in 1950. Further information on the conversations and their publication is provided in the Note on the Text. v ii Contents 1957 2 January Can one go out of time and space? 1 Not a crucified but a glorified body 3 Individual effort and the new force 5 9 January God is essentially Delight 7 God and Nature play at hide-and-seek 9 Why, and when, are you grave? 13 16 January Seeking something without knowing it 15 Why are we here? 16 23 January How should we understand pure delight? 20 The “drop of honey” 23 Action of the Divine Will in the world 25 30 January Artistry is just contrast 27 How to perceive the Divine Guidance? 29 6 February Death; need of progress 33 Changing Nature’s methods 35 7 February Individual and collective meditation 37 13 February Suffering; pain and pleasure 41 Illness and its cure 43 20 February Limitations of the body and individuality 44 6 March Freedom, servitude and love 50 vii Contents 8 March A Buddhist story 53 13 March Our best friend 55 15 March Reminiscences of Tlemcen 59 20 March Never sit down; true repose 65 22 March A story of initiation: knowledge and practice 67 27 March If only humanity consented to be spiritualised 73 3April Different religions and spirituality 76 10 April Sports and yoga 80 Organising one’s life 83 17 April Transformation of the body 85 24 April Perfection: lower and higher 90 1May Sports competitions: their value 96 8May Vital excitement; reason; instinct 99 15 May Differentiation of the sexes 104 Transformation from above downwards 107 29 May Progressive transformation 108 5 June Questions and silence 113 Methods of meditation 115 12 June Fasting and spiritual progress 117 viii Contents 19 June Causes of illness 121 Fear and illness 122 Mind’s working: faith and illness 124 26 June Birth through direct transmutation 128 Man and woman 132 Judging others; divine Presence in all 134 New birth 136 3July Collective yoga: vision of a huge hotel 138 9July Incontinence of speech 144 10 July A new world is born 145 Overmind creation dissolved 149 17 July Power of conscious will over matter 153 24 July The involved supermind 157 Thenewworldandtheold 158 Will for progress indispensable 159 31 July Awakening aspiration in the body 161 7 August The resistances: politics and money 166 Aspiration to realise the supramental life 170 14 August Meditation on Sri Aurobindo 172 21 August The Ashram and true communal life 173 Level of consciousness in the Ashram 174 28 August Freedom and Divine Will 176 ix Contents 4 September Sri Aurobindo: “an eternal birth” 178 11 September Vital chemistry: attraction and repulsion 180 18 September Occultism and supramental life 185 25 September Preparation of the intermediate being 191 2 October The Mind of Light 193 Statues of the Buddha 196 Burden of the past 198 9 October As many universes as individuals 200 Passage to the higher hemisphere 203 16 October Story of successive involutions 205 23 October The central motive of terrestrial existence 209 Evolution 211 30 October Double movement of evolution 214 Disappearance of a species 217 13 November Superiority of man over animal 219 Consciousness precedes form 222 27 November Sri Aurobindo’s method in The Life Divine 224 Individual and cosmic evolution 227 4 December The method of The Life Divine 231 Problem of emergence of a new species 233 11 December Appearance of the first men 236 18 December Modern science and illusion 239 x Contents Value of experience: its transforming power 240 Supramental power: first aspect to manifest 241 1958 1 January The collaboration of material Nature 245 Miracles visible to a deep vision of things 246 Appendix Explanation of New Year Message 247 8 January Sri Aurobindo’s method of exposition 249 The mind as a public place 251 Mental control 252 Sri Aurobindo’s subtle hand 254 15 January The only unshakable point of support 255 22 January Intellectual theories 256 Expressing a living and real Truth 257 29 January The plan of the universe 259 Self-awareness 261 5 February The great voyage of the Supreme 264 Freedom and determinism 267 12 February Psychic progress from life to life 268 The earth, the place of progress 270 19 February Experience of the supramental boat 271 Appendix The Censors 279 Absurdity of artificial means 281 26 February The moon and the stars 284 xi Contents Horoscopes and yoga 285 5 March Vibrations and words 286 Power of thought; the gift of tongues 289 12 March The key of past transformations 291 19 March General tension in humanity 295 Peace and progress 298 Perversion and vision of transformation 300 26 March Mental anxiety and trust in spiritual power 302 2April Correcting a mistake 306 9April The eyes of the soul 308 Perceiving the soul 309 16 April The superman 312 New realisation 315 23 April Progress and bargaining 316 30 April Mental constructions and experience 319 7May The secret of Nature 320 14 May Intellectual activity and subtle knowing 324 Understanding with the body 326 21 May Mental honesty 327 28 May The Avatar 331 4 June New birth 335 xii Contents 11 June Is there a spiritual being in everybody? 339 18 June Philosophy, religion, occultism, spirituality 341 25 June Sadhana in the body 347 9July Faith and personal effort 350 16 July Is religion a necessity? 353 23 July How to develop intuition 357 Concentration 360 30 July The planchette; automatic writing 362 “Proofs” and knowledge 367 6 August Collective prayer; the ideal collectivity 369 13 August Profit by staying in the Ashram 371 What Sri Aurobindo has come to tell us 374 Finding the Divine 374 15 August Our relation with the Gods 376 27 August Meditation and imagination 378 From thought to idea, from idea to principle 382 3 September How to discipline the imagination 385 Mental formations 386 10 September Magic, occultism, physical science 389 17 September Power of formulating experience 397 Usefulness of mental development 400 xiii Contents 24 September Living the truth 403 Words and experience 406 1 October The ideal of moral perfection 408 8 October Stages between man and superman 410 22 October Spiritual life; reversal of consciousness 412 Helping others 416 29 October Mental self-sufficiency; Grace 417 5 November Knowing how to be silent 421 12 November The aim of the Supreme 424 Trust in the Grace 427 26 November The role of the Spirit 428 New birth 430 Note on the Text 433 xiv Questions and Answers 1957 – 58 i ii 2 January 1957 “If Brahman were only an impersonal abstraction eter- nally contradicting the apparent fact of our concrete existence, cessation would be the right end of the matter; but love and delight and self-awareness have also to be reckoned. “The universe is not merely a mathematical formula for working out the relation of certain mental abstrac- tions called numbers and principles to arrive in the end at a zero or a void unit, neither is it merely a physical operation embodying a certain equation of forces. It is the delight of a Self-lover, the play of a Child, the endless self-multiplication of a Poet intoxicated with the rapture of His own power of endless creation. “We may speak of the Supreme as if He were a mathematician working out a cosmic sum in numbers or a thinker resolving by experiment a problem in rela- tions of principles and the balance of forces: but also we should speak of Him as if He were a lover, a musician of universal and particular harmonies, a child, a poet. The side of thought is not enough; the side of delight too must be entirely grasped: Ideas, Forces, Existences, Principles are hollow moulds unless they are filled with the breath of God’s delight. “These things are images, but all is an image. Ab- stractions give us the pure conception of God’s truths; images give us their living reality. “If Idea embracing Force begot the worlds, Delight of Being begot the Idea. Because the Infinite conceived an innumerable delight in itself, therefore worlds and universes came into existence. “Consciousness of being and Delight of being are 1 Questions and Answers the first parents. Also, they are the last transcendences. Unconsciousness is only an intermediate swoon of the conscious or its obscure sleep; pain and self-extinction are only delight of being running away from itself in order to find itself elsewhere or otherwise.