,_ ___________________ 1.... -... -=-- ;;sz ~ ;ea ......, , --Jtas::: 1 fM., SPRING 1978 Mt. Tremper, NY 12457, U.S.A. Vol. IV, No. 3 • •- ~ 0 -•, T;- • ~..-zi& "'_if:~T-:_Jtc2,~;.~ ~1 ~ ~- G-s~L- bii:i .scz· .~"11" 1L- t -IA: ... i · - THE MOTHER 21 Febmary 1878-17 November 1973 THE MOTHER All beings there live and move in an ineffable completeness and un­ Sri Aurobindo alterable oneness, because she carries them safe in her arms for ever. Nearer to us are the worlds of a perfect supramental creation in The four Powers of the Mother are four of her outstanding per• which the Mother is the supramental Mahashakti, a Power of divine sonalities, portions and embodiments of her divinity through whom omniscient Will and omnipotent Knowledge always apparent in its she acts on her creatures, orders and harmonises her creations in the unfailing works and spontaneously perfect in every process. There worlds and directs the working out of her thousand forces. For the all movements are the steps of the Truth; there all beings are souls Mother is one but she comes before us with differing aspects; many and powers and bodies of the divine Light; there all experiences are are her powers and personalities, many her emanations and Vibhutis • seas and floods and waves of an intense and absolute Ananda. But that do her work in the universe. The One whom we adore as the here where we dwell are the worlds of the Ignorance, worlds of Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, mind and life and body separated in consciousness from their one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impos­ source, of which this earth is a significant centre and its evolution a sible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast in­ crucial process. This too with all its obscurity and struggle and im­ telligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Su­ perfection is upheld by the Universal Mother; this too is impelled preme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can and guided to its secret aim by the Mahashakti. be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable The Mother as the Mahashakti of this triple world of the Ig­ because more defined and limited temperament and action of the norance stands in an intermediate plane between the supramental goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures. Light, the Truth life, the Truth creation which has to be brought There are three ways of being of the Mother of which you can down here and this mounting and descending hierarchy of planes of become aware when you enter into touch of oneness with the Con­ consciousness that like a double ladder lapse into the nescience of scious Force that upholds us and the universe. Transcendent, the Matter and climb back again through the flowering of life and soul original supreme Shakti, she stands above the worlds and links the into the infinity of the Spirit. Determining all that shall be in this creation to the ever unmanifest mystery of the Supreme. Universal, universe and in the terrestrial evolution by what she sees and feels the cosmic Mahashakti, she creates all these things and contains and and pours from her, she stands there above the Gods and all her enters, supports and conducts all these million processes and forces. Powers and Personalities are put out in front of her for the action Individual, she embodies the power of these two vaster ways of ex­ and she sends down emanations of them into these lower worlds to istence, makes them living and near to us and mediates between the intervene, to govern, to battle and conquer, to lead and tum their human personality and the divine Nature. cycles, to direct the total and the individual lines of their forces. The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above These Emanations are the many divine forms and personalities in all worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Di­ which men have worshipped her under different names throughout vine. Alone, she harbours the absolute Power and the ineffable the ages. But also she prepares and shapes through these Powers and Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be mani­ their emanations the minds and bodies of her Vibhutis, even as she fested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were prepares and shapes minds and bodies for the Vibhutis of the hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a Ishwara, that she may manifest in the physical world and in the dis­ form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and guise of the human consciousness some ray of her power and quali­ a body in the universe. The Supreme is manifest in her for ever as ty and presence. All the scenes of the earthplay have been like a the everlasting Sachchidananda, manifested through her in the drama arranged and planned and staged by her with the cosmic worlds as the one and dual consciousness of Ishwara-Shakti and the dual principle of Purusha-Prakriti, embodied by her in the Worlds -----CONTENTS----- and the Planes and the Gods and their Energies and figured because of her as all that is in the known worlds and in unknown others. All The Mother, by Sri Aurobindo 2 is her play with the Supreme; all is her manifestation of the mys­ A Sampler of the Mother's Writings 4 teries of the Eternal, the miracles of the Infinite. All is she, for all Guidance from the Mother 6 are parcel and portion of the divine Conscious-Force. Nothing can Integral Psychology, by Sri Aurobindo (4) 6 be here or elsewhere but what she decides and the Supreme sanc­ Expressions of Auroville tions; nothing can take shape except what she moved by the Su­ Report on the Matrimandir Gardens (4) 8 preme perceives and forms after casting it into seed in her creating Pilgrimage to the Matrimandir 13 Ananda. News of Auroville 14 The Mahashakti, the universal Mother, works out whatever is For the Rest You Lead, by Vikas 14 transmitted by her transcendent consciousness from the Supreme An Experiment in Integrated Rural Development, and enters into the worlds that she has made; her presence fills and by Dr. G. Gopal Reddy 15 supports them with the divine spirit and the divine all-sustaining General News 15 force and delight without which they could not exist. That which News of the Centers 17 we call Nature or Prakriti is only her most outward executive as­ Informal Centers and Study Groups · 17 pect; she marshals and arranges the harmony of her forces and pro­ Book Review 18 cesses, impels the operations of Nature and moves among them I Wind Up Clouds and Clods and Brine, by Maggi 18 secret or manifest in all that can be seen or experienced or put into Sri Aurobindo and Auroville Centers 20 motion of life. Each of the worlds is nothing but one play of the Mahashakti of that system of worlds or universe, who is there as the cosmic Soul and Personality of the transcendent Mother. Each is Collaboration is published quarterly by Matagiri, a Sri Aurobindo center. © 1978 by Matagiri. All passages quoted from the works of something that she has seen in her vision, gathered into her heart of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are published here with the kind per­ beauty and power and created in her Ananda. mission of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. But there are many planes of her creation, many steps of the Di­ Collaboration is distributed without charge throughout the world. vine Shakti. At the summit of this manifestation of which we are a We are grateful for contributions for its support. Donations may be made payable to Matagiri, Mt. Tremper, NY 12457. part there are worlds of infinite existence, consciousness, force and Please inform us of your new address if you move. bliss over which the Mother stands as the unveiled eternal Power. drama arranged and planned and staged by her with the cosmic • [The white water-lily] is the Mother's flower, the flower of di­ Gods for her assistants and herself as a veiled actor. vine consciousness. The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even • The diamond is the symbol of the Mother's light and energy­ the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her the diamond light is that of her consciousness at its most intense. creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature­ force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the • By remaining psychically open to the Mother, all that is neces­ Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities sary for work or Sadhana develops progressively, that is one of the of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put chief secrets, the central secret of Sadhana. on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally All has to be done by the working of the Mother's force aided by too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may your aspiration, devotion and surrender. lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may con· vert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may tum it to godlike • Those who do work for the Mother in all sincerity are prepared Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that by the work itself for the right consciousness even if they do not she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda.