OM Mother: Is it January? Yes, Mother—it is January. Read what is written here. (Every month I used to take to Mother a large calendar on which flowers were painted and on which She used to write a prayer) "In this year of Sri Aurobindo's centenary, Jet us strive to be worthy of Hint..." And then? "... by following His teaching faithfully in order to prepare the advent of the superman. Happy New Year." What flower is this? (pointing to the painted flower) " Superhumanity". Eh? This is "Superhumanity". The name of this flower is "superhumanity" Which flower is it? This flower—it is the dahlia. Dahlia! Yes, yes

SUPERMIND AND OVERMIND Sri Aurobindo's work is a unique earth-transformation. Above the mind there are several levels of conscious being, among which the really divine world is what Sri Aurobindo has called the Supermind, the world of the Truth. Rut in between is what he has distinguished as the Overmind, the world of the cosmic Gods. Now it is this Overmind that has up to the present governed our world; it is the highest that man has been able to attain in illumined consciousness. It has been taken for the Supreme Divine and all those who have reached it have never for a moment doubted that they have touched the true Spirit. For, its splendours are so great

SURRENDER Surrender is the decision taken to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine. Without this decision nothing is at all possible; if you do not surrender, the Yoga is entirely out of the question. Everything else comes naturally after it, for the whole process starts with surrender. You can surrender cither through knowledge or through devotion. You may have a strong intuition that the Divine alone is the truth and a luminous conviction that without the Divine, you cannot manage. Or you may have a spontaneous feeling that this line is the only way of being happy, a strong psychic desire to belong exclusively to the Divine: "I do nor belong to myself," you s

RENUNQATION There is in books a lot of talk about renunciation—that you must renounce possession, renounce attachments, renounce desires. But I have come to the conclusion that so long as you have to renounce anything you are not on this path; for, so long as you are not thoroughly disgusted with things as they are, and have to make an effort to reject them, you are not ready for the supramental realisation. If the construction of the Overmind— the world which it has built and the existing order which it supports—still satisfy you, you cannot hope to partake of that realisation. Only when you find such a world disgusting, unbearable and unacceptable, are you fit for the change