THE ORIGIN One has forgotten. From the fact of separation from Sat - Chit - Ananda comes forgetfulness of what one is. You believe you are, does not matter what, a boy, a girl, a man, a woman, a dog, a horse, any thing : a stone, the sea or the sun. You think you are all that, instead of thinking that you are the One Divine. Indeed, if you had continued to think that you are the One Divine, there would have been no universe at all. The phenomenon of separation seems to have been indispensable, otherwise it would have remained always as it was. But once the curve has been followed up and the Unity re-established, having profited by the multiplicity and division,

EDUCATION OF GIRLS The question is about our physical education and, in a general way, the psychological basis of our activities here. These things have, of course, been written about and spoken of by me and by Sri Aurobindo very often, but evidently the idea does not seem to have entered your consciousness. I do not wish to wage a war against what you feel and do, but I would like you at least to understand why things are done here in the way they are being done instead of letting yourself go thoughtlessly in a retrograde movement towards all that is done elsewhere, under the plea that that is how your fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers and all the

THE DIVINE GRACE (I) When you are in a certain set of circumstances and when certain things happen, these things often go against your desire or against what appears to you best. And you regret and say: "Oh! How much better it would have been had it been otherwise !" It does not matter whether the thing concerned is small or big. The years pass, events roll on. You progress, become more conscious, understand better. And when you look back, you discover, at first with surprise, later on with a smile, that the famous circumstances which once appeared to you disastrous or unfavourable were just the very best thing that could have happened for your needed progr

Section Two To the Children of the Ashram THE TRUE TEACHING You must have observed that my way of talking to you is not always the same. I don't know whether you are very sensitive to the difference, but for me it is considerable. Sometimes, on rare occasions, because of something read or for another reason, there comes to me in the wake of a question what is called an experience but what is simply the fact of entering into a certain state of consciousness and, having entered into it, describing that very state. In such a case, the Force, the Consciousness that express themselves pass across the individual mind, use it like a store-house of

GOAL OF EVOLUTION You say it is obvious that evolution has a goal and that it cannot stop here or now. It seems to you obvious because you have read Sri Aurobindo's books. But if you take anybody you meet in the street and ask him what is the purpose of the universe or of the evolution, you will see that he will answer by saying that he knows nothing about it. Even here there are many, perhaps hundreds, if you ask them individually not to repeat what they have read but to say what they feel and think by themselves about the question, what is the intention behind the universal evolution or if there is any intention at all, they will not be able to give a better answer. I

THE PSYCHIC BEING The psychic is like an electric wire that connects the generator with the lamp; the lamp being the body, the visible form. Its function is likewise, that is to say, if the psychic were not there in Matter, it could have no direct contact with the Divine. It is because of the psychic presence that there can be a direct contact between Matter and the Divine. And every human being can be told : "You carry the Divine within you, you have only to enter within yourself and you will find Him." It is a direct, special, transmuting infusion into the most inconscient and obscure Matter to awaken it once more step by step to the Divine Consciousness, the Divine

MEDITATION Collective meditation, of which the most external form is collective prayer, has been practised from ancient times for different reasons, in different ways, and with different purposes. Groups of persons, whether belonging to the same Church or not, come together to express a common feeling; in certain cases, it is to sing together in praise of God, to chant a hymn of gratitude, expressing love, adoration, thankfulness. In other cases,—there are many historical examples of this—people gather together for a common invocation, to ask something from the Divine in the hope that a prayer done collectively will have more effect than an individual prayer. Thus, in Eu

PUBLISHERS' NOTE The writings included in this volume are based on talks given by the Mother. They originally appeared in the Ashram Journals during the years 1957-1958.

THE SUPRAMENTAL VISION In the supramental vision there is a direct, full and immediate knowledge of things, in the sense that you see all things at the same time totally, integrally; you see the truth of a thing in all its aspects simultaneously. But as soon as you want to explain or describe it, you are obliged to come down to a lower level. Sri Aurobindo calls it the Mind of Light. Here things have to be said or even thought or expressed and realised in action one after another in a certain order, in a certain relation to each other. Therefore the simultaneity disappears; for, in the present condition of our way of expression it is impossible to sa

Section One PRAYER AND ASPIRATION (I) Prayers are of many kinds. There is a prayer, purely mechanical and physical, that is to say, merely words learnt by rote and repeated machine-like. It does not mean much and generally has only one effect, making the person calm who prays; if you repeat a prayer several times, it calms you in the end. There is a prayer which is a formula welling out spontaneously in order to give expression to something very precise which you ask for. You may pray for something, for some person; you may pray even for certain circumstances; you may pray for yourself also. Or you may pray to express your gratit