XI THE SOUL OF A NATION A nation is a living personality; it has a soul, even like a human individual. The soul of a nation is also a psychic being, that is to say, a conscious being, a formation out of the Divine Consciousness and in direct contact with it, a power and aspect of Mahashakti. A nation is not merely the sum total of the individuals that compose it, but a collective personality of which the individuals are as it were cells, like the cells of a living and conscious organism.The psychic being or soul of a nation is indeed conscious; it knows its raison d'etre, its life purpose, its destiny, the role it has to play in the divine scheme as the divine

VII MAN AND SUPERMAN When we speak of the superman we refer to a new race—almost a new species—that will appear on earth as the inevitable result of Nature's evolution. The new race will be developed out of the present humanity, there seems to be no doubt about that; it does not mean however that the whole of humanity will be so changed. As a matter of fact, humanity in general does not ask for such a catastrophic change in itself or for itself. But Supermanhood does mean a very radical change: it means giving up altogether many and some very basic human qualities and attributes. It does not aim merely at a moral uplift, that is to say, a shedding of the bad qualiti

VIII TRUE CHARITY Charity is commonly understood to consist in rendering material help to your fellow man, giving alms to the poor, medicine to the sick, money or material to those who need them and physical service also where that is required. All this is well and good. The world is ridden with diseases and privations and calamities. And if something is done to alleviate them, it is as it should be, and activities in that direction deserve full encouragement. But this does not go far enough, does not touch the root of the matter. It is the human way of dealing with things and must naturally be very limited in its scope and efficacy. There is a higher, a diviner way—the

-002_PUBLISHER^S NOTE.htm PUBLISHER'S NOTE Towards the middle of the year 1947 for months the Mother used to gather around her a few disciples to whom she gave some intimate talks on various questions relating to spiritual life, occult truths, difficulties that baffle a spiritual seeker and their solutions and other innumerable problems. Gradually the number of the disciples increased and the class turned almost into a salon. Questions were placed before the Mother and answers given. Questions and answers were in French, except on rare occasions for the benefit of those who were more at home in English. The present volume presents a very free rendering of the Mother's answers in the aut

III THE BODY NATURAL With regard to the food that man takes, there are two factors that determine or prescribe it. First of all, the real need of the body, that is to say, what the body actually requires for its maintenance, the elements to meet the chemical changes happening in it, something quite material and very definite, viz., the kind of food and the quantity. But usually this real need of the body is obscured and submerged under the demands of another kind of agency, almost altogether foreign to it, (I) vital desire and (2) mental notions. Indeed, the menu of our table, at least 90% of it, is arranged so as to satisfy the demands of the second category, the

II PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF It is not that humanity does not know or feel the need of a radical change in itself. Everywhere man recognises that if the problems and difficulties that face him have to be solved satisfactorily, there must be a thorough overhauling of his outlook and nature; no mere tinkering with the superficial signs and symptoms of an organic disease by means of palliatives and expediencies and nostrums, but a major operation. Indeed, if he wishes to be cured, he must transcend his present nature and be something else. And yet he does not change. He has not the sincere will to change. At least he takes the wrong way about it. And the re

V MAN THE PROTOTYPE The earth has been created for a special purpose; it has a divine role to fulfil. And so there is only one earth and not many, in spite of what the scientists may say. The earth is not a mass of dead matter, not merely the dwelling-place of the growths that have occurred upon it, of plants and animals and men. She is the home and she is the mother of them all. She has a consciousness and a personality, the outer form that we see is only her body. Indeed, all the luminaries of heaven have each its conscious personality, the planets, the moon and above all the great sun. It is not fancy or idle imagination that made the astrologers ascribe

X CHILDREN AND CHILD MENTALITY Children are often found to be very cruel to animals. Why is it so? Their treatment of birds especially is notorious. To seek out nests and pull them down, to capture nestlings and put them to all kinds of torture, to pick up eggs and dash them to pieces are for children most interesting games. They seem to take particular delight in varying and enhancing as much as possible the torture they can inflict. One reason that can be adduced for the callousness of a child's sensibility is his self-centred-ness: he is wholly himself, isolated from others, has not yet learnt the social needs and virtues. All he does and feels is for

I AT THE ORIGIN OF IGNORANCE The Divine Consciousness, basically and essentially one and unique, has inherent in it four cardinal attributes—principles of its modulation, modes of its vibration—developing into or appearing as four aspects and personalities. They are Light, Force, Delight and Knowledge. Originally and in the supreme status the four movements are one and indivisible and form one indissoluble identity with the Divine's pure essence and absolute unity. The differentiation or variability there in the Immutable is a play immanent in the integral self-nature of the Supreme. The one and the many form on that level a single entity, an undivided wh

IV THE MEASURE OF TIME When it is said that the Realisation is decreed, is it meant also that the time for it has been fixed? If so, all individual effort and freedom of action seem to go out of the picture, being irrelevant—neither hastening nor retarding the process. The fact is somewhat different, not so simple and trenchant. There is very little sense in the common notion that everything is predetermined as to time when it will happen, that the universal scheme has been all inalterably arranged and mapped out from beforehand, that nothing can change it, all goes according to plan. This is only a human conception, a construction of the mind, a wrong tra