The Mother and The Lord of Falsehood
A Reader's Letter and the Author's Answer
The Letter
I was going through the article "Our light and Delight", No. 18 and was astounded by the statement that the mother assumed and form of the Lord of Falsehood in order to misguide Hitler and make him launch an attack on Stalin's Russia. This seems incredible. I have not heard of this before and surely it is not the way the Mother worked for achieving results. Did she really say at any time that she had assumed this form?
The Answer
I am sorry I have disturbed you. But what I have written about is factual. Both Udar and Andre heard it from the Mother herself. It is also in a talk dated 12 January 1965, which was taped and is included in the publication called Agenda. I am told that the Mother is on record there as having said to Hitler: "Go... To have the supreme victory, go and attack Russia." You have been shocked because you have misconceived the world-roles played by revolutionary Avatars like Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Old ideas about spirituality are leading you astray in the assessment of the Supramental Incarnations.
Let me elucidate my point. But before I come to immediate particulars I may say a word on Incarnations in general — Incarnations in the Indian sense. The two greatest and most recognisable Avatars before Sri Aurobindo were Rama Dasarathi and Krishna Vasudeva. Both of them carried out sanguinary tasks involving the direct destruction of those who embodied anti-divine titanic forces. A lot of lives were lost not only on the side of these embodiments but also on the side of the Avatars. War in the full sense of the term,
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involving secrecy, ruse and surprise, was accepted as part of the Avataric mission. Orthodoxy is bound to get shocked and several attempts have been made to allegorise away the lives and deeds of Rama and Krishna. Particularly Krishna has given orthodoxy pause, it is finally through his strategems — contrary to the traditional warriors' code — that, according to the Mahabharata, the Pandavas destroyed their enemies and Yudhishthira became Emperor.
By insisting on transformation of the physical existence and not merely a purification as a step towards transcendence of earth and life — by bringing the new message of the Supramental Descent — Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are more specifically evolutionary in their mission and more openly opposed to the rule of the Asura and the Rakshasa in the world. Sri Aurobindo did not hesitate to take part in revolutionary politics in the days before he came to Pondicherry. His work meant risk of life both to himself and his followers, as well as to those who were ranged against him. He had even in mind an armed insurrection.
When World War II broke out he went out of his way to give support to the Allied Cause. This evoked a protest from orthodox spiritual thinkers: "How can a master of spirituality associate himself with a war instead of standing above both the parties? Surely the Allies are no saints as compared to the Nazis!" Sri Aurobindo took care to show that, whether the Allies be saints or not, they could not be equated to Hitler and his henchmen: the Allies represented a side which was in accord with the many-moded evolutionary drive of Nature, unlike Nazism which was an inrush from the typal Rakshasic plane to take possession of the human world. Sri Aurobindo also pointed out the common error of putting together a human historical phenomenon like British Imperialism and Hitler's barbarous gospel of the Master Race. Lastly he not only espoused the Allied Cause but also took the bold step of calling the War "The Mother's War".
All this should show you how intimately the Mother and he were connected with the conduct of the war and with all its vicissitudes. They were like two Super-Generals. Sri Aurobindo has explicitly declared that he pitted his spiritual force against the Nazis and later against the Japanese. He kept himself acquainted with all the turns and twists of
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the campaigns both on the European front and on the Asian. What the Mother did at a critical moment was absolutely in accord with the roles they had assumed — and it was a continuation or development of the subtle and occult process which Sri Aurobindo had hinted at in the concluding lines of The Dwarf Napoleon.
I hope I have clarified the doubt you had expressed saying that the Mother could not have acted in the manner I have depicted and that this could not be her way of action.
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A List of Books by Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna)
1. The Problem of Aryan Origins: From an Indian Point of View
2. Karpasa in Prehistoric India: A Chronological and Cultural
Clue
3. Problems of Ancient India
4. Ancient India in a New Light
5. The Beginning of History for Israel
6. Life-Poetry-Yoga, Personal Letters, Vol. I
7. Life-Poetry-Yoga, Personal Letters, Vol. II
8. Life-Poetry-Yoga, Personal Letters, Vol. Ill
9. Pamessians
10 "Two Loves" and "A Worthier Pen" — The Enigmas of
Shakespeare's Sonnets
11. The English Language and the Indian Spirit: Correspondence
between Kathleen Raine and K.D. Sethna
12. Indian Poets and English Poetry: Correspondence between
Kathleen Raine and K.D. Sethna
13. The Obscure and the Mysterious: A Research in Mallarme's
Symbolist Poetry
14. Blake's Tyger: A Christological Interpretation
15. The Inspiration of Paradise Lost
16. Inspiration and Effort: Studies in Literary Attitude and
Expression
17. "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" — An Interpretation from India
18. The Thinking Corner: Causeries on Life and Literature
19. Adventures in Criticism
20. Classical and Romantic — An Approach through Sri Aurobindo
21. Mandukya Upanishad: English Version, Notes and
Commentary
22. Science, Materialism, Mysticism
23. The Indian Spirit and the World's Future
24. A Follower of Christ & a Disciple of Sri Aurobindo:
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Correspondence between Bede Griffiths and K.D. Sethna
(Amal Kiran)
25. Problems of Early Christianity
26. The Virgin Birth and the Earliest Christian Tradition
27. Is Velikovsky's Revised Chronology Tenable? A Scrutiny of
Four Fundamental Themes
28. Teilhard De Chardin and our Time
29. Aspects of Sri Aurobindo
30. Sri Aurobindo and Greece
31. The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo
32. Sri Aurobindo-The Poet
33. The Development of Sri Aurobindo's Spiritual System and
the Mother's Contribution to it
34. The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo
35. Sri Aurobindo on Shakespeare
36. Our Light and Delight — Recollections of Life with the Mother
37. The Mother: Past-Present-Future
38. Life-Literature-Yoga: Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo
39. The Passing of Sri Aurobindo: Its Inner Significance and
Consequence
40. Light and Laughter: Some Talks at Pondicherry by Amal
Kiran and Nirodbaran
41. The Spirituality of the Future: A Search Apropos of R.C.
Zaehner's Study in Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin
42. The Secret Splendour: Collected Poems
43. Evolving India: Essays on Cultural Issues
44. The Adventure of the Apocalypse
45. Altar and Flame
46. The Sun and the Rainbow — Approaches to Life through Sri
Aurobindo's Light
47. Poems by Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran with Sri Aurobindo's
Comments
48. "Overhead Poetry": Poems with Sri Aurobindo's Comments
49. Talks on Poetry
50. Some Talks at Pondicherry — Amal Kiran and Nirodbaran
51. India and the World Scene
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