This morning, I had, for instance, a whole series of experiences regarding the notion of selfishness. I remember that the first time someone said to Sri Aurobindo in my presence (many years ago) about someone else, "Oh, he is selfish," Sri Aurobindo smiled and answered, "Selfish? But the most selfish of all is the Divine, since everything belongs to Him and He sees everything in relation to Himself!" I found it rather daring! And this morning (strangely, just this morning; it's not the first time, either), I suddenly felt how false that notion of selfishness is and that sort of reprobation of the selfish, with, at the same time, all the shades of leniency, understanding, how false all that is, that whole world, how rigid and outside the Truth. "Outside the Truth," not that its opposite would be true, no, that's not the point! It's that sort of "moral-mental" notion, which is such a self-evident affair that nobody questions it - how far, far away it is from the Truth.

page 133 , Mother's Agenda , volume 7 , 11th June - 1966

Yesterday, someone wrote to me and asked:

"In the end, what is the Divine?"
I answered.

I told him that I gave one answer to help him, but that a hundred could be given, each as good as any other:

"The Divine can be lived, but not defined....


Here, I added, "But anyway, since you ask me the question, I will answer you."

"The Divine is an absolute of perfection,

eternal source of all that exists, whom we

grow progressively conscious of, while being

Him from all eternity."


page 151-52 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 24th May - 1967

I have something to add to what we said the other day about the Divine. [[See Conversation of May 24: What is the Divine? ]] Someone asks me, "And whatever is God?"

It's about a text from Sri Aurobindo. Here it is:


"Love leads us from the suffering of division into

the bliss of perfect union, but without losing that

joy of the act of union which is the soul's greatest

discovery and for which the life of the cosmos is a

long preparation. Therefore to approach God by

love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible

spiritual fulfillment."

(The Synthesis of Yoga,
XXI.III.523)

It's about the last sentence; someone has asked me, "What is God?" So I've replied (taking the word "God"):

"It is the name man has given to all that exceeds

and dominates him, all that he cannot know but is

subject to."

Instead of saying "to all that exceeds him," we could say, "to THAT WHICH exceeds him," because from the intellectual standpoint, "all that" is debatable. I mean there is a "something" - an indefinable and inexplicable something - and man has always felt dominated by that something. It is beyond all possible understanding and dominates him. And then, religions gave it a name; man has called it "God"; the French call it Dieu, the English, God, in another language it's called differently, but anyway it's the same.


page 169-70 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 7th June - 1967

But I mean that we could find in Sri Aurobindo a sentence saying, for instance, that "God" is a word empty of meaning into which man puts whatever he likes, and then a description similar to the one I gave of the Divine. And throughout all his writings, it's like that with everything.

(silence)

Then I would like to publish this quotation from Sri Aurobindo:

"The traditions of the past are very great in their

own place, in the past, but I do not see why we

should merely repeat them and not go farther. In

the spiritual development of the consciousness

upon earth the great past ought to be followed by

a greater future."

January 14, 1932

page 171 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 7th June - 1967

But Sri Aurobindo said (I read it two days ago, I don't know where he wrote it because it was a quotation) that if the divine Consciousness, the divine Power, the divine Love, the Truth, were to manifest on earth too rapidly, the earth would be dissolved! It couldn't bear it ... brrf!


page 370 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 15th Nov - 1967

Sri Aurobindo is always there. At times he becomes very active, especially when people "pump" or pull or crush you under the weight of all their difficulties and all their desires. Then (these last few days have been like that), I might put it into the words he often used, but this is his attitude: "They accept the God only when they can crucify him."

I find that so interesting, you know!

They accept God - the Divine - only when they can crucify him. That is to say, they recognize the Divine in a body only if that body is fit to be crucified or tortured. And then, if things go wrong, "So he's not divine!"

He is not divine....

He always used to say, "The Divine takes care to veil himself so as not to crush them."


page 65 , Mother's Agenda , volume 9 , 20th Feb - 1968

But listen, yesterday, I saw a dozen young men and women who came, I think, from America (they were from various countries), and they'd asked to see me. I said, I am not keen to see them." But they had asked, and L. was moved to pity and brought them to me. Mon petit, if you knew how HOLLOW they were! ... Hollow, nothing but words. And what questions they asked me! ... "What is responsibility? ..." One of the girls asked me, "What's the Divine?"

(They're all ultramodern people, you know, much too intelligent to believe in any godhead! They're far above that.) She asked me with a derisive little air, "What's the Divine?" So I looked at her (Mother looks hugely amused), and told her, "The Divine is the perfection you have to realize."

I had some real fun! ... There was nothing more to be said. (Mother laughs)


page 267-68 , Mother's Agenda , volume 10 , 30th July - 1969

But is there a point THERE that can understand reason?
Oh, yes -- everything is divine. There is ONLY the Divine. But He is broken up into opposites. And the extreme opposite can be touched, overcome, if you will, transformed by the divine extreme -- halfway measures won't work. It is the divine extreme that will be able to transform the dark extreme: by absorbing (gesture of taking into herself), absorbing and blotting out the darkness. By absorbing it, it can blot out its action.

But a tremendous power is needed.


page 71 - Mother's Agenda , volume 12 , 17th Mar - 1971

What I said is the Truth, and the ONLY remedy:

to exist only for the Divine
to exist only by the Divine
to exist only to serve the Divine
to exist only ... by becoming divine.
There you are.


page 162 - Mother's Agenda , volume 12 , 9th June - 1971

To want what the Divine wants in all sincerity is the essential condition for peace and joy in life. Almost all human miseries come from the fact that human beings are almost always persuaded they know better than the Divine what they need and what life is supposed to bring them. The majority of human beings want other human beings to behave according to their own expectations and life circumstances to follow their own desires, hence they suffer and are unhappy.
Only by giving oneself in all sincerity to the Divine Will does one gain the peace and calm joy that arises from the abolition of desires.
The psychic being knows this definitely. Thus, by uniting with our psychic being, we can know it, too. But the first condition is not to be the slave of personal desires and mistake them for the truth of one's being.

February 4


page 54 - Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 5th Feb - 1972-1973

These are like two different ways of being in relationship with the Divine - both are relationships with the Divine: one is the old way and the other the new way. Formerly, you see, whenever I had a difficulty, I would immediately curl up in my relationship with the Divine, and it would go away. But now it's no longer the same. The relationship with the Divine is itself on a different footing.


page 216 - Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 28th June - 1972-1973

We are - WE are the Divine who has forgotten Himself. And our task, the task is to reestablish the connection - call it by any name you like, it doesn't matter. It's the Perfection we must become, that's all.

The Perfection, the Power, the Knowledge we must become, that's all. Call it what you like, it doesn't matter to me. That's the aspiration we must have. We must get out of this mire, this stupidity, this unconsciousness, this disgusting defeatism that crushes us because we allow ourselves to be crushed.

And we fear. We fear for its life (Mother touches the skin of her hands), for this thing, as if it were precious, because we want to stay conscious. But let's unite with the Supreme Consciousness, and we'll stay conscious forever! That's IT, that's exactly it.

I could put it this way: we unite our consciousness with what is perishable and we're afraid to perish! [[Mother was in fact fighting not only with the subconscient's defeatism, but also with that "formation of death" in the atmosphere. ]] I Well, I say: let's unite our consciousness with the eternal Consciousness and we will enjoy eternal consciousness.

How stupid can one be!


page 227 - Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 19th July - 1972-1973