When you invoke Durga, it is I you invoke through her, when you invoke Shiva, it is I you invoke through him - and in the final analysis, to the Supreme Lord go all prayers.

page 257 , Mother's Agenda , volume 1 , 15th Dec. 1958

It was just before Durga Puja,# or just after - I can't remember dates and I don't go together) - no, it was after Durga Puja. So I went into a deep concentration and, as a matter of fact, I saw that a very powerful and dangerous rakshasic' power was involved. And then, when I started walking for my japa upstairs in my room (I had given some thought to this story and tried asking for something to be done), I suddenly saw Durga before me raising high a lance of white light - the lance of light that destroys the hostile forces - and She struck into a black swarming mass of men.

But then there came a ... frightful reaction. For one day I was nearly as sick - not quite - as two years ago# (they must have used the same mantra). And, you see, I who never vomit ... terrible vomiting - everything inside came out! Only now I'm a bit more experienced than two years ago (!), so I set it right ... It happened here, downstairs, in the afternoon. I went right back up to my room (I didn't see anyone that afternoon), and I remained concentrated to try to find out what had happened. I saw that it came from there - a backlash of those people trying to defend themselves.

I did what had to be done.

But unfortunately, this spread all over the Ashram, all over everyone - a black cloud everywhere. It was rather ... troublesome!



page 451 , Mother's Agenda , volume - 1, 25th Oct. 1960

I had X informed. But I didn't tell him my difficulty (this mantra they threw on me to kill me), I didn't speak of that at all. For he had insisted, from the beginning he had said, 'Mother must see to it, only Mother's grace can save them.' And I understood - their attack came just at the time of Durga Puja, so I understood that Durga had to intervene. So that's the story.

page 453 , Mother's Agenda , volume - 1, 25th Oct. 1960
Yes, but aren't the gods conscious of the Divine?
Listen, mon petit, they are conscious of their own divinity, and of that above all!

They are connected with the Divine, yes, but I know from experience that they haven't the faintest notion of what surrender is!

I had a VERY interesting experience - it was last year or the year before, I don't recall, but after I retired to my room upstairs .... [[After 1958. ]] You know that during pujas these goddesses come all the time - they don't enter the body and tie themselves to it, but they do come and manifest. Well, this time - I think it must have been for last year's puja - Durga came (she always arrives a few days in advance and remains in the atmosphere; she is present, like this - gesture as if Durga were walking up and down with Mother). I was in touch with her during my meditations upstairs, and this new Power in the body was in me then as it is in me now, and ... (how to put it?) I made her participate in this concept of surrender. What an experience she had, mon petit! An extraordinary experience of the joy of being connected with That. And she declared, 'From now on, I am a bhakta of the Lord.'

It was beautiful.

This formidable Power, you see - a universal Power, an eternal and formidable Power - well, she had never had such an experience before, she had only experienced her OWN power. She was used to receiving and obeying Commands, but in an automatic way. Then all at once, she felt the ECSTASY of being a conscious instrument.

Truly ... it was truly beautiful.

page 298 , Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 2nd Aug. 1961.

And that's why.... How many times Durga came! She would always come, and I had my eye on her (!), because in her presence I could clearly sense that there wasn't that rapport with the Supreme (she just didn't need it, she didn't need anything). And it wasn't that something acted on her consciously, deliberately, to obtain that result: it has been a contagion. I remember how she used to come, and my aspiration would be so intense, my inner attitude so concentrated ... and one day there was such a sense of power, of immensity, of ineffable bliss in the contact with the Supreme (it was a day when Durga was there), and she seemed to be taken and absorbed in it. And through that bliss she made her surrender.

page 235 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 30th June 1962.

During the whole time Sri Aurobindo was here, the four entities he speaks of, the four Aspects of the Mother, [[See The Mother by Sri Aurobindo. ]] were always present. And I was constantly obliged to tell one or the other of them, "Now keep calm, now, now, calm down" - they were always inclined to intervene!

Did I ever tell you? Last time I went down for the pujas (was it last year or the year before? I remember nothing any more, you know: it all gets swept away, brrt!).... Yes, it was the year before last, in '60, after that anniversary.[[ First anniversary of the supramental descent: February 29, 1960. ]] (Durga used to come every year, two or three days before the Durga puja.) I was walking as usual and she came; that was when she made her surrender to the Supreme.... Those divinities don't have the sense of surrender. Divinities such as Durga and the Greek gods (although the Greek gods are a bit dated now; but the gods of India are still very much alive!). Well, they are embodiments - what you might almost call localizations - of something eternal, but they lack the sense of surrender to the Supreme. And while I was walking, Durga was there - really, it was beautiful! Durga, with that awesome power of hers, forever bringing the adverse forces to heel - and she surrendered to the Supreme, to the point of no longer even recognizing the adverse forces: ALL is the Supreme. It was like a widening of her consciousness.

page 224 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 27th June 1962

And that's why.... How many times Durga came! She would always come, and I had my eye on her (!), because in her presence I could clearly sense that there wasn't that rapport with the Supreme (she just didn't need it, she didn't need anything). And it wasn't that something acted on her consciously, deliberately, to obtain that result: it has been a contagion. I remember how she used to come, and my aspiration would be so intense, my inner attitude so concentrated ... and one day there was such a sense of power, of immensity, of ineffable bliss in the contact with the Supreme (it was a day when Durga was there), and she seemed to be taken and absorbed in it. And through that bliss she made her surrender.

Most interesting.

page 235 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 30th June 1962

I have had other similar experiences - on Durga's day, for instance, when Sri Aurobindo was still here (you know, that's the day when Durga masters an asura; she doesn't kill him, she masters him). Well, each year one particular type of thing was undermined (and my experiences were never mental: the experience would suddenly come, and AFTERWARDS I would realize it was Durga's day), and each time I used to tell Sri Aurobindo, "Look - today this (or that) thing has been cut off at the roots." That's how it works with the adverse forces - yes, like something being uprooted from the world. Whatever has already spread out keeps going and follows its karma, but the SOURCE is dried up. That's also what happened (it was in 1904, I believe) when the Asura of Consciousness and Darkness made his surrender and was converted; he told me, "I have millions and millions of emanations, and these will keep on living, but their source has now run dry."[[This seems to refer to the being Mother endowed with a body (in 1906, at Tlemcen), and who went to set up the revolution in China. ]] How much time will it take to exhaust it all? ... We can't say, but the source has dried up and that is something extremely important. In 1920, that terror was trying to spread all over the world and to become really catastrophic; and then in my inner vision I could see that a whole movement had dried up at its source. This means that little by little, little by little, little by little ... the karma is being exhausted.

page 305 , Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 8th Aug 1962.

But, for example, when we used to have those gatherings for the pujas [[In October and November, the pujas of the different aspects of the Mother. ]] and Durga used to come (when Sri Aurobindo was here and for some time afterwards), when she manifested, there was a great power that came along with her - but that's nothing! Nothing compared to That. Durga's power ... yes, it's like milk and water in comparison.

page 361 , Mother's Agenda , volume 4 - 19th Oct 1963


But that's what was so interesting this morning.... Once these divine egos have abdicated, and to the extent of that abdication, it will mean an EXTRAORDINARY transformation in the creation. It was like a vision taking shape slowly (Mother closes her eyes), almost with pictures, as if I saw the whole earth (gesture of a ball) and the picture of Durga (gesture enveloping the earth)! and the two together, it was quite lovely.

The earth in her arms ...

(silence, with eyes closed)

And in those visions (let's take this one, for instance), Durga has a visible, defined form, while this body [Mother's] isn't there because this body belongs here, down to earth; so it's a radiating center of white light that can take a form (but doesn't have one), a radiance of light, a vibration of light, of consciousness - of conscious light. And that's very interesting .... (Mother keeps her eyes closed) It was as if to see how this - this consciousness, this light - can manifest in precise forms on earth without losing something of the purity and radiance of the consciousness....


page 338 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 11th Oct - 1967

(This is the season of "pujas," the time of rituals to the

Universal Mother.)

Do you want some silence?

Yes, Mother, if you like.... I'm tempted to ask you if Durga won a victory this year?

We shouldn't talk about it. I think it was a REAL victory.

(Mother plunges in till the end.
Then Sujata draws near her)

Did I give you the [blessing] packets yesterday?

Of "Victory," yes.
(To Satprem:) Did he get the Victory?

(Satprem:) Yes, Mother, I hope so! [laughter]
(Sujata:) Which victory, Mother?
Which victory? But there is only one, my child.


Which is?
Which is THE Victory ... we can call it what we like: the Victory of Truth over Falsehood, the Victory of the Lord over his creation.

Which means the creation will now go consciously towards the Divine?
Ohh!

Eh, Mother? No? Not yet? ... Not quite yet?
Well, that Victory is still only for a few.

The creation consciously going towards its divine Origin and ready to manifest that Origin is still only for a few. I think it will take centuries until it becomes general - oh, centuries, maybe millenniums!


page 297-98 , Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 18th Oct - 1972-1973