Here, I have brought you two flowers. They have two different yet
very typically Indian fragrances: this one is Straightforwardness, [[Ixora arborea (Torch Tree). ]] and this is SIMPLICITY. [[Hymenantherum, a tiny yellow flower like a miniature daisy. ]] I have always found that this one (Mother holds out the Simplicity) has a cleansing fragrance: when you breathe it, ah, everything becomes clean - it's wonderful! (Mother breathes in the flower's fragrance.) Once
I cured myself of the onset of a cold with it - this can be done when
you catch it at the very beginning. It fills you completely, the nose,
the throat.... And this [Straightforwardness] is right at the other end
of the spectrum. I find it very, very powerful - strange, isn't it?
It's not at all sweet-smelling.Oh, no! It's quite strong. It's largely the fragrances that have made me give flowers their significance.... I find these studies quite interesting; it corresponds to something really TRUE in Nature. Once, without telling me anything, someone brought me a sprig of tulsi. [[Ocimum sanctum (Basil). ]] I smelled it and said, 'Oh, Devotion!' It was absolutely a ... a vibration of devotion. Afterwards, I was told it's the plant of devotion to Krishna, consecrated to Krishna. Another time, I was brought one of those big flowers (which are not really flowers) somewhat resembling corn, with long, very strongly scented stalks . [[Pandanus tectorius (Keora or Screw Pine). Subsequently, Mother named this flower 'Spiritual Perfume.' ]] I smelled it and said, 'Ascetic Purity!' Just like that, from the odor alone. I was later told it was Shiva's flower when he was doing his tapasya. [[Tapasya: ascetic or yogic discipline. ]] These people have an age-old knowledge - the ancient Vedic knowledge which they have preserved. In other words, it is something CONCRETELY TRUE: it doesn't depend at all on the mind, on thought or even on feelings - it's a vibration. Yes, this flower is Shiva, doing his tapasya. And interestingly enough, its smell is fantastically attractive to snakes; it makes them come from far away to nest in the shrubs. And as you know, the serpent is the power of evolution, it is Shiva's own creature; he always puts them on his head and around his neck because they symbolize the power of evolution and transformation. And snakes like this flower; it often grows near rivers, and wherever there is a cluster of the plants you are sure to discover snake nests. I find this very interesting, for WE didn't decide it should be like this: these are conscious vibrations in Nature. The fragrance, the color, the shape, are simply the spontaneous expressions of a true movement. page 61-62 , Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 4th Feb - 1961 |
This one is the Constant Remembrance of the Divine. [[Lonicera japonica (Japanese Honeysuckle). ]] This is Life Energy [[Chrysanthemum, yellow. ]] and Purified Life Energy. [[Chrysanthemum, white. ]] Then Faithfulness [[Quisqualis indica. ]] : the peace of Faithfulness - Faithfulness to the Divine, of course, that's understood! This is Divine Solicitude [[Malvaviscus arboreus. ]] ;this is the Aspiration for Transformation, [[Millingtonia hortensis (Indian Cork Tree). ]] and the response: see how beautiful it is - like velvet! it's the Promise of Realization. [[Tropaeolum majus (Nasturtium). ]] Here is Light Without Obscurity, [[Eucharis grandiflora (Amazon Lily). ]] and finally Realization [[Delonix regia (Gul Mohur Tree). ]] - the first flower from the tree at Nanteuil. [[One of the Ashram houses. ]] There you are. You can easily make a speech using flowers and I have noticed that this can effectively replace the old Vedic images, for instance, which no longer hold meaning for us, or the ambiguous phraseology of the ancient initiations. Flower language is much better because it contains the Force and is extremely plastic - since it's not formulated in words, each one is free to arrange and receive it according to his own capacity. You can make long speeches using flowers! page 95 - Mother's Agenda , volume - 2 , 18th Feb. - 1961 |
I have a lovely rose for you. Do you know what it is? No, Mother.I thought as much! What is it?It's true tenderness: that of the Divine. People don't know, they always think of something very human. But it's not human ... (Mother closes her eyes and remains standing in concentration) It's extremely luminous, rose-colored, slightly golden ... always smiling.... It's a very particular sensation. (After a long silence) Everything is like a beautiful pink rose - a beautiful rose. It's better than that, much better . page 268 , Mother's Agenda , volume 7 , 19th Nov. - 1966 |
Mother gives Satprem a red rose: The red rose is the order of the "knights of the Truth." Don't you know this?... I began placing it when Colonel Répiton came here, the one who made the Africa march during the war. Every morning I would give him a red rose, and with him I instituted it. Since then, when I give any man a rose (I give them a red rose), it's so he becomes a knight of the Truth. But I don't tell him. page 307 , Mother's Agenda , volume 7 , 31st Dec - 1966 |
(As she comes into her room, Mother stops in front of a tray of flowers that has just been brought and takes in her hand a strange new variety of hibiscus, gray-mauve with a bright red pistil.) Oh, this is really my joy!What's this flower? ... (Mother takes the hibiscus) It has a strange color. Yes, I've never seen it.It's strange, with this red dot here. Very strange.It gives me a strange sensation.... How can I explain it? Oddly, it's something between deceit and perversion, yet it's divine! How do you like that! You mean there's something false in the flower's appearance?No, it's not the outside: it's inside. Inside the flower?It's inside, it's ... What could we call it?... (Mother laughs) "The divine principle of duplicity." Not very reassuring, this flower.Yes, that's right. We might say, "The charm of deceitful beauty." Yes, it's something like that!We have much to learn from life.... Flowers know much better than we do. It's spontaneous, not thought out, not willed: it's divine vibrations that express themselves spontaneously. And this is ... There's the English word alluring. Well, we could call it "the all-powerful divine Charm of a ... perfidious beauty." Naturally, that's on the vital-physical plane. It's not up above, but there [on the vital-physical plane]. page 21 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 14th Jan - 1967 |
The roses are open now (Mother holds out a rose to Satprem), but this one has a magnificent color. Beautiful, isn't it? This morning I had an amusing experience with roses. There was a closed bud - big, hard - big and hard, red. I took it, looked at it, then my fingers ran over the flower like that, and ... (gesture showing the flower opening up), one petal after another and another and yet another - before my very eyes. And it was completely hard and closed. I took it and said, "A pity." I was about to put it back in water so it would open up, and while I looked ... It was such a pretty sight, you know, opening up, happy, as if saying to me, "Oh, how happy I am!" Flowers and I are on very friendly terms, I must say. Once in the past, I took flowers that had wilted - wilted flowers (that was when I was practicing occultism with Théon - it happened several times). One flower was quite drooping: I took it in my hand, looked at it, and slowly, little by little, it straightened up again and became quite smiling! They are very, very receptive. page 77 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 15th March - 1967 |
Mother gives Satprem a pink lotus bud A few days ago, in the afternoon, I gave Z a lotus like this one, hardly more open. Then she kept it in her hand and slept with it the whole night. The next morning, she put it in water, and ... it opened! After a whole night in her hand. It's good-natured! Flowers are very receptive to people's vitality - to the QUALITY of the vitality. With some people, when they hold a flower it withers instantly; with others, it opens. I myself saw several times Sri Aurobindo take a half-withered flower in his hand, and it became quite fresh again - it was quite happy! And I knew a woman in Paris, who claimed to be a disciple [of Mother's], she would always bring me flowers when she came to see me, and always, without a single exception, the flowers had withered. She would arrive and tell me, "But they were quite fresh when I bought them!" (Mother laughs) And they were absolutely finished. So in the end I told her, "It's because you take all their life into yourself!" She had taken away their life. page 122 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 29th April - 1967 |
(Sujata gives Mother a flower called "New Birth.") (To Satprem) Tell me, what's a new birth?Being radically different.(After a silence) Becoming new every moment. page 331 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 11th Oct - 1967 |
Look! It grows in the desert, without water, and it doesn't die. Oh, how pretty!You know, it looks like edelweiss which grows in the ice. And this is in the desert. It's like velvet. It's not fragrant, but it doesn't die. It's a flower without water. Someone has sent it to me. I find it very interesting. There are marvels in Nature. And see this small red dot.... (Sujata:) Yes, Mother, it's like a small flower of immortality.I'll give you one, but you must keep it carefully.... (Satprem:) Basically, it's the water of life that makes things rot.Yes, it's water. Edelweiss doesn't die, one which I had was intact after ten years. When things are dehydrated, they no longer die. Wait, I'll show you two something (laughing), because you are really very nice.... See this (Mother shows a big red rose of a particular type), it's Sri Aurobindo. Wherever people grow this rose on earth, it's Sri Aurobindo. It grows as big as this. When the light is on (I have a light in a tube, a fluorescent tube), they don't wither. When you put those flowers under the light, they stay put, I even saw some that were half closed open. They like that light. In the afternoon I put some in a bowl with water (when they are still nearly closed), I put one or two there, under the light - and they open! They have a sensitiveness unknown to us. Sometimes in the morning, I have a closed rose bud, then I take it out of the water like this (gesture of stroking the flower all around), without touching it ... and it opens! And people say it's not conscious! page 353 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 25th Oct - 1967 |
Something very amusing has happened to me with flowers. I had arranged roses; I had selected roses to give people, and when they came, I took a rose I had kept aside. But it had opened too much, it didn't look so nice anymore, so I looked, I thought, "Is it nice enough to be given?" I was holding it loosely, like that.... Mon petit, under my very eyes it turned around and stuck its thorn into my finger! I've had other examples of consciousness in flowers, but this one was remarkable. When I take them and tell them that they're pretty and sweet, they open out - that often happens; but this one turned around (of course I wasn't holding it tight), it turned around and stuck its thorn into my finger! I had another example, a very amusing one. You know that I keep hibiscus flowers there, under the lamp; I had kept two flowers, "Supramental Consciousness," and another, pale pink, "Supramental Beauty," there, under the lamp. Then someone sent me a "Power," a hibiscus this big, all white, with a dark red center - a marvel! Big as this. I put it there; the other flower ... (it was lasting very well, it had lasted the whole morning), it instantly dropped down, furious - it didn't "drop," it threw itself to the ground, like that! I've noticed that: jealousy among flowers. Some roses, if you put other flowers with them, wither instantly. But it's the first time I've seen anger. And the best part of the story is that I kept the rose and gave it away! (Laughing) It got what it wanted! There is someone to whom I send flowers and who sends me flowers every day, someone who does the yoga in earnest. He wrote to me (he sends me some of these golden hibiscuses, "Supramental Beauty"), he wrote to me that he told one of these flowers, "You are going to see Mother," and the flower smiled. It opened out, it was happy, and it smiled. "It smiled at me," he said. I don't know if it's our perception that progresses, or if really, as Sri Aurobindo said, "When the supramental Force comes on the earth, there will be a response EVERYWHERE." It seems to me to be that, because these flowers are so, so vibrant, full of life. In the morning I always arrange them (it's a work that takes me at least three quarters of an hour, there are more than a hundred flowers in different vases that I have to arrange, and to each person I give a special sort of flower - I arrange all that), and in the vases, some flowers say, "Me!" And indeed they are just what I need. They call out to me to say, "Me!" ... But that's not new, because when I was in Japan, I had a large garden and I had cultivated part of it to grow vegetables; in the morning I would go down to the garden to get the vegetables to be eaten that day, and some of them here, there, there (scattered gesture) would say, "Me! Me! Me!" Like that. So I would go and pick them. They literally called me, they called me. That's a long time ago, nineteen hundred and ... when was it? It was in 1916-17, so that's ... forty years ago. Fifty.(Mother laughs) Fifty years ago! page 48-49 , Mother's Agenda , volume 9 , 7th Feb - 1968 |
Mother holds out a flower to Satprem This is "Happy Heart."[[Ravenalia spectabilis. ]] I am discovering the secret of it. page 82 , Mother's Agenda , volume 9 , 16th Mar - 1968 |
(Mother hands Satprem an unusual "transformation"[[Indian Cork Tree. ]] flower.) Nine petals.... That's the new creation -- it's the transformation for the new creation.page 260 - Mother's Agenda , volume 12 , 13th Oct - 1971 |