Something quite curious took place during a recent meditation. I no longer recall when exactly, but it was at a time when there were many visitors, for the courtyard was full. After perhaps no more than a few minutes, I suddenly heard a distinct voice, coming from my right, say 'OM,' like that. And then a second time, 'OM.' What an impact it had upon me! I felt an emotion here (gesture towards the heart) as I have not felt for years and years and years. And all, all, all was filled with light, with force - it was absolutely marvelous. It was an invocation, and during the whole meditation the Presence was resplendent.

I said to myself, 'Who could have done that?' I was not sure if only I had heard it, so I asked. The reply was, 'But it was the ship leaving!' There was actually a ship which had left during the night3 - that is in support of those who said it was a ship. But for me, it was SOMEONE because I felt someone there and I thought, Oh! If someone, in the ardor of his soul, said that in this ... what I could call an atheistic silence. Because people here are so afraid of following tradition, of being the slaves of the old things, that they cast out anything closely or remotely resembling religion.

page 160-61 , Mother's Agenda , volume - 1, 11th May 1958
For example, there was one difficulty he helped me resolve. I have always been literally pestered, constantly, night and day, by all kinds of thoughts coming from people - all kinds of calls, questions, formations' that have naturally to be answered. For I have trained myself to be conscious of everything, always. But it disturbed me in the work, particularly when I needed absolute concentration - and I could never cut myself off from people or cut myself off from the world. I had to answer all these calls and these questions, I had to send the necessary force, the necessary light, the healing power, I constantly had to purify all these formations, these thoughts, these wills, these false movements that were falling on me.

What was needed was to effect a shift, a sort of transference upwards, a lifting up of all these things that come to me - so that each one, each thing, each circumstance could directly and automatically receive the force from above, the light, the response from above, and I would be a mere intermediary and a channel of the Light and the Force.

Well, I tried hard but I couldn't really find the way. At times, I almost seemed to have it, a mere nothing would have been enough; it was just a matter of getting the knack (and at heart, this is what Power is all about - to get the knack, to suddenly seize upon the means, the right vibration, what in India is called siddhi). Well, after his departure, all of a sudden it came. It happened while I was doing my japa, while I was walking up and down my room ... As if I were holding all that in my arms - it was so concrete - and lifting it up towards the Light, along with this ascending OM, rising from the very depths, OM! - and I was carrying all these people, and it was spreading forth, PHYSICALLY spreading, and I was carrying the earth, I was carrying the whole universe, but in such a tangible, concrete way - all towards the Supreme Lord.

And this was not the invisible power: it was concrete, it was tangible, it was MATERIAL.

page 370 , Mother's Agenda , volume - 1, 21st May 1960

A mantra given by a guru is only the power to realize the experience of the discoverer of the mantra. The power is automatically there, because the sound contains the experience. I saw that once in Paris, at a time when I knew nothing of India, absolutely nothing, only the usual nonsense. I didn't even know what a mantra was. I had gone to a lecture given by some fellow who was supposed to have practiced "yoga" for a year in the Himalayas and recounted his experience (none too interesting, either). All at once, in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. And I saw the entire room suddenly fill with light, a golden, vibrating light.... I was probably the only one to notice it. I said to myself, "Well!" Then I didn't give it any more thought, I forgot about the story. But as it happened, the experience recurred in two or three different countries, with different people, and every time there was the sound OM, I would suddenly see the place fill with that same light. So I understood. That sound contains the vibration of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration - there is in it the entire aspiration of men towards the Supreme. And the power is automatically there, because the experience is there.

It's the same with my mantra. When I wanted to translate the end of my mantra, "Glory to You, O Lord," into Sanskrit, I asked for Nolini's help. He brought his Sanskrit translation, and when he read it to me, I immediately saw that the power was there - not because Nolini put his power into it (!), God knows he had no intention of "giving" me a mantra! But the power was there because my experience was there. We made a few adjustments and modifications, and that's the japa I do now - I do it all the time, while sleeping, while walking, while eating, while working, all the time. [[Mother later clarified: "'Glory to You, O Lord' isn't MY mantra, it's something I ADDED to it - my mantra is something else altogether, that's not it. When I say that my mantra has the power of immortality, I mean the other, the one I don't speak of! I have never given the words.... You see, at the end of my walk, a kind of enthusiasm rises, and with that enthusiasm, the 'Glory to You' came to me, but it's part of the prayer I had written in Prayers and Meditations: 'Glory to You, O Lord, all-triumphant Supreme' etc. (it's a long prayer). It came back suddenly, and as it came back spontaneously, I kept it. Moreover, when Sri Aurobindo read this prayer in Prayers and Meditations, he told me it was very strong. So I added this phrase as a kind of tail to my japa. But 'Glory to You, O Lord' isn't my spontaneous mantra - it came spontaneously, but it was something written very long ago. The two things are different." ]]

And that's how a mantra has life: when it wells up all the time, spontaneously, like the cry of your being - there is no need of effort or concentration: it's your natural cry. Then it has full power, it is alive. It must well up from within.... No guru can give you that.


page 131-32 , Mother's Agenda, volume 4 , 11th May 1963

I made an experiment: writing the letter OM. When you have written it four, five, six times, it becomes excellent!

I wanted to know why you were asked to do that work and what you could draw from it. So I sat down to write your yantram, and it became very living, I could see it in front of me - I kept seeing it all the while. "But then," I thought, "the VERY FACT of writing must have an effect." Then I started writing the letter OM carefully.... Well, when I came to the fourth, the fifth, it became excellent - excellent, as though it were creating a vibration. That's the power it has, an external power. But then it was very amusing (the body is like a child - really a child), suddenly it said, "Oh, what a lovely game! To be sitting like this and writing, oh, how amusing! If I had the time, it would be great fun to write and write, lots and lots and lots of times." I saw that in the body - in the body's cells. Then I understood.

Basically, these are almost methods for children (children from the spiritual viewpoint), young souls - child-souls. They are methods for child-souls.

I used to write my whole japa fluently like that, in Sanskrit, [[ Satprem has entire pages written and rewritten in Sanskrit by Mother. ]] now I have forgotten everything again.

page 187 - Mother's Agenda , volume 4 , 26th June 1963

There is ONE sound which, to me, has an extraordinary power - extraordinary and UNIVERSAL (that's the important point): it doesn't depend on the language you speak, it doesn't depend on the education you were given, it doesn't depend on the atmosphere you breathe. And that sound, without knowing anything, I used to say it when I was a child (you know how in French we say, "Oh!"; well, I used to say "OM," without knowing anything!). And indeed, I made all kinds of experiments with that sound - it's fantastic, even, fantastic! It's unbelievable.

So then, if around this you build something that corresponds to your own aspiration - certain sounds or words that FOR YOU evoke a soul state - then it's very good.

All that is traditional benefits from the power of tradition, that goes without saying, but it's necessarily very limited - personally, it gives me the feeling of something shriveled and withered, as if all the juice it could contain had been squeezed out (!) Except if, spontaneously, the sounds correspond to a soul state in you.

page 201 , Mother's Agenda , volume 5 , 23rd Sep - 1964

In India's languages, they have this OM ... which is a marvel. You know what they say? That OM is the totality of the sounds of the creation perceived by the Supreme; He hears OM as a call to Him - as an idea, it's magnificent! As a symbol, as a ... Only ...

And as a power! Not only as a symbol, but as a power.
Oh, a tremendous power - tremendous. The first time I heard it ... The first time I heard it ... There was a certain Bernard who had spent a year in India, in the Himalayas, and he was visited by yogis whom he didn't know (he lived in a hut in the Himalayas, all alone). One yogi came to see him; he didn't say anything, he just sat by his side and then left. And that yogi simply told him, "OM ..." Then he came back to France, recounted his experiences in India, and he said that. Me, I knew absolutely nothing of India at the time, and when he uttered the word OM ... (Mother brings her arms down), it came: a Force like this, my whole, entire body, everything vibrated in an extraordinary way! It was like a revelation - everything, but everything started vibrating. Then I said, "At last, here's the true sound!" Yet I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, neither what it meant nor anything.


Page 486 , Mother's Agenda , volume 10 , 24th Dec - 1969

. I'll try to explain. You know that OM is said to be the sound of the whole universe turned towards the Supreme, imploring the Supreme - and the result is OM. I had the impression that I was all the pain of the world - all the pain of the world (how can I put it) felt together. I don't know how to explain.


page 310 - Mother's Agenda , volume 11 , 9th Sep - 1970