I have brought you the exact text of that sentence on Sri Aurobindo I told you about the other day. [[ See conversation of February 18: 'Sri Aurobindo is an Action...' ]] It was in reply to a letter....

You know this mental habit (which people take for mental superiority!) of lumping everything together on the same level: all the teachings, all the prophets, all the sects, all the religions. You know the habit: 'We are not prejudiced, we have no preferences - it's all the SAME THING.' A dreadful muddle!

It's one of the biggest mental difficulties of this age.

Anyway, in reply to this nonsense, I have said: 'Your error, to be precise, is that you go to the Theosophical Society, for example, with the same opening as to the Christian religion or to the Buddhist doctrine or with which you read one of Sri Aurobindo's books - and as a result, you are plunged into a confusion and a muddle and you don't understand anything about anything.'

And then the reply came to me very strongly; something took hold of me and I was, so to say, obliged to write: What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme. [[Mother added: And I am just trying to fulfill that action. ]]

It's not from me. It came from there (gesture upwards). But it pleased me.

page 104- Mother's Agenda , volume 2 , 28th Feb 1961

Many religions and sects are founded on revelations and miracles, and every bit of it comes from vital beings.

It's one of the greatest problems in human life; I don't mean spiritual life, but the life of people who deal with the beyond.

page 117- Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 11th March 1962

That's the real evil at the School, and there is one: a tendency to turn everything into a system.
Yes. Dogmatism.

But that's what changed teachings into religions, everywhere - everywhere.

If you left, it would be terrible....
They had a meeting with people from England or Europe, in which they said, "Oh, the world needs a new religion, now is the time to give it a new religion...." And they wanted to take Sri Aurobindo's name and make a new religion out of it! So I answered them, "The time of religions is over." They didn't understand, mon petit, they were appalled! I wrote it to them without explanation, the way you fling something to shake things up: "The time of religions is over, this is the age of universal spirituality" ("universal in the sense of containing EVERYTHING and adapting to everything). So they answered me, "We don't understand, but anyway ... (laughing) since you tell us, we accept it." So I added an explanation in the Bulletin (the explanation isn't as strong, but I had to try and make myself understood), I said that religions are based on spiritual experiences brought down to a level where mankind can grasp them, and that the new phase must be that of spiritual experience in its purity, not brought down to a lower level. [[Here is Mother's exact text, as it was published in the August issue of the Ashram's Bulletin: "Why do men cling to a religion? Religions are based on creeds which are spiritual experiences brought down to a level where they become more easy to grasp, but at the cost of their integral purity and truth. The time of religions is over. We have entered the age of universal spirituality, of spiritual experience in its initial purity." ]]

But this too is hard to understand.

Anyway ... it gives me colds!

Yes, that's true, that's what gives colds, it's dogmatism, which rigidifies, hardens, takes away life.

They are convinced that they are right and I am wrong, and it's out of a sort of "benevolent respect" for me (Mother laughs) and of politeness that they don't tell me, "Really, you're exaggerating, we were right."

Ah, let's work! ...


page 236-37 - Mother's Agenda , volume 5 , 14th Oct 1964

But all the great Schools, the great Ideas, the great Realizations, the great ... and then the religions - that's still lower down; all of it, oh, what childishness!

And that wisdom! ... It's an almost cellular wisdom (it's odd). For instance, I was looking at the relationship I had with all those great beings of the Overmind and higher, the perfectly objective and very familiar relationship I had with all those beings and the inner perception of being the eternal Mother - all that is very well, but for me it's almost ancient history! The me that exists now is HERE, it's at ground level, in the body; it's the body, it's Matter; it's at ground level; and to tell the truth, it doesn't care much about the intervention of all those beings ... who ultimately know nothing at all! They don't know the true problem: they live in a place where there are no problems. They don't know the true problem - the true problem is here.

It's an amused way of looking at religions and all the gods the way you would look at ... they are like theater performances. They're pastimes; but that's not what can teach you to know yourself, not at all, not at all! You must go right down to the bottom.

And it is this, this descent to the very bottom, in search of ... but it isn't an unknown, it isn't an unknown - a bursting (it really is like a bursting), that marvelous bursting of the Vibration of Love; that is ... it is the memory. And the effort is to turn it into an active reality.

page 263 - Mother's Agenda , volume 5 , 30th Oct - 1964

(At the end of the conversation, Mother shows Satprem

a note she wrote the same morning:)

"Instead of excluding each other, religions should complement each other."

Sri Aurobindo said that to me; it's so simple, so simple!

I was looking at all those religions, seeing them as facets, innumerable facets that harden and brace themselves against each other, and he seemed to be saying, "Well, put it all together, it will be so simple!"

Just one sentence, not one word too many.


page 214 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 12th July - 1967

I am not very fond of talking about religions, it's too early.

People are still too full of passion when you speak to them about religion.

But here, it's said so objectively.
You understand, the trouble is that everyone thinks his religion is the exclusive truth!


page 261 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 12th Aug - 1967

That's what I have learned, in fact: the bankruptcy of religions was because they were divided - they wanted you to follow one religion to the exclusion of all others. And all human knowledge has gone bankrupt because it was exclusive. And man has gone bankrupt because he was exclusive. What the New Consciousness wants (it insists on this) is: no more divisions. To be capable of understanding the extreme spiritual, the extreme material, and to find ... to find the meeting point where ... it becomes a true force. And it's trying to teach that to the body too, through the most radical means.


page 22 , Mother's Agenda , volume 11 , 3rd Jan - 1970

We call religion any concept of the world or the universewhich is presented as the exclusive Truth in which one must

have an absolute faith, generally because this Truth is

declared to be the result of a revelation.

Most of the religions affirm the existence of a God and the

rules to follow to obey Him, but there are also Godless

name of an Ideal or the State, claim the same right to be

obeyed.

Man's right is a free pursuit of the Truth with the liberty to his discovery is good for him alone and it is not to be

enforced upon others.


page 188 - Mother's Agenda , volume 11 , 13th May - 1970

Here we have no religion.

We replace religion with spiritual life, which is truer and both deeper and higher, that is to say, closer to the Divine. For the Divine is in all things, but we are not conscious of it.

This is the immense progress that men must make.


page 379 , Mother's Agenda , volume 13 , 19th March - 1972-1973