* The Mother- April 1950

11 May 1951                Mother reads the passage about Mahakali (pp. 28-30) from The Mother by Sri Aurobindo. Are the stories told about the image of Mahakali true ?                              What stories ? Hundreds of stories are told, my child. Which stories are you speaking of? Which Mahakali ? The images made of her, the statues ? This is the human way of seeing things. She is not like that. I believe I have already told you once that there are the original beings in their higher reality and these are of a particular kind; then, as they manifest in more and more material regions, nearer and nearer the earth, they assume different forms an

26 April 1951 “...Reject too the false and indolent expectation that the divine Power will do even the surrender for you. The Supreme demands your surrender to her, but does not impose it: you are free at every moment, till the irrevocable transformation comes, to deny and to reject the Divine or to recall your self-giving, if you are willing to suffer the spiritual consequence.” Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, p. 4 * What does an “irrevocable transformation” mean ?                              The transformation is irrevocable when your consciousness is transformed in such a way that you can no longer go back to your o

8 March 1951 “The true remembrance of past births may indeed be part of an integral knowledge; but it cannot be got by that way of imaginative fancies. If it is on one side an objective knowledge, on the other it depends largely on personal and subjective experience, and here there is much chance of invention, distortion or false build- ing. To reach the truth of these things, your experi- encing consciousness must be pure and limpid, free from any mental interference or any vital interference, liberated from your personal notions and feelings and from your mind's habit of interpreting or explaining in its own way.” Q

8 February 1951 “The outer being is like a crust. In ordinary people the crust is so hard and thick that they are not con- scious of the Divine within them. If once, even for a moment only, the inner being has said, `I am here and I am yours', then it is as though a bridge has been built and little by little the crust becomes thinner and thinner until the two parts are wholly joined and the inner and the outer become one.” Questions and Answers 1929 (14 April) * Have you ever thought of unifying your being? Have you been disturbed, sometimes, to see that now you are one person, at other times another, at one time you want t

3 February 1951 “What do you want the Yoga for? To get power? To attain to peace and calm? To serve humanity? “None of these motives is sufficient to show that you are meant for the Path.” Questions and Answers 1929 (7 April) * The main trouble is that you think with words, but these words are empty of meaning; most of the time they are mere words – you talk of the Divine, you talk of the Supreme, you talk of Yoga, you say many things, but does all that correspond in your head to something concrete, to a thought, a feeling, a clear idea, an experience? Or are they simply words?   It is said that Yoga is the “final goal of life”, but

17 February 1951                Mother begins with a passage about “false  visions” (Questions and Answers 1929, 21 April). Is a vision false if the being who appears in the vision pretends to be what it is not?                              I don't think it is this that people mean when they speak of “false visions”. They say “false visions” when they have seen something which they believe does not exist; and the reply I always give them is, “Had you already thought of what you saw? Had you made an effort to see it? Was it in your imagination or your wish? If so, it must be false.” What you are now asking is something else: these spirits who pretend t

2 April 1951 You have said: “By Yoga the inner transformation that is in slow constant process in the creation is ren- dered more intense and rapid, but the pace of the outer transformation remains almost the same as in ordinary life. As a result, the disharmony between the inner and the outer being in one who is doing Yoga tends to be all the greater, unless precautions are taken...” Questions and Answers 1929 (16 June) * What are these precautions ?                              That depends upon people. Each case is different. Individual precautions would be different according to individual reactions, difficulties,

3 March 1951 “There is even a necessity for the existence of the hos- tile forces. They make your determination stronger, your aspiration clearer. “It is true, however, that they exist because you gave them reason to exist. So long as there is some- thing in you which answers to them, their intervention is perfectly legitimate. If nothing in you responded, if they had no hold upon any part of your nature, they would retire and leave you.” Questions and Answers 1929 (5 May) * The best way of facing hostile forces is always to aspire, always to remember the Divine. And never to fear. Mother reads a question asked dur

9 April 1951                Mother reads a passage about art and yoga (Questions and Answers 1929, 28 July), then asks:                              What is the relation between art and yoga ? Can the artist and the yogi have the same source of inspiration ? (Mother turns to a disciple:) Amrita, will you tell us what relation there is between art and yoga ? A beautiful relation... Art can be a yoga and yoga is an art.                                                That's very fine ! I knew someone, an American lady, who said that spirituality was supreme good taste, the best possible good taste. This is quite similar. What do serpe