7 November 1956 “The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psy- chological formations, shatters every wall, widens, libe- rates… she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not m

1 August 1956 Sweet Mother, does the worship offered to the god- dess Durga and to Kali have any spiritual value? That depends on who offers the worship. It is not that which is of importance for the spiritual value. For the integrality and the complete truth of the Yoga it is important not to limit one’s aspiration to one form or another. But from the spiritual point of view, whatever the object of worship, if the movement is perfectly sincere, if the self-giving is integral and absolute, the spiritual result can be the same; for, whatever object you take, through it ― sometimes in spite of it, despite it ― you always reach the supreme Reality, in the measure and

25 July 1956  “It may be said that a complete act of divine love and worship has in it three parts that are the expressions of a single whole, ― a practical worship of the Divine in the act, a symbol of worship in the form of the act expressing some vision and seeking or some relation with the Divine, an inner adoration and longing for oneness or feeling of oneness in the heart and soul and spirit.” The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 152-53 * I have not understood the first two parts very well. There is a purely physical form of the act, like those forms in cults in which a particular gesture, a particular movement is meant to express the co

10 October 1956 Some days ago, during the Translation Class¹  I found a sage in The Life Divine which, I thought, might interest you this evening. Sri Aurobindo is speaking of the movement of Nature and he explains how from matter which seems inert came life, then how from life mind emerged and also how from mind will emerge the supermind or the spiritual life; and he gives a kind of brief survey of the time it takes. I am going to read this sage to you and shall tell you later what connection it has with our present situation: “The first obscure material movement of the evolu- tionary Force is marked by an aeonic graduality; the movement of life-progress procee

20 June 1956 Sweet Mother, here Sri Aurobindo writes: “And yet there is in the heart or behind it a profounder mystic light” The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 140 * What is this mystic light? It is love. But after that, Sri Aurobindo continues: “which, if not what we call intuition ― for that, though not of the mind, yet descends through the mind ― has yet a direct touch upon Truth and is nearer to the Divine than the human intellect in its pride of knowledge.” Is there a relation between this mystic light and intuition? It is not intuition. It is knowledge through love, light through love, understanding through love. Sri

14 March 1956 “The practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating know- ledge…. In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe,― this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. A memory, a self-dynamising meditation of this kind, must and does in its end turn into profound and unin- terrupted vision and a vivid and all-embracing con- sciousness of that which we so powerfully remember or on which we so constantly meditate.” The Synthes

23 May 1956  Sweet Mother, what is the difference between yoga and religion? Ah! my child… it is as though you were asking me the difference between a dog and a cat! (Long silence) Imagine someone who, in some way or other, has heard of something like the Divine or has a personal feeling that something of the kind exists, and begins to make all sorts of efforts: efforts of will, of discipline, efforts of concentration, all sorts of efforts to find this Divine, to discover what He is, to become acquainted with Him and unite with Him. Then this person is doing yoga. Now, if this person has noted down all the processes he has used and constructs a fixed syst

19 September 1956 Sweet Mother, I haven't understood this well: “Will, Power, Force are the native substance of the Life- Energy, and herein lies the justification for the refusal of Life to acknowledge the supremacy of Knowledge and Love alone, — for its push towards the satisfac- tion of something far more unreflecting, headstrong and dangerous that can yet venture too in its own bold and ardent way towards the Divine and Absolute. Love and Wisdom are not the only aspects of the Divine, there is also its aspect of Power.” The Synthesis of Yoga. pp. 163-64 * What have you not understood? Sri Aurobindo says that the vit

13 June 1956  “Already in the process of spiritualisation it [the spi- ritualised mind] will have begun to pass out of the brilliant poverty of the human intellect; it will mount successively into the pure broad reaches of a higher mind and next into the gleaming belts of a still greater free intelligence illumined with a Light from above. At this point it will begin to feel more freely, admit with a less mixed response the radiant beginnings of an Intuition, not illumined, but luminous in itself, true in itself, no longer entirely mental and therefore sub- jected to the abundant intrusion of error. Here too is not an end, for it must r

28 November 1956   “When we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge. Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar. “When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the helper; Effort is the bar. “When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss. Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar. “When we have passed beyond individualising, then we shall be real Persons. Ego was the helper; Ego is the bar. “When we have passed beyond humanity, then we shall be the Man. The Animal was the helper; the Animal is the bar.” Thoughts and Glimpses, Cent. Vol. 16,p. 377 *