What struck me the most is sight. Hearing ... for a very, very long time - years - I've had the feeling that when people don't think very clearly, I can't hear. But that's not quite the point: it's when their consciousness isn't ALIVE in what they're saying - it's not so much a question of "thought," it's their consciousness that isn't ALIVE in what they're saying; it's a mental machine; then I don't understand anything at all - nothing. When their consciousness is alive, it reaches me. And I have noticed, for instance, that people whom I don't hear think it's because I am deaf in the ordinary way, so they start shouting - which is even worse! Then it's a

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

Oh, a few days ago I was told a frightful story - what depths humanity has sunk to ... it's unbelievable. Have you heard this story of the slaughter of baby seals? When seals are born (a certain species of seals), they're all white, and they remain so for a few weeks, then they lose their hair and turn gray-gray or yellowish, like their fathers and mothers. And as it's the fashion to wear all-white fur coats, some people ... It's organized by some trader or other: seals gather at the time of giving birth, there's a place there, in the North, on an island, where they gather in their thousands, and each mother gives birth to a single child. So th

/The Atomic Bomb/ The Atomic bomb is in itself the most wonderful achievement and the sign of a growing power of man over material nature. But what is to be regretted is that this material progress and mastery is not the result of and in keeping with a spiritual progress and mastery which alone has the power to contradict and counteract the terrible danger coming from these discoveries. We cannot and must not stop progress, but we must Page - 48, Words of The Mother, vol -15 Maybe we'll see from another world. (Laughing) It's possible. They have bombs in America and Russia (China hasn't boas

R.'s idea is an island at the center, with water around, running water which will be used for the whole water supply of the city; and when it has flowed through the city, it will be sent to a plant, and from there to irrigate all the cultivated lands around. So this center is like an islet, and at this center, there is what we first called the "Matrimandir" - which I always see as a very large hall, absolutely bare, you understand, and getting a light from above: it should be so arranged that the light from above gets concentrated on a spot where there would be ... what we want to put as the center of the city We first thought of Sri Aurobindo's symbol, but we

Do you have things to read me? Last time, we spoke about that book.... Would you like me toread it? Yes, I am listening. It's a first draft. It's not the beginning of the book? Yes, yes, but I mean, all that I've written, I really feel as if I were writing automatically. Oh!... So you know, it's really a ... for me it's something of an anguishto write this book. Not only I don't know what's going to come when I write a chapter, I don't know what's going to come when I write a paragraph, and when I start a sentence I don't know how I am going t

"It is certainly a mistake to bring down the light by force - to pull it down. The Supramental cannot be taken by storm. When the time is ready it will open of itself - but first there is a great deal to be done and that must be done patiently and without haste." Sri Aurobindo That's good for sensible people. They will say, "There, he doesn't promise any miracles." Why? Are there lots of people who tend to "pull"? People are in a hurry, they want to see results right away. So then, they think they are pulling the Supramental down - and they pull some little vital entity that leads them on and afterwards pla

The feet are the symbol of physical life, and according to what I saw once (your dream seems related to that), EACH part of his body represented someone - or rather represented his, Sri Aurobindo's, MODE of expression in someone. [[Mother said several times that she "was" Sri Aurobindo's feet (see in particular Agenda VI, March 10, 1965). ]] One night I saw him like that, I told you. But it was extremely complex; I only noted two or three important things, but there didn't seem to be even one small part of his body that wasn't represented by someone.... So if we take the symbol of the feet to be the physical ... Not only the feet, but all the toes, di

The Christians say it's the spirit of evil, but this is due to a lack of understanding. Theon always told me that the true interpretation of the Biblical story of the serpent in the Garden of Eden is that humanity wanted to pass from a state of animal-like divinity to the state of conscious divinity by means of mental development, symbolized by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. And this serpent, which Theon always said was iridescent, reflecting all the colors of the prism, was not at all the spirit of evil, but the power of evolution - the force, the power of evolution. And it was natural that this power of evolution would make t