The Mother as Guru and Guide   The Mother's Way of Dealing with Sadhaks   The difficulty about meeting your demand that the Mother should plan out and fix a routine for you in everything which you must follow is that this is quite contrary to the Mother's way of working in most matters. In the most physical things you have to fix a programme in order to deal with time, otherwise all becomes a sea of confusion and haphazard. Fixed rules have also to be made for the management of material things so long as people are not sufficiently developed to deal with them in the right way without rules. But these things of which you write are diff

  The Mother and Sri Aurobindo giving darshan on 24 April 1950   Part One   The Mother     The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many —sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.   Passage

On Conversations with the Mother   Comments on Specific Conversations1   The Mother asks: "What do you want the Yoga for? To get power?" [p. 1] Does "power" here mean the power to communicate one's own experience to others? Power is a general term  —it is not confined to a power to communicate. The most usual form of power is control over things, persons, events, forces. "What is required is concentration  —concentration upon the Divine with a view to an integral and absolute consecration to its Will and Purpose" [p. 1]. Is the Divine's Will different from its Purpose? The two words have not the same meaning.

The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature   The Consciousness and Force of the Divine   Please explain to me what is meant by the Divine Mother. The Divine Mother is the Consciousness and Force of the Divine  —which is the Mother of all things. 24 June 1933   *     You have written in The Mother that the Mother is the consciousness and force of the Ishwara, but here my experience is that the Ishwara is the consciousness and force of the Supreme Mother. Could you please make it clear to me? The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Divine  —or, it may be said, she is the Divine in its consciousness —force. The Ishwara as L

Incarnation and Evolution   The Mystery of Incarnation   Many years ago, the Mother wrote regarding life in the Asram: "In our daily practices we are endeavouring to express the great mystery of the Divine Incarnation."1 I pray that this message may be explained to me  —and that I be enabled to understand its meaning fully and clearly. It means that we act as we do because we take it as a fact that the Divine can manifest and is manifested in a human body. Is this a message which can be circulated to all the members of the Asram? Yes, they ought to know it. To outsiders? Not unless they are interested and seek the mea

Section One   The Mother: Individual, Universal, Transcendent   The Mother and the Purpose of Her Embodiment   Who Is the Mother?   Do you not refer to the Mother (our Mother) in your book ? Yes. Is she not the "Individual" Divine Mother who has embodied "the power of these two vaster ways of her existence"1  —Transcendent and Universal? Yes. Has she not descended here (amongst us) into the Darkness and Falsehood and Error and Death in her deep and great love for us? Yes. There are many who hold the view that she was human but now embodies the Divine Mother and her Prayers, they say, explain this view. But to my mental concept

 The Mother's Help in Difficulties   Difficulties and the Mother's Help   Not to be disturbed, to remain quiet and confident is the right attitude, but it is necessary also to receive the help of the Mother and not to shrink back for any reason from her solicitude. One ought not to indulge ideas of incapacity, inability to respond, dwelling too much on defects and failures and allowing the mind to be in pain and shame on their account; for these ideas and feelings become in the end weakening things. If there are difficulties, stumblings or failures, one has to look at them quietly and call in tranquilly and persistently the divine help for their removal,

Three Aspects of the Mother   Individual, Universal, Transcendent   I am or was under the impression that Mother is the Cosmic and Supracosmic Mahashakti. I don't quite understand the question. I have explained in The Mother that there are three aspects, transcendent, universal and individual, of the Mother. 31 May 1933   *     As I see it, there are two Shaktis in the world: the Cosmic Shakti and the individual Shakti  —our Mother. I believe it is difficult to remain in direct connection with the Cosmic Shakti, while the individual Shakti is always here before us. I would like to know more about these Shaktis. There is on

Part Three     Translations of Prayers of the Mother     Prayers and Méditations        Sri Aurobindo's translation of the Mother's prayer of December 28, 1928     Prayers and Méditations  1   November 28, 19132   Mother Divine, grant that today may bring to us a completer consecration to Thy Will, a more integral gift of ourselves to Thy work, a more total forgetfulness of self, a greater illumination, a purer love. Grant that in a communion growing ever deeper, more constant and entire, we may be united always more and more closely to Thee and become Thy servitors worthy of Thee. Remov

Difficulties of the Pathfinders   The Burden of Humanity   Mother spoke to me of the right attitude as one without tension and strain, one which is full of sunshine and as spontaneous as a flower opening to the light. This is all very well for beings like you and the Mother, who are Avatars, but how can we poor mortals take this vague prescription for guidance? And how to get this attitude if not through constant prayer, arduous meditation and a constant effort to reject wrong movements?   You say that this way is too difficult for you or the likes of you and it is only "avatars" like myself or the Mother that can do it. That