THE MOTHER Questions and Answers           Questions and Answers   The Real Hell (Commentary on the Dhammapada) A S in all these teachings, there are several ways of under-standing. The external way is quite common. In all moral principles, always the same thing is said. This Niraya, for example, of which the Dhammapada speaks, which is taken by some as a kind of hell where you are punished for your sins, has another meaning also. The true meaning of Niraya is that special kind of atmosphere which you create around you when you act in contradiction not with external moral rules or social principles, but

  THE MOTHER   Questions and Answers             Questions and Answers       The Supramental is not be mentalised As it was foreseen, I have received a shower of questions meant to oblige me to explain mentally my supramental experience of February 3.     You want me to speak of the experience, mentalise it to such an extent as to establish a new system so that you may be able to sit down comfortably in your new mental construction.     I regret that I have to disappoint you, for it is absolutely impossible. If you wish to understand what I have written, well, try and get a supramental consciousness.

THE MOTHER Questions and Answers           Ski Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry April, Questions and Answers I A stag passes through a forest to drink water, but what is there to prove that he has done so? Most people will see no sign of the thing, perhaps even they do not know what a stag is, and even those who know will not be able to say that he passed that way. But one who has made a special study of hunting, a tracker, will find evident signs and will be able to say not only what type of stag has passed, but also his size, age, sex, etc. Similarly there must be people who have a spiritual knowledge

  Questions and Answers Why is not the universe a place of perfect bliss ? IF the Divine had not conceived His creation as a progressive state, one could have been, from the beginning, in an immobile and immutable bliss. But by the very fact that the universe is made to be progressive, the perfect identity, the bliss of this identity, the full consciousness of this identity had necessarily to be veiled, otherwise nothing would have moved.     One can conceive of a static universe, something which would be all together and at the same time a kind of space or objectivisation, not a progressive manifestation of things, one after another, in accordance with a spe

  THE MOTHER Questions and Answers             Questions and Answers The Supreme Poise       It is generally thought that when a creation reaches the maximum of its possibilities, that is the perfection. But it is precisely against this idea that I rise. Perfection is not a summit, it is not an extreme. There is no extreme : whatsover you do there is always the possibility of something better and exactly this possibility of something better is the very meaning of progress.      Nature, in whatever she does, goes to extremes, and when she sees that she can advance no longer, she pulls down everything and begins

THE MOTHER Questions and Answers           Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry February, 196a Questions and Answers I "One of the most common forms of ambition is the idea of service to humanity. All attachment to this idea or this work is a sign of personal ambition". ("Conversations", The Mother) - - How do you say it is ambition ? "WHY do you want to serve humanity, what is your idea ? It " is ambition, it is to become a great man among men. Is it difficult to understand?       The Divine is everywhere. Therefore if you serve humanity, you serve the Div

    THE MOTHER Questions and Answers           Questions and Answers The Message of the year 1959 (The experience of November 5, 1958) 'THIS is the origin of the Message.          Last evening I noticed in the class that the children who had had a whole week to prepare their questions on the text that we are reading, did not find a single one. A terrible somnolence ! A total lack of interest ! When I had finished my reading, I said to myself, "But what is there in these brains that do not take interest in anything but their small personal affairs ? After all, what is happening there within, behind these for

THE MOTHER   Questions and Answers         Questions and Answers The New Year Message IN the course of one of our classes I spoke of the unlimited abundance of Nature, the inexhaustible creatrix who takes a multitude of form and mixes them, again separates them and forms them again, demolishes and destroys them in order to pass on to ever new combinations. It is a big cauldron, I told you, you stir within there and something comes out of it. If that is not all right, you throw it back and take out another thing. for her one form or two forms or a hundred forms do not matter at all, there are thousands and thousa

    THE MOTHER Questions and Answers           SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY April, 1959 Questions and Answers In the life of the ordinary man is religion a necessity ? IN the life of the society it is a necessity, because it serves as a corrective to the collective egoism which would assume excessive proportions without this control.       The level of the collective consciousness is always lower than the individual level. It is very remarkable that when men gather in a group or meet in large numbers their intelligence seems to go down in proportion. Thus the consciousness of a crowd is much low

    THE MOTHER      Questions and Answers         Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry APRIL, 1960       To be plastic to the Divine means not to set against Him the rigidity of preconceived ideas and fixed principles. And this requires a great strength, for the more you are plastic to the divine will, the more you come in conflict with the human wills that are not in contact with the divine will.     No two combinations, no two movements in the universe are similar; nothing is reproduced exactly. There are analogies, there are similarities, there are families—families of movements that can b