31 August 1955        Mother reads from Lights on Yoga, “Work”. Sweet Mother, here I did not understand “One must have the same consciousness in inner experience and outward action and make both full of the Mother.” I haven't understood either.¹ Isn't there a clause of the sentence missing? I too haven't understood the structure of this sentence. (Mother turns to Pavitra) It seems to me that there's at least a word missing. (Pavitra) I shall verify it with the English on our return. No. It may be like this in English. I can imagine the English sentence, but in French it is not clear. (Mother takes up the book) Yes, it is right at the be

4 May 1955 This talk is based upon Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, “Physical Consciousness, etc.”. Sweet Mother, how can one draw on “the universal vital Force”? One can do it in many ways. First of all, you must know that it exists and that one can enter into contact with it. Secondly, you must try to make this contact, to feel it circulating everywhere, through everything, in all persons and all circumstances; to have this experience, for example, when you are in the countryside among trees, to see it circulating in the whole of Nature, in trees and things, and then commune with it, feel yourself close to it, and each time you want to deal with it, recall tha

3 August 1955        Mother reads from Lights on Yoga, “Surrender and Opening”. What is “the true life-activity”? It is to express the Divine. That is the very reason of existence and life, its truth and its sole true activity. Sweet Mother, here Sri Aurobindo has said “It is im- possible.” Why? For you have said that nothing is impossible! Nothing is impossible in principle. But if one refuses to do what is necessary, obviously one cannot succeed. In the material world there are conditions, otherwise it would not be what it is. If there were no conditions and processes, everything could be transformed and done miraculously. But eviden

9 November 1955 Mother reads from {The Synthesis of Yoga},  “The Four Aids”. Mother, I don't understand “Our sense of personal effort and aspiration comes from the attempt of the egoistic mind to identify itself in a wrong and imper- fect way with the workings of the divine Force.” What is it that you do not understand? The sentence or the idea? The idea, Mother. It can be put in very familiar terms. The individual being, and particularly the mind in it, have an instinctive repulsion to admitting that it's another force than their own small personal one which does things. There is a kind of instinct which makes you feel absolutely conv

7 September 1955        Mother reads from Lights on Yoga, “Work”. “All work” is “a school of experience”? Yes, surely. You don't understand? No, Mother. If you don't do anything, you cannot have any experience. The whole life is a field of experience. Each movement you make, each thought you have, each work you do, can be an experience, and must be an experience; and naturally work in particular is a field of experience where one must apply all the progress which one endeavours to make inwardly. If you remain in meditation or contemplation without working, well, you don't know if you have progressed or not. You may live in an illusion, the ill

23 February 1955 This talk is based upon Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, “Desire – Food - Sex”. Sweet Mother, from the beginning man ate because he needed food in order to live. Then why did taste for food develop? One eats what one likes to, and doesn't eat what one doesn't like! I think primitive man was very close to the animal and lived more by instinct than by intelligence, you see. He ate when he was hungry, without any rule of any kind. Perhaps he had his tastes and preferences too, we know nothing much about it, but he lived much more materially, much less mentally and vitally than now. Surely primitive man was very material, very near th

2 November 1955 Mother reads from { The Synthesis of Yoga}, “The Four Aids”. Now then, your question? “The process of Yoga is a turning of the human soul from the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in the outward appearances “I did not quite under- stand “the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in the outward appearances”. People are occupied with outward things. That means that the consciousness is turned towards external things – that is, all the things of life which one sees, knows, does – instead of being turned inwards in order to find the deeper truth, the divine Presence. This is the first movement. You are busy with al

18 May 1955 This talk is based upon Mother's article “The Problem of Woman”. Now, no questions! I have nothing to add. I have said everything. You wanted to ask something?             You have given the title “The Problem of Woman”, but you speak equally about the problem of man. Yes, because it is difficult to separate them. I didn't mean that it is a problem that women have to solve; I meant that it is the problem which life on earth has posed because of women. Men, until not very long ago, were perfectly satisfied with themselves and what they had done. It is a little more than a century ago that women began to protest. Before, they seemed

* The Mother- 1954

2 March 1955 This talk is based upon Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, “Desire – Food - Sex”. Sweet Mother, what is the right spirit and the right consciousness in which one should take food? It is the spirit of consecration and… What is the other one you said?             The right consciousness. Yes, it is the same thing. It is the consciousness that's turned exclusively to the Divine, and wants the divine realisation and nothing else; and the right spirit is the spirit of consecration to the Divine which wants only the transformation and nothing else, that is, something which does not try to seek its own satisfaction in the fulfilment of the a