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

THE MOTHER Questions and Answers               Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry August, 1961     Questions and Answers I Mastery over oneself and mastery over the circumstances of one's life, are they independent of each other or are they interdependent ? THAT depends on the point of view where you put yourself. A The police commissioner, for example, has some mastery over circumstances, but generally has not much mastery over himself ! (laughter) Evidently one must first of all begin by self-mastery, otherwise one can act on life only to increase the confusion.