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

27 July 1955        Mother reads from Lights on Yoga, “Surrender and Opening”. He has said everything, I have nothing to add. Sweet Mother, here it is written: “The heart in this Yoga should in fact be the main centre of concentra- tion until the consciousness rises above.” But each one's consciousness is on a different plane! Yes, very different. Only it is always said: “Concentrate here, on the solar plexus, the centre, here, because it's here that one can most easily find the psychic, enter into contact with the psychic. That's why. That's what it means. Once the consciousness rises where does one find it? Above the head, above th

14 September 1955        Mother reads The Great Secret ¹: The Statesman. Sweet Mother, what should be the attitude of a true politician? But it's just the attitude of a true politician which I have given here. It's the ideal politician, my child. One can't make a better one. It is the circumstances, he says that himself: “a greater force than mine” it's the way the world is organised; he started with the best intentions, he tried his very best, he could do nothing, because one can't do anything in the present circumstances and with politics as it is practised at present. Usually people are not frank enough to say what I have made him say. I have made hi

11 May 1955 This talk is based upon Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, “Physical Consciousness, etc.”. Who is going to ask questions today?             Sweet Mother, how can we make the body immune to every attack? Well, Sri Aurobindo has written it later, hasn't he? He says that only the descent of the supramental Force can make the body immune to every attack. He says that otherwise it is only momentary and that it doesn't always work. He says that it can be practically immune but not absolutely so; and to be absolutely so, it is only by transforming the nature as it is into a supramental nature that one can make the body absolutely immune to all attacks.

28 December 1955 Mother reads from {The Synthesis of Yoga}, “Self-Consecration”. Sweet Mother, what is “an all-receiving concentration that is the very nature of the integral Yoga”? An all-receiving concentration? No – a concentration which is open to all that exists; it is a concentration which does not oppose anything. It is a concentration which is open. It means that one must not reject certain things from himself and practise an exclusive concentration on a particular point while neglecting all the others. All the possibilities should be admitted and pursued. Here it is written: “Our one objective must be the Divine himself to whom, k