The Mother - IV

Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its
manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is
indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it
belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here
and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the
ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose. This is
indeed one of the three forces—power, wealth, sex—that have the strongest
attraction for the human ego and the Asura and are most generally misheld
and misused by those who retain them. The seekers or keepers of wealth are
more often possessed rather than its possessors; few escape entirely a certain
distorting influence stamped on it by its long seizure and perversion by the
Asura. For this reason most spiritual disciplines insist on a complete self-
control, detachment and renunciation of all bondage to wealth and of all
personal and egoistic desire for its possession. Some even put a ban
on money and riches and proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only
spiritual condition. But this is an error; it leaves the power in the hands of the
hostile forces. To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs and use it
divinely for the divine life is the supramental way for the Sadhaka.

You must neither turn with an ascetic shrinking from the money power, the
means it gives and the objects it brings, nor cherish a rajasic attachment to
them or a spirit of enslaving self-indulgence in their gratifications.
Regard wealth simply as a power to be won back for the Mother and placed
at her service.

All wealth belongs to the Divine and those who hold it are trustees, not
possessors. It is with them today, tomorrow it may be elsewhere. All depends
on the way they discharge their trust while it is with them, in what spirit, with
what consciousness in their use of it, to what purpose.

In your personal use of money look on all you have or get or bring as the
Mother’s. Make no demand but accept what you receive from her and use it
for the purposes for which it is given to you. Be entirely selfless, entirely
scrupulous, exact, careful in detail, a good trustee; always consider that it is
her possessions and not your own that you are handling. On the other hand,
what you receive for her, lay religiously before her; turn nothing to your own
or anybody else’s purpose.

Do not look up to men because of their riches or allow yourself to be

impressed by the show, the power or the influence. When you ask for the
Mother, you must feel that it is she who is demanding through you a very
little of what belongs to her and the man from whom you ask will be judged
by his response.

If you are free from the money-taint but without any ascetic withdrawal, you
will have a greater power to command the money-force for the divine work.
Equality of mind, absence of demand and the full dedication of all you
possess and receive and all your power of acquisition to the
Divine Shakti and her work are the signs of this freedom. Any perturbation of
mind with regard to money and its use, any claim, any grudging is a sure
index of some imperfection or bondage.

The ideal Sadhaka in this kind is one who if required to live poorly can so
live and no sense of want will affect him or interfere with the full inner play
of the divine consciousness, and if he is required to live richly, can so live
and never for a moment fall into desire or attachment to his wealth or to the
things that he uses or servitude to self-indulgence or a weak bondage to the
habits that the possession of riches creates. The divine Will is all for him and
the divine Ananda.

In the supramental creation the money-force has to be restored to the

Divine Power and used for a true and beautiful and harmonious equipment
and ordering of a new divinised vital and physical existence in whatever way
the Divine Mother herself decides in her creative vision. But first it must be
conquered back for her and those will be strongest for the conquest who are
in this part of their nature strong and large and free from ego and surrendered
without any claim or withholding or hesitation, pure and powerful channels
for the Supreme Puissance.
 ***

3 May 1951
“Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its
manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is
indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true
action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is
delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be
usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and
perverted to their purpose. This is indeed one of the three forces—
power, wealth, sex—that have the strongest attraction for the human
ego and the Asura and are most generally misheld and misused by
those who retain them…. For this reason most spiritual disciplines…
proclaim poverty and bareness of life as the only spiritual condition.
But this is an error; it leaves the power in the hands of the hostile
forces. To reconquer it for the Divine to whom it belongs and use it
divinely for the divine life is the supramental way for the sadhaka.”

Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, pp. 11-12

How can one know if one’s way of using money is in accordance with the
divine Will?

One must first know what the divine will is. But there is a surer way—
to surrender money for the divine work, if one is not sure oneself.
“Divinely” means at the service of the Divine—it means not to
use money for one’s own satisfaction but to place it at the Divine’s
service.

Sri Aurobindo speaks of “a weak bondage to the habits that the possession
of riches creates”.

Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, p. 14

 When you are rich and have a lot of money to spend, generally you
spend it on things you find pleasant, and you become habituated to
these things, attached to these things, and if one day the money is gone,
you miss it, you are unhappy, you are miserable and feel all lost
because you no longer have what you were in the habit of having. It is a
bondage, a weak attachment. He who is quite detached, when he lives
in the midst of these things, it is well with him; when these things are
gone, it is well also; he is totally indifferent to both. That is the right
attitude: when it is there he uses it, when it is not he does without it.
And for his inner consciousness this makes no difference. That
surprises you, but it is like that.

If one has the power to acquire a lot of money, does this mean that one has
a certain control over terrestrial forces?

This depends upon how one acquires it. If you get it by foul ways, that
does not mean that you have a control. But if someone, scrupulously
doing his duty, sees that money comes to him, it is evidently because he
exercises a control over these forces. There are people who have the
power of attracting money and they haven’t the least need to practise
dishonesty to get it. Others, even to get a few pennies, must make all
sorts of contrivances, more or less clean. So one cannot say…. We see
a rich man and think he must be exercising a control over the forces
of money—no, not necessarily. But if a man remains perfectly honest
and does what he thinks is his duty without caring to acquire money,
and yet money comes to him, evidently he has a certain affinity with
those forces.

It is said, “One cannot make a heap without making a hole”, one cannot
enrich oneself without impoverishing someone else. Is this true?

This is not quite correct. If one produces something, instead of an

impoverishment it is an enrichment; simply one puts into circulation in
the world something else having a value equivalent to that of money.
But to say that one cannot make a heap without making a hole is all
right for those who speculate, who do business on the Stock Exchange
or in finance—there it is true. It is impossible to have a financial
success in affairs of pure speculation without its being detrimental to
 another. But it is limited to this. Otherwise a producer does not make a
hole if he heaps up money in exchange for what he produces. Surely
there is the question of the value of the production, but if the
production is truly an acquisition for the general human wealth, it does
not make a hole, it increases this wealth. And in another way, not only
in the material field, the same thing holds for art, for literature or
science, for any production at all.

When I was doing business (Export-import), I always had the feeling of

robbing my neighbour.

This is living at the expense of others, because one multiplies the

middlemen. Naturally, it is perhaps convenient, practical, but from the
general point of view, and above all in the way it is practised, it is
living at the expense of the producer and the consumers. One becomes
an agent, not at all with the idea of rendering service (because there is
not one in a million who has this idea), but because it is an easy way of
earning money without making any effort. But of course, among the
ways of making money without any effort, there are others much worse
than that! They are countless.

Friends from outside have often asked me this question: “When one is
compelled to earn his living, should one just conform to the common code
of honesty or should one be still more strict?”

This depends upon the attitude your friend has taken in life. If he wants
to be a sadhak, it is indispensable that rules of ordinary morality do not
have any value for him. Now, if he is an ordinary man living the
ordinary life, it is a purely practical question, isn’t it? He must conform
to the laws of the country in which he lives to avoid all trouble! But all
these things which in ordinary life have a very relative value and can be
looked upon with a certain indulgence, change totally the minute one
decides to do yoga and enter the divine life. Then, all values change
completely; what is honest in ordinary life, is no longer at all honest for
you. Besides, there is such a reversal of values that one can no longer
use the same ordinary language. If one wants to consecrate oneself to
the divine life, one must do it truly, that is, give oneself entirely, no
longer do anything for one’s own interest, depend exclusively upon the
 divine Power to which one abandons oneself. Everything changes
completely, doesn’t it? —everything, everything, it is a reversal. What I
have just read from this book applies solely to those who want to do
yoga; for others it has no meaning, it is a language which makes no
sense, but for those who want to do yoga it is imperative. It is always
the same thing in all that we have recently read: one must be careful not
to have one foot on one side and the other foot on the other, not to
bestride two different boats each following its own course. This is what
Sri Aurobindo said: one must not lead a “double life”. One must give
up one thing or the other—one can’t follow both.

This does not mean, however, that one is obliged to get out of the
conditions of one’s life: it is the inner attitude which must be totally
changed. One may do what one is in the habit of doing, but do it with
quite a different attitude. I don’t say it is necessary to give up
everything in life and go away into solitude, to an ashram necessarily,
to do yoga. Now, it is true that if one does yoga in the world and in
worldly circumstances, it is more difficult, but it is also more complete.
Because, every minute one must face problems which do not present
themselves to someone who has left everything and gone into solitude;
for such a one these problems are reduced to a minimum while in life
one meets all sorts of difficulties, beginning with the incomprehension
of those around you with whom you have to deal; one must be ready
for that, be armed with patience, and a great indifference. But in yoga
one should no longer care for what people think or say; it is an
absolutely indispensable starting-point. You must be absolutely
immune to what the world may say or think of you and to the way it
treats you. People’s understanding must be something quite immaterial
to you and should not even slightly touch you. That is why it is
generally much more difficult to remain in one’s usual surroundings
and do yoga than to leave everything and go into solitude; it is much
more difficult, but we are not here to do easy things—easy things we
leave to those who do not think of transformation.

If someone has acquired a lot of money by dishonest means, could some of

it be asked for the Divine?
Sri Aurobindo has answered this question. He says that money in itself
is an impersonal force: the way in which you acquire money concerns
you alone personally. It may do you great harm, it may harm others
also, but it does not in any way change the nature of the money which
is an altogether impersonal force: money has no colour, no taste, no
psychological consciousness. It is a force. It is like saying that the air
breathed out by a scoundrel is more tainted than that breathed out by an
honest man—I don’t think so. I think the result is the same. One may
for reasons of a practical nature refuse money which has been stolen,
but that is for altogether practical reasons, it is not because of divine
reasons. This is a purely human idea. One may from a practical point of
view say, “Ah! No, the way in which you have acquired this money is
disgusting and so I don’t want to offer it to the Divine”, because one
has a human consciousness. But if you take someone (let us suppose
the worst) who has killed and acquired money by the murder; if all of a
sudden he is seized by terrible scruples and remorse and tells himself,
“I have only one thing to do with this money, give it where it can be
utilised for the best, in the most impersonal way”, it seems to me that
this movement is preferable to utilising it for one’s own satisfaction. I
said that the reasons which could prevent one from receiving ill-
gotten money may be reasons of a purely practical kind, but there may
also be more profound reasons, of a (I do not want to say moral but)
spiritual nature, from the point of view of tapasya; one may tell
somebody, “No, you cannot truly acquire merit with this fortune which
you have obtained in such a terrible way; what you can do is to restore
it”, one may feel that a restitution, for instance, will help one to make
more progress than simply passing the money on to any work whatever.
One may see things in this way—one can’t make rules. This is what I
never stop telling you: it is impossible to make a rule. In every case it is
different. But you must not think that the money is affected; money as a
terrestrial force is not affected by the way in which it is obtained, that
can in no way affect it. Money remains the same, your note remains the
same, your piece of gold remains the same, and as it carries its force, its
force remains there. It harms only the person who has done wrong, that
is evident. Then the question remains: in what state of mind and for
what reasons does your dishonest man want to pass on his money to a
work he considers divine? Is it as a measure of safety, through
 prudence or to lay his heart at rest? Evidently this is not a very good
motive and it cannot be encouraged, but if he feels a kind of repentance
and regret for what he has done and the feeling that there is but one
thing to do and that is precisely to deprive himself of what he has
wrongly acquired and utilise it for the general good as much as
possible, then there is nothing to say against that. One cannot decide in
a general way—it depends upon the instance. Only, if I understand well
what you mean, if one knows that a man has acquired money by the
most unnameable means, obviously, it would not be good to go
and ask him for money for some divine work, because that would be
like “rehabilitating” his way of gaining money. One cannot ask, that is
not possible. If, spontaneously, for some reason, he gives it, there is no
reason to refuse it. But it is quite impossible to go and ask him for it,
because it is as though one legitimised his manner of acquiring money.
That makes a great difference.

And generally, in these cases, those who go and ask money from

rascals use means of intimidation: they frighten them, not physically
but about their future life, about what may happen to them, they give
them a fright. It is not very nice. These are procedures one ought not to
use.

Besides money, what are the other divine powers “delegated” here on

earth?

All. All the divine powers are manifested here and deformed here—
light, life, love, force—all—harmony, ananda—all, all, there is nothing
which is not divine in its origin and which does not exist here under a
completely distorted, travestied form. The other day we had spoken at
length about the way in which divine Love is deformed in its
manifestation here, it is the same thing.

How can money be reconquered for the Mother?

Ah…There is a hint here. Three things are interdependent (Sri

Aurobindo says here): power, money and sex. I believe the three are
interdependent and that all three have to be conquered to be sure of
having any one—when you want to conquer one you must have the
 other two. Unless one has mastered these three things, desire for power,
desire for money and desire for sex, one cannot truly possess any of
them firmly and surely. What gives so great an importance to money in
the world as it is today is not so much money itself, for apart from a
few fools who heap up money and are happy because they can heap it
up and count it, generally money is desired and acquired for the
satisfactions it brings. And this is almost reciprocal: each of these three
things not only has its own value in the world of desires, but leans upon
the other two. I have related to you that vision, that big black serpent
which kept watch over the riches of the world, terrestrial wealth—he
demanded the mastery of the sex-impulse. Because, according to
certain theories, the very need of power has its end in this satisfaction,
and if one mastered that, if one abolished that from human
consciousness, much of the need for power and desire for money would
disappear automatically. Evidently, these are the three great obstacles
in the terrestrial human life and, unless they are conquered, there is
scarcely a chance for humanity to change.

Does an individual mastery over desire suffice or is a general, collective

mastery necessary?

Ah! There we are…. Is it possible to attain a total personal

transformation without there being at least a correspondence in the
collectivity?… This does not seem possible to me. There is such an
interdependence between the individual and the collectivity that, unless
one does what the ascetics have preached, that is, escapes from the
world, goes out of it completely, leaves it where it is and runs away
selfishly leaving all the work to others, unless one does that…. And
even so I have my doubts. Is it possible to accomplish a total
transformation of one’s being so long as the collectivity has not reached
at least a certain degree of transformation? I don’t think so. Human
nature remains what it is—one can attain a great change of
consciousness, that yes, one can purify one’s consciousness, but the
total conquest, the material transformation depends definitely to a large
extent, on a certain degree of progress in the collectivity. Buddha said
with reason that as long as you have in you a vibration of desire, this
vibration will spread in the world and all those who are ready to receive
it will receive it. In the same way, if you have in you the least
receptivity to a vibration of desire, you will be open to all the vibrations
of desire which circulate constantly in the world. And that is why he
concluded: Get out of this illusion, withdraw entirely and you will be
free. I find this relatively very selfish, but after all, that was the only
way he had foreseen. There is another: to identify oneself so well with
the divine Power as to be able to act constantly and consciously upon
all vibrations circulating through the world. Then the undesirable
vibrations no longer have any effect upon you, but you have an effect
upon them, that is, instead of an undesirable vibration entering into you
without being perceived and doing its work there, it is perceived and
immediately on its arrival you act upon it to transform it, and it goes
back into the world transformed, to do its beneficent work and prepare
others for the same realisation. This is exactly what Sri Aurobindo
proposes to do and, more clearly, what he asks you to do, what he
intends us to do:

Instead of running away, to bring into oneself the power which can
conquer.

Note that things are arranged in such a way that if the tiniest atom of
ambition remained and one wanted this Power for one’s personal
satisfaction, one could never have it, that Power would never come. Its
deformed limitations, of the kind seen in the vital and physical world,
those yes, one may have them, and there are many people who have
them, but the true Power, the Power Sri Aurobindo calls “supramental”,
unless one is absolutely free from all egoism under all its forms, one
will never be able to manifest. So there is no danger of its being
misused. It will not manifest except through a being who has attained
the perfection of a complete inner detachment. I have told you, this is
what Sri Aurobindo expects us to do—you may tell me it is difficult,
but I repeat that we are not here to do easy things, we are here to do
difficult ones.

***
Wealth and Economics
6 Jan 1955

Money is not meant to make money; money is meant to make the earth ready

for the advent of the new creation.

***

It is to the Divine that all riches belong. It is the Divine who lends them to
living beings, and it is to Him that they must naturally return.

***

Wealth under the psychic influence: wealth ready to return to its true

possessor, the Divine.
 ***

A day shall come when all the wealth of this world, freed at last from the
enslavement to the antidivine forces, offers itself spontaneously and fully to
the service of the Divine’s Work upon earth.1

6 January 1955

1. Distributed on the Feast of the Epiphany, which the Mother designated

as "the festival of the offering of the material world to the Divine". ↩

***
6 Jan 1956

Give all you are, all you have; nothing more is asked of you but also nothing
less.1

6 January 1956

1. Distributed on the Feast of the Epiphany, which the Mother designated

as "the festival of the offering of the material world to the Divine". ↩

***
30 Jan 1959

True wealth is that which one offers to the Divine.

***

You are rich only by the money that you give to the Divine Cause.

30 January 1959
 ***
1962

Jan

You are richer with the wealth you give than with the wealth you keep in
your possession.

***

(Message for the First Annual Conference of the Sri Aurobindo Society)

The true fortune is to spend in the right way.

You become truly rich when you dispose of your wealth in the best possible
way.

February 1962

***
6 Oct 1960

Prosperity stays consistently only with him who offers it to the Divine.

***

Unselfish prosperity: he who receives it abundantly, gives all that he has as

he receives it.
 ***

Generosity gives and gives itself without bargaining.

***

Let money come and go in abundance for good works.

***

To me any activity is more important than its cost to me, even if the cost is
unreasonable. Money should never be the criterion for such decisions. If we
say we can’t have something because of its cost, we limit our receptivity to
the Grace and hamper its workings. Money is only a medium of exchange, it
is all relative and the Divine resources are inexhaustible. Is this attitude a
correct one?

You are quite right and I approve of your attitude.

***

Never mix in your thought spiritual power and money because it leads

straight to catastrophe.

***

A gift made through vanity is profitable neither to the giver nor to the
receiver.

***
I wanted to make him understand and experience that the thought, the feeling
and the force that is in a gift is much more important and valuable than the
thing given itself.

***

A practical problem comes up more and more often: should one who is
preparing to do Yoga and has made it a general rule to offer You everything
and depend entirely on You, accept gifts, in money or kind, coming from
others? Because if he accepts, he is put under personal obligations and
duties. Can a sadhak allow this? Can he say to himself: “The Divine has
many ways of giving”?

What is to be done if a person begins to quarrel because one has accepted a

gift in one case and refused in another? What is to be done to avoid such
bitterness around one, provoked by repeated refusals?

“The Divine has many ways of giving.”

This is the correct thing. One never has any obligation to anybody, one
has an obligation only to the Divine and there totally. When a gift is
made without conditions, one can always take it as coming from the
Divine and leave it to the Divine to take care of what is needed in
exchange or response.

As for ill-will, jealousy, quarrels and reproaches, one must sincerely be

above all that and reply with a benevolent smile to the bitterest words;
and unless one is absolutely sure of himself and his reactions, it would
be better, as a general rule, to keep silent.

6 October 1960

***
 22 Aug 1964

People say, “God is the friend of the poor”, but it seems wrong and false.
God is the friend of the rich. We do not know what place we have.

To the rich God gives money, but to the poor He gives Himself. All

depends on the poor giving more value to the riches or to God.

22 August 1964

***
12 Mar 1965

The financiers and businessmen have been offered the possibility to

collaborate with the future, but most of them refuse, convinced that the power
of money is stronger than that of the future.

But the future will crush them with its irresistible power.

***

In this material world, for men, money is more sacred than the Divine’s Will.

12 March 1965

***
17 Dec 1939

Greed for money: the surest way to decrease one’s conscience and to narrow
one’s nature.
 ***

I am not for getting interest on money.

***

I dabbled in stocks and shares a little, but came a cropper. The speculation
I carried on for a while has burnt quite a hole in my pocket. I really wish I
hadn’t. Are you dead against speculation?

You ought to know that I do not approve at all of speculation—but

what is done is done.

17 December 1939

***

Does the economic condition of a man become stable with the betterment
of his consciousness?

If “betterment of consciousness” means an increased, enlarged

consciousness, a better organisation of it, then as a result there should
naturally be a greater control of outward things (including the
“economic condition”). But also, naturally when one has a “better
consciousness” one is less preoccupied with such things as one’s
economic condition.

***

Solution of the economic problem:

Arriving at the synthesis of two problems:

(1) adjusting the production to the needs;

(2) adjusting the needs to the production.

***

28 July 1954
This talk is based upon Chapter 4 of The Mother by Sri Aurobindo.

“Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its
manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is
indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action
it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated
here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of
the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose.”

How does money manifest on other planes?

What other planes? He speaks of the vital and physical, doesn’t he?…
that it is a force which manifests on the vital plane and the physical
plane. The vital forces have a very great influence over money.

(After a silence) You see, when one thinks of money, one thinks of
bank-notes or coins or some kind of wealth, some precious things. But
this is only the physical expression of a force which may be handled by
the vital and which, when possessed and controlled, almost
automatically brings along these more material expressions of money.
And that is a kind of power. (Silence) It is a power of attracting certain
very material vibrations, which has a capacity for utilisation that
increases its strength—which is like the action of physical exercise, you
see—it increases its strength through utilisation.

For example, if you have a control over this force—it is a force which,
in the vital world, has a colour varying between red, a dark, extremely
strong red and a deep gold that’s neither bright nor very pale. Well, this
force—when it is made to move, to circulate, its strength increases. It is
 not something one can accumulate and keep without using. It is a force
which must always be circulated. For example, people who are misers
and accumulate all the money, all the wealth they can attract towards
themselves, put this force aside without using its power of movement;
and either it escapes or it lies benumbed and loses its strength.

The true method of being in the stream of this money-power is

precisely what is written here: a see of absolute impersonality, the
feeling that it is not something you possess or which belongs to you,
but that it is a force you can handle and direct where it ought to go in
order to do the most useful work. And by these movements, by this
constant action, the power increases—the power of attraction, a certain
power of organisation also. That is to say, even somebody who has no
physical means, who is not in those material circumstances where he
could materially handle money, if he is in possession of this force, he
can make it act, make it circulate, and if ever he finds it necessary,
receives from it as much power as he needs without there being
externally any sign or any reason why the money should come to him.
He may be in conditions which are absolutely the very opposite of
those of usual wealth, and yet can handle this force and always have at
his disposal all the wealth that’s necessary to carry on his work.

Therefore, it was like this, you see: this letter was written to someone
who wanted to go out from here to collect money for Sri Aurobindo’s
work, and this person had no means at all. So he began by saying to Sri
Aurobindo, “But as I myself have no means, people will have no trust
in me, and I won’t be able to get anything.” And Sri Aurobindo
answered him something like this, that it is not the external force in its
most material form which is necessary, it is the handling of the inner
force which gives one control over money wherever it is: whether it is
in public institutions or with individuals, one obtains control over it and
one can, when it is necessary, attract by a certain movement what is
needed.

Sweet Mother, in what way have the money-forces left the Divine?

Eh?
(The child repeats its questions.)

It is precisely the main word in your questions which I don’t understand. In

what manner, in what way have the money-forces…

…left the Divine?

Left? The money-power belongs to a world which was created

deformed. It is something that belongs to the vital world; and he says
this, doesn’t he? He says that it belongs to the vital and material worlds.
And so at all times, always it was under the control of the Asuric
forces; and what must be done is precisely to reconquer it from the
Asuric forces.

That is why in the past, all those who wanted to do Yoga or follow a
discipline, used to say that one should not touch money, for it was
something—they said—diabolic or Asuric or at least altogether
opposed to the divine life. But the whole universe, in all its
manifestation, is the Divine Himself, and so belongs entirely to Him;
and it is on this ground that he says that the money-forces belong to the
Divine. One must reconquer them and give them to Him. They have
been under the influence of the Asuric forces: one must win them back
in order to put them at the disposal of the Divine so that He may be
able to use them for His work of transformations.

(Long silence)

Sweet Mother, it is men who have created money. Then how is it a divine

power?

Hm! (laughing) It is as though you told me: it is a man and woman who
have created another person, then how can he be divine in essence? It is
exactly the same thing! The whole creation is made externally by
external things, but behind that there are divine forces. What men have
invented—paper or coins or other objects—all these are but means of
expression—nothing else but that… I just said this a moment ago, it is
not the force itself, it is its material expression as men have created it.
But this is purely conventional. For example, there are countries where
small shells are exchanged instead of money. There are even countries
where… Someone has written a story like this: in the
North wealth means having hooks for fishing; and the rich man is he
who has the greatest number of fish-hooks. You know what these are,
don’t you?—small iron hooks for catching fish which are fixed at the
end of the line. So, the multimillionaire is one who has a huge number
of hooks!

It is purely conventional. What is behind is the force I am speaking

about, you see, and so it manifests in all sorts of ways. For example,
even gold, you know… men have given a certain value to gold, because
of all metals it deteriorates the least. It is preserved almost indefinitely.
And this is the reason, there’s no other. But it is a mere convention. The
proof is that each time a new gold-mine is found and exploited, the
value of gold has fallen. These are mere conventions between human
beings. But what makes money a power is not this, it is the force that’s
behind. As I was saying a while ago, it is a force that is able to attract
and use anything whatever, all material things and…

So this is used according to a convention. Now, it is understood

that wealth is represented by bits of paper which become very dirty,
and on which something is printed. They are altogether disgusting,
most often good only for lighting the fire. But it is considered a great
fortune. Why? Because that’s the convention. Yet one who is capable
of attracting this and using it for something good, to increase the
welfare of this world, the welfare and well-being of the world, that man
has a hold on the money-power, that is to say, the force that is
behind money.

In French we call money “argent“. “Argent“ is also the name of a white

metal which is just a little more… a little prettier and a little more
lasting than other metals, one which is less easily oxidised and spoilt.
So this is called “argent“, money. And then, by expansion, all that
is wealth is also called “argent“. It is really paper or gold or sometimes
just written things… because many large fortunes are only numbers
written on paper, not even these papers which circulate, only books!
There are immense fortunes which govern the world and are just
written on papers, like that, with some documents and conventions
 between men. The fortune may increase, become triple, fourfold,
tenfold, or else it may be reduced to nothing. They sell everything, they
sell cotton, they sell sugar, they sell corn, coffee, anything at all, but
there is nothing! There is no cotton, no sugar, no corn, nothing.
Everything is on paper! And so you buy millions of worth of cotton:
you don’t have a wisp of cotton there! It is all on paper. And so,
sometimes later, you sell it off again. If the price of cotton has
increased, you gain a fortune, if it has gone down you lose a fortune.
And you have with you neither money nor cotton nor anything, nothing
but paper. (Laughter) It is entirely a convention.

How can one merge oneself one’s separative ego in the divine
Consciousness?1

How can one merge in the divine Consciousness?

How must one merge oneself one’s separative ego in the divine
Consciousness?2

Eh? merge oneself?

…one’s separative ego…

I don’t understand what you mean. “Merge”?

…in the divine Consciousness.

Yes, that’s just what I mean… How can one dissolve, you mean dissolve in
the Divine, and lose one’s ego?

First of all, one must will it. And then one must aspire with great
perseverance, and each time the ego shows itself, one must give it a little rap
on the nose (Mother taps her nose) until it has received so many raps that it is
tired of them and gives up the game.

But usually, instead of rapping it on the nose, one justifies its presence.
Almost constantly, when it shows itself, one says, “After all, it is right.” And
mostly one doesn’t even know that it is the ego, one thinks it is oneself. But
the first condition is to find it essential not to have the ego any longer. One
must really understand that one doesn’t want it. It is not so easy. It is not so
easy! For one can very well turn words over in the head and say, “I don’t
want the ego any more, I no longer want to be separated from the Divine.”
All this goes on inside, like that. But it remain just there, it hasn’t much effect
on your life. The next moment you do something purely egoistic, you see,
and find it quite natural. It doesn’t even shock you.

One must first begin to understand truly what this means. The first method…
you see, there are many stages… first, one must try not to be selfish—which
is something quite different, isn’t it?… If you take the English words you
understand the difference. In English, you see, there is the word “selfish”,
and there is also the word “egoism”. The ego—“ego”—exists in English, and
“selfish”. And these are two very different things; in French there is not this
distinction. They say, “I don’t want to be selfish”, you see. But this is a very
small thing, very small! People, when they stop being selfish, think they have
made tremendous progress! But it’s a very small thing. It is simply, oh, it is
simply to have a see of its ridiculousness. You can’t imagine how ridiculous
these selfish people are!

When one sees them thinking all the time about themselves, referring
everything to themselves, governed simply by their own little person, placing
themselves in the centre of the universe and trying to organise the whole
universe including God around themselves, as though that were the most
important thing in the universe. If one could only see oneself objectively, you
know, as one sees oneself in a mirror, observe oneself living, it is so
grotesque! (Laughing) That’s enough for you to… One suddenly feels that he
is becoming—oh, so absolutely ridiculous!

I remember I read in French—it was a translation—a sentence of Tagore’s

which amused me very much. He was speaking of a little dog. He said… he
compared it with something… I don’t remember the details now, but what
struck me was this: the little dog was sitting on its mistress’s lap and fancying
itself the centre of the universe! This struck me very strongly. It is true! I
used to know a little dog like this! But there are many like that, almost all are
like that. You see, they want everybody to pay attention to them, and in fact
they succeed very well. Because when there is a little dog, as when there is a
little child—it’s almost the same thing—everyone attends to them.
Haven’t you noticed that when a child of this height (Mother indicates the
height) comes along, everything else stops? Before that, people could speak,
say interesting things, be busy with something higher; but as soon as a child
comes along, everybody begins to smile, to mimic a baby, to try to make it
speak, to attend to it. One can’t bring along a child without everybody fussing
over it, wanting to take it, to make it speak. So naturally the child feels itself
the centre of the universe! It is quite natural!

For a puppy it is the same thing, for a kitten it is the same. It is a kind of… it
is a very poor deformation of a kind of need to protect something that’s
smaller than oneself. And this is one of the forms, one of the earliest forms of
unegoistic manifestation of the ego! It feels so comfortable when it can
protect something, busy itself with something much smaller, much weaker
than itself, which is almost at its mercy, almost—even entirely—at its mercy,
which has no power to resist. And so one feels good and generous because
one doesn’t crush it!

This is the first manifestation of generosity in the world. But all this, when
one can see behind it and a little above, it cures you from being selfish, for
truly it is ridiculous! It is truly ridiculous!

So there is a long, long, long way to go before merging one’s ego in the
Divine.

Merge one’s ego in the Divine! But first, one can’t merge one’s ego in the
Divine before becoming completely individualised. Do you know what it
means to be completely individualised? Capable of resisting all outer
influences?

Some days ago I received a letter from someone who told me that he was
very hesitant about reading books of ordinary literatures, for example, novels
or dramas, because his nature had an almost insuperable tendency to receive
imprints of the characters in these books and to begin living the feelings and
thoughts of these characters, the nature of these persons. There are many
more people than one would think who are like that. They read a book and
while they are reading it they feel within themselves all kinds of emotions,
thoughts, desires, intentions, plans, even ideals. They are simply just
absorbed in the reading of the book. They are not even aware of it, because at
least ninety-nine parts of an individual’s character are made of soft butter—
inedible of course… but on which if one presses one’s thumb, an imprint is
made.

Now, everything is a “thumb”: an expressed thought, a sentence read, an

object looked at, an observation of what someone else does, and of one’s
neighbour’s will. And all these wills… you know, when one sees them they
are all there, like this, intermingled (Mother intercrosses her fingers), each
one trying to get the uppermost and causing a kind of perpetual conflict
within, outside… It goes in and out of people like that, you see, like electric
currents. One is not at all aware of all this, and it is a perpetual conflict of all
the wills which are trying to express themselves; and the strongest one will
succeed. But as there are many of these and as one has to fight alone against a
great number, it is not easy.

So one is tossed like a cork on the waves of the sea…. One day one wants
this, the next day one wants that, at one moment one is pushed from this side,
at another from that, now one lifts one’s face to the sky (Mother makes the
movement), now one is sunk deep in a hole. And so this is the existence one
has!

First one must become a conscious, well-knit, individualised being, who

exists in himself, by himself, independently of all his surroundings, who can
hear anything, read anything, see anything without changing. He receives
from outside only what he wants to receive; he automatically refuses all that
is not in conformity with his plan and nothing can leave an imprint on him
unless he agrees to receive the imprint. Then one begins to become an
individuality! When one is an individuality, one can make an offering of it.

For, unless one possesses something, one cannot give it. First, one must be,
and then afterwards one can give oneself.

So long as one does not exist, one can give nothing. And for the separative
ego to disappear, as you say, one must be able to give oneself entirely, totally
without reservation. And to be able to give oneself, one must first exist. And
to exist one must be individualised.
If your body were not made in the rigid form it is—for it is terribly rigid, isn’t
it? —well, if all that were not so fixed, if you had no skin, here, like this,
solid, if externally you were the reflection of what you are in the vital and
mental fields, it would be worse than being a jelly-fish! Everything would
fuse into everything else, like this… Oh, what a mess it would be! That is
why it was at first necessary to give a very rigid form. Afterwards we
complain about it. We say, “The physical is fixed, it is a nuisance; it lacks
plasticity, it lacks suppleness, it hasn’t that fluidity which can enable us to
merge into the Divine.” But this was absolutely necessary, for without this…
if you simply went out of your body (most of you can’t do it because the vital
being is hardly more individualised than the physical), if you came out of
your body and went into the vital world, you would see that all things there
intermingle, they are mixed, they divide; all kinds of vibrations, currents of
forces come and go, struggle, try to destroy one another, take possession of
each other, absorb each other, throw each other out… and so it goes on! But
it is very difficult to find a real personality in all this. These are forces,
movements, desires, vibrations.

There are individualities, there are personalities! But these are powers.
People who are individualised in that world are either heroes or devils!

And now, in the mind… (Silence) If only you become conscious of your
physical mind in itself…. Some people have called it a public square, because
everything comes there, goes across, passes, comes back…. All ideas go
there, they enter at one place, leave by another, some are here, some there,
and it is a public square, not very well organised, for usually ideas meet and
knock into one another, there are accidents of all kinds. But then one
becomes aware: “What can I call my mind?“ or “What is my mind?“

One needs years of very attentive, very careful, very reasonable, very
coherent work, organisation, selection, constructions, in order to succeed
simply in forming, oh, simply this little thing, one’s own way of thinking!

One believes he has his own way of thinking. Not at all. It depends totally
upon the people one speaks with or the books he has read or on the mood he
is in. It depends also on whether you have a good or bad digestion, it depends
on whether you are shut up in a room without proper ventilation or whether
you are in the open air; it depends on whether you have a beautiful landscape
before you; it depends on whether there is sunshine or drain! You are not
aware of it, but you think all kinds of things, completely different according
to a heap of things which have nothing to do with you!

And for this to become a coordinated, coherent, logical thought, a long

thorough work is necessary. And then, the best of the business is that when
you have succeeded in making a beautiful, well-formed, very strong, very
powerful mental constructions, the first thing you will be told is, “You must
break this so that you can unite with the Divine!” But so long as you haven’t
made it, you cannot unite with the Divine because you have nothing to give
to the Divine except a mass of things which are not yourself! One must first
exist in order to be able to give oneself. I am repeating what I said a while
ago.

Truly, in the present state of the world, the only thing one can give the Divine
is one’s body. But that’s what one doesn’t give Him. Yes, one can try to
consecrate one’s work! But still, here there are so many elements which are
not true!

You want to merge your body in the Divine, eh? Just try! How are you going
to do this? You can merge your mind, you can merge your vital, you can fuse
all your emotions, you can fuse all your aspiration, you can fuse all that, but
your body—how are you going to do that? You are not going to melt it in a
boiling-pot! (Laughter) And yet it is the only thing about which you can say
with certitude, “It is”, and give a name to it; yet even your name is a
convention… but still, you are in the habit of calling yourself by a certain
name—say, “This, this is I.” You look at yourself in a mirror, and although
what you were twenty years ago is very different from what you are now… it
is unrecognisable… still something makes you say all the same, “Yes, this is
I.” Yes? “I am so-and-so”—Peter, Louis, Jack, André, whoever it may be…

(After a silence) And even this, if one were to look at oneself, every seven
years all the cells are changed, and it is only by a kind of habit that it remain
the same. Does it remain the same? Do you have photographs of the time you
were very young? And the photographs when you were ten, twenty, thirty
years old—it is because one very much wants to do so that one recognises
oneself; otherwise, truly, one is not at all the same…. When you were this
height and now when you are this height, that makes a considerable
difference! So, there we are…

All this… it is not in order to swamp you that I tell you all this. It is only in
order to tell you that before speaking of merging one’s ego in the Divine, one
must first know a little what one is. The ego is there. Its necessity is that you
become conscious, independent beings, individualised—I mean in the see of
independent—that you may not be the public square where everything goes
criss-cross! That you may exist in yourselves. That is why there is an ego. It
is like that; that is why also there is a skin, like that… though truly, even
physical forces pass through the skin. There is a vibrations which goes a
certain distance. But still, it’s the skin that prevents us from blending into one
another. But everything else must be like that too.

(After a silence) And then, later, one offers all this to the Divine. Years of
work are needed. You must not only…(silence)… become conscious of
yourself, conscious in all details, but you must organise what you call
“yourself” around the psychic centre, the divine centre of your being, so that
it would make a single, coherent, fully conscious being. And as this divine
centre is itself already consecrated (Mother makes a gesture of offering)
entirely to the Divine, if everything is organised harmoniously around it,
everything is consecrated to the Divine. And so, when the Divine thinks it
proper, when the time has come, when the work of individualisation is
complete, then the Divine gives you permission to let your ego merge in Him,
to live henceforward only for the Divine.

But it is the Divine who takes this decision. You must first have done all this
work, become a conscious being, solely and exclusively centred around the
Divine and governed by Him. And after all that, there is still an ego; because
it is the ego which serves to make you an individual. But once this work is
perfect, fully accomplished, then, at that moment, you may tell the Divine,
“Here I am, I am ready. Do you want me?” And the Divine usually says,
“Yes.” All is over, everything is accomplished. And you become a real
instrument for the Divine’s work. But first the instrument must be
constructed.

You think that you are sent to school, that you are made to do exercises, all
this just for the pleasure of vexing you? Oh, no! It is because it’s
indispensable for you to have a frame in which you can learn how to form
yourself. If you did your work of individualisation, of total formations, by
yourself, all alone in a corner, nothing at all would be asked of you. But you
don’t do it, you wouldn’t do it, there’s not a single child who would do it, he
wouldn’t even know how to do it, where to begin. If a child were not taught
how to live, he could not live, he wouldn’t know how to do anything,
anything. I don’t want to speak about disgusting details, but even the most
elementary things he would not do properly if he were not taught how to do
them. Therefore, one must, step by step… That is to say, if everyone had to
go through the whole experience needed for the formations of an
individuality, he would be long dead before having begun to live! This is the
contribution—accumulated through centuries—of those who have had the
experience and tell you, “Well, if you want to go quickly, to know in a few
years what has been learnt through centuries, do this!” Read, learn, study and
then, in the material field, you will be taught to do this in this way, that in
that way, this again in this way (gestures). Once you know a little, you can
find your own method, if you have the genius for it! But first one must stand
on one’s own feet and know how to walk. It is very difficult to learn it all
alone. It’s like that for everyone. One must form oneself. Therefore, one
needs education. There we are!

(To a child) Do you have something to ask? No? Is there anyone who has
something to ask?

Mother, last time you said that often there is in us a dark element which…
which suggests to us… which makes us commit stupidities. So you said that
when one is conscious of this element, it must be pulled out. But does pulling
it out mean… For example, when one is conscious that this element comes to
make us do stupid things, then, if by an effort of will one abstain from doing
it, can one say that one has pulled it out?

That one doesn’t commit stupidities?

By an effort of will. For example, one doesn’t do that action which one
shouldn’t do.

Yes, yes.
Then, can one say that one has pulled out the element which was the cause?

One has sat upon it.

Then, how to pull it out?

For that, first of all, you must become conscious of it, you see, put it right in
front of you, and cut the links which attach it to your consciousness. It is a
work of inner psychology, you know.

One can see, when one studies oneself very attentively…. For example, if
you observe yourself, you see that one day you are very generous. Let us take
this, it is easy to understand. Very generous: generous in your feelings,
generous in your sensations, generous in your thoughts and even in material
things; that is, you understand the faults of others, their intentions,
weaknesses, even nasty movements. You see all this, and you are full of good
feelings, of generosity. You tell yourself, “Well… everyone does the best he
can!”—like that.

Another day—or perhaps the very next minute—you will notice in yourself a
kind of dryness, fixity, something that is bitter, that judges severely, that goes
as far as bearing a grudge, has rancour, would like the evil-doer punished,
that almost has feelings of vengeance; just the very opposite of the former!
One day someone harms you and you say, “Doesn’t matter! He did not
know”… or “He couldn’t do otherwise”… or “That’s his nature”… or “He
could not understand!” The next day—or perhaps an hour later—you say,
“He must be punished! He must pay for it! He must be made to feel that he
has done wrong!”—with a kind of rage; and you want to take things, you
want to keep them for yourself, you have all the feelings of jealousy, envy,
narrowness, you see, just the very opposite of the other feeling.

This is the dark side. And so, the moment one sees it, if one looks at it and
doesn’t say, “It is I”, if one says, “No, it is my shadow, it is the being I must
throw out of myself”, one puts on it the light of the other part, one tries to
bring them face to face; and with the knowledge and light of the other, one
doesn’t try so much to convince—because that is very difficult—but one
compels it to remain quiet… first to stand farther away, then one flings it
very far away so that it can no longer return—putting a great light on it.
There are instances in which it is possible to change, but this is very rare.
There are instances in which one can put upon this being—or this shadow—
put upon it such an intense light that it transforms it, and it changes into what
is the truth of your being.

But this is a rare thing…It can be done, but it is rare. Usually, the best thing
is to say, “No, this is not I! I don’t want it! I have nothing to do with this
movement, it doesn’t exist for me, it is something contrary to my nature!”
And so, by dint of insisting and driving it away, finally one separates oneself
from it.

But one must first be clear and sincere enough to see the conflict within
oneself. Usually one doesn’t pay any attention to these things. One goes from
one extreme to the other. You see, you can say, to put it in very simple
words: one day I am good, the next day I am bad. And this seems quite
natural… Or even, sometimes for one hour you are good and the next hour
you are wicked; or else, sometimes the whole day through one is good and
suddenly one becomes wicked, for a minute very wicked, all the more wicked
as one was good! Only, one doesn’t observe it, thoughts cross one’s mind,
violent, bad, hateful things, like that… Usually one pays no attention to it.
But this is what must be caught! As soon as it manifests, you must catch it
like this (Mother makes a movement) with a very firm grip, and then hold it,
hold it up to the light and say, “No! I—don’t—want—you! I don’t want you!
I have nothing to do with this! You are going to get out of here, and you
won’t return!”

(After a silence) And this is something—an experience that one can have
daily, or almost… when one has those movements of great enthusiasm, great
aspiration, when one suddenly becomes conscious of the divine goal, the urge
towards the Divine, the desire to take part in the divine work, when one
comes out of oneself in a great joy and great force… and then, a few hours
later, one is miserable for a tiny little thing; one indulges in so petty, so
narrow, so commonplace a self-interestedness, has such a dull desire… and
all the rest has evaporated as if it did not exist. One is quite accustomed to
contradictions; one doesn’t pay attention to this and that is why all these
things live comfortably together as neighbours. One must first discover them
and prevent them from intermingling in one’s consciousness: decide between
them, separate the shadow from the light. Later one can get rid of the shadow.
There we are, and now it is time. Anything urgent to ask? No?

Sweet Mother…

Ah!

…between mental preference and vital insistences, which are the more
dangerous for yoga?

Those that one has! (Laughter)

1. The French text here is wrongly spoken by the child. ↩

2. The French text here is wrongly spoken by the child. ↩

***

Some good students give so much importance to money that it gives a shock.

Can we discuss the matter?

Yes, try—it is very much needed. Money seems to have become the Supreme

Lord these days—truth is receding in the background, as for Love, it is quite
out of sight!

I mean Divine Love because what human beings call love is a very good
friend of money.

***

When a child wants to impress you by telling you stories of the wealth of his
family, you must not keep quiet. You must explain to him that
worldly wealth does not count here, only the wealth that has been offered to
the Divine has some value; that you do not become big by living in big
houses, travelling by first-class and spending money lavishly. You can
increase in stature only by being truthful, sincere, obedient and grateful.1
***

July 6, 1958
This morning I asked myself the question, ‘is money truly under Nature’s
control?’ I shall have to see … Because for me personally, she always gives
everything in abundance.

When I was young, I was as poor as a turkey, as poor as could be! As an

artist, I sometimes had to go out in society (as artists are forced to do). I had
lacquered boots that were cracked … and I painted them so it wouldn’t show!
This is to tell you the state I was in—poor as a turkey. So one day, in a shop
window, I saw a very pretty petticoat much in fashion then, with lace,
ribbons, etc. (It was the fashion in those days to have long skirts which trailed
on the floor, and I didn’t have a petticoat which could go with such things—I
didn’t care, it didn’t matter to me in the least, but since Nature had told me I
would always have everything I needed, I wanted to make an experiment.) So
I said, ‘Well, I would very much like to have a petticoat to go with those
skirts.’ I got five of them! They came from every direction!

And it is always like that. I never ask for anything, but if by chance I say to
myself, ‘Hmm, wouldn’t it be nice to have that,’ mountains of them pour in!
So last year, I made an experiment, I told Nature, ‘Listen, my little one, you
say that you will collaborate, you told me I would never lack anything. Well
then, to put it on a level of feelings, it would really be fun, it would give me
joy (in the style of Krishna’s joy), to have A LOT of money to do everything
I feel like doing. It’s not that I want to increase things for myself, no; you
give me more than I need. But to have some fun, to be able to give freely, to
do things freely, to spend freely—I am asking you to give me a crore of
rupees1 for my birthday!

She didn’t do a thing! Nothing, absolutely nothing: a complete refusal. Did

she refuse or was she unable to? It may be that … I always saw
that money was under the control of an asuric force. (I am speaking of
currency, ‘cash’; I don’t want to do business. When I try to do business, it
generally succeeds very well, but I don’t mean that. I am speaking of cash.) I
never asked her that question.

You see, this is how it happened: there’s this Ganesh2 … We had a meditation
(this was more than thirty years ago) in the room where ‘Prosperity’3 is now
distributed. There were eight or ten of us, I believe. We used to make
sentences with flowers; I arranged the flowers, and each one made a sentence
with the different flowers I had put there. And one day when the subject of
prosperity or wealth came up, I thought (they always say that Ganesh is the
god of money, of fortune, of the world’s wealth), I thought, ‘Isn’t this whole
story of the god with an elephant trunk merely a lot of human imagination?’
Thereupon, we meditated. And who should I see walk in and park himself in
front of me but a living being, absolutely alive and luminous, with a trunk
that long … and smiling! So then, in my meditation, I said, ‘Ah! So it’s true
that you exist!’—‘Of course I exist! And you may ask me for whatever you
wish, from a monetary standpoint, of course, and I will give it to you!’

So I asked. And for about ten years, it poured in, like this (gesture of
torrents). It was incredible. I would ask, and at the next Darshan, or a month
or several days later, depending, there it was.

Then the war and all the difficulties came, bringing a tremendous increase of
people and expenditure (the war cost a fortune—anything at all cost ten times
more than before), and suddenly, finished, nothing more. Not exactly
nothing, but a thin little trickle. And when I asked, it didn’t come. So one
day, I put the question to Ganesh through his image (! ), I asked him, ‘What
about your promise?’—‘I can’t do it, it’s too much for me; my means are too
limited!’—‘Ah!’ I said to myself (laughing), ‘What bad luck!’ And I no
longer counted on him.

Once someone even asked Santa Claus! A young Muslim girl who had a
special liking for ‘Father Christmas’—I don’t know why, as it was not part of
her religion! Without saying a word to me, she called on Santa Claus and told
him, ‘Mother doesn’t believe in you; you should give Her a gift to prove to
Her that you exist. You can give it to Her for Christmas.’ And it happened!
… She was quite proud.
But it only happened like that once. And as for Ganesh, that was the end of it.
So then I asked Nature. It took her a long time to accept to collaborate. But as
for the money, I shall have to ask her about it; because for me personally, it is
still going on. I think, ‘Hmm, wouldn’t it be nice to have a wristwatch like
that.’ And I get twenty of them! I say to myself, ‘Well, if I had that …’ and I
get thirty of them! Things come in from every side, without my even uttering
a word—I don’t even ask, they just come.

The first time I came here and spoke with Sri Aurobindo about what was
needed for the Work, he told me (he also wrote it to me) that for the secure
achievement of the Work we would need three powers: one was the power
over health, the second was the power over government, and the third was the
power over money.

Health naturally depends upon the sadhana; but even that is not so sure: there
are other factors. As for the second, the power over government, Sri
Aurobindo looked at it, studied it, considered it very carefully, and finally he
told me, ‘There is only one way to have that power: it is TO BE the
government. One can influence individuals, one can transmit the will to them,
but their hands are tied. In a government, there is no one individual, nor even
several who is all-powerful and who can decide things. One must be the
government oneself and give it the desired orientation.’

For the last, for money, he told me, ‘I still don’t know exactly what it
depends on.’ Then one day I entered into trance with this idea in mind, and
after a certain journey I came to a place like a subterranean grotto (which
means that it is in the subconscient, or perhaps even in the inconscient) which
was the source, the place and the power over money. I was about to enter into
this grotto (a kind of inner cave) when I saw, coiled and upright, an immense
serpent, like an all black python, formidable, as big as a seven-story house,
who said, ‘You cannot pass!’—‘Why not? Let me pass!’—‘Myself, I would
let you pass, but if I did, “they” would immediately destroy me.’—‘Who,
then, is this “they”?’—‘They are the asuric4 powers who rule over money.
They have put me here to guard the entrance, precisely so that you may not
enter.’—‘And what is it that would give one the power to enter?’ Then he
told me something like this: ‘I heard (that is, he himself had no special
knowledge, but it was something he had heard from his masters, those who
ruled over him), I heard that he who will have a total power over the human
sexual impulses (not merely in himself, but a universal power—that is, a
power enabling him to control this everywhere, among all men) will have the
right to enter.’ In other words, these forces would not be able to prevent him
from entering.

A personal realization is very easy, it is nothing at all; a personal realization

is one thing, but the power to control it among all men—that is, to control or
master such movements at will, everywhere—is quite another. I don’t believe
that this … condition has been fulfilled. If what the serpent said is true and if
this is really what will vanquish these hostile forces that rule over money,
well then, it has not been fulfilled.

It has been fulfilled to a certain extent—but it’s negligible. It is conditional,

limited: in one case, it works; in another, it doesn’t. It is quite problematic.
And naturally, where terrestrial things are involved (I don’t say universal, but
in any case terrestrial), when it is something involving the earth, it must be
complete; there cannot be any approximations.

Therefore, it’s an affair between the asuras and the human species. To
transform itself is the only solution left to the human species—in other
words, to tear from the asuric forces the power of ruling over the human
species.

You see, the human species is a part of Nature, but as Sri Aurobindo has
explained, from the moment mind expressed itself in man, it put him into a
relationship with Nature very different from the relationship all the lower
species have with her. All the lower species right up to man are completely
under the rule of Nature; she makes them do whatever she wants, and they
can do nothing without her consent. Whereas man begins to act and to live as
an equal; not as an equal in terms of power, but from the standpoint of
consciousness (he is beginning to do so since he has the capacity to study and
to find out Nature’s secrets). He is not superior to her, far from it, but he is on
an equal footing. And so he has acquired—this is a fact—he has acquired a
certain power of independence that he immediately used to put himself under
the influence of the hostile forces, which are not terrestrial but extra-
terrestrial.
I am speaking of terrestrial Nature. Through their mental power, men had the
choice and the freedom to make pacts with these extraterrestrial vital forces.
There is a whole vital world that has nothing to do with the earth, it is entirely
independent or prior to earth’s existence, it is self-existent—well, they have
brought that down here! They have made … what we see! And such being
the case … This is what terrestrial Nature told me: ‘It is beyond my control.’

So considering all that, Sri Aurobindo came to the conclusion that only the
supramental power … (Mother brings down her hands) as he said, will be
able to rule over everything. And when that happens, it will be all over—
including Nature. For a long time, Nature rebelled (I have written about it
often). She used to say, ‘Why are you in such a hurry? It will be done one
day.’ But then last year, there was that extraordinary experience. 5 And it was
because of that experience that I told her, ‘Well, now that we agree, give me
some proof; I am asking you for some proof—do it for me.’ She didn’t
budge, absolutely nothing.

Perhaps it is a kind of … it can hardly be called an intuition, but a kind of

divination of this idea that made people speak of ‘selling one’s soul to the
devil for money,’ of money being an evil force, which produces this
shrinking on the part of all those who want to lead a spiritual life—but as for
that, they shrink from everything, not only from money!

Perhaps it would not be necessary to have this power over all men, but in any
event, it should be great enough to act upon the mass. It is likely that once a
certain movement has been mastered to some degree, what the mass does or
doesn’t do (this whole human mass that has barely, barely emerged into even
the mental consciousness) will become quite irrelevant. You see, the mass is
still under the great rule of Nature. I am referring to mental humanity,
predominantly mental, which developed the mind but misused it and
immediately set out on the wrong path—first thing.

There is nothing to say since the first thing done by the divine forces which
emanated for the Creation was to take the wrong path!6 That is the origin, the
seed of this marvelous spirit of independence—the negation of surrender, in
other words. Man said, ‘I have the power to think; I will do with it what I
want, and no one has the right to intervene. I am free, I am an independent
being, IN-DE-PEN-DENT! So that’s how things stand: we are all
independent beings!

But yesterday, in fact, I was looking (with all these mantras and these prayers
and this whole vibration that has descended into the atmosphere, creating a
state of constant calling in the atmosphere), and I remembered the old
movements and how everything now has changed! I was also thinking of the
old disciplines, one of which is to say, ‘I am That.’7 People were told to sit in
meditation and repeat, ‘I am That,’ to reach an identification. And it all
seemed to me so obsolete, so childish, but at the same time a part of the
whole. I looked, and it seemed so absurd to sit in meditation and say, ‘I am
That’! ‘I,’ what is this ‘I’ who is That; what is this ‘I,’ where is it? … I was
trying to find it, and I saw a tiny, microscopic point (to see it would almost
require some gigantic instrument), a tiny, obscure point in an im-men-sity of
Light, and that little point was the body. At the same time—it was absolutely
simultaneous—I saw the Presence of the Supreme as a very, very, very,
VERY immense Being, within which was ‘I’ in an attitude of … (‘I’ was
only a sensation, you see), an attitude … (gesture of surrender) like this.
There were no limits, yet at the same time, one felt the joy of being
permeated, enveloped and of being able to widen, widen, widen indefinitely
—to widen the whole being, from the highest consciousness to the most
material consciousness. And then, at the same time, to look at this body and
to see every cell, every atom vibrating with a divine, radiant Presence with all
its Consciousness, all its Power, all its Will, all its Love—all, all, really—and
a joy! An extraordinary joy. And one did not disturb the other, nothing was
contradictory and everything was felt at the same time. That was when I said,
‘But truly! This body had to have the training it has had for more than
seventy years to be able to bear all that without starting to cry out or dance or
leap up or whatever it might be!’ No, it was calm (it was exultant, but it was
very calm), and it remained in control of its movements and its words. In
spite of the fact that it was really living in another world, it could apparently
act normal due to this strenuous training in self-control by the REASON—by
the reason—over the whole being, which has tamed it and given it such a
great cohesive power that I can BE in the experience, I can LIVE this
experience, and at the same time respond with the most amiable of smiles to
the most idiotic questions!
And then, it always ends in the same way, by a canticle to the action of the
grace: ‘O, Lord! You are truly marvelous! All the experiences I have needed
to pass through You have given to me, all the things I needed to do to make
this body ready You have made me do, and always with the feeling that it
was You who was making me do it’—and with the universal disapproval of
all the right-minded humanity!

1. About one million dollars. ↩

2. Ganesh: a god with the head of an elephant; the son of Parvati, the
Divine Mother. ↩

3. The room where, on the first of each month, Mother distributed to the
disciples their needs for the month. ↩

4. Asuras: the demons or dark forces of the mental plane. ↩

5. The experience of Nature's collaboration (November 8, 1957). ↩

6. In effect, according to tradition, the first divine forces that emanated for
the creation were the Asuras, who turned into demons. The gods were
created later to repair the disorder engendered by the demons. ↩

7. So'ham, the traditional mantra of the Vedantic path, which declares that
the world is an illusion. ↩

***

24 Apr 1938
First of all, from the financial point of view, the principle on which our action
is based is the following: money is not meant to make money. This idea
that money must make money is a falsehood and a perversion.

Money is meant to increase the wealth, the prosperity and the productiveness

of a group, a country or, better, of the whole earth. Money is a means, a
force, a power, and not an end in itself. And like all forces and all powers, it
is by movement and circulation that it grows and increases its power, not by
accumulation and stagnation.

What we are attempting here is to prove to the world, by giving it a concrete

example, that by inner psychological realisation and outer organisation a
world can be created where most of the causes of human misery will be
abolished.

***

A friend wishes to collect money for you. He says he will be very much

helped if you write for him a statement about approaching people for
monetary help.

I am not in the habit of writing for money from anybody. If people do not feel

that it is for them a great opportunity and Grace to be able to give
their money for the Divine cause, tant pis pour eux!1 Money is needed for the
work―money is bound to come; as for who will have the privilege of giving
it, that remains to be seen.

24 April 1938

1. So much the worse for them! ↩

***

20 Apr 1951
The money is not mine, the money belongs to the Ashram and the Ashram
does not lend money. Also it cannot favour so particularly someone,
especially when this person has not been too faithful to the Ashram.

20 April 1951
***

15 May 1954
The Ashram is having financial difficulty, yet people ask for their pound of
flesh. As students we used to fast for helping those who were victims of an
earthquake or flood.

Unhappily (?) the present difficulty is neither a flood nor a famine, nor a war,
nor an earthquake nor a conflagration or any of those things which move the
human sentiments and make them dominate for a while the material desires
named “needs”.

Money difficulties generally make people dry and even bitter, if not

rebellious. And I know of some people who are on the verge of losing
their faith because I do not have all the money I need!

***

When money is missing it must be replaced by an immense effort of goodwill

and organisation. It is that effort that I am asking for, a triumph over Tamas
and lazy indifference.

I do not want anybody to give up but I want everyone to surpass himself.

12 May 1929
There are some human beings who are like vampires. What are they and why
are they like that?

They are not human; there is only a human form or appearance. They are
incarnations of beings from the world that is just next to the physical, beings
who live on the plane which we call the vital world. It is a world of all the
desires and impulses and passions and of movements of violence and greed
and cunning and every kind of ignorance; but all the dynamisms too are
there, all the life-energies and all the powers. The beings of this world have
by their nature a strange grip over the material world and can exercise upon it
a sinister influence. Some of them are formed out of the remains of the
human being that persist after death in the vital atmosphere near to the earth-
plane. His desires and hungers still float there and remain in form even after
the dissolution of the body; often they are moved to go on manifesting and
satisfying themselves and the birth of these creatures of the vital world is the
consequence. But these are minor beings and, if they can be very
troublesome, it is yet not impossible to deal with them. There are others, far
more dangerous, who have never been in human form; never were they born
into a human body upon earth, for most often they refuse to accept this way
of birth because it is slavery to matter and they prefer to remain in their own
world, powerful and mischievous, and to control earthly beings from there.
For, if they do not want to be born on earth, they do want to be in contact
with the physical nature, but without being bound by it. Their method is to try
first to cast their influence upon a man; then they enter slowly into his
atmosphere and in the end may get complete possession of him, driving out
entirely the real human soul and personality. These creatures, when in
possession of an earthly body, may have the human appearance but they have
not a human nature. Their habit is to draw upon the life-force of human
beings; they attack and capture vital power wherever they can and feed upon
it. If they come into your atmosphere, you suddenly feel depressed and
exhausted; if you are near them for some time you fall sick; if you live with
one of them, it may kill you.

But how is one to get such creatures out of one’s environment when they are
once there?

The vital power incarnated in these beings is of a very material kind and it is
effective only within a short distance. Ordinarily, if you do not live in the
same house or if you are not in the same company with them, you do not
come within their influence. But if you open some channel of connection or
communication, through letters, for example, then you make possible an
interchange of forces and are liable to be influenced by them even from a far
distance. The wisest way with these beings is to cut off all connection and
have nothing to do with them—unless indeed you have great occult
knowledge and power and have learned how to cover and protect yourself—
but even then it is always a dangerous thing to move about with them. To
hope to transform them, as some people do, is a vain illusion; for they do not
want to be transformed. They have no intention of allowing any
transformation and all effort in that direction is useless.

These beings, when in the human body, are not often conscious of what they
really are. Sometimes they have a vague feeling that they are not quite human
in the ordinary way. But still there are cases where they are conscious and
very conscious; not only do they know that they do not belong to humanity
but they know what they are, act in that knowledge and deliberately pursue
their ends. The beings of the vital world are powerful by their very nature;
when to their power they add knowledge, they become doubly dangerous.
There is nothing to be done with these creatures; you should avoid having
any dealings with them unless you have the power to crush and destroy them.
If you are forced into contact with them, beware of the spell they can cast.
These vital beings, when they manifest on the physical plane, have always a
great hypnotic power; for the centre of their consciousness is in the vital
world and not in the material and they are not veiled and dwarfed by the
material consciousness as human beings are.

Is it not a fact that these creatures are drawn by some peculiar fascination
towards the spiritual life?

Yes, because they feel they do not belong to this earth but come from
somewhere else; and they feel too that they have powers they have half lost
and they are eager to win them back. So whenever they meet anyone who can
give them some knowledge of the invisible world, they rush to him. But they
mistake the vital for the spiritual world and in their seeking follow vital and
not spiritual ends. Or perhaps they deliberately seek to corrupt spirituality
and build up an imitation of it in the mould of their own nature. Even then it
is a kind of homage they pay, or a sort of amends they make, in their own
way, to the spiritual life. And there is too some kind of attraction that
compels them; they have revolted against the Divine rule, but in spite of their
revolt or perhaps because of it, they feel somehow bound and are powerfully
attracted by its presence.

This is how it happens that you see them sometimes used as instruments to
bring into connection with each other those who are to realise the spiritual
life upon earth. They do not purposely serve this use, but are compelled to it.
It is a kind of compensation that they pay. For they feel the pressure of the
descending Light, they sense that the time has come or is soon coming when
they must choose between conversion or dissolution, choose either to
surrender to the Divine Will and take their part in the Great Plan or to sink
into unconsciousness and cease to be. The contact with a seeker of Truth
gives such a being his chance to change. All depends upon how he utilises his
chance. Taken rightly, it may open his way to liberation from falsehood and
obscurity and misery, which is the stuff out of which these vital creatures are
made, and bring him to Regeneration and to Life.

Have not these beings a great control over money power?

Yes. The power of money is at present under the influence or in the hands of
the forces and beings of the vital world. It is because of this influence that
you never see money going in any considerable amount to the cause of Truth.
Always it goes astray, because it is in the clutch of the hostile forces and is
one of the principal means by which they keep their grip upon the earth. The
hold of the hostile forces upon money-power is powerfully, completely and
thoroughly organised and to extract anything out of this compact organisation
is a most difficult task. Each time that you try to draw a little of
this money away from its present custodians, you have to undertake a fierce
battle.

And yet one signal victory somewhere over the adverse forces that have the
hold upon money would make victory possible simultaneously and
automatically at all other points also. If in one place they yielded, all who
now feel that they cannot give money to the cause of Truth would suddenly
experience a great and intense desire to give. It is not that those rich men who
are more or less toys and instruments in the hands of the vital forces are
averse to spend; their avarice is awake only when the vital desires and
impulses are not touched. For when it is to gratify some desire that they call
their own, they spend readily; but when they are called to share their ease and
the benefits of their wealth with others, then they find it hard to part with
their money. The vital power controlling money is like a guardian who keeps
his wealth in a big safe always tightly closed. Each time the people who are
in its grasp are asked to part with their money, they put all sorts of careful
questions before they will consent to open their purses even a very little way;
but if a vital impulse arises in them with its demand, the guardian is happy to
open wide the coffer and money flows out freely. Commonly, the vital
desires he obeys are connected with the sex impulses, but very often too he
yields to the desire for fame and consideration, the desire for food or any
other desire that is on the same vital level; whatever does not belong to this
category is closely questioned and scrutinised, grudgingly admitted and most
often refused help in the end. In those who are slaves of vital beings, the
desire for truth and light and spiritual achievement, even if it at all touches
them, cannot balance the desire for money. To win money from their hands
for the Divine means to fight the devil out of them; you have first to conquer
or convert the vital being whom they serve, and it is not an easy task. Men
who are under the sway of vital creatures can change from a life of ease, cast
away enjoyment and become intensely ascetic and yet remain just as wicked
as ever and even by the change turn worse than before.

11 January 1956
Read in French No   Yes

Show Page Number No   Yes

Mother, “this craving life-force or desire-soul in us has to be accepted at

first, but only in order that it may be transformed.”

Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 20, p. 77

But even when we understand that it is a desire and must be rejected, there
are difficulties in discerning if it is a desire leading us to the Divine or if it is
purely desire.

One deceives oneself only when one wants to deceive oneself. It is very, very
different.
But within, one understands.

Good. Well, then that’s enough, if one understands somewhere, that’s

enough. Is that all? No questions?

Mother, on January 6 you said, “Give all you are, all you have, nothing more
is asked of you but also nothing less.”

Yes.

What is meant by “all you have” and “all you are”?

I am going to tell you in what circumstances I wrote this; that will make you
understand:

Someone wrote to me saying that he was very unhappy, for he longed to have
wonderful capacities to put at the disposal of the Divine, for the Realisation,
for the Work; and that he also longed to have immense riches to be able to
give them, to put them at the feet of the Divine for the Work. So I replied to
him that he need not be unhappy, that each one is asked to give what he has,
that is, all his possessions whatever they may be, and what he is, that is, all
his potentialities—which corresponds to the consecration of one’s life and the
giving of all one’s possessions—and that nothing more than this is asked.
What you are, give that; what you have, give that, and your gift will be
perfect; from the spiritual point of view it will be perfect. This does not
depend upon the amount of wealth you have or the number of capacities in
your nature; it depends upon the perfection of your gift, that is to say, on the
totality of your gift. I remember having read, in a book of Indian legends, a
story like this. There was a very poor, very old woman who had nothing, who
was quite destitute, who lived in a miserable little hut, and who had been
given a fruit. It was a mango. She had eaten half of it and kept the other half
for the next day, because it was something so marvellous that she did not
often happen to get it—a mango. And then, when night fell, someone
knocked at the rickety door and asked for hospitality. And this someone came
in and told her he wanted shelter and was hungry. So she said to him, “Well, I
have no fire to warm you, I have no blanket to cover you, and I have half a
mango left, that is all I have, if you want it; I have eaten half of it.” And it
turned out that this someone was Shiva, and that she was filled with an inner
glory, for she had made a perfect gift of herself and all she had.

I read that, I found it magnificent. Well, yes, this describes it vividly. It’s
exactly that.

The rich man, or even people who are quite well-off and have all sorts of
things in life and give to the Divine what they have in surplus—for usually
this is the gesture: one has a little more money than one needs, one has a few
more things than one needs, and so, generously, one gives that to the Divine.
It is better than giving nothing. But even if this “little more” than what they
need represents lakhs of rupees, the gift is less perfect than the one of half the
mango. For it is not by the quantity or the quality that it is measured: it is by
the sincerity of the giving and the absoluteness of the giving.

But in ordinary life, when rich men want to give their wealth to the Divine,
and the Divine is not in front of them, then to whom are they to give? They
don’t know where to give their money!

Yes, but then the question doesn’t arise. If they haven’t met the Divine either
within or without, it doesn’t come into question. They are not asked to give to
someone they do not know.

If they have found the Divine within themselves, well, they have only to
follow the indication given by the Divine for the use of what they have; and if
they follow quite sincerely and exactly the indications they receive, this is all
that can be asked of them. But until then nothing is asked of anyone.

One begins to ask only when someone says, “Here I am, I want to consecrate
myself to the Divine.” Then it is all right, from that moment one asks; but not
before. Before that, even if you casually pull out a coin from your pocket and
put it there, it is very good; you have done what you thought you ought to do
and that’s all; you are not asked for anything at all. There is a great difference
between asking the Divine to adopt you, and making a gesture of goodwill,
but without the least intention of changing anything whatever in the course of
your life.
Those who live the ordinary life, well, if they make a gesture of goodwill, so
much the better for them, this creates for them antecedents for future lives.
But it is only from the moment you say, “There, now I know that there is but
one thing which counts for me, it is the divine life, and I want to live the
divine life”—from that moment one asks you, not before.

Mother, there are people who come here, who have money and are very
devoted, who show their devotion, but when the question of money comes up,
they bargain…. Then how shall we remain on friendly terms with them?

What?

They are devoted, they show devotion…

In what way? By taking from Him all they can?

…but when the question of money comes up, they bargain, they calculate.

I tell you, I have already answered, that’s how it is. They come with the idea
of taking from the Divine all they can: all the qualities, all the capacities, all
the conveniences also, all the forts, everything, and sometimes even powers,
and all the rest. They come to take, they don’t come to give. And their show
of devotion is simply a cloak they have thrown over their wish to take, to
receive. That covers a wide field: from saving one’s soul, having spiritual
experiences, obtaining powers, to leading a petty quiet life, comfortable—
more or less comfortable, at least with a minimum of comfort—without
cares, without botheration, far from the worries of life. That’s how it is. That
covers a wide range. But when they give, it is a kind of bargaining; they
know that to obtain these things, it would be well to give a little something,
otherwise they won’t get them, so they make a show of being very devoted.
But it is only a pretence, for it is not sincere.

Unfortunately for them, it deceives no one. It may be tolerated; but that

doesn’t mean that anybody is deceived.

The bargaining is everywhere, in all the parts of the being. It is always give
and take, from the highest spiritual experiences to the tiniest little material
needs. There is not one in a thousand who gives without bargaining.
And the beauty of the story I told you—moreover, there are many others like
it here—is just this, that when the old woman gave, she didn’t know that it
was Shiva. She gave to the sing beggar, for the joy of doing good, of giving,
not because he was a god and she hoped to have salvation or some
knowledge in exchange.

(Looking at the disciple) There is still some mischief in his mind. Now then,
what is it?

I wanted to say that these desires begin with the desire for the work, and this
is also guided by the Divine. But when one has understood that now there
should no longer be any desire but an absolute giving, still that does not
become a giving; and this continues indefinitely. Why?

I can’t make out what he means! (To another disciple) Translate!

One begins by mixing up desire with one’s aspiration…

Yes, that is what Sri Aurobindo has written.

Then, one realises that a desire is mixed up there, but cannot manage to
reject this desire.

(To the first disciple) Is that it?

No! (Laughter)

It is and it isn’t!

Mother, you said that it may be tolerated, but there is a period of tolerance.
But when it goes beyond the period of tolerance and does not want to stop—
that’s the question.

And so what, what happens?

He wants to ask what one must do, what should be done?

Ah! at last.
What should be done?… Be sincere.

That’s it; always, always, the little worm in the fruit. One tells oneself, “Oh! I
can’t.” It is not true, if one wanted, one could.

And there are people who tell me, “I don’t have the will- power.” That means
you are not sincere. For sincerity is an infinitely more powerful force than all
the wills in the world. It can change anything whatever in the twinkling of an
eye; it takes hold of it, grips it, pulls it out—and then it’s over.

But you close your eyes, you find excuses for yourself.

The problem recurs all the time.

It comes back because you don’t pull it out completely. What you do is, you
cut the branch, so it grows again.

It takes different forms.

Yes. Well, you have to take it out every time it comes, that’s all—until it
doesn’t come back any more.

We have spoken about it, where was it?… Oh! it was in Lights on Yoga, I
think. You push the thing down from one part of your consciousness into
another; and you push it down again and then it goes into the subconscient,
and after that, if you are not vigilant, you think it is finished, and later from
there it shows its face. And next, even when you push it out from the
subconscient, it goes down into the inconscient; and there too, then, you must
run after it to find it.

But there comes a time when it is over.

Only, one is always in too great a hurry, one wants it to be over very quickly.
When one has made an effort, “Oh! well, I made an effort, now I should get
the reward for my effort.”

In fact, it is because there is not that joy of progress. The joy of progress
imagines that even if you have realised the goal you have put before you—
take the goal we have in view: if we realise the supramental life, the
supramental consciousness—well, this joy of progress says, “Oh! but this
will be only a stage in the eternity of time. After this there will be something
else, and then after that another and yet another, and always one will have to
go further.” And that is what fills you with joy. While the idea, “Ah! now I
can sit down, it is finished, I have realised my goal, I am going to enjoy what
I have done”, oh, how dull it is! Immediately one becomes old and stunted.

The definition of youth: we can say that youth is constant growth and
perpetual progress—and the growth of capacities, possibilities, of the field of
action and range of consciousness, and progress in the working out of details.

Naturally, someone told me, “So one is no longer young when one stops
growing?” I said, “Of course, I don’t imagine that one grows perpetually! But
one can grow in another way than purely physically.”

That is to say, in human life there are successive periods. As you go forward,
something comes to an end in one form, and it changes its form… Naturally,
at present, we come to the top of the ladder and come down again; but that’s
really a shame, it shouldn’t be like that, it’s a bad habit. But when we have
finished growing up, when we have reached a height we could consider as
that which expresses us best, we can transform this force for growth into a
force which will perfect our body, make it stronger and stronger, more and
more healthy, with an ever greater power of resistance, and we shall practise
physical training in order to become a model of physical beauty. And then, at
the same time, we shall slowly begin and seek the perfection of character, of
consciousness, knowledge, powers, and finally of the divine Realisation in its
fullness of the marvellously good and true, and of His perfect Love.

There you are. And this must be continuous. And when a certain level of
consciousness has been reached, when this consciousness has been realised in
the material world and you have transformed the material world in the image
of this consciousness, well, you will climb yet one more rung and go to
another consciousness—and you will begin again. Voilà.

But this is not for lazy folk. It’s for people who like progress. Not for those
who come and say, “Oh! I have worked hard in my life, now I want to rest,
will you please give me a place in the Ashram?” I tell them, “Not here. This
is not a place for rest because you have worked hard, this is a place for
working even harder than before.” So, formerly, I used to send them to
Ramana Maharshi:1 “Go there, you will enter into meditation and you will get
rest.” Now it is not possible, so I send them to the Himalayas; I tell them,
“Go and sit before the eternal snows! That will do you good.”

That’s all, then.

1. A sage of South India who left his body in April 1950. He founded a
traditional ashram for meditation and contemplation. ↩

16 February 1955
Read in French No   Yes

Show Page Number No   Yes

This talk is based upon Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, "Desire—Food—Sex".

Sweet Mother, here it is said that one should have no attachment for material
things; then, when you give us something, if we lose it and feel sad, it can be
called attachment?

It is better not to lose it. (Laughter) But in fact the thing ought to be only… It
is not the thing itself to which one must be attached. It is to open oneself to
what is within, what I put into the thing I give, this indeed is much more
important. And, of course, there can always be an accident but it is certain
that if one gives to a thing its inner symbolical or spiritual value, there is
much less chance of losing it; it creates a kind of relation because of which
there is not much chance of losing it. It remains close to you.

I have the feeling, when someone loses something I have given him, that he
was just in contact with the outer form, the shell, and not with what I had put
inside, otherwise he would not have lost it; I have the feeling that there is a
lack of deeper perception. Perhaps one was very attached to the outer form,
but not very open to what was behind.

Mother, here it is said that specially for an athlete certain foods are
necessary, so that there may be certain vitamins which are necessary, and all
this…

That’s modern science. Yes… well, if you wait some fifty years, they will
have found something else, and it will change, and vitamins will be
forgotten… But now, what did you want to ask?

You have given the answer. (Laughter) How should we use things?

Ah, this is… First, to use things with an understanding of their true utility, the
knowledge of their real use, with the utmost care so that they do not get spoilt
and with the least confusion.

I am going to give you an example: you have a pair of scissors. There are
scissors of all kinds, there are scissors for cutting paper, and there are scissors
for cutting thread… Now if you have the pair of scissors which you need, use
it for the thing it is made for. But I know people who, when they have a pair
of scissors, use it without any discernment to cut anything at all, to cut small
silk threads, and they try to cut a wire also with it or else they use it as a tool
to open tins, you see; for anything whatever, where they need an instrument
they get hold of their scissors and use them. So naturally, after quite a short
while they come to me again and say, “Oh, my pair of scissors is spoilt, I
would like to have another.” And they are very much surprised when I tell
them, “No, you won’t have another, because you have spoilt this one,
because you have used it badly.” This is just one example. I could give many
others.

People use something which gets dirty and is spoilt in becoming dirty, or they
forget to clean it or neglect it, because all this takes time.

There is a kind of respect for the object one has, which must make one treat it
with much consideration and try to preserve it as long as possible, not
because one is attached to it and desires it, but because an object is something
respectable which has sometimes cost a lot of effort and labour in the
producing and so must as a result be considered with the respect due to the
work and effort put into it.

There are people who have nothing, who don’t even have the things which
are absolutely indispensable, and who are compelled to make them in some
way for their personal use. I have seen people of this kind who, with much
effort and ingenuity had managed to make for themselves certain things
which are more or less indispensable from the practical point of view. But the
way they treated them, because they were aware of the effort they had put in
to make them, was remarkable—the care, that kind of respect for the object
they had produced, because they knew how much labour it had cost them.
But people who have plenty of money in their pockets, and when they need
something turn the knob of a shop-door, enter and put down the money and
take the thing, they treat it like that. They harm themselves and give a very
bad example.

Many a time I say, “No, use what you have. Try to make the best possible use
of it. Don’t throw away things uselessly, don’t ask uselessly. Try to do with
what you have, putting into it all the care, all the order, all the necessary
method, and avoiding confusion.”

Here, you know, we have a small chit-pad1, and people write every month
what they want; and then it happens that we were compelled to ration things
because otherwise it was becoming something excessive. But this rationing
often turned against its purpose.

I remember visiting a sadhak in his room, it is now some twenty-five years

ago or so. It is an old story. I remember it still. There was a rack hanging
from the wall, a rack with five shelves; the rack was as big as this, and there
were five shelves one above another and they were all… all these shelves
were full, over-full of tiny soap pieces. So I asked him, “But for heaven’s
sake, what are you doing with all these pieces of soap? Why do you have all
these pieces of soap there? Why don’t you use them?” He said to me, “Ah,
we have the right to one cake of soap per month, so every month I ask for
soap. It happens that I don’t finish it in that month, I keep the pieces.”

And he continued to take it?

It was like that, he made a collection; because he had the right to a cake of
soap, he wanted to take the soap, and to take the soap he put the former piece
aside. It is an authentic story. I am not inventing it.

Many people here are like that. I won’t tell you their names but I know them
well. There are many like that. They have a right to something, they will ask
for it even if they don’t need it, because they have the right. This indeed is…
well, in fact it is… an attitude… we won’t qualify it.

There is also the miser who fills his chest with pieces of gold and never uses
them. Gold does not rot, otherwise truly it rots morally, because something
that does not circulate becomes very ill. Now, no conclusions!

Sweet Mother, which things are truly indispensable for our life?

I don’t think they are the same for everyone. It depends on the country, it
depends on the habits, and to tell you the truth, if one analyses very closely, I
don’t think there are many. You see, if you travel round the world, in every
country people have different habits of sleeping, habits of eating, habits of
dressing, habits for making their toilet. And quite naturally, they will tell you
that the things they use are indispensable. But if you change countries you
will realise that all these things are of no use for those people, because they
make use of other things which are just as useful for them and seem to them
indispensable. Then once again you change the country, and yet again it is
other things. So finally, if anyone has travelled a little over the world, he
says, “But what is really useful?” I consider a tooth-brush as something
indispensable. My neighbour will look at me and tell me, “What’s that, your
tooth-brush? I use my fingers and it is absolutely all right.” And everything’s
like that, isn’t it?

Food—it seems to you that a certain amount of things is indispensable in

order to give you the necessary strength and that they are such and such
things because you are accustomed to them, but in another country it is
altogether different.

So one can’t make a rule; and if one wants to be absolutely strict, I think it is
a purely personal question, that it depends on each one’s body; because as
soon as you grow wide in your consciousness, you realise that the things
which seem indispensable to you are not at all so, that you can very well do
without them, carry on very well, work very well, have a lot of energy
without having any of the things which seem to you indispensable. Are there
any things in the whole world which are indispensable, I mean material
things? Yes, one can say a small amount of food—and one can’t make a
general rule, it depends on the climate.

Nature is foreseeing enough, she produces in each climate the right thing for
it. Of course, one should not put man at the centre and say that Nature has
made this for the good of man, I don’t think it is like that, because she had
invented all this long before man appeared on the earth. But it is a kind of
harmony which develops between the climatic conditions of a country and its
produce, as we know that there is a harmony between the size of animals and
the largeness of the country they live in. For example, the elephants of India
are much smaller than those of Africa. And it is said that this is because in
Africa the spaces are immense, so the animals are very big.

It is a kind of harmony established in the creation and as the countries

become smaller, as the zones in which these animals live grow smaller, well,
the animal becomes smaller until it disappears completely when there is no
proper relation left between the free space and its own size. If you construct
many houses, well, there will no longer be any bears, any wolves; naturally,
first the lions and tigers disappear, but in this I believe men have done
something… Fear makes them very destructive. But the greater the masses of
human beings and the lesser the free spaces, the more do the animal species
grow smaller. So how can we make rules?

The more money we have, the more we need…

The more money one has the more one is in a state of calamity, my child.

Yes, it is a calamity.

It is a catastrophe to have money. It makes you stupid, it makes you miserly,

it makes you wicked. It is one of the greatest calamities in the
world. Money is something one ought not to have until one no longer has
desires. When one no longer has any desires, any attachments, when one has
a consciousness vast as the earth, then one may have as much money as there
is on the earth; it would be very good for everyone. But if one is not like that,
all the money one has is like a curse upon him. This I could tell anyone at all
to his face, even to the man who thinks that it is a merit to have become rich.
It is a calamity and perhaps it is a disgrace, that is, it is an expression of a
divine displeasure.

It is infinitely more difficult to be good, to be wise, to be intelligent and

generous, to be more generous, you follow me, when one is rich than when
one is poor. I have known many people in many countries, and the most
generous people I have ever met in all the countries, were the poorest. And as
soon as the pockets are full, one is caught by a kind of illness, which is a
sordid attachment to money. I assure you it is a curse.

So the first thing to do when one has money is to give it. But as it is said that
it should not be given without discernment, don’t go and give it like those
who practise philanthropy, because that fills them with a sense of their own
goodness, their generosity and their own importance. You must act in a
sattwic way, that is, make the best possible use of it. And so, each one must
find in his highest consciousness what the best possible use of the money he
has can be. And truly money has no value unless it circulates. For each and
every one, money is valuable only when one has spent it. If one doesn’t
spend it… I tell you, men take care to choose things which do not deteriorate,
that is, gold—which does not decompose. Otherwise, from the moral point of
view it rots. And now that gold has been replaced by paper, if you keep paper
for a long time without taking care of it, you will see when you open your
drawer that there are small silver-fish which have regaled themselves on your
paper-rupees. So they will have left a lace-work which the bank will refuse.

There are countries and religions which always say that God makes those
whom He loves poor. I don’t know if that is true; but there is one thing which
is true, that surely when someone is born rich or has become very rich, in any
case when he possesses much from the point of view of material riches, it is
certainly not a sign that the Divine has chosen him for His divine Grace, and
he must make honourable amends if he wants to walk on the path, the true
path, to the Divine.

Wealth is a force—I have already told you this once—a force of Nature; and
it should be a means of circulation, a power in movement, as flowing water is
a power in movement. It is something which can serve to produce, to
organise. It is a convenient means, because in fact it is only a means of
making things circulate fully and freely.

This force should be in the hands of those who know how to make the best
possible use of it, that is, as I said at the beginning, people who have
abolished in themselves or in some way or other got rid of every personal
desire and every attachment. To this should be added a vision vast enough to
understand the needs of the earth, a knowledge complete enough to know
how to organise all these needs and use this force by these means.

If, besides this, these beings have a higher spiritual knowledge, then they can
utilise this force to construct gradually upon the earth what will be capable of
manifesting the divine Power, Force and Grace. And then this power
of money, wealth, this financial force, of which I just said that it was like a
curse, would become a supreme blessing for the good of all.

For I think that it is the best things which become the worst. Perhaps the
worst also can become the best. Some people also say that it is the worst men
who become the best. I hope the best don’t become the worst, for that indeed
would be sad.

But still, certainly, the greatest power, if badly used, can be a very great
calamity; whereas this same very great power if well utilised can be a
blessing. All depends on the use that’s made of things. Each thing in the
world has its place, its work, a real use; and if used for something else it
creates a disorder, confusion, chaos. And that’s because in the world as it is,
very few things are utilised for their true work, very few things are really in
their place, and it is because the world is in a frightful chaos that there is all
this misery and suffering. If each thing was in its place, in a harmonious
balance, the whole world could progress without needing to be in the state of
misery and suffering in which it is. There!

So there is nothing that’s bad in itself, but there are many things—almost all
—which are not in their place.

Perhaps in the body also it is like that. There is nothing that’s bad in itself;
but many things are not in their place, and that is why one becomes ill. There
is created an inner disharmony. So the result is that one is ill. And people
always think that it is not their fault that they are ill, and it is always their
fault, and they are very angry when they are told this. “You have no pity.”
And yet it is true.

There we are. That’s enough, isn’t it?

That’s all. Then we stop. The dose is complete.

1. The Ashramites take from what Mother called "Prosperity" their

clothes, toilet articles, and other requirements. They write out their
needs on a page of their Prosperity Book and give in the list a few days
before the distribution, which takes place on the first of each month. ↩

***

March 25, 1970

Read in French No   Yes

Show Page Number No   Yes

Things continue to be very difficult. They’re getting more and more

complicated and difficult, and at the same time, the power is growing greater
and greater, it’s even surprising.

But, for people who like peace and quiet (laughing), it’s troublesome!

Do you have something? Have you brought something? Nothing to say?

There’s a letter from the marquis, that friend of mine. He is asking for your
help….

What for?
To change his life and get rid of all his material and financial problems
there.

I thought he was very rich?

But he wants to get rid of everything.

Oh!… Let him give it to the Ashram! (Mother laughs)

He has a lot of money sunk in lands, castles and so on, and lie says, “I could
leave all this in the hands of a financial organization and see what happens,
or should I look after it myself, sell it all off, and then come to the Ashram?”

(after a silence)

If he comes, he must come with money, because the situation here is critical.

We spend three times more than what we have, so… It’s a sort of constant
miracle. And the expenses keep increasing. This morning, D.1 told me he
cannot go on. That’s how it is. And then, the government is raising taxes in a
proportion of one to ten—ten times more. So everything is like that. And we
are faced with… a hole. So I can’t take new people anymore, except those
who can not only meet their own needs but also help the Ashram a little.

Things are very, very, very difficult.

(long silence)

What we may call the “reign of money” is drawing to its close. But the;
transitional period between the arrangement that has existed in the world till
now and the one to come (in a hundred years, for instance), that period is
going to be very difficult—it IS very difficult.

Industries were the great means of earning money—now that’s quite finished.

All profits are taken by the government. Or else, we had here small industries
which had been freed from taxes on condition that they give 75% of their
profits to the Ashram—now they have changed their laws and it’s no longer
75%, it’s all of it.

“To the Ashram,” you mean to the State?

No, no! To the State they give everything; but earlier we had obtained that
those at the Ashram would be freed from taxes on condition that they give
75% to the Ashram; now the 75% has been changed into all of it. Which
means that all the industries here must give all their profits to the Ashram, or
else they are taxed.

Well, that’s not so bad!

(Mother laughs) Yes, but it’s a sign of the times! For them it’s not so bad,
because with me (laughing) there are always ways and means! But there are
other organizations…. Most people start an industry to earn their livelihood
—now they can’t. They can’t because personal expenses aren’t allowed.

But this fact of personal expenses “not allowed” has been there since the
beginning. I remember, long ago, my mother had started… I forget if it was a
henhouse or something of the sort, because she wanted to increase her
income a bit, so… (that must have been some fifty or sixty years ago). She
was very simple, not complicated; she opened her business and would sell her
hens, her eggs and so on: she would spend the money personally and look
after all her affairs…. Until one fine day (laughing) when she was asked to
give accounts! She narrowly escaped a severe punishment because she had
used that money for her personal expenses—she didn’t understand!… I found
it very amusing. That was at least fifty years ago.

You understand, I find it an odd frame of mind. You work—what for?

Normally, you work to earn your livelihood—it’s not legal. You must work,
but the business isn’t personal at all! You have no right to draw your own
expenses on the industry you yourself started!

The stupidity of the world is unrivaled. So naturally, this has to end, it cannot
last.

How? What will it become? I don’t know. Naturally, their calculation (the
government’s calculation) is completely wrong: they are ruining the country
more and more! So they really are in a critical situation. But it’s a long time
since people started discovering that all those taxes are simply the ruin of the
country, nothing else…. Almost all the industries in the North [of India] are
about to close, almost all of them. So…
They do many totally useless things. All that will disappear, but…

I am in contact with a bit of everything: people come and see me; everyone
comes and complains, tells me about the miserable state of things: those in
power, ordinary people, everyone. And I see, things are becoming…
impossible. How are people to live? They don’t know. Because money was
chosen to be the basis—money—so naturally, the attempt was to earn it. Now
that doesn’t work any longer. You can no longer earn money, and you can’t
have money constantly without earning it, so what do you do?—Everything
needs to be changed.

In Russia they tried to make the government responsible, but that…

(laughing) what happened was that those in the government filled their
pockets and misery spread everywhere. So, as they don’t have much
imagination, they want to go back to the old way of doing things. But that’s
not it: they must go a little farther.

Either divide the earth into lots of small bits, each bit up against the other, or
else… We need a world organization. But by whom? It should be by people
who have at least a world consciousness! (Mother laughs) Otherwise it can’t
work. So… there are going to be a hundred very difficult years, very difficult.
Afterwards, maybe we’ll emerge towards something….

(silence)

What this man [the marquis] writes you here, lots of people are like that! Lots
of them have written it, people from every country. They’re exasperated by
the way things are. They say, “No more personal property!”, but as they don’t
have much imagination, they haven’t found the way yet.

(silence)

A system of “coupons for hours of work,” and a scale of the quality or

degree of the work done.

Where is that practiced?

I don’t know, in my imagination!

Oh, that’s you. Yes, of course, that’s very good!

Something based on the work.

Yes.

Coupons for hours of work. Then if a coolie’s coupon is worth one, an

engineer’s may be said to be worth five, for instance. That’s all.

That would be a whole organization to be worked out. We’ll need… we’ll

need something like that in Auroville.

Based on the work.

Yes, an activity. That work could be defined as an activity with a collective

usefulness, not a selfish one.

(silence)

The difficulty is the appreciation of the value of things. You understand, that
requires a very wide vision. Moneys convenience was that it became
mechanical…. But this new system cannot become quite mechanical, so…
For instance, the idea is that those who will live in Auroville will have
no money—there is no circulation of money—but to eat, for instance,
everyone has the right to eat, naturally, but… On quite a practical level, we
had conceived the possibility of all types of food according to everyone’s
tastes or needs (for example, vegetarian cooking, non-vegetarian cooking,
diet cooking, etc.), and those who want to get food from there must do
something in exchange—work, or… It’s hard to organize in practice, on a
quite practical level…. You see, we had planned a lot of lands around the city
for large-scale agriculture for the city’s consumption. But to cultivate those
lands, for the moment we need money, or else materials. So… Now I have to
face the whole problem in every detail, and it’s not easy!

There are some who understand.

You see, the idea is that there will be no customs in Auroville and no taxes,
and Aurovilians will have no personal property. Like that on paper, it’s very
fine, but when it comes to doing it in practice…
The problem is always the same: those given the responsibility should be
people with a… universal consciousness, of course, otherwise… Wherever
there is a personal consciousness, it means someone incapable of governing
—we can see how governments are, it’s frightful!

(long silence)

There’s something very interesting on a psychological level: it’s that material

needs decrease in proportion to the spiritual growth. Not (as Sri Aurobindo
said), not through asceticism, but because the focus of attention and
concentration of the being moves to a different domain…. The purely
material being, quite conceivably, finds only material things pleasing; with
all those who live in the emotive being and the outer mind, the interest of the
being is turned to… for instance, things of beauty, as with those who want to
live surrounded by beautiful things, who want to use nice things. Now that
appears to be the human summit, but it’s quite… what we might call a
“central region” (gesture hardly above ground level), it’s not at all a higher
region. But the way the world is organized, people without aesthetic needs go
back to a very primitive life—which is wrong. We need a place where life…
where the very setting of life would be, not an individual thing, but a beauty
that would be like the surroundings natural to a certain degree of
development.

Now, as things are organized, to be surrounded by beautiful things you need

to be rich, and that’s a source of imbalance, because wealth usually goes with
quite an average degree of consciousness, even mediocre at times. So there’s
everywhere an imbalance and a disorder. We would need… a place of beauty
—a place of beauty in which people can live only if they have reached a
certain degree of consciousness. And let it not be decided by other people,
but quite spontaneously and naturally. So how to do that?…

Problems of that sort are beginning to come up at Auroville, and that makes
the thing very interesting. Of course, the means are very limited, but that also
is part of the problem to be solved.

(long silence)
The conditions to organize—to be an organizer (it’s not “to govern,” it’s to
ORGANIZE)—the conditions to be an organizer should be these: no more
desires, no more preferences, no more attractions, no more repulsions—a
perfect equality for all things. Sincerity, of course, but that goes without
saying: wherever insincerity enters, poison enters at the same time. And then,
only those who are themselves in that condition can discern whether another
is in it or not.

At present, all human organizations are based on: the visible fact (which is a
falsehood), public opinion (another falsehood), and moral sense, which is a
third falsehood! (Mother laughs) So…

(silence)

Ah! Have you read the latest answer to the Aphorisms?

Your experience of “God”?

Yes, I am not sure I was very clear…. I’m not yet convinced it can be
published!

She asks, “What does Sri Aurobindo mean by ‘the joy of being God’s
enemy‘?”2 So you reply:

“Here too, I am obliged to say that I do not exactly know because he never
told me.

“But I can tell you about my own experience. Until the age of about twenty-
five, I only knew the God of religions, God as men made him, and I did not
want him at any cost. I denied his existence with the certitude that if such a
God existed, I detested him.

“Around twenty-five, I found the inner God, and at the same time I learned
that the God described by most Western religions was none other than the
Great Adversary.

“When I came to India…

Oh, here we should say how long afterwards…. I was twenty-five, and I was
born in 18… 78.

It was in 1903.

And I came to India in 1914. We should specify that. It’s around 1903 that I
had the experience of the inner Divine.

“When I came to India in 1914 and I knew Sri Aurobindo’s teaching,

everything became very clear.”

I don’t like to speak of myself. Only… (that’s something I don’t know:

whether my body will be preserved or not—I have no idea and it doesn’t
interest me), it seems to me that it could be useful only if this body is gone.

Oh, listen!

(silence)

Not gone—changed.

Oh, changed… is it possible?

Well, if it’s not possible in your body, how will it be possible in other bodies?

No… I don’t know. For man, it seems established that his progress is made
from birth to birth, with very fleeting intermediary births, forms that aren’t
perpetuated. So it may be that some people, with a body somewhat… (what
shall I say?) developed or advanced, could now have children who would
themselves have… like this (snowballing gesture), and then those
intermediary stages would disappear.

I don’t know.

You see, there is this fact that existence itself needs to depend on something
material, which naturally brings back every time an old recurring difficulty.
That question of food… All that is under observation at the moment (a very
minute observation, which I might almost call “scientific”), and, well, the
cells are conscious of the divine Force and of the power that Force gives, but
they are also conscious that in order to last as they are, even in a state of
transformation, they still need this complement of something coming from
outside—with that, every time you swallow a new difficulty…. All that I said
on the [change of] functioning is increasingly proven, but there is this thing
[food] that remains, and that means stomach and blood and all the rest…
With that, can we conceive (I don’t know), can we conceive something that
works in this way yet without deteriorating? Something capable of constant
progression? (One can last only if the progression is constant.) Is this capable
of progress?… For the moment, it’s like this… (gesture hanging in balance).

All that was automatic has almost disappeared—which has caused a great
reduction from the standpoint of capacities; it’s replaced by a consciousness
with a certain power, which didn’t exist previously: that’s an improvement.
But all things considered, well, if I take the ordinary stand, I can no longer do
what I used to do when I was twenty, quite obviously. Perhaps I know a
hundred thousand times more than I knew, but… This body, the body itself
knows: it feels, it’s capable of knowing all that it didn’t know then. But from
a purely material standpoint… (Mother shakes her head, pointing to her
body’s incapacity). Could it come back? I don’t know. There’s a question
mark there. I don’t know…. And it could last only if the capacities came
back; as Sri Aurobindo very wisely put it, who would want to go on in a body
that keeps losing all its capacities?…3 You know, sight isn’t clear anymore,
you don’t hear clearly anymore, can’t speak clearly anymorev anyway you
can’t walk freely, you can no longer carry a weight—all kinds of things.

Would this, as it is, THIS (Mother pinches the skin of her hands), would it be
capable of being transformed by the Force? Can it be done?—We’ll know
when it’s done and not before!

As for me, I find it quite possible.

Obviously, logically you are right, because the healing capacity is there; so if
one has the healing capacity, there is the capacity to remedy wear and tear.
Obviously.

But all possibilities are there! It’s only the question of Matter having to
adapt to the infiltration of another force.
Yes.

But the day it’s really adapted…

Well, yes, that’s the whole point!…

What’s the obstacle?

CAN Matter do it?

But of course, surely it can! Surely it can.

That’s the question.

If the Spirit wants, it can. If the Spirit sees the time has come, it can. There’s
no reason why not.

That would be interesting to see! (Mother laughs)

Yes!

(Mother goes into a contemplation)

For the body consciousness that remains conscious when the body is asleep,
the world as it is is dark and muddy—always. That is, it’s always a half-
darkness—you can hardly see—and mud. And that isn’t an opinion or a
thought: it’s a material FACT. Consequently, this [body] consciousness is
already conscious of a world… that would no longer be subject to the same
laws.

The cells are quite, absolutely convinced that… (I’ll put it in the simplest
way) the Lord is all-powerful, you understand? Only, what they’re not
convinced of is whether He WANTS (laughing) it to be this way or that, that
is to say, whether He wants the transformation to be done in an already
existing body, or in stages.

But then, in stages means centuries and centuries….

Yes, naturally!
But it seems that the TIME has come, doesn’t it?

There’s an absolute refusal to answer.

Oh, I very well know why! Because (how shall I put it?… I must put it in a
quite childlike way) physical matter is lazy so… (laughing) if it were sure, it
would let itself go!

But the one thing the body has conquered (almost totally I may say) is, no
more desires, no more preferences (immutable gesture). It’s replaced by…
“Only what You will.” Doesn’t choose, doesn’t say “This is better than
that”—what You will.

That’s the natural and spontaneous state.

(silence)

Very well (laughing), we’ll see!

No, I don’t think so.

What?

I don’t think so. Because, otherwise, it would really need centuries and
centuries and centuries.

Yes. But centuries, that’s nothing for the Supreme.

Yes, of course.

For him, it’s…

But still, the world has reached such an acute state of suffering and pain
that…

Yes.

The time has come for ONE body to change itself sufficiently to give a
concrete hope to humanity.
Yes, yes… Even if only, perhaps, as an example.

Yes, perhaps, but not only that, because the day that Power would have
entered your matter so totally, you would have the possibility of passing it on
to other bodies that were ready.

Ah, but the possibility already exists. I have constant proof of that—
extraordinary proof…. You know, little miracles take place all the time, all
the time.

(silence)

It’s clear that there will be ONE moment when the thing will occur.

1. D. looks after the dining room and provisions. ↩

2. Aphorism 417—"Thy soul has not tasted God's entire delight, if it has
never had the joy of being His enemy, opposing His designs and
engaging with Him in mortal combat." ↩

3. Aphorism 376—"...Who would care to wear one coat for a hundred

years or be confined in one narrow and changeless lodging unto a long
eternity?" ↩

***

6 January 1968
When Mother says that wealth should not be a personal property, I
understand that what should come is more a change of psychological attitude
on the part of those who own money than any change in the law of property.

Undoubtedly.

Only the psychological change can be a solution.

 ***

Care of Material Things

Show Page Number No   Yes

5 Jan 1932

Wanton waste, careless spoiling of physical things in an incredibly short

time, loose disorder, misuse of service and materials due either to vital
grasping or to tamasic inertia are baneful to prosperity and tend to drive away
or discourage the Wealth Power. These things have long been rampant in the
society and, if that continues, an increase in our means might well mean a
proportionate increase in the wastage and disorder and neutralise the material
advantage. This must be remedied if there is to be any sound progress.

Asceticism for its own sake is not the ideal of this Yoga, but self-control in
the vital and right order in the material are a very important part of it—and
even an ascetic discipline is better for our purpose than a loose absence of
true control. Mastery of the material does not mean having plenty and
profusely throwing it out or spoiling it as fast as it comes or faster. Mastery
implies in it the right and careful utilisation of things and also a self control in
their use.

5 January 1932

***
17 Jan 1932

I may say, generally, that in the present condition of things it is becoming

increasingly necessary to do the best we can with what we have and make
things last as long as possible. There are many kinds of things hitherto
provided, for instance, which it will be impossible to renew once the present
stock is over. The difficulty is that most people in the Asram have no training
in handling physical things (except the simplest, hardest and roughest), no
propensity to take care of them, to give them their full use and time of
survival. This is partly due to ignorance and inexperience, but partly also to
carelessness, rough, violent and unseeing handling, indifference; there is also
in many a feeling that it does not matter if things are quickly spoilt, they will
be replaced; one worker was even heard to say to another, “why do you care?
it is not your money.” To take one instance only. Taps in Europe will last for
many years—here in a few months, sometimes in a few weeks they are spoilt
and call for repairs or replacement. People ask for new provisions before the
old are exhausted or even near exhaustion, not because they need them, but
because they have a right (?) to a new supply; some have even been known to
throw away what remains with them in order to have a new stock. And so on,
ad infinitum. All this is tamas and the end of tamas is disintegration, dispersal
of forces, failure of material. And in the end, as this is a collective affair, the
consequences come upon everybody, the careful and the careless together.
Our ideal was a large, not a restricted life, but well-organised, free from
waste and tamas and disorder. Now there has to be a tightness, a period of
retrenchment till people learn and things get better.

17 January 1932

***
30 Jan 1933

If things are constantly broken, X is perfectly right in enforcing economy.

Very few of the sadhaks have any sense of responsibility in this respect; most
seem to think that they are entitled to waste, destroy, spoil, use freely as if the
Mother‘s sole business was to supply their wants and the Asram had
unlimited resources. But it is not possible for the Asram to develop
its wealth so long as the sadhaks and workers are selfish, careless,
undisciplined and irresponsible. Lakshmi does not continue to pour her gifts
under such conditions.
30 January 1933

***
1940

Each supervisor is responsible for the maintenance intact and in good

condition of the machinery, tools and apparatus in his charge. No one other
than those in charge or using them for the work should touch or handle.

1940s

***

Business
Show Page Number No   Yes

As usual you seem to have received some very fantastic and sensational
reports about what you call the mill business. There was no “mill” in
question, only X‘s small foundry and Y‘s equally small oil factory. X was in
difficulties about her affair and came to the Mother for advice and offered to
sell; the Mother was prepared to buy on reasonable or even on generous
terms on certain conditions and use it, not on capitalistic lines or for any
profit, but for certain work necessary to the Ashram, just as she uses the
Atelier or the Bakery or the Building Department. The Ashram badly needs a
foundry and the idea was to use Y‘s machinery for making the soap necessary
for the Ashram. The Mother told X that she was sending for Z and if he
consented to run these two affairs, she might buy but not otherwise as the
Mother herself had no time to look after these things. Z came but found the
whole thing too small and not sufficient for the purpose or for some larger
work he wanted to do; so X had to be told that nothing could be done. That is
the whole affair. Where do you find anything here of capitalism and huge
profits and slums and all the rest?

I may say however that I do not regard business as some thing evil or tainted,
any more than it was so regarded in ancient spiritual India. If I did, I would
not be able to receive money from A or from those of our disciples who
in Bombay trade with East Africa; nor could we then encourage them to go
on with their work but would have to tell them to throw it up and attend to
their spiritual progress alone. How are we to reconcile A‘s seeking after
spiritual light and his mill? Ought I not to tell him to leave his mill to itself
and to the devil and go into some Ashram to meditate? Even if I myself
had had the command to do business as I had the command to do politics I
would have done it without the least spiritual or moral compunction. All
depends on the spirit in which a thing is done, the principle on which it is
built and use to which it is turned. I have done politics and the most violent
kind of revolutionary politics, ghoraṁ karma, and I have supported war and
sent men to it, even though politics is not always or often a very clean
occupation nor can war be called a spiritual line of action. But Krishna calls
upon Arjuna to carry on war of the most terrible kind and by his example
encourage men to do every kind of human work, sarvakarmāṇi. Do you
contend that Krishna was an unspiritual man and that his advice to Arjuna
was mistaken or wrong in principle? Krishna goes farther and declares that a
man by doing in the right way and in the right spirit the work dictated to him
by his fundamental nature, temperament and capacity and according to his
and its dharma can move towards the Divine. He validates the function and
dharma of the Vaishya as well as of the Brahmin and Kshatriya. It is in his
view quite possible for a man to do business and make money and earn
profits and yet be a spiritual man, practise Yoga, have an inner life.
The Gita is constantly justifying works as a means of spiritual salvation and
enjoining a Yoga of works as well as of Bhakti and Knowledge. Krishna,
however, superimposes a higher law also that work must be done without
desire, without attachment to any fruit or reward, without any egoistic
attitude or motive, as an offering or sacrifice to the Divine. This is the
traditional Indian attitude towards these things, that all work can be done if it
is done according to the dharma and, if it is rightly done, it does not prevent
the approach to the Divine or the access to spiritual knowledge and the
spiritual life.
There is of course also the ascetic ideal which is necessary for many and has
its place in the spiritual order. I would myself say that no man can be
spiritually complete if he cannot live ascetically or follow a life as bare as the
barest anchorite’s. Obviously, greed for wealth and money-making has to be
absent from his nature as much as greed for food or any other greed and all
attachment to these things must be renounced from his consciousness. But I
do not regard the ascetic way of living as indispensable to spiritual perfection
or as identical with it. There is the way of spiritual self-mastery and the way
of spiritual self-giving and surrender to the Divine, abandoning ego and
desire even in the midst of action or of any kind of work or all kinds of work
demanded from us by the Divine. If it were not so, there would not have been
great spiritual men like Janaka or Vidura in India and even there would have
been no Krishna or else Krishna would have been not the Lord of Brindavan
and Mathura and Dwarka or a prince and warrior or the charioteer
of Kurukshetra, but only one more great anchorite. The Indian scriptures and
Indian tradition, in the Mahabharata and elsewhere, make room both for the
spirituality of the renunciation of life and for the spiritual life of action. One
cannot say that one only is the Indian tradition and that the acceptance of life
and works of all kinds, sarvakarmāṇi, is un-Indian, European or Western and
unspiritual.

***

April 27, 1966

Read in French No   Yes

Show Page Number No   Yes

(About the "Sannyasin")

We have some time for Savitri… unless you have something to ask?

I wonder why I don’t see clearer in what I do?

Because there are two ideas in conflict. That’s why. So there is hesitation
between the two standpoints.

Two standpoints: the need for renunciation and the futility of fleeing. Those
are the two ideas that cause the hesitation. But in the chronological order of
things, it should first be the need for renunciation, then the discovery of the
futility of fleeing, and then instead of a fleeing, there should be a return, free,
without attachment. A return to life without attachment.

Apart from that, I understand: in order to write a book, one generally cannot
describe more than one cycle, because there’s a beginning, a development,
and a culmination, a realization. Then another book, which starts from that
realization and has the full experience of its futility. And then, the crowning
realization: the return to life, free.

One may have the three together, but it makes a very compact book.

No, it has to be put together. But I don’t know where to start. I started in one
way and I realize that’s not “it.”

How did you start?

There’s a poem, a very short one—not a poem, a sort of voice. Then in the
first chapter, my character has to take the boat and go away (as usual). Then
he comes upon a Sannyasin. He goes to take his boat, but a young woman or
girl is there with him, and he leaves her.

Where does the boat go?

A little farther away, as always. He just has to go.

And where does he meet that Sannyasin? Before leaving or after?

He meets him a first time, then a second time just when he is about to leave,
so he changes all his plans and goes with the Sannyasin…. But it’s what
comes before that departure, there is something hazy, I don’t know what I
should do. First I thought of making that young woman the symbol of
beauty, wealth, love, anyway, of all that’s truly beautiful and all the best life
can bring—which he rejects, and he leaves for anywhere, and then he meets
that Sannyasin. So I was in the description of that place, of that boy with that
girl, of that very beautiful place, and then I found it so futile to write all this
that I couldn’t go on.

(Mother laughs)

It was so futile, all that beauty and everything, to me it seemed like nothing at
all.

It pulled you backward.

But I had a time like that in my life: I was in South America, on a wonderful
island, very beautiful, with a woman who was also beautiful, wealth was
offered to me, I had the possibility of having a lot of money; anyway, it was
truly the best that could be found in terms of natural beauty and feminine
beauty and everything—and then I ran away from it all. I left everything and
went off.

And is that the story you tell in the book?

That’s what I started telling.

But it’s not bad!

But I find it so futile to evoke again all that so-called beauty that I just can’t
do it! I find it all hollow, my words are false.

But if you take that attitude, you can’t write a book!

Once again, these past few days, the memory of things I had written came
back to me—what I had imagined at some time and written… at the
beginning of the century (before you were born!), in Paris. I wondered,
“Strange, why am I thinking of this?” And there was, in that thing I wrote,
this: “The love of beauty had saved her.” It was the story of a woman who
had had a heartbreak of so-called love, as human beings conceive it, but who
had felt a need to manifest love, a marvelously beautiful love; and with that
force and that ideal she had overcome her personal sorrow. I wrote a little
book like that—I don’t know where it is, by the way, but that doesn’t matter.
But the memory of it suddenly came back and I wondered, “Strange, why am
I remembering this?…” And then I remembered the whole curve of the
consciousness. At that time, I clearly understood that personal things had to
be overcome by the will to realize something more essential and universal.
And I followed the curve of my own consciousness, how it began like that,
and how from there I went on… to other things. I was eighteen. That was my
first attempt to emerge from the exclusively personal viewpoint and pass on
to a broader viewpoint, and to show that the broader, more universal
viewpoint makes you overcome the personal things. But I wondered, “Why
am I remembering this?” Now I understand! It’s there in what you have
written, it’s the same thing. Well, of course, now I wouldn’t be able to write
what I wrote, it would make me laugh!

I can write, I can always…

Well, write it.

But I find it so…

Yes, hollow.

…without power. Really as if my pen were lying.

(Mother laughs)

So I wonder if that isn’t because I should leave it all and enter straight into
another world, a completely different world?

Begin where you are now?

That’s right.

You may save time, in fact.

You can do an experiment: note what you would write now, and then you’ll
see.

But then, how should I situate it? I don’t know…. There are two things….
Maybe it’s going to come now!

From a personal point of view, you would save a lot of time if you started
where you are now.

You will see….

You could begin your book with the end, and then you will see if a beginning
is needed (!) or if, instead of a beginning, there is a sequel. That would be
interesting!

Start with a bang: brrm! What you feel and see now. Situate it according to
your broad outline, begin with that. Then, when it’s written, you will see if it
needs the support of what precedes it or if you can move on to what follows.

It’s an interesting experiment.

***

(Then Mother reads two lines from “Savitri,” the Debate of Love and Death.)

Ah, it’s still this gentleman

I had this whole experience a few days ago. It was so amusing!

In vain his heart lifts up its yearning prayer,

Peopling with brilliant Gods the formless Void

(X.IV.644)

Why? Were you in the formless Void?

I saw that, it was so amusing! I saw it all. Oh, it was an extraordinary

experience. All of a sudden I was outside and, I can’t say “above” (but it was
above), but outside the whole human creation, outside everything, everything
man has created in all the worlds, even in the most ethereal worlds. And seen
from there, it was… I saw that play of all the possible conceptions men have
had of God and of the way to approach God (what they call “God”), and also
of the invisible worlds and the gods, all that: one thing came upon another,
one upon another, it all went by (as it’s written in Savitri), one thing upon
another went by (gesture as if on a screen), one upon another… with its
artificiality, its inadequacy to express the Truth. And with such precision! A
precision so accurate that you felt in anguish, because the impression was of
being in a world of nothing but imagination, of imaginative creation, but in
nothing real, there wasn’t a feeling of… of touching the Thing. To such a
point that it became… yes, a terrible anguish: “But then, what? What?
What’s truly TRUE and outside all that we can conceive?”

And it came. It was like this: (gesture of self-abandon) the total, complete
self-annulment, annulment of that which can know, of that which tries to
know—even “surrender” isn’t an adequate word: a sort of annulment. And
suddenly it ended with a slight movement as a child could have who doesn’t
know anything, doesn’t try to know anything, doesn’t understand anything,
doesn’t try to understand—but who abandons himself. A slight movement of
such simplicity, such ingenuousness, such extraordinary sweetness (words
can’t express it): nothing, just this (gesture of self-abandon), and
instantaneously, THE Certitude (not expressed, lived), the lived Certitude.

I wasn’t able to keep it very long. But “it” is wonderful.

But the anguish had reached its peak: the sense of the futility of human
efforts to understand—to embrace and understand—what isn’t human, what’s
beyond. And I am talking about humanity in its supreme realizations, of
course, when man feels himself to be a god…. That was still down below.

The experience lasted, oh, I don’t know, perhaps a few minutes, but it was…
something.

Only, with a certainty that as soon as you come back, as soon as you just try
to speak one word (or even if you don’t speak), as soon as you try to
formulate in one way or another: finished.

Yet there OBSTINATELY remains a certitude that the creation is NOT a

transitory way to recapture the true Consciousness: it’s something that has its
own reality and that will have its own existence IN THE TRUTH.
That’s the next step.

That’s why that realization [the Void] isn’t the goal, that’s exactly why. A
conviction that it isn’t the goal. It’s an absolute necessity, but not the goal.
The goal is something… the capacity to keep That here.

When will that come? I don’t know.

But when it comes, everything will be changed.

Until then, let’s prepare ourselves.

There is only one thing I have noted (that I am forced to note): there is a
power of action on others which infinitely exceeds what it was before. Oh, it
makes waves everywhere, everywhere, even in those people who were the
most settled in their lives and basically fairly satisfied, as much as one can be
—even those are touched.

We’ll see, we’ll see.

Anyhow, things are moving along.

(Reverting to the “Sannyasin”:) Try it my way, I think it will work!

***

25 June 1912
Read in French No   Yes

Show Page Number No   Yes

What is the most useful idea to spread and what is the best example to set?
The question can be considered in two ways, a very general one applicable to
the whole earth, and another specific one which concerns our present social
environment.

From the general point of view, it seems to me that the most useful idea to
spread is twofold:

1) Man carries within himself perfect power, perfect wisdom and perfect
knowledge, and if he wants to possess them, he must discover them in the
depth of his being, by introspection and concentration.

2) These divine qualities are identical at the centre, at the heart of all beings;
this implies the essential unity of all, and all the consequences of solidarity
and fraternity that follow from it.

The best example to give would be the unalloyed serenity and immutably
peaceful happiness which belong to one who knows how to live integrally
this thought of the One God in all.

From the point of view of our present environment, here is the idea which, it
seems to me, it is most useful to spread:

True progressive evolution, an evolution which can lead man to his rightful
happiness, does not lie in any external means, material improvement or social
change. Only a deep and inner process of individual self-perfection can make
for real progress and completely transform the present state of things, and
change suffering and misery into a serene and lasting contentment.

Consequently, the best example is one that shows the first stage of individual
self-perfection which makes possible all the rest, the first victory to be won
over the egoistic personality: disinterestedness.

At a time when all rush upon money as the means to satisfy their innumerable
cravings, one who remains indifferent to wealth and acts, not for the sake of
gain, but solely to follow a disinterested ideal, is probably setting the
example which is most useful at present.
 ***

21 July 1954
Read in French No   Yes

Show Page Number No   Yes

This talk is based upon Chapter 3 of The Mother by Sri Aurobindo.

Which of you did not ask questions last time?… The first one!

What is the difference between “the divine, spiritual and supramental

Truth?”

If I could only hear what you are saying, it would be easier!

(The child repeats the same questions more distinctly.)

The divine truth…

“…spiritual and supramental.”

I don’t think there is much difference!

Sweet Mother, what does a “candid” faith mean?

Candid? It is simple, sincere and does not doubt. We speak mostly of the
candour of a child, who has a simple faith without any doubts.

Sweet Mother, do we push the divine Grace away from us every time we
make a mistake?

Eh? You push it away every time you make a mistake?

Well, there are two different kinds of mistakes. There is the fault committed
through ignorance. That remain a fault, and it puts a veil between the Grace
and you, but it is a fault made without knowing that one is making a mistake.
But as soon as one knows that it is a mistake, one must absolutely refrain
from making it, because each time one makes it, it is true that one builds a
wall between oneself and the divine Grace.

There is a very big difference between the mistake made through ignorance
which one will not make again as soon as one knows it is a mistake, and the
mistake made knowing that it is a mistake. And this, indeed, is
called obstinacy! And this is more serious, it is even very serious! It veils the
consciousness very much, veils it so much that after some time one no longer
knows at all that one is making mistakes. One makes them thinking that he
doesn’t. One gives so many excuses and justifications for everything he does,
that he ends up by believing that he is no longer making any mistakes at all.
Then, here, it becomes very serious, because one is incorrigible!

What is the difference between receptivity and opening?

We have already spoken about this once. I have already answered. And I
have told you I won’t repeat twice the same thing, because I want you to get
into the habit of remembering what I have said.

Mother, what does “an egoistic faith… tainted by ambition” mean?

Yes, for instance, if one wants to become somebody very important, to have a
high position or attract the admiration of people around him, to become a
great sadhak, a great sannyasi, a great yogi, etc., somebody quite important,
that is called having a faith full of ambition. You have the faith that this may
happen, you have faith in the Divine, but it is for your own small personal
vainglory; and this is no longer something pure, sincere and true. It is
something that’s entirely for personal profit. Naturally, there is no questions
in this of any self-giving; it is a hoarding of forces as much as it is possible
for you to hoard them, that is to say, the very opposite of the true movement.
This happen much oftener than one would think…. This movement of
ambition is often hidden right in the depths of the being and it pushes you,
like this, from behind… It whips you so that you get on. It is a kind of veiled
pride.
Mother, why do these people receive the force, since the Divine knows that
they are not sincere?

Listen, my child, the Divine never goes by human notions in His ways of
acting. You must get that well into your head, once and for all. He probably
does things without what we call reasons. But anyway, if He has reasons they
are not the same as human reasons, and certainly He does not have the see of
justice as it is understood by men.

For example, you imagine very easily that a man who is craving
for wealth and tries to deceive people in order to get money… According to
your idea of justice, this man ought to be deprived of all his wealth and
reduced to poverty. We find that usually just the opposite happens. But that,
of course, is only a matter of appearances. Behind the appearances, there is
something else…. He exchanges this for other possibilities. He may
have money, but he no longer has a conscience. And, in fact, what almost
always happen is that when he has the money he desired, he is not happy….
And the more he has, usually the less happy he is! He is tormented, you see,
by the wealth he has gained.

You must not judge things from an outer success or a semblance of defeat.
We may say—and generally this is what almost always happens—we could
say that the Divine gives what one desires, and of all lessons this is the best!
For, if your desire is inconscient, obscure, egoistic, you increase the
unconsciousness, the darkness and egoism within yourself; that is to say, this
takes you farther and farther away from the truth, from consciousness and
happiness. It takes you far away from the Divine. And for the Divine,
naturally, only one thing is true—the divine Consciousness, the divine Union.
And each time you put material things in front, you become more and more
materialistic and go farther and farther away from full success.

But for the Truth that other success is a terrible defeat…. You have
exchanged truth for falsehood!

To judge from appearances and apparent success is precisely an act of

complete ignorance. Even for the most hardened man, for whom everything
has apparently been successful, even for him there is always a counterpart.
And this kind of hardening of the being which is produced, this veil which is
formed, a thicker and thicker veil, between the outer consciousness and the
inner truth, becomes, one day or another, altogether intolerable. It is usually
paid for very dearly—outer success.

(Mother’s voice becomes extremely deep.) One must be very great, very pure,

have a very high and very disinterested spiritual consciousness in order to be
successful without being affected by it. Nothing is more difficult than being
successful. This, indeed, is the true test of life!

When you do not succeed, quite naturally you turn back on yourself and
within yourself, and you seek within yourself the consolation for your outer
failure. And to those who have a flame within them—if the Divine really
wants to help them, if they are mature enough to be helped, if they are ready
to follow the path—blows will come one after another, because this helps! It
is the most powerful, the most direct, most effective help. If you succeed, be
on your guard, ask yourself: “At what price, what cost have I bought success?
I hope it is not a step towards…”

There are those who have gone beyond this, those who are conscious of their
soul, those who have given themselves entirely, those who—as I said—are
absolutely pure, disinterested, and can succeed without its affecting and
touching them; here, then, it is different. But one must be very high to be able
to bear success. And after all, it is perhaps the last test which the Divine
gives to anyone: “Now that you are noble, you are disinterested, you have no
egoism, you belong only to me, I am going to make you triumph. We are
going to see if you will hold out.”

In what way does the divine Shakti act against the Asuras?

I don’t hear a thing!… Acts against the Asuras? Why do you want to know
that?

It is interesting! (Laughter)

Perhaps to them also She gives what they want to have…. (Silence) And
usually this hastens their end. There are Asuras and Asuras… that is to say…
no, the Asuras are Asuras, but there are all those who have come out of them,
and who are beings of an inferior kind.
An Asura is generally a conscious being and he knows he has an end. He
knows that the attitude he has taken up in the universe is bound to destroy
him after a certain time. Naturally, the time of an Asura is extremely long if
we compare it with the lifetime of man. But still, he knows there is an end,
because he has cut himself off from Eternity. And so he tries to realise his
plan as totally as he can until the day of his complete defeat. And it is
possible that if he is allowed to do it, the defeat will come sooner. It is
perhaps for this reason that at the time great things are about to be
accomplished—it is at this time that the adverse forces are most active, most
violently active, and apparently the most fully successful. They seem to have
a clear field: it is perhaps in order that things may be more rapidly finished.

(Long silence)

Is that all?

7 August 1957
Show Page Number No   Yes

Sri Aurobindo has written: “The descent of the Supermind will bring to one
who receives it and is fulfilled in the truth-consciousness all the possibilities
of the divine life. It will take up not only the whole characteristic experience
which we recognise already as constituting the spiritual life but also all
which we now exclude from that category….”

The Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, p. 47

So, what are you asking? What is excluded?

What do we exclude!… It depends on the person.

But what are you asking, really?

I don’t see what we are excluding.

Ah! that’s sensible. Here we profess we are excluding nothing. That’s

precisely the reason. We have taken up all human activities, whatever they
may be, including those that are considered the least spiritual. But I must say
it is very difficult to change their nature! But still, we are trying, we put all
possible goodwill into it.

It is also said that the descent will make the change easier.1

There are two points which resist strongly—all that has to do with politics
and all that has to do with money. These are the two points on which it is
most difficult to change the human attitude.

In principle we have said that we have nothing to do with politics, and it is

true that we have nothing to do with politics as it is practised at present. But it
is quite obvious that if politics is taken in its true spirit, that is, as the
organisation of human masses and all the details of government and
regulation of the collective life, and relations with other collectivities—that
is, with other nations, other countries—it must necessarily enter into the
supramental transformation, for so long as national life and the relations
between nations remain what they are, it is quite impossible to live a
supramental life on earth. So it will just have to change; we shall have to deal
with that too.

As for financial matters, that is, finding a means of exchange and production
which is simple—“simple”, well, which should be simple, simpler than the
primitive system of exchange in which people had to give one thing to get
another—something which could in principle be world-wide, universal; this
is also altogether indispensable for the simplification of life. Now, with
human nature, just the very opposite is happening! The situation is such that
it has become almost—intolerable. It has become almost impossible to have
the least relation with other countries, and that much-vaunted means of
exchange which should have been a simplification has become such a
complication that we shall soon reach a deadlock—we are very, very close to
being unable to do anything, to being tied up in everything. If one wants the
smallest thing from another country, one has to follow such complicated and
laborious procedures that in the end one will stay in one’s own little corner
and be satisfied with the potatoes one can grow in one’s garden, without
hoping to know anything at all about what is going on and happening
elsewhere.

Well, these two points are the most resistant. In the human consciousness this
is most subject to the forces of ignorance, inconscience and, I must say, quite
generally, ill-will. This is what most refuses all progress and all advance
towards the truth; and unfortunately, in every human individual this is also
the point of resistance, the point that remains narrowly stupid and refuses to
understand anything it is not used to. There it is truly a heroic act to want to
take up these things and transform them. Well, we are trying this also, and
unless it is done, it will be impossible to change the conditions of the earth.

It is relatively—very relatively—easier to change economic and social

conditions than political and financial ones. There are certain general, global
ideas from the economic and social point of view which are accessible to
human thought: certain liberations, a certain widening, a certain collective
organisation, which do not seem absolutely senseless and unrealisable; but as
soon as you touch on the other two questions, which are however of capital
importance, especially the political question, it is quite otherwise…. For, one
might imagine a life which would get rid of all financial complications—
although, without playing on words, it would be a veritable impoverishment.
In what financial possibilities and processes bring, there is a very
considerable wealth of possibilities, for if they were used in the right way and
in the true spirit, that would simplify all human relations and undertakings to
a very great extent and make possible a complexity of life which would be
very difficult under other conditions. But I don’t know why—except that the
worst usually precedes the best—instead of taking the way of simplification,
men have followed the way of complication to such a point that, in spite of
the aeroplanes which carry you from one end of the world to the other in two
days, in spite of all the modern inventions which try to make life so “small”,
so “close” that we could go round the world not in eighty days now but in a
very few days, in spite of all that, the complications of exchange, for
instance, are so great that many people can’t get away from home—I mean
from the country they live in—because they have no means of going to
another one and if they ask for the money they need to live in another country
they are told, “Is it very important for you to go? You could perhaps wait a
little, because it is very difficult for us at the moment….” I am not joking, it
is quite serious, this does happen. That means we are becoming more and
more the prisoners of the place where we are born, while all the scientific
trends are towards such a great proximity between countries that we could
very easily belong to the universe or, at any rate, to the whole world.

There. This is the situation. It has grown considerably worse since the last
war; it grows worse year by year, and one finds oneself in such a ridiculous
situation that, unfortunately, as one is at the end of one’s resources, to
simplify what has been made so complicated, there is an idea in the earth-
atmosphere—an idea which might be called preposterous, but unhappily it is
much worse than preposterous, it is catastrophic—the idea that if there were a
great upheaval, perhaps it would be better afterwards…. One is so jammed
between prohibitions, impossibilities, interdictions, rules, the complications
of every second, that one feels stifled and really gets the admirable idea that
if everything were demolished perhaps it would be better afterwards!…. It is
in the air. And all the governments have put themselves in such impossible
conditions; they have become so tied up that it seems to them they will have
to break everything to be able to move forward…. (Silence) This is
unfortunately a little more than a possibility, it is a very serious threat. And it
is not quite certain that life will not be made still more impossible because
one feels incapable of emerging from the chaos—the chaos of complications
—in which humanity has put itself. It is like the shadow—but unfortunately a
very active shadow—of the new hope which has sprung up in the human
consciousness, a hope and a need for something more harmonious; and the
need becomes so much more acute as life, as it is at present organised,
becomes more and more contrary to it. The two opposites are facing each
other with such intensity that one can expect something like an explosion….

(Silence)

This is the condition of the earth, and it is not very bright. But for us one
possibility remains—I have spoken about it to you several times already—
even if, outside, things are deteriorating completely and the catastrophe
cannot possibly be avoided, there remains for us, I mean those for whom the
supramental life is not a vain dream, those who have faith in its reality and
the aspiration to realise it—I don’t necessarily mean those who have gathered
here in Pondicherry, in the Ashram, but those who have as a link between
them the knowledge Sri Aurobindo has given and the will to live according to
that knowledge—there remains for them the possibility of intensifying their
aspiration, their will, their effort, to gather their energies together and shorten
the time for the realisation. There remains for them the possibility of working
this miracle—individually and to a small extent collectively—of conquering
space, duration, the time needed for this realisation; of replacing time by
intensity of effort and going fast enough and far enough in the realisation to
liberate themselves from the consequences of the present condition of the
world; of making such a concentration of force, strength, light, truth, that by
this very realisation they can be above these consequences and secure against
them, enjoy the protection bestowed by the Light and Truth, by Purity—the
divine Purity through the inner transformation—and that the storm may pass
over the world without being able to destroy this great hope of the near
future; that the tempest may not sweep away this beginning of realisation.

Instead of falling asleep in an easy quietude and letting things happen

according to their own rhythm, if one strains to the utmost one’s will, ardour,
aspiration and springs up into the light, then one can hold one’s head higher;
one can have, in a higher region of consciousness, enough room to live, to
breathe, to grow and develop above the passing cyclone.

This is possible. In a very small way, this was already done during the last
war, when Sri Aurobindo was here. It can be done again. But one must want
it and each one must do his own work as sincerely and completely as he can.

1. "A divine life on earth need not be a thing apart and exclusive having
nothing to do with the common earthly existence: it will take up human
being and human life, transform what can be transformed, spiritualise
whatever can be spiritualised, cast its influence on the rest and
effectuate either a radical or an uplifting change, bring about a deeper
communion between the universal and the individual, invade the ideal
with the spiritual truth of which it is a luminous shadow and help to
uplift into or towards a greater and higher existence.... It is obvious that
if the Supermind is there and an order of supramental being is
established as the leading principle in earth-nature, as mind is now the
leading principle, but with a sureness, a complete government of the
earthly existence, a capacity of transformation of all upon their level
and within their natural boundaries of which the mind in its
imperfection was not capable, an immense change of human life, even
if it did not extend to transformation would be inevitable."

The Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, pp. 47-49 ↩

 8 Sep 1965

Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all

countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds,
all politics and all nationalities.
The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity.

8 September 1965

***
1966

Jan

1) Who has taken the initiative for the construction of Auroville?

The Supreme Lord.

2) Who participates in the financing of Auroville?

The Supreme Lord.

3) If one wants to live in Auroville, what does it imply for oneself?

To try to attain the Supreme Perfection.

4) Must one be a student of yoga in order to live in Auroville?

All life is yoga. Therefore one cannot live without practising the supreme
yoga.

5) What will be the Ashram’s role in Auroville?

Whatever the Supreme Lord wants it to be.

6) Will there be camping-grounds in Auroville?

All things are as they should be, when they should be.

7) Will family life continue in Auroville?

If one has not gone beyond that.

8) Can one retain one’s religion in Auroville?

If one has not gone beyond that.

9) Can one be an atheist in Auroville?

If one has not gone beyond that.

10) Will there be a social life in Auroville?

If one has not gone beyond that.

11) Will there be compulsory community activities in Auroville?

Nothing is compulsory.

12) Will money be used in Auroville?

No, Auroville will have money relations only with the outside world.

13) How will work be organised and distributed in Auroville?

“Money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have

a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social standing.
There, work would not be a way to earn one’s living but a way to express
oneself and to develop one’s capacities and possibilities while being of
service to the community as a whole, which, for its own part, would provide
for each individual’s subsistence and sphere of action.”1

14) What will be the relations between the inhabitants of Auroville and the
outside world?

Each person is allowed full freedom. The external relations of residents in

Auroville will be established for each one according to his personal aspiration
and his activities within Auroville.

15) Who will own the land and buildings of Auroville?

The Supreme Lord.

16) What languages will be used for teaching?

All the spoken languages of the earth.

17) What will be the means of transport in Auroville?

We do not know.2

19653