A collection of short prose pieces on the Mother and her four great Aspects - Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati, along with 'Letters on the Mother'.
Integral Yoga
This volume consists of two separate but related works: 'The Mother', a collection of short prose pieces on the Mother, and 'Letters on the Mother', a selection of letters by Sri Aurobindo in which he referred to the Mother in her transcendent, universal and individual aspects. In addition, the volume contains Sri Aurobindo's translations of selections from the Mother's 'Prières et Méditations' as well as his translation of 'Radha's Prayer'.
THEME/S
In the case of X, I was under the impression that Mother could at once know of such things. Some even say that she knows everything—all that is material or spiritual.
Good Lord! you don't expect her mind to be a factual encyclopaedia of all that is happening on all the planes and in all the
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universes? Or even on this earth—e.g. what Lloyd George had for dinner yesterday?
Others maintain that she knows when the question of consciousness is involved ...
Questions of consciousness of course she always knows even with her outermost physical mind. Material facts she can know but is not bound to do it. The matter however is too complex for answer in a short space.
but as for material details, she does not know.
What would be true to say, is that she can know if she concentrates or if her attention is called to it and she decides to know. I often know from her what has happened before it is reported by anyone. But she does not care to do that on a general scale.
But if she does not know, what is the meaning of your message: "Always behave as if the Mother was looking at you; because she is, indeed, always present"?
It is the emanation of the Mother that is with each sadhak all the time. In former days when she was spending the night in a trance actively working in the Asram, she brought back with her the knowledge of all that was happening to everybody. Nowadays she has no time for that.
This question of Mother's knowledge became even more interesting for me today. She gave me the flower signifying "Discipline". I began to wonder why this particular flower was given; then I remembered that yesterday I had not observed the right discipline by taking a little hot khichari with Y and Z.
In this respect the Mother is guided by her intuitions which tell her which flower is needed at the moment or helpful. Sometimes it is accompanied by a perception of a particular state of consciousness, sometimes by that of a material fact; but only
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the bare fact, usually—e.g. it would not specify that it was hot khichari that was cooked or how Y or Z came in. Not that that is impossible, but it is unnecessary and does not happen unless needed.
Anyway, please tell me how far Mother and you know about our physical, material affairs.
In this case it was a general hint with no special reference to khichari.
16 July 1935
What you say about emanations is very interesting. The Mother then has about 150 emanations; adding 150 of yours, we find that we are each protected by one god and one goddess.
I am not aware of any emanations of mine. As for the Mother's, they are not there for protection, but to support the personal relation or contact with the sadhaka and to act so far as he will allow them to act.
Kindly tell us a little more about emanations. How do they support the personal relation or contact the Mother has with us? I thought that all personal relations were with the Mother direct, not through a deputy!
It is terribly difficult to write of these things, for you are all as ignorant as blazes about these things and misunderstand at every step. The Emanation is not a deputy, but the Mother herself. She is not bound to her body, but can put herself out (emanate) in any way she likes. What emanates, suits itself to the nature of the personal relation she has with the sadhak which is different with each, but that does not prevent it from being herself. Its presence with the sadhak is not dependent on his consciousness of it. If everything were dependent on the surface consciousness of the sadhak, there would be no possibility of the divine action anywhere; the human worm would remain the human worm
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and the human ass the human ass for ever and ever. For if the Divine could not be there behind the veil, how could either ever become conscious of anything but their wormhood and asshood even throughout the ages?
When X says that he feels the Mother's physical touch or approach, with whom does he have the contact—the Mother or the emanation?
With the Mother, the emanation helping—which is its business.
19 July 1935
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