The Mother’s Vision

The Mother’s Vision

This book contains a selection of the Mother’s conversations during the periods 1929-31 and 1950-58. Speaking to members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and students of its school, she drew upon her unique occult, spiritual and practical experience to answer their questions. The topics range from the spiritually elevated and philosophically complex to the practical and mundane. Taken as a whole, the conversations offer an uplifting vision of human existence. In the Mother’s view, we are destined to outgrow our limited ego-centric personalities, discover our true selves, and ultimately create a divine life on earth.

The compilation covers a broad range of subjects in considerable depth, taking up many issues that are rarely treated elsewhere. Yet the general tone of the conversations is informal and intimate. There are many long passages in which the Mother brings in personal anecdotes, side stories and touches of humour. As she speaks, her personality comes out and the reader becomes, as it were, a member of the class, listening as she instructs and guides those gathered before her.

Book Details

Author: The Mother (Mirra Alfassa)
Print Length: 629
Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Original source: https://agendamother.wordpress.com/
Book format: Pdf, ePub, mobi (Kindle)
Language: English

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Contents

Chapter 1. The Divine and His Creation

• God, the Divine, the Supreme
• The Oneness of Everything
• The Creation or Manifestation
• The Origin of the World
• The Why of Things
• The Experience of the Divine
• The Divine Mother

Chapter 2. The Universe

• The Unfolding of the Universe
• The Unity of the Universe
• The Earth and the Universe
• Chapter 3. The Human Species in Evolution
• Progression of Forms
• The Human Problem
• The Collaboration of Nature
• A Transitional Species

Chapter 4. Plants and Animals

• Trees and Flowers
• Insects and Animals
• Animals and Men

Chapter 5. The Gradations of Existence and Their Expression in the Human Being

• The Origin of Individuality
• The Subconscient and the Subliminal
• Matter and the Body
• The Vital (The Life Force)
• The Mental
• Imagination
• Reason, Inspiration, Intuition
• The Overmind
• The Psychic
• The Supermind or Supramental
• Sat, Chit, Ananda

Chapter 6. The Psychic Being or Soul

• What Is the Psychic Being?
• Progress and the Psychic Being
• The Delight of Being
• Love

Chapter 7. The Hostile Forces

• The Hostile or Adverse Forces
• Possession by Hostile Beings
• Vital Incarnations
• The Four Great Asuras
• Hostile Possession and the Psychic Being
• Resisting Hostile Forces

Chapter 8. Illness and Death

• Illness Is a Disequilibrium
• Illness Conies from Outside
• Microbes and Illness
• Causes of Illness
• Make a Beautiful Thing of Death
• The Domain of Death
• Heaven and Hell

Chapter 9. Reincarnation or Rebirth

• The Process of Rebirth
• Memory of Past Lives
• Rebirth and Psychic Development
• Emanations of Evolved Beings
• The Incarnation of Evolved Souls
• Families of Souls

Chapter 10. Free Will, Determinism, Karma, Grace

• Freedom and Fatality
• The Journey of the Supreme
• The Intervention of the Grace
• The Determinism of Death
• “The Best Will Happen”

Chapter 11. Religion and Spirituality

• The Necessity of Religion
• Religion and Spiritual Life
• Mental Knowledge and Divine Truth
• Spirituality and Active Life
• Spiritual Life and Morality
• Religion and Spiritual Experience

Chapter 12. Science and Materialism

• Understanding the World
• Knowledge by Identification
• Materialism and Spiritual Life
• Miracles
• “Chance”

Chapter 13. Occultism

• The Capacity for Occultism
• The Occult World
• The Practice of Magic
• The Stone-Throwing Incident
• Twelve Senses
• Indications from Books
• A Flu Epidemic in Japan

Chapter 14. Day-to-Day Life

• Make Use of Reason
• Attraction and Repulsion
• No Two Things Are Identical
• Meat-Eating and Fasting
• The Need for Diversity
• Money
• Sleep and Dreams

Chapter 15. Art

• Art and Yoga
• Modern Art
• Music

Chapter 16. Education

• Parents and Their Children
• The Art of Living
• Distinguishing Good and Evil
• Learning to Know Oneself
• A Child’s Dreams

Chapter 17. Yoga and Meditation

• Why Yoga?
• Yoga and Life
• Difficulties and Progress
• Experiences and Visions
• The Right Attitude
• The Ego
• Organise Your Being
• Purity, Aspiration, Humility
• The Creative Word
• Asceticism
• Meditation

Chapter 18. The Integral Yoga

• An Integral Transformation
• The Individual and the Collectivity
• The Spiritual Hierarchy
• Realisation of the Psychic Being
• A Reversal of Consciousness
• Aspiration
• Surrender
• Sincerity
• Transformation of the Body

Chapter 19. The Supramental

• Towards the Supramental
• The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth
• A New World Is Born
• The Evolution of Humanity
• The Supramental Boat

Chapter 20. The Present Situation

• The Progress of Humanity
• The Possibility of Catastrophe
• The Possibility of Perfection

Life-Sketch of The Mother

Life-Sketch of Sri Aurobindo

Note on the Texts

Glossary

Sample

The Mother’s Vision

God, the Divine, the Supreme

It all depends on what meaning you put into the word “God”. It is a word (I have told you this at least four or five times) to express “something” you do not know but are trying to attain. Well, if you have received a religious education, you are accustomed to call this “God”. If you have received a more positivist and also a more philosophical education, you are accustomed to call this by all sorts of names, and you may at the same time have the idea that it is the supreme truth. If one wants to speak of God and describe him, one is obliged to make use of things which are the most inaccessible to our consciousness, and to call God what is beyond anything we know and can grasp and be — all that is too far for us to be able to understand, we call God. Only some religions (there are some) give a precise form to the godhead; and sometimes they give several forms and they have several gods; sometimes they give one form and have only one God; but all this is human fabrication.

There is “something”, there is a reality which is beyond all our expressions, but which we can succeed in contacting by practising a discipline. We can identify ourselves with it. Once one is identified with it one knows what it is, but one cannot express it, for words cannot say it. So, if you use one kind of vocabulary, if you have a particular mental conviction, you will use the vocabulary corresponding to that conviction. If you belong to another group which has another way of speaking, you will call it or even think about it in that way. I am telling you this to give you the true impression, that there is something there which cannot be — grasped by thought — but which exists. But the name you give it matters little, that’s of no importance, it exists.

And so the only thing to do is to enter into contact with it — not to give it a name or describe it. In fact, there is hardly any use giving it a name or describing it. One must try to enter into contact, to concentrate upon it, live it, live that reality, and whatever the name you give it is not at all important once you have the experience. The experience alone counts. And when people associate the experience with a particular expression — and in so narrow a way, so closed up in itself that apart from this formula one can find nothing — that is an inferiority. One must be able to live that reality through all possible paths, all occasions, all formations; one must live it, for that indeed is true, for that is supremely good, that is all-powerful, that knows all, that… Yes, one can live that, but one cannot speak about it. And if one does speak, all that one says about it has no great importance. It is only one way of speaking, that is all.

There is an entire line of philosophers and people who have replaced the notion of God by the notion of an impersonal Absolute or by a notion of Truth or a notion of justice or even by a notion of progress — of something eternally progressive; but for one who has within him the capacity of identifying himself with that, what has been said about it hasn’t much importance. Sometimes one may read a whole book of philosophy and not progress a step farther. Sometimes one may be quite a fervent devotee of a religion and not progress. There are people who have spent entire lifetimes seated in contemplation and attained nothing. There are people (we have well-known examples) who used to do the most modest of manual works, like a cobbler mending old shoes, and who had an experience. It is altogether beyond what one thinks and says of it. It is some gift that’s there, that is all. And all that is needed is to be that — to succeed in identifying oneself with it and live it. At times you read one sentence in a book and that leads you there. Sometimes you read entire books of philosophy or religion and they get you nowhere. There are people, however, whom the reading of philosophy books helps to go ahead. But all these things are secondary.

There is only one thing that’s important: that is a sincere and persistent will, for these things don’t happen in a twinkling. So one must persevere. When someone feels that he is not advancing, he must not get discouraged; he must try to find out what it is in the nature that is opposing, and then make the necessary progress. And suddenly one goes forward. And when you reach the end you have an experience. And what is remarkable is that people who have followed altogether different paths, with altogether different mental constructions, from the greatest believer to the most unbelieving, even materialists, have arrived at that experience, it is the same for everyone. Because it is true — because it is real, because it is the sole reality. And it is quite simply that. I do not say anything more. This is of no importance, the way one speaks about it, what is important is to follow the path, your path, no matter which — yes, to go there.

…