
The Mother and Integral Tantra
“…when Sri Aurobindo and I were working to bring down the Supramental forces, a descent from the mental plane to the vital plane, He was always telling me that everything I did (when we meditated together, when we worked)—all my movements, all my gestures, all my postures (mudras), all my reactions—was absolutely tantric, as if I had pursued a tantric discipline. But it was spontaneous, it did not correspond to any knowledge, any idea, any will, nothing, and I thought it was like that simply because, as He knew, naturally I followed.”¹⁷ “When I came here and told Sri Aurobindo certain things I knew from the occult standpoint, he always said that it conformed to the Vedic tradition. And as for certain occult practices, he told me that they were entirely tantric – and I knew nothing at that time, absolutely nothing, neither the Vedas nor the Tantras.”¹³ “And he gave me his own example (I had mine, too) of certain things considered dangerous or bad, which we both did independently and spontaneously and which were a great help to us!”¹⁸
The Mother
The Mother and Integral Tantra
“Even Vaishnavism and Tantra are in the end other-worldly; mukti is the aim of their efforts and anything else could be only incidental and secondary or a result on the way.”⁸ “Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here (in Integral Yoga) the object is the divine fulfilment of life.”⁸
Sri Aurobindo
The Supreme manifested as Lord Sri Krishna, who guided¹⁹ Sri Aurobindo to trace the passage of the Supramental, hinted and lying neglected in some of the verses of the Vedas and the Upanishadas and this guidance of calling down the Supramental Force to mind continued till The Mother’s final arrival at Pondicherry in 1920. She further guided²⁰ Sri Aurobindo to trace the Supramental or calling down It to the Vital, Physical, Subconscient and Inconscient Sheath, about which She had already undergone experience in Algeria,²¹ before Her coming to Pondicherry. The Supramental action They had come to intensify were initiated from the very beginning of Their Sadhana life from Alipore jail in 1908 and from Algeria in 1904 respectively. The above incidence indicates that the Divine’s extraneous support in the form of the Mother is of far-reaching value compared to the Divine’s essential subtle guidance in the form of Sri Krishna and both are complementary to complete Sri Aurobindo’s Spiritual action on earth. The above incidence also hints that the Mother’s Tantric foundation¹⁷ of the Developed Soul appears to be ‘more bold and forceful’⁵ than Sri Aurobindo’s more subtle and Spiritually secured Vedantic foundation, though Their path and goal are same²² and complementary to each other. For us Sri Aurobindo is the symbol of Supramentalised Spiritual Being with movement of comprehensive Consciousness. The Mother is the symbol of Supramentalised Psychic Being with the same comprehensive Consciousness destined for physical transformation. The other superiority of the Tantra is that the elements which are identified as enemy of Spiritual life in the Vedanta are accepted here as means of attaining the dynamic Divine union. From the Mother’s life we observe that the elements that are forbidden¹⁸ for the Spiritual seekers are utilised as means of Supreme realisation. That is Her Divine prerogative and Sri Aurobindo was not only the Mother possessed but also the Mother guided, the Mother consecrated and the Mother protected. Thus, few can collaborate to Her Divine Call and very few can unite with Her Divinity in totality and possess Her endurance that is felt indispensable for Cellular transformation.²³ Also from above Spiritual experiences, integral Yoga has evolved the double movement (1) of escape into higher Nature by rejection of lower Nature and (2) of transformation of lower Nature by the invasion of higher Nature.
The Vedanta insists on union with static Divine,² Paramatma, and Tantra insists on union with dynamic Divine Mother, Para-prakriti and in integral Yoga both the truths are reconciled. Integral Yoga accepts the Vedantic methods of self-discipline and rejects the old Tantric methods of self-discipline or ‘Tantra deals more with forms and processes and organised powers — all these could not be taken as they were.’⁷ Integral Tantra Yoga is a many-sided supernormal Spiritual science which ‘needs to develop its own forms and processes,’⁷ and it has developed its own great and powerful system of self-discipline and self-realisation. It has accepted methods of traditional Occultism as dispensable means of self-discipline and the essence of ‘other Tantrik knowledge are there behind the process of transformation.’⁷ Integral Yoga relies on its own pure Spiritual truth and strength, discourages the occult knowledge¹⁶ and powers as dangerous lures and entangling obstacles and seeks ‘a Tantrik knowledge behind the process of transformation’¹⁰ through safe mystic inward Psychisization and Spiritualization and sheer contact with the Spiritual Reality.
All life is Yoga of absolute adoration of the Divine Mother, the worship of Shakti, Energy, the movement of dynamic Consciousness by which one will arrive at the perfection of Self, perfection of Nature and perfection of Life. Integral Yoga accepts the aims of Tantra wholly while rejecting its methods in the preliminary state, but after the Yoga is established on a safe spiritual foundation an Integral Yogi can return upon the methods of Tantra or the Psycho-Physical Sciences as the special means of integration. An Integral Tantra Yogi will be preoccupied with the secret of subtle mental, subtle vital, subtle physical and their hidden energies and knowledge of this Supraphysical, Supravital and Supramental Science are necessary for the completion of physical, vital and mental knowledge.
The method of traditional Tantra Yoga differs from Integral Tantra Yoga in the sense that in the former discipline the opening of six psycho-physical chakras are pursued from below¹¹ through upward rise of serpent power¹² while in the latter this may be optionally used at certain stage of sadhana but are not indispensable;¹¹ here the reliance is stressed on the power of higher being to change the lower existence; the opening of six chakras are experienced from above down ward¹⁰ and therefore to make this experience practicable⁹ the development of superior power of Gnosis of Spiritual and Supramental Self will be awaited as precondition of instrumentative change. The other disadvantage Traditional tantra is that it is often misused³ by those who are not Tantrics and for opening of the Kundalini, this Yoga asks the physical presence of the Guru.
Integral Tantra Yoga can begin by disciplining Desire, the great unquiet harasser and troubler of man and cause of every kind of Spiritual fall and it will be transformed in to the Divine Delight of its purest form. Firstly, we have to recognise the craving-life force or desire soul overlap as multiple layers over the inmost Psychic being and teach them to renounce all other desire and concentrate itself on the passion of the Divine only; secondly, after strengthening this capital point one has to further train to desire not for its own separate sake, but for the God in ourselves, God in the world and God in the Transcendence. Our sadhana will not seek for any personal Spiritual gain, because that is the basis of egoistic existence, but to universalize that experience and great work can be done through us for others and we can be instrumental in the glorious fulfilment of the Divine in the world through high incoming manifestation so that the Divine Truth can be sought and lived and enthroned for ever; lastly, the most difficult lesson is to learn to desire not in its egoistic way but in the way of the Divine. It must renounce the strong insistence of separative will and its own manner of fulfilment and its own dream of possession, its own idea of right and desirable; it must learn the lesson to fulfil the greater and larger Divine Will and consent to wait upon a less interested and ignorant guidance. If our sense-mind, emotional mind, thought mind could act free from the intrusions of desire and if that energy could be made to obey their right action instead of imposing its own yoke on our existence, all human problems would move harmoniously to their right solution.
Integral Tantra Yoga revives the old Vedic Sacrifice of worship of all things, all the four instrumental natures as offering to the Divine Shakti. It will use all mundane knowledge, all untransformed nature as lever of supreme Divine union and Divine transformation. Its method will be the finding of the Self by agitating, exciting, wrestling, disciplining and conquering the Nature. It can use the mantra or japa or repetition of significant name of traditional Tantra to bring ‘the divine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates the concentration in Samadhi’¹ in four degrees of status, the Waking Self, the Dream Self, the Sleep Self and the final absolute trance of Turiya. The double advantages of Japa in Integral Tantra Yoga are its mechanical repetition will help the transformation of physical mind and its conscious repetition will help to dynamise the Vedic sacrifice and activates Subconscient transformation.
The revival of the double Vedic movement in Integral Tantra Yoga are that (1) the descent and birth of the gods in the human creature or first the descent of Divine Force is experienced by breaking down the veils of instrumental nature known as physical mind, emotional mind, vital mind, sensory mind and intellectual mind through activation of Nature annulling the false gulf between the Divine and His Manifestation and (2) we can then take up through the Truth-mind all our mental, vital and physical experience and offer it up to the spiritual –to be converted into the terms of the infinite truth of Sachchidananda or ascent of the human powers that struggle towards the Divine knowledge, power and delight and climbs into the Godheads, the result of which was a possession of the One, the Infinite, the Beatific existence, the union with God, the Immortality. By possession of this Ideal plane, we break down entirely the opposition of the lower and higher existence, the false gulf created by the Ignorance between the finite and the Infinite, God and Nature, the One and the Many, opens the gates of the Divine, fulfils the individual in the complete harmony of the Cosmic Consciousness and realises in the cosmic being the epiphany of the transcendent Sachchidananda.
The Message of The Mother book:
“There is one divine Force which acts in the universe and in the individual and is also beyond the individual and the universe. The Mother stands for all these, but She is working here in the body to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here—it is so that you should regard her as the Divine Shakti working here for that purpose.”²⁴
Sri Aurobindo
“But, as the spiritual consciousness is intrinsic and self-existent, so too this force of our spiritual being must be intrinsic, automatic in action, self- existent and self-fulfilling.”³²
Sri Aurobindo
“But when new capacities come as an inevitable result of the growth into a greater consciousness and a greater life and that growth is part of the very aim of the spiritual being within us, this bar (misuse of power) does not operate; for a growth of the being into supernature and its life in supernature cannot take place or cannot be complete without bringing with it a greater power of consciousness and a greater power of life and the spontaneous development of an instrumentation of knowledge and force normal to that supernature.”³³
Sri Aurobindo
‘The Mother’ book is recognised by few as a continuation of sadhana of ‘Yoga of Self-perfection’ revealed in Sri Aurobindo’s principal teachings, The Synthesis of Yoga. The objective of this book is to enter into a dynamic relation with the Divine through the activation of the Soul in the mind. This discovery of Spiritual Self and dynamising it as four-fold Divine Mahashakti paves the passage clear for ‘largest development’ in ‘shortest way’²⁵ and ‘shortest time.’ This principal Shastra gives utmost importance to the accumulation of fourfold Soul Force and fourfold Spiritual Force and their activation can be utilised as a means of Divine Perfection. Thus, the whole range of human life experiences liberation of Soul and transformation of Nature. Since The Mother book appears to be a book of practice for developed Souls who have received the second Divine Call of union with dynamic Divine Mother, so, for us, as developing Souls, this is a book of supreme awareness of higher Spiritual life and this awareness will help in succeeding births to pursue this Yoga seriously and entirely.
The Mother book gives the message of drawing benefit from The Mother’s external Avatarahood, who is worshipped throughout the ages under myriad names and forms. She reveals Herself in the physical world with some tiny ray of Her Divine Power, Divine Quality and Divine Presence through ‘limited temperament and action’⁴² of Divine Workers, illumined Disciples, inner Warriors, ideal Sadhakas, good Trustees, Instruments, Emanations and King Children. Through Her help, one can ascend the ladder of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental planes and can experience the largest development in the shortest possible time. Here the Soul’s (Jivatma) relation with the Divine (Paramatma) in the form of Divine and Devotee, Teacher and Disciple, Master and Slave, ‘the Father and the Son of certain symbolisms, the Divine Being (Narayana) and the divine Man (Nara)’⁴³ is transformed into the Mother and consecrated Child relation and one will be established in the Consciousness of Soul’s childhood after one ascends in the stair of Worker, Servant, Instrument and Slave. This state of oneness with the Divine Mother is a developed Soul status closer to the Supramental world and is different from the unripe ‘child-soul’⁴⁴ as hinted in The Synthesis of Yoga and the unripe child-soul, bala,⁴ as hinted in the Gita.
The Mother’s mission on earth is to build our Soul and Nature into the Divine Truth in consistent with the decrees of the Supreme and draws us irresistibly towards the supreme ecstasies, the highest heights, the noblest aims and the largest vistas. Thus, She lifts Her Psychicised and Spiritualised children into the supramental status after prolonged training through partial Divine union and subsequently through complete Divine union.
Our Mission or the one and only purpose for which our life is destined is the Divine Work without all desire and self-regarding ego; all our life and not a part of life must be an offering to the Supreme and we must give ourselves completely without condition, demand and reservation and our only object in action shall be (1) to serve selflessly, (2) to receive inner growth, (3) to fulfil the Mother’s Presence, (4) to become a manifesting instrument of the Divine Shakti in Her works. The perfection sought by us is to be one with Her in Her highest Spiritual and Universal action and to realise and possess the fullness of Her Shakti in our individual life.
Integral Yoga can begin with the aid of this book. Here, simultaneous growth of triple aspiration, triple rejection and triple surrender of lower Nature, Apara Prakriti of mind, life and body followed by triple growth of sincerity and triple faith, are to be practised. The simultaneous growth of the above fifteen faculties is practicable only in Multiple and Integral concentration, and since we at present live with our mind with its exclusive concentration so we can concentrate on the development of one faculty at a time and thus one by one we will have to concentrate on the development of the fifteen faculties.
Aspiration is the unveiling of the pure flame of the Purusha. The withdrawal of the deformed nature of Apara prakriti by the indwelling Purusha is defined as rejection. Prakriti’s submission before Purusha is defined as surrender. Prakriti’s concentration around the Purusha is defined as Sincerity. The flow of Purusha’s attributes of Force, Love, Delight, Peace, and Silence into the untransformed Prakriti is supported by faith. The above five self-disciplines are initially pursued by personal effort of mind and finally by the pressure of Divine Shakti. The ego’s faltering endeavour to unite with the Divine is defined as personal effort. Shakti as the Divine’s dynamic Consciousness, replaces the personal effort in higher planes of Consciousness.
Aspiration, rejection and surrender are related with ascending movement of consciousness and a contact with the static Divine is established. Similarly, faith, sincerity and surrender are related with manifestation of dynamic Divine in the lower sheaths through the descent of Divine consciousness. A balance between the Divine union and Divine manifestation can be established by strengthening all five elements of Yoga. Out of these, surrender is treated as the crown and central truth of integral Yoga, which can be increased by the practice of concentration, samyama, through the rejection of lower Nature. Ascending movements of surrender are identified as tamasic surrender, rajasic surrender, sattwic surrender, surrender of Kshara, Akshara and Uttama Purusha. Absolute surrender to the Divine Shakti is identified as the right condition to live in Divine’s permanent Supramental Presence through prolonged Psychic and Spiritual transformation.
The Psychic training¹⁴ is the energising of the Psychic sheath in the heart by opening the Psychic being and leading towards the emergence of a new faculty of law of consecration, awareness of true motive of life, knowledge on past, present and future, limitless expansion of Consciousness to arrive at universality. Psychic opening draws one towards the immortal life, ever progressive change, unbroken continuity in the world of forms, meets the Immanent God dwelling in each form. The true Psychic Soul is the flame of the Godhead, always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness which obscures our outward life. It is the flame born out of the luminous Divine inhabitant in the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn the being towards the Knowledge of Self and the Divine, towards the supreme Truth, the supreme Good, the Divine heights and largeness. Our true Soul is a pure power of light, love, joy, beauty and harmony. It is the individual Soul, the Chaitya Purusha, supporting Mind, Life and Body and standing behind the subtle mental, vital and physical being, watching and profiting by their development in us. This inmost Psychic entity puts forward a Psychic personality which flowers as the saint, the sage and the seer and it changes, grows and develops from life to life; for this is also the traveller from birth to death and from death to birth and our nature is its manifold changing robe.
The Spiritual training¹⁵ is the energising of the Spiritual sheath above the head by opening the Spiritual being and leading towards the discovery of a vast static and silent Self which we feel as our real basic existence, realise our extinction, a Nirvana both of our active Nature and of the sense of Self into a Reality that is indefinable and inexpressible and we realise that this Self is not only our Spiritual being but the true self of all others or cosmic Self. The Spiritual opening throws one outside all creation, draws to live in infinite and eternal consciousness, which is timeless and spaceless, and meets the transcendent God beyond all forms.
The Mother’s Spiritual Consciousness mediates between the sanction of the Supramental Grace from above and the fixed unfailing human aspiration that calls from the Psychic being below. Thus, it is the very highest Supramental Force descending from above and an opening towards it from below (mind, life and body) can victoriously handle and transform the difficulties of physical Nature. The three elements of transformation are identified as Consciousness, Plasticity and unreserved Surrender. The unreserved glad surrender of inner and outer being will awaken consciousness everywhere and bring plasticity into all the parts of nature. Even the body too will awake at last to the touch of the Supramental Force and feel all Her powers permeating from above the head, below the feet and all around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda.
The starting point of the Mother’s Yoga is to detect first what is false or obscure in a seeker and persistently reject it. Life’s flowering is dependent on degree of rejection of falsehood, ignorance and rejection of ‘the slavery of the human way of thinking and acting.’⁴⁵ This will permit the unfailing aspiration to rise like a flame from his Psychic being and burn upward towards heaven. Then, the submission of his Prakriti near the Purusha which is identified as surrender, permits the Prakriti to merge with Purusha and the partial Divine Union is realised. This Divine union causes Prakriti to concentrate more and more around Purusha, which is identified as sincerity. Through sincerity, his union with the Divine is prolonged and Sraddha becomes active in which the Purusha pours down into Prakriti its attributes in the form of Truth, Love, Delight, Will, Wisdom and the Divine Shakti is realised. Then this action of divine Shakti becomes frequent and constant and one realises oneness with the Shakti. This is identified as the last stage of perfection and he is completely identified with the Divine Mother and feels himself to be no longer another and separate being, worker, servant, instrument and slave but truly a Child and eternal portion of Her Supramental Consciousness and Force. This Consciousness and Force utilises each moment to transform mind, life and body and shape in the midst of imperfection for the perfection that is to come and when the Four Spiritual Mahashaktis have founded their harmony and freedom of movement, then the Supermind and those other rarer Powers of Supreme Ananda manifest in the earth movement and they lift his being as Gnostic and Bliss Soul. He meets the Mother directly as Supramental Mahashakti and the Supramental action becomes possible. In the Supramental, all the movements are the steps of Truth and possess his outer life with the purity of Divine Love and for the perfection of outer life, the Money and Power are to be reconciled with Divine Love. Thus, wealth is brought under perfect Supramental control and a Sadhaka carrying Supramental energy, not the intermediate Psychic and Spiritual energy, has to reconquer wealth for the Divine to whom it belongs and uses it divinely for the Divine life only.
The Important Secret of The Mother Book or Dynamic Divine union:
‘The last stage of this perfection will come when you are completely identified with the Divine Mother and feel yourself to be no longer another and separate being, instrument, servant or worker but truly a child and eternal portion of her consciousness and force. Always she will be in you and you in her; it will be your constant, simple and natural experience that all your thought and seeing and action, your very breathing or moving come from her and are hers. You will know and see and feel that you are a person and power formed by her out of herself, put out from her for the play and yet always safe in her, being of her being, consciousness of her consciousness, force of her force, ananda of her Ananda. When this condition is entire and her Supramental energies can freely move you, then you will be perfect in divine works; knowledge, will, action will become sure, simple, luminous, spontaneous, flawless, an outflow from the Supreme, a divine movement of the Eternal.’³⁴
The More Important Secret of The Mother Book or complete Divine union:
“There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below (Psychic Being) and a supreme Grace (Supramental Being) from above that answers.”³⁵
Its complementary line:
“The Supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But that the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below (Annamaya Purusha, Pranamaya Purusha, Manamaya Purusha and Chaitya Purusha) with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above (Vijnanmaya Purusha and Anandamaya Purusha).”³⁶
The Most Important Secret of The Mother Book or Total Dynamic Divine Transformation:
“Even the body will awake and unite at last its consciousness subliminal no longer to the Supramental superconscious Force, feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda.”³⁷
The above words can be linked with following lines:
“Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light,
We have turned space into a gulf of peace
And made the body a Capitol of bliss.”
Savitri-531
“The first and the highest are truth; in the middle there is falsehood, but it is taken between the truth on both sides of it and it draws its being from the truth.”
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad-V.5.1.
(The meaning of above line can be interpreted as, there is a Truth-Consciousness or Supramental concealed in the Inconscient sheath below and revealed in the Superconscient sheath above. In between these two, the intermediate sheaths of Subconscient, Physical, Vital, Mental, Psychic, Spiritual and Universal planes exist where falsehood can enter or ‘All was a chaos of true and false,’ (Savitri-244). Truth-consciousness is pressing from both ends to turn the misconstruction and transform the seven sheaths into the truth of life and truth of spirit.)
“Extended within the Infinite…headless and footless, concealing his two ends.”
Rig Veda-IV.1.7, 11
(The meaning of the above line can be interpreted as the Supramental is all pervading and can penetrate all the sheaths and can be approached from the two gates of head and feet.)
In The Mother book, the first secret of receiving Divine call, “a fixed unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers,”²⁷ and the last secret of physical transformation, “feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda,”²⁸ are included in its discussion. Cellular transformation is the last transition through which humanity can proceed through development of the three elements of Yoga that of awakening integral consciousness in all parts of being, integral plasticity of Para and Apara-Prakriti and integral surrender known as combination of Purusha Yajna and Prakriti Yajna.
The Intermediate and the Highest Hinted Secret of The Mother Book:
The Mother book hints about executrix and creatrix Mother Powers but never developed it. But it has developed sufficiently the powers and personalities of the Mediatrix Spiritual Mother.
The Executrix Psychic Mother:
“Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature (four-fold Psychic Mother) and see her with the psychic vision (through essential concentration) that alone make a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten their psychic elements your mind (with Brahma Shakti) and heart (with Kshetra Shakti) and life (with Vaisya Shakti) and physical consciousness (with Shudra Shakti) and reveal to them too her ways and her nature.”³⁷
(The four-fold Psychic Mother Powers are hinted here but never developed. It is developed in The Synthesis of Yoga and hinted in the Gita as chaturvarnam mayasrustam. (The Gita-4.13))
The Creatrix Supramental Mother:
“...it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below (recognition of this Force by mind, life and body) that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties…”³⁵
The Creatrix Bliss Mother:
“There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the Supramental realisation, --most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda ("The eyes of the creatrix Bliss are closed" Savitri-628) ("The Bliss that made the world has fallen asleep." Savitri-628) which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the Supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of the Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divinest Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.”³⁸
“Some rapture of the bliss that made the world,” Savitri-704
“The bliss that made the world in his body lived,” Savitri-682 (The Bliss Mother stationed in the heart centre.)
"The All-Blissful sat unknown within the heart;" (the King Aswapati was not aware of the Bliss Mother coming down to live in the heart centre.) Savitri-43
The Supreme Word of The Mother book:
The Mahavakya or the supreme word of The Mother book is identified as :
The power that mediates between the sanction of Supramental Force and the call of Mind, Life, Body and Psychic being is the Spiritual presence and power of the Mediatrix Divine Mother. The Creatrix Mother’s Supramental power and not any human Mental endeavour, intermediate Psychic and Spiritual tapasya can alone rend the lid of Over mind⁴⁸ and tear the golden covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Supramental Truth and Supramental Light and Life Divine and the immortal’s Ananda.³⁶
This supreme word is linked with The Life Divine as:
“A long, difficult stage of constant effort, energism, austerity of the personal will, tapasya, has ordinarily to be traversed before a more decisive stage can be reached in which a state of self-giving of all the being to the Supreme Being and the Supreme Nature can become total and absolute.”³⁹
“The method of detachment from the insistence of all mental and vital and physical claims and calls and impulsions, a concentration in the heart, austerity, self-purification and rejection of the old mind movements and life movements, rejection of the ego of desire, rejection of false needs and false habits, are all useful aids to this difficult passage: but the strongest, most central way is to found all such or other methods on a self-offering and surrender of ourselves and of our parts of nature to the Divine Being, the Ishwara.”⁴⁰
This supreme word is linked with The Synthesis of Yoga as:
“This character of our actually realised being and therefore our Yoga imposes on us certain limitations and primary difficulties which can only be overcome by (1) divine help (by consecration) or (2) an arduous practice, and in reality (3) only by the combination of both these aids.”⁴¹
This supreme word of The Mother book can be linked with the supreme word, paramam vacah, of the Gita which repeats:
“Sarva dharman paritejya mam ekam saranam braja. (The Gita-18.66) Abandon all laws of mind, life and body and take refuge in My supreme Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Being alone.” Or
“Listen again to My supreme word, the most secret truth of all; intimate beloved art thou of Me, therefore shall I speak this for thy highest good. Become My-minded, My lover and adorer, a sacrificer to Me, bow thyself to Me; to Me thou shalt come, this is My pledge and promise to thee, for dear art thou to Me. Abandon all lower dharmas, laws of mind, life and body and take refuge in Me alone, My highest Dharma. I will deliver thee from all sin and evil of apara prakriti, do not grieve.” The Gita-18.64, 65, 66.
The supreme word of The Mother book can be linked with the supreme word, paramam vacah, of Savitri, where we can meet the consecrated Satyavan as:
“If there is a yet happier greater god,
Let him first wear the face of Satyavan
And let his soul be one with him I love;
So let him seek me (Savitri alone) that I may desire.”
Savitri-614
Like the Supreme secret, rahasyam uttamam, the Supreme Word, Paramam vacah of the Gita and integral Yoga are almost the same, which is the highest mystery of absolute surrender to the Divine Guide, Purushottama. “Abandon all dharmas, give thyself to the Divine alone, to the supreme Godhead above and around and within thee: that is all that thou needest, that is the truest and greatest way, that is the real deliverance.”²⁹ In integral Yoga, the Purushottama state is also dynamised as Para Prakriti, the Divine Mother, the Supramental Mahashakti, carrying within Herself the Akshara and Kshara; in regards to Akshara She is the intermediate Para Shakti of fourfold Spiritual Power, holding the Immutable Purusha in Her Self; in regard to Kshara, She is the intermediate Para Prakriti of fourfold Soul force, mobile cosmic energy manifesting all beings and becoming, holding the mutable Purusha within Her. In integral Yoga, the Vedanta or the Gita and the Tantra are synthesised; the former draws back from world nature and leans on the Ishwara aspect of the Divine for supreme realisation, whereas the latter possesses and dominates the world nature and leans on the Ishwari aspect of the Divine for supreme realisation.
The Mother book asks the truth seekers who have received the second Divine call, to fulfil at least four conditions for the constant flow of Supreme Grace that can annihilate all difficulties of Physical nature. These four conditions are “total and sincere surrender,” “exclusive self opening to the divine Power,” “constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending,” and “constant and integral rejection of falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth Nature.”³⁰ The highest declaration with which it confirms the transformation action is to depend on The Mother’s Supramental Power alone in preference to any human mental endeavour and Spiritual tapasya, which alone can bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal’s Ananda.³¹
Recapitulation:
“An almighty occultist erects in Space
This seeming outward world which tricks the sense;
He weaves his hidden threads of consciousness,
He builds bodies for his shapeless energy;
Out of the unformed and vacant Vast he has made
His sorcery of solid images,
His magic of formative number and design,
The fixed irrational links none can annul,
This criss-cross tangle of invisible laws;
His infallible rules, his covered processes,
Achieve unerringly an inexplicable
Creation where our error carves dead frames
Of knowledge for a living ignorance.”
Savitri-84
“Occultism is a science and it is the knowledge of invisible forces and the capacity to handle them, as one has the capacity of handling material forces if one has studied them scientifically.”⁴⁷
The Mother
“Occultism is in its essence man’s effort to arrive at a knowledge of secret truths and potentialities of Nature which will lift him out of slavery to his physical limits of being, an attempt in particular to possess and organise the mysterious, occult, outwardly still undeveloped direct power of Mind upon Life and of both Mind and Life over Matter.”⁴⁶
Sri Aurobindo
In traditional schools the exclusive worship²⁶ of the Divine Mother for all attainment gets momentum in Tantra. The traditional Tantric Yoga differs from Integral Tantra Yoga in the sense that the former perfection of suddhi, siddhi, mukti and bhukti are universalized and Supramentalised in the latter, as All-Purification, All-Perfection, All-Liberation and All-Delight and the worship of the personal Mother is realised in Her Individual, Universal and Transcendent form. In traditional Tantra the Divine Mother is the giver of the four boons that of artha, opulence, kama, pure enjoyment, dharma, the right Law of life and Mokhya, liberation; the same boon is transformed in integral Tantra Yoga of (1) conquest of all the money power of the earth for the Divine, (2) all delight born out of integral union with the Divine, (3) the Divine Law of Truth born out of Divine Will, Knowledge and Love whose outward and external form is the plastic Norms of Integral Yoga and the (4) liberation of Soul, universalisation of Soul, transformation of whole individual Nature and individual becoming the centre of world transformation. The consecration to the One Mother can be entire and complete if it includes the adoration of myriad living virgin Mothers and Feminine Deities of our time, All-Mother of All Time, all Godheads, Men, Creatures and Objects. In Integral Tantra Yoga the One whom we adore as the embodied Divine Mother is also the Universal and Transcendent Mother of all Time extended through all life and Her Infinite Consciousness is that which rests on the One and acts in the All, resulting in infinite Action, Creation, Ananda, Love and Beauty.
To know Sri Aurobindo entirely, the integrated tapasya or askesis aspect of King Aswapati and the integrated consecration of Satyavan at the feet of the Divine Mother must be reconciled and experienced extensively. For the entire knowledge on The Mother one has to explore Savitri’s Yogic force, Mother force and Virgin force of Para-prakriti or Executrix Psychic Mother power, Mediatrix Spiritual Mother power and Creatrix Supramental and Bliss Mother power through exploration of the book The Synthesis of Yoga, The Mother and Savitri respectively and realise how Her immaculate Consciousness gives Divine touch to all like Sun Light and yet She remains untouched, pure and virgin eternally. Or Her Divine Birth, Divine Play and all Her Divine action are identified as descent of Para-prakriti into Apara-prakriti by which this world is upheld and the new Supramental creation is under formation. Her three Mother Powers are also to be linked with Her fourth Power, Chetana Shakti, Consciousness Power, as explored in The Life Divine. Here, all life is seen and realised in the realm of Consciousness and through the lessons of the movement of Consciousness as ascent of Soul and descent of Shakti, one can know Them partly and then through intensification of this movement and realisation of comprehensive Consciousness, one can know Them wholly. To restate again, to build an integral personality asks entire knowledge of The Mother as Creatrix Bliss Consciousness, Chit Shakti, which can lead one to the perfection of integral Karma Yoga, entire knowledge of Sri Aurobindo as Creator Being, Sat Purusha, that will lead one to the perfection of integral Jnana Yoga and entire knowledge on Their supreme relation of dual Godhead, that will lead one towards the descent and establishment of Bliss Self in the heart and the perfection of integral Bhakti Yoga. We cannot be satisfied with the exclusive achievement to either of the above three self-disciplines and move our higher Consciousness to reconcile all three partial realisations and rightly master the three equal opportunities of existence.
OM TAT SAT
References:
1: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-540,
2: “This is something new he has accepted, because the Supreme doesn’t usually appear in tantrism – they are in contact with the Shakti and don’t bother about the Supreme. But here he has come to accept it.” The Mother’s Agenda-8.8.1961,
3: “We observe, first, that there still exists in India a remarkable Yogic system which is in its nature synthetical and starts from a great central principle of Nature, a great dynamic force of Nature; but it is a Yoga apart, not a synthesis of other schools. This system is the way of the Tantra. Owing to certain of its developments Tantra has fallen into discredit with those who are not Tantrics; and especially owing to the developments of its left-hand path, the Vama Marga, which not content with exceeding the duality of virtue and sin and instead of replacing them by spontaneous rightness of action seemed, sometimes, to make a method of self-indulgence, a method of unrestrained social immorality. Nevertheless, in its origin, Tantra was a great and puissant system founded upon ideas which were at least partially true. Even its twofold division into the right-hand and left-hand paths, Dakshina Marga and Vama Marga, started from a certain profound perception. In the ancient symbolic sense of the words Dakshina and Vama, it was the distinction between the way of Knowledge and the way of Ananda, — Nature in man liberating itself by right discrimination in power and practice of its own energies, elements and potentialities and Nature in man liberating itself by joyous acceptance in power and practice of its own energies, elements and potentialities. But in both paths there was in the end an obscuration of principles, a deformation of symbols and a fall.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-42-43,
4: The Gita-5.4,
5: “There is yet another, the Tantric, which though less subtle and spiritually profound, is even more bold and forceful than the synthesis of the Gita, — for it seizes even upon the obstacles to the spiritual life and compels them to become the means for a richer spiritual conquest and enables us to embrace the whole of Life in our divine scope as the Lila of the Divine; and in some directions it is more immediately rich and fruitful, for it brings forward into the foreground along with divine knowledge, divine works and an enriched devotion of divine Love, the secrets also of the Hatha and Raja Yogas, the use of the body and of mental askesis for the opening up of the divine life on all its planes, to which the Gita gives only a passing and perfunctory attention. Moreover it grasps at that idea of the divine perfectibility of man, possessed by the Vedic Rishis but thrown into the background by the intermediate ages, which is destined to fill so large a place in any future synthesis of human thought, experience and aspiration.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-9-10
6: “The Gita like the Tantra and on certain sides the later religions attempts to preserve the ancient balance: it maintains the substance and foundation of the original synthesis, but the form has been changed and renovated in the light of a developing spiritual experience. This teaching does not evade the difficult problem of reconciling the full active life of man with the inner life in the highest self and spirit; it advances what it holds to be the real solution. It does not at all deny the efficacy of the ascetic renunciation of life for its own purpose, but it sees that that cuts instead of loosening the knot of the riddle and therefore it accounts it an inferior method and holds its own for the better way. The two paths both lead us out of the lower ignorant normal nature of man to the pure spiritual consciousness and so far both must be held to be valid and even one in essence: but where one stops short and turns back, the other advances with a firm subtlety and high courage, opens a gate on unexplored vistas, completes man in God and unites and reconciles in the spirit soul and Nature.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-527-528,
7: “Veda and Vedanta are one side of the one Truth; Tantra with its emphasis on Shakti is another. In this Yoga all sides of the Truth are taken up, not in the systematic forms given them formerly, but in their essence and carried to the fullest and highest significance. But Vedanta deals more with the principles and essentials of the divine knowledge and therefore much of its spiritual knowledge and experience has been taken bodily into the Arya (Journal). Tantra deals more with forms and processes and organised powers — all these could not be taken as they were, for the integral Yoga needs to develop its own forms and processes, but the ascent of the consciousness through the centres and other Tantrik knowledge are there behind the process of transformation to which so much importance is given by me — also the truth that nothing can be done except through the force of the Mother.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-459, “The occult atmosphere of tantric pujas invokes forces that do not coincide with the completely different atmosphere and the completely different attitude of the supramental yoga.” The Mother’s Agenda/25.10.1958,
8: “Even Vaishnavism and Tantra are in the end other-worldly; mukti is the aim of their efforts and anything else could be only incidental and secondary or a result on the way.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-401, “Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here (in Integral Yoga) the object is the divine fulfilment of life.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-400, “All the Puranic tradition, it must be remembered, draws the richness of its contents from the Tantra.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita-9, “The systems of the Puranas and Tantras are full of the ideas of the Sankhya, though subordinated to the Vedantic idea and mingled with many others.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-84
9: “The ascension and descent of the Force in this Yoga accomplishes itself in its own way without any necessary reproduction of the details laid down in the books [on Tantra]. Many become conscious of the centres, but others simply feel the ascent or descent in a general way or from level to level rather than from centre to centre, that is to say, the Force descending first to the head, then to the heart, then to the navel and still below. It is not at all necessary to become aware of the deities in the centres according to the Tantrik description, but some feel the Mother in the different centres. In these things our sadhana does not cleave to the knowledge given in the books, but only keeps to the central truth behind and realises it independently without any subjection to the old forms and symbols. The centres themselves have a different interpretation here from that given in the books of the Tantriks.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-459-460,
10: “The process of the Kundalini awakened rising through the centres as also the purification of the centres is a Tantrik knowledge. In our Yoga there is no willed process of the purification and opening of the centres, no raising up of the Kundalini by a set process either. Another method is used, but still there is the ascent of the consciousness from and through the different levels to join the higher consciousness above; there is the opening of the centres and of the planes (mental, vital, physical) which these centres command; there is also the descent which is the main key of the spiritual transformation. Therefore there is, I have said, a Tantrik knowledge behind the process of transformation in this Yoga.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-460, “There is [in the Integral Yoga] no willed opening of the chakras, they open of themselves by the descent of the Force. In the Tantrik discipline they open from down upwards, the Muladhara first — in our Yoga, they open from up downward. But the ascent of the force from the Muladhara does take place.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-460, “In the Tantra the centres are opened and Kundalini is awakened by a special process, its action of ascent is felt through the spine. Here (in integral Yoga) it is the pressure of the Force from above that awakens it (Kundalini) and opens the centres. There is an ascension of the consciousness going up till it joins the higher consciousness above. This repeats itself (sometimes a descent also is felt) until all the centres are open and the consciousness rises above the body. At a later stage it (consciousness) remains above and widens out into the cosmic consciousness and the universal Self. This is a usual course, but sometimes the process is more rapid and there is a sudden and definite opening above.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-460-461, “It [a force in the navel region rising upward in a coiling, pulsating movement] is what is meant by the Kundalini rising towards the Brahmarandhra — not the whole of it, but something of it is released coiling or circling upward with vibrations (spandana) from the Muladhara. It is not always felt like that. Sometimes one simply feels currents or a Force of some kind rising up or just an ascending movement of consciousness. But in all cases it is the release of the Yogic consciousness which is shut up in the chakras and its ascent to meet the Divine Consciousness above. It is this and the corresponding descent from above that make Yogic experiences and realisations possible.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-461, “It [the Kundalini] is the Yogic force asleep in the Muladhara and covered up in the other centres by the ordinary consciousness. When it is liberated, it rises up to join the Brahmic (Divine) consciousness above passing through the centres on its way.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-461, “There is no Kundalini Shakti above the head. Above the head is the universal or Divine Consciousness and Force. The Kundalini is the latent power asleep in the chakras.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-461, “The Energy in the Kundalini is the Mother’s.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-461, “In the Yogic consciousness one is not only aware of things, but of forces, not only of forces, but of the conscious being behind the forces. One is aware of all this not only in oneself but in the universe. There is a force which accompanies the growth of this new consciousness and at once grows with it and helps it to come about and to perfect itself. This force is the Yoga shakti. It is here asleep and coiled up in all the centres of our inner being (chakras) and is at the base what is called in the Tantras the Kundalini Shakti. But it is also above us, above our head as the Divine Force — not there coiled up, involved, asleep, but awake, scient, potent, extended and wide; it is there waiting for manifestation and to this Force we have to open ourselves — to the power of the Mother. In the mind it manifests itself as a divine mind-force or a universal mind-force and it can do everything that the personal mind cannot do; it is then the Yogic mind- force. When it manifests and works in the vital or physical in the same way, it is then apparent as a Yogic life-force or a Yogic body-force. It can awake in all these forms, bursting outwards and upwards, extending itself into wideness from below; or it can descend and become there a definite power for things; it can pour downwards into the body, working, establishing its reign, extending into wideness from above, link the lowest in us with the highest above us, release the individual into a cosmic universality or into absoluteness and transcendence.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-192
11: “I am afraid the attempt to apply scientific analogies to spiritual or Yogic things leads more often to confusion than to anything else, — just as it creates confusion if thrust upon philosophy also. Kundalini coiled in the Muladhara is asleep, plunged in the inconscience, supporting the play of the Ignorance. Naturally if she heaves up from there, there may be a disturbance or disruption of the states of the Ignorance, but that would be rather a salutary upheaval and helpful to the purpose of Yoga. Kundalini becoming conscious rises up to meet the Brahman in the thousand-petalled lotus. A mere ejection from her uniting with the higher consciousness would hardly lead to a radical change. Of course she need not abandon connection with the physical centre altogether; but she is no longer coiled there: if she were, the great occult force residing there would not be liberated. The usual image of her risen and awake is, I believe, that of a serpent standing erect, the tail touching the lowest centre, the head the highest at the Brahmarandhra. Thus with all the centres open and active she unites the two poles, superior and inferior, of the being, the spirit with Matter.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-462,
12: “Lifting the heavy curtain of the flesh
He stood upon a threshold serpent-watched,
And peered into gleaming endless corridors,
Silent and listening in the silent heart
For the coming of the new and the unknown.” Savitri-28
“Along a path of aeons serpentine
In the coiled blackness of her nescient course
The Earth-Goddess toils across the sands of Time.” Savitri-50
“His splendour grasped her, her puissance to him clung;
She crowned the Idea a king in purple robes,
Put her magic serpent sceptre in Thought’s grip,
Made forms his inward vision’s rhythmic shapes
And her acts the living body of his will.” Savitri-125
“The first writhings of the cosmic serpent Force
Uncoiled from the mystic ring of Matter’s trance;
It raised its head in the warm air of life.
It could not cast off yet Night’s stiffening sleep
Or wear as yet mind’s wonder-flecks and streaks,
Put on its jewelled hood the crown of soul
Or stand erect in the blaze of spirit’s sun.” Savitri-138
“A subtler breath quickened dead Matter’s forms;
The world’s set rhythm changed to a conscious cry;
A serpent Power twinned the insensible Force.” Savitri-156
“An inexorable evil’s worshipper,
She made vileness great and sublimated filth;
A dragon power of reptile energies
And strange epiphanies of grovelling Force
And serpent grandeurs couching in the mire
Drew adoration to a gleam of slime.” Savitri-213
“A formless void oppressed his struggling brain,
A darkness grim and cold benumbed his flesh,
A whispered grey suggestion chilled his heart;
Haled by a serpent-force from its warm home
And dragged to extinction in bleak vacancy
Life clung to its seat with cords of gasping breath;
Lapped was his body by a tenebrous tongue.” Savitri-218
“A formidable voice cried from within:
“Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die.”
A dreadful murmur rose like a dim sea;
The Serpent of the threshold hissing rose,
A fatal guardian hood with monstrous coils,
The hounds of darkness growled with jaws agape,
And trolls and gnomes and goblins scowled and stared
And wild beast roarings thrilled the blood with fear
And menace muttered in a dangerous tongue.” Savitri-489
“Two golden serpents round the lintel curled,
Enveloping it with their pure and dreadful strength,
Looked out with wisdom’s deep and luminous eyes.” Savitri-524
“Out of the Inconscient’s soulless mindless night
A flaming Serpent rose released from sleep.
It rose billowing its coils and stood erect
And climbing mightily, stormily on its way
It touched her centres with its flaming mouth;
As if a fiery kiss had broken their sleep,
They bloomed and laughed surcharged with light and bliss.” Savitri-528
“In the deep place where once the Serpent slept,
There came a grip on Matter’s giant powers
For large utilities in life’s little space;
A firm ground was made for Heaven’s descending might.” Savitri-530
“It wandered like a lost ray of the moon
Revealing to the night her soul of dread;
Serpentine in the gleam the darkness lolled,
Its black hoods jewelled with the mystic glow;
Its dull sleek folds shrank back and coiled and slid,
As though they felt all light a cruel pain
And suffered from the pale approach of hope.” Savitri-585
“It poured into her navel’s lotus depth,
Lodged in the little life-nature’s narrow home,
On the body’s longings grew heaven-rapture’s flower
And made desire a pure celestial flame,
Broke into the cave where coiled World-Energy sleeps
And smote the thousand-hooded serpent Force
That blazing towered and clasped the World-Self above,
Joined Matter’s dumbness to the Spirit’s hush
And filled earth’s acts with the Spirit’s silent power.” Savitri-665,
13: The Mother’s Agenda/4.11.1958,
14: “In the integral Yoga psychical experience, especially of the kind associated with what is often called occultism and savours of the miraculous, should be altogether subordinated to spiritual truth and wait upon that for its own interpretation, illumination and sanction. But even in the purely spiritual domain, there are experiences which are partial and, however attractive, only receive their full validity, significance or right application when we can advance to a fuller experience.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-778-779,
15: “Accordingly when we rise from mind to supermind, the new power of consciousness does not reject, but uplifts, enlarges and transfigures the operations of our soul and mind and life. It exalts and gives to them an ever greater reality of their power and performance. It does not limit itself either to the transformation of the superficial powers and action of the mind and psychic parts and the life, but it manifests and transforms also those rarer powers and that larger force and knowledge proper to our subliminal self that appear now to us as things occult, curiously psychic, abnormal. These things become in the supramental nature not at all abnormal but perfectly natural and normal, not separately psychic but spiritual, not occult and strange, but a direct, simple, inherent and spontaneous action. The spirit is not limited like the waking material consciousness, and the supermind when it takes possession of the waking consciousness, dematerialises it, delivers it from its limits, converts the material and the psychic into the nature of the spiritual being.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-841,
16: “There are however two different kinds of action of these inner ranges of the consciousness. The first is a more outer and confused activity of the awakening subliminal mind and life which is clogged with and subject to the grosser desires and illusions of the mind and vital being and vitiated in spite of its wider range of experience and powers and capacities by an enormous mass of error and deformations of the will and knowledge, full of false suggestions and images, false and distorted intuitions and inspirations and impulses, the latter often even depraved and perverse, and vitiated too by the interference of the physical mind and its obscurities. This is an inferior activity to which clairvoyants, psychists, spiritists, occultists, seekers of powers and siddhis are very liable and to which all the warnings against the dangers and errors of this kind of seeking are more especially applicable. The seeker of spiritual perfection has to pass as quickly as possible, if he cannot altogether avoid, this zone of danger, and the safe rule here is to be attached to none of these things, but to make spiritual progress one’s sole real objective and to put no sure confidence in other things until the mind and life soul are purified and the light of the spirit and supermind or at least of the spiritually illumined mind and soul are shed on these inner ranges of experience. For when the mind is tranquillised and purified and the pure psyche liberated from the insistence of the desire soul, these experiences are free from any serious danger, — except indeed that of limitation and a certain element of error which cannot be entirely eliminated so long as the soul experiences and acts on the mental level. For there is then a pure action of the true psychical consciousness and its powers, a reception of psychical experience pure in itself of the worse deformations, although subject to the limitations of the representing mind, and capable of a high spiritualisation and light. The complete power and truth, however, can only come by the opening of the supermind and the supramentalising of the mental and psychical experience.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga-874-875,
17: The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-1/417,
18: The Mother’s Agenda-4/134,
19: “Sri Krishna has shown me the true meaning of the Vedas, not only so, but he has shown me a new Science of Philology showing the process and origins of human speech so that a new Nirukta can be formed and the new interpretation of the Veda based upon it. He has also shown me the meaning of all in the Upanishads that is not understood either by Indians or Europeans. I have therefore to re-explain the whole Vedanta and Veda in such a way that it will be seen how all religion arises out of it and is one everywhere. In this way it will be proved that India is centre of the religious life of the world and its destined saviour through the Sanatana Dharma.” Sri Aurobindo/SABCL-27/433-34, “And then what Krishna must I challenge, — the Krishna of the Gita who is the transcendent Godhead, Paramatma, Parabrahma, Purushottama, the cosmic Deity, master of the universe, Vasudeva who is all, the immanent in the heart of all creatures, or the Godhead who was incarnate at Brindavan and Dwarka and Kurukshetra and who was the guide of my Yoga and with whom I realised identity?” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram-p-431-432,
20: “When I returned from Japan and we began to work together, Sri Aurobindo had already brought the Supramental light into the mental world and was trying to transform the Mind. ‘It’s strange,’ He said to me, ‘it is an endless work! Nothing seems to get done—everything is done and then constantly has to be done all over again.’ Then I gave Him my personal impression, which went back to the old days with Theon: ‘It will be like that until we touch bottom.’ So instead of continuing to work in the Mind, both of us (I was the one who went through the experience…how to put it? …practically, objectively; He experienced it only in His consciousness, not in the body—but my body has always participated), both of us descended immediately (it was done in a day or two) from the Mind into the Vital, and so on quite rapidly, leaving the Mind as it was, fully in the light but not permanently transformed.” The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-2/379,
21: “I think I made this experiment in 1904, so when I arrived here it was all a work accomplished and a well-known domain; and when the question of finding the Supermind came up, I had only to resume an experience I was used to – I had learned to repeat it at will, through successive exteriorizations. It was a voluntary process.” The Mother’s Agenda/ November 7, 1961,
22: “There is no difference between the Mother’s path and mine; we have and have always had the same path, the path that leads to the supramental change and the divine realisation; not only at the end, but from the beginning they have been the same…The attempt to set up a division and opposition of this kind, putting the Mother on one side and myself on another and opposite or quite different side, has always been a trick of the forces of the Falsehood when they want to prevent a sadhaka from reaching the Truth. Dismiss all such falsehoods from your mind.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-81, “I wrote once before that these ideas about the separation between the Mother and myself and our paths being different or our goal different are quite erroneous. Our path is the same; our goal too is the same — the Supramental Divine.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-81, “When in your heart and thought you will make no difference between Sri Aurobindo and me, when to think of Sri Aurobindo will be to think of me and to think of me will mean to think of Sri Aurobindo inevitably, when to see one will mean inevitably to see the other, like one and the same Person, - then you will know that you begin to be open to the supramental force and consciousness.” The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-13/p-32
23: “And so I looked. "Is it something particular to this body?" I wondered. To everyone who has lived closely with it, my body gives the impression of two things: (1) a very concentrated, very stubborn will, and ...(2) such endurance! Sri Aurobindo used to tell me he had never dreamed a body could have such endurance. And that's probably why. But I don't want to curtail this ability in any way, because it is (1) a CELLULAR will, and (2) a cellular endurance too – which is quite intriguing. It's not a central will and central endurance (that's something else altogether) – it's cellular. That's why Sri Aurobindo used to tell me this body had been specially prepared and chosen for the Work – because of its capacity for obstinate endurance and will. But that's no reason to exercise this ability uselessly! So I am making sure it relaxes now; I tell it constantly, " Now, now! Just let go! Relax, have some fun, where's the harm in it?" I have to tell it to be quiet, very quiet. And it's very surprised to hear that: "Ah! Can I live that way? I don't have to hurry? I can live that way?"” The Mother’s Agenda-January-1, 1962,
24: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/-p-50,
25: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-613,
26 : The Gita-4.3,
27: The Mother-1,
28 : The Mother-57,
29: CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-556,
30: The Mother-2,
31: The Mother-61-62,
32 : CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1060,
33: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1080,
34: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-13,
35: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-3,
36: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-26,
37: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-25,
38: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-23,
39: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-963-64,
40: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-940,
41: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-392,
42: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-14,
43: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita-162,
44: “It is binding on the developing (Soul) but not yet perfectly developed individual in the shape of social duty, family obligation, communal or national demand, so long as it is not in conflict with his growing sense of the higher Right. But the sadhaka of the Karmayoga will abandon this also to the Lord of works. After he has made this surrender, his social impulses and judgments will, like his desires, only be used for their exhaustion or, it may be, so far as they are still necessary for a time to enable him to identify his lower mental nature with mankind in general or with any grouping of mankind in its works and hopes and aspirations. But after that brief time is over, they will be withdrawn and a divine government will alone abide. He will be identified with the Divine and with others only through the divine consciousness and not through the mental nature.” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-210-11, “Hatred and disliking and scorn and repulsion, clinging and attachment and preference are natural, necessary, inevitable at a certain stage: they attend upon or they help to make and maintain Nature’s choice in us. But to the Karmayogin they are a survival, a stumbling-block, a process of the Ignorance and, as he progresses, they fall away from his nature. The child-soul needs them for its growth; but they drop from an adult (Soul) in the divine culture.” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-223, “The fruit we covet may be a reward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred idea or some cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or else the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions. Or it may be an external reward, a recompense entirely material, wealth, position, honour, victory, good fortune or any other fulfilment of vital or physical desire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these satisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-102, “There is too, on a higher level, the equality of the stoic, the equality of a devout resignation or a sage detachment, the equality of a soul aloof from the world and indifferent to its doings. These too are insufficient; first approaches they can be, but they are at most early soul-phases only or imperfect mental preparations for our entry into the true and absolute self-existent wide evenness of the spirit.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-103,
45: The Mother’s Agenda/10.08.1960,
46: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-906-907,
47: The Mother/Questions and Answers, TMCW- 7/267,48: “In its nature and law the Overmind is a delegate of the Supermind Consciousness, its delegate to the Ignorance. Or we might speak of it as a protective double, a screen of dissimilar similarity through which Supermind can act indirectly on an Ignorance whose darkness could not bear or receive the direct impact of a supreme Light. Even, it is by the projection of this luminous Overmind corona that the diffusion of a diminished light in the Ignorance and the throwing of that contrary shadow which swallows up in itself all light, the Inconscience, became at all possible. For Supermind transmits to Overmind all its reali- ties, but leaves it to formulate them in a movement and according to an awareness of things which is still a vision of Truth and yet at the same time a first parent of the Ignorance. A line divides Supermind and Overmind which permits a free transmission, allows the lower Power to derive from the higher Power all it holds or sees, but automatically compels a transitional change in the passage. The integrality of the Supermind keeps always the essential truth of things, the total truth and the truth of its individual self-determinations clearly knit together; it maintains in them an inseparable unity and between them a close interpen- etration and a free and full consciousness of each other: but in Overmind this integrality is no longer there. And yet the Over- mind is well aware of the essential Truth of things; it embraces the totality; it uses the individual self-determinations without being limited by them: but although it knows their oneness, can realise it in a spiritual cognition, yet its dynamic movement, even while relying on that for its security, is not directly determined by it. Overmind Energy proceeds through an illimitable capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral and indivisible all-comprehending Unity. It takes each Aspect or Power and gives to it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance and is able to work out, we might say, its own world of creation.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-293
"Now, you know that Sri Aurobindo and I are always one and the same consciousness, one and the same person. Only, when this unique force or presence is felt in your individual consciousness, it assumes different forms or appearances depending upon your temperament, your aspirations, your needs, the particular cast of your nature. Your individual consciousness is like a filter, a pointer, as it were; it makes a choice and settles upon one possibility in the infinity of divine possibilities. In truth, the Divine gives to each one exactly what he expects from Him. If you believe the Divine to be distant and cruel, He will be distant and cruel, because it may be necessary for your supreme wellbeing to feel the wrath of God. He will be Kali’ for the worshippers of Kali, and bliss for the bhakta. He will be the All-Knowledge of seekers after Knowledge, the Transcendent Impersonal of the illusionist. He will be an atheist for the atheist, and the love of the lover. He will be fraternal and near, an ever faithful friend, ever helpful, to those who feel him as the inner guide of each movement, at each minute. And if you believe that He can erase everything, He will erase all your faults, all your errors, tirelessly, and at each moment you will feel his infinite Grace. In truth, the Divine is what you expect of Him in your deep aspiration.
The Mother
The Mother's Agenda/Vol-1/Undated 1957
“There is no difference between the Mother’s path and mine; we have and have always had the same path, the path that leads to the supramental change and the divine realisation; not only at the end, but from the beginning they have been the same…The attempt to set up a division and opposition of this kind, putting the Mother on one side and myself on another and opposite or quite different side, has always been a trick of the forces of the Falsehood when they want to prevent a sadhaka from reaching the Truth. Dismiss all such falsehoods from your mind.”
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-81
“I wrote once before that these ideas about the separation between the Mother and myself and our paths being different or our goal different are quite erroneous. Our path is the same; our goal too is the same — the Supramental Divine.”
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-81,
