Contents

Questions and Answers 1954

27 January 1954

Does the body express one’s character?

Children and the psychic

The power of observation

3 February 1954

The senses and super-sense

Children can be moulded

Keeping things in order

10 February 1954

Study a variety of subjects

Memory of past lives

Getting rid of unpleasant thoughts

17 February 1954

Experience expressed in different ways

Origin of the psychic being

Progress in sports

Everything is not for the best

24 February 1954

The manifestation is progressive

Psychic contact

Liberation and humanity

ABC of the transformation of the body

A French scientist’s experiment

Death and determinism

The domain of death

Stones falling on Sri Aurobindo’s house

Ascetic practices

Two kinds of submission

The Kali of Virampatnam

Dreams and the condition of the stomach

Tobacco and alcohol

The centres and the Kundalini

Control of the senses

Three sources of vital energy

Educating the senses

A child brought up by a wolf

Communication without words

Uneven progress

Words and the Word

Can a person love another truly?

Physical transformation

Activity and passivity

The body: most capable of perfection

Aspiration and receptivity

Purusha and Prakriti: not masculine and feminine

Faith, trust, confidence

Insincerity and unconsciousness

Distinguishing between influences

Perfect sincerity

Affection and love

Divine Love and receptivity

Get out of the ego

Symbolic dreams

Dreams: one is rarely conscious

Learning how to live

Work, studies and sadhana

Waste of the Energy and Consciousness

Dreams do not transform the nature

Eating habits in the Ashram

The earth and the psychic being

Mother’s awareness of people

Influences: Divine and other

The four great Asuras

Aspiration arranges circumstances

Wanting only the Divine

Story of Mother’s vegetable garden

Conscious sleep

Religion and vital beings

Mother’s knowledge of what happens in the Ashram

Asking questions to Mother

“Drawing” on Mother

The inner warrior

Grace and the Falsehood

Opening from below

Surrender and inertia

Exclusive receptivity

Grace and receptivity

The Divine and the Shakti

Personal effort

Speaking and thinking

Self-giving, consecration and surrender

Mother’s use of flowers

Ornaments and protection

Mental arrogance

Difficulty turned into opportunity

Mother’s use of flowers

Conversion of men governed by adverse forces

Ego and individuality

Servant and worker

Justification of weakness

Play of the Divine

Why are you here in the Ashram?

Division and creation

The gods and human formations

People carry their desires around them

Determinism and freedom

Suffering and knowledge

Aspects of the Mother

Ananda aspect of the Mother

Changing conditions in the Ashram

Ascetic discipline

Mother’s body

8 September 1954

Changing the centre of thought

15 September 1954

Parts of the being

Thoughts and impulses

The subconscient

Precise vocabulary

The Grace and difficulties

22 September 1954

The supramental creation

Rajasic eagerness

Silence from above

Aspiration and rejection

Effort, individuality and ego

Aspiration and desire

29 September 1954

The right spirit

The Divine comes first

Finding the Divine

Rejecting impulses

Making the consciousness vast

Firm resolution

What happens is for the best

Blaming oneself

The vital desire-soul

Creating a spiritual atmosphere

Thought and Truth

13 October 1954

The witness position

The silent Self

Experience of “All is Divine”

Illness is remembered by the body

Personal conflicts and the divine Will

20 October 1954

Asking questions to Mother

Seeing images in meditation

Mother’s organ music

3 November 1954

Body opening to the Divine

Concentration in the heart

The army of the Divine

The knot of the ego

Strengthening one’s will

10 November 1954

Inner experience: the basis of action

Keeping open to the Force

Faith through aspiration

The Mother’s symbol

The mind and vital seize experience

Degrees of sincerity

Becoming conscious of the Divine Force

17 November 1954

Impersonal and personal Divine

Looking at oneself

Faith and trust

Physical suffering

24 November 1954

Aspiration mixed with desire

Willing and desiring

Children and desires

Supermind and the higher ranges of mind

Stages in the supramental manifestation

8 December 1954

Cosmic consciousness

“Clutching”

The central will of the being

Knowledge by identity

15 December 1954

Many witnesses inside oneself

Children in the Ashram

Trance and the waking consciousness

Ascetic methods

Education: spontaneous effort

Spiritual experience

22 December 1954

Possession by hostile forces

Purity and morality

Faith in the final success

Drawing back from the path

29 December 1954

Difficulties and the world

The experience the psychic being wants

31 December 1954

1955–1956: fourteen difficult months

Human will and the divine Will

Difficulties and the Divine

Note on the Text