Questions and Answers 1956
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Full PDF (430 pages): Collected Works of The Mother Volume 8: Questions and Answers 1956 |
Annotated contents
Hover your mouse over the underlined text to read the notes. Notes are paraphrased from the “Publisher's Note” and “Note on the Texts”.
Questions and Answers 1956
4 January Integral idea of the Divine 1 All things attracted by the Divine 3 Bad things are things no longer in their place 5 Integral yoga 7 Moving idea-force; small and great ideas 8 New Year Message of 1956 9 Consequences of manifestation 10 Work of the Spirit through Nature 11 Change consciousness: the world changes 12
11 January Desire and self-deception 14 Giving all one is and has 14 Sincerity: more powerful than will 19 Joy of progress 20 Definition of youth 20
18 January Positive and negative sides of individual work 22 Cheerfulness 23 A chosen human vessel of the Divine 23 Aspiration of plants, of children 24 Active consciousness in plants 25 Being chosen by the Divine 26 True hierarchy 27 Perfect relation with the Divine 29 India is free: already accomplished in 1915 30 Division of India, not decreed 31
25 January The divine way of life 33 Divine; Overmind; Supermind 33 Material body—for discovery of the Divine 35 Five psychological perfections 36
1 February Path of knowledge 43 Finding the Divine in life 44 Capacity for contact with the Divine 45 Partial and total identification with the Divine 46 Manifestation and hierarchy 48
8 February Forces of Nature expressing a higher Will 51 Illusion of separate personality 52 One dynamic force which moves all things 55 Linear and spherical thinking 56 Common ideal of life: microscopic 57
15 February Nature and the Master of Nature 59 Conscious intelligence 60 Theory of the Gita: not the whole truth 61 Surrender to the Lord 64 Change of nature 64
22 February Strong immobility of an immortal spirit 66 Equality of soul 68 Is all an expression of the divine Will? 68 Loosening the knot of action 70 Using experience as a cloak to cover excesses 72 Sincerity, a rare virtue 73
29 February Sacrifice: self-giving 74 Divine Presence in the heart of Matter 75 Divine Oneness 75 Divine Consciousness 77 All is One 78 Divine in the inconscient aspires for the Divine 79
7 March Animal sacrifice 80 Sacrifices to hostile forces 81 Sacrifice: receive in proportion to consciousness 81 To be luminously open 82 Integral transformation 83 Pain of rejection; delight of progress 84 Spirit behind intention 85 Spirit and matter: over-simplified distinction 86
14 March Dynamic meditation 88 Do all as an offering to the Divine 90 Significance of 23.4.56. 90 If twelve men of goodwill call the Divine 93
21 March Identify with the Divine 94 The Divine: the most important thing in life 94
28 March The starting-point of spiritual experience 96 The boundless finite 97 The Timeless and Time 98 Mental explanation not enough 99 Changing knowledge into experience 101 Sat-Chit-Tapas-Ananda 101
4 April The witness soul 102 A Gita enthusiast 103 Propagandist spirit; Tolstoy’s son 105
11 April Self-creator 107 Manifestation of Time and Space 108 Brahman-Maya and Ishwara-Shakti 108 Personal and Impersonal 110
18 April Ishwara and Shakti: seeing both aspects 112 The Impersonal and the divine Person 113 Soul: the presence of the divine Person 114 Going to other worlds; exteriorisation; dreams 115 Telling stories to oneself 117 Creative power in world of vital forms 118
25 April God: human conception and the true Divine 119 Earthly existence: to realise the Divine 119 Ananda: divine pleasure 120 Relations with the divine Presence 120 Asking the Divine for what one needs 122 Allowing the Divine to lead one 123
2 May Threefold union 125 Manifestation of the Supramental 126 Profiting from the Divine 128 Recognition of the Supramental Force 131 Ascent, descent, manifestation 133
9 May Beginning of the true spiritual life 135 Spirit gives value to all things 135 To be helped by the supramental Force 136
16 May Needs of the body: not true in themselves 139 Spiritual and supramental law 140 Aestheticised Paganism 141 Morality: checks true spiritual effort 141 Effect of supramental descent 143 Half-lights and false lights 144
23 May Yoga and religion 146 Story of two clergymen on a boat 147 The Buddha and the Supramental 150 Hieroglyphs and phonetic alphabets 151 A vision of ancient Egypt 154 Memory for sounds 155
30 May Forms as symbols of the Force behind 157 Art as expression of contact with the Divine 158 Supramental psychological perfection 158 Division of works 159 The Ashram: idle stupidities 160
6 June Sign or indication from books of revelation 162 Spiritualised mind 169 Stages of sadhana 170 Reversal of consciousness 171 Organisation around central Presence 173 Boredom: most common human malady 174
13 June Effects of the Supramental action 176 Education and the Supermind 178 Right to remain ignorant 179 Concentration of mind 181 Reason: not supreme capacity of man 182 Physical education and studies 184 Self-imposed inner discipline 184 True usefulness of teachers and instructors 185
20 June The heart’s mystic light and intuition 187 Psychic being; psychic contact 187 Secular refrigeration; secular ethics 188 True role of mind 189 Realisation of the Divine through love 190 Depression; pleasure; joy 190 Heart: mixture in its action 192 To follow the soul and not the mind 194 Physical energy: progressive effort; rest 195 To remember the Mother 196 Collective discipline; laws of atavism 197
27 June Birth: entry of soul into body 199 Formation of the supramental world 204 Aspiration for progress 205 Bad thoughts 207 Cerebral filter 207 Progress and resistance 208
4 July Aspiration when one sees a shooting star 210 Preparing the body; making it understand 211 Getting rid of pain and suffering 212 Psychic light 214
11 July Beauty restored to its priesthood 215 Occult worlds; occult beings 216 Difficulties and the supramental force 219
18 July Unlived dreams 221 Radha-consciousness 222 Separation and identification 224 Ananda of identity and Ananda of union 225 Sincerity, meditation and prayer 227 Enemies of the Divine 229 The universe is progressive 231
25 July A complete act of divine love 234 How to listen 235 Sports programme same for boys and girls 236 How to profit by stay at Ashram 240 “To Women about Their Body” 241
1 August Value of worship 243 Spiritual realisation and the integral yoga 243 Symbols: translation of experience into form 246 Sincerity: fundamental virtue 247 Intensity of aspiration: with anguish or joy 248 The divine Grace 250
8 August How to light the psychic fire; will for progress 251 Helping from a distance; mental formations 253 Prayer and the divine Grace 254 Grace at work everywhere 256
15 August Protection, purification, fear 258 Atmosphere at the Ashram on Darshan days 261 Significance of Darshan messages 263 Significance of fifteenth August 264 State of surrender 266 Divine Grace: has always been all-powerful 267 Assumption of the Virgin Mary 269 Sri Aurobindo’s message of 15 August 1947 270
22 August The heaven of the liberated mind 274 Trance or samadhi 274 Occult discipline for leaving consecutive bodies 276 To be greater than one’s experience 278 Total self-giving to the Grace 278 The truth of the being 279 Unique relation with the Supreme 279
29 August To live spontaneously 281 Mental formations 282 Absolute sincerity 284 Balance is indispensable: the middle path 285 When in difficulty, widen the consciousness 285 Easiest way of forgetting oneself 287
5 September Material life: seeing in the right way 288 Effect of the Supermind on the earth 290 Emergence of the Supermind 291 Falling back into the same mistaken ways 292
12 September Questions, practice and progress 295
19 September Power: predominant quality of vital being 297 The Divine, the psychic being, the Supermind 298 How to come out of the physical consciousness 299 Look life in the face 300 Ordinary love and Divine love 300
26 September Soul of desire 303 Openness; harmony with Nature 304 Communion with divine Presence 305 Individuality, difficulties and the soul of desire 305 Utility of personal contact with the Mother 306 Inner receptivity 306 Bad thoughts in the presence of the Mother 308
3 October The Mother’s different ways of speaking 310 The new manifestation 311 A new element: new possibilities 313 Greater number of child prodigies 314 Laws of Nature and the supramental 315 Logic of the unforeseen 316 Child prodigies: example of a child of eight 316 Creative writers; the hands of musicians 318 Prodigious children, prodigious men 320
10 October The supramental race — in a few centuries 321 Condition for new realisation 323 Everyone must follow his own path 323 Progress: no two paths alike 324
17 October Delight: the highest state 326 Delight and detachment 327 To be calm 328 Quietude, mental and vital 328 Calm and strength 329 Experience and expression of experience 330
24 October Taking a new body 332 Different cases of incarnation 334 Departure of soul from body 336
31 October Manifestation of divine love 339 Deformation of Love by human consciousness 340 Experience and expression of experience 342
7 November Thoughts created by forces of universal Mind 344 Our own thought hardly exists 345 Idea: origin higher than mind 346
14 November The Synthesis of Yoga: effect of reading 347 Conquering the desire to appear good 348 Self-control and control of the life around 350 Power of mastery 352 Be a great yogi to be a good teacher 354 Organisation of the Ashram school 355 Elementary discipline of regularity 356
21 November “Knowings” and Knowledge 358 Reason: summit of man’s mental activities 359 “Willings” and the true will 360 Personal effort 361 First step to have knowledge 361 Relativity of medical knowledge 363 Mental gymnastics to make the mind supple 364 Spiritual life: traditional and in the Ashram 366
28 November Desire, ego, animal nature 367 Consciousness: a progressive state 368 Ananda: desireless state beyond enjoyings 369 Personal effort that is mental 370 Reason: when to disregard it 373 Reason and “reasons” 374
5 December Even and objectless ecstasy 376 Transform the animal 377 Individual personality and world-personality 378 Characteristic features of a world-personality 380 Expressing a universal state of consciousness 380 Food and sleep 381 Ordered intuition 382
12 December Virtue of paradoxes 383 Nothing is impossible 383 The unfolding universe and the Eternal 384 Attention, concentration and effort 385 Capacity for growth almost unlimited 387 Why everything is not the same 388 Distinction between will and “willings” 388 Suggestions and formations 390 The vital world: adverse suggestions 392
19 December Preconceived mental ideas 395 Process of creation 396 Destructive power of bad thoughts 396 To be perfectly sincere 397
26 December Defeated victories 401 Change of consciousness 402 Experiences that indicate the road to take 404 Choice and preference 405 Diversity of the manifestation 407
