Attitude towards material things

(Sri Aurobindo:) “The gnostic being, using Matter but using it without material or vital attachment or desire, will feel that he is using the Spirit in this form of itself with its consent and sanction for its own purpose. There will be in him a certain respect for physical things, an awareness of the occult consciousness in them, of its dumb will of utility and service, a worship of the Divine, the Brahman in what he uses, a care for a perfect and faultless use of his divine material, for a true rhythm, ordered harmony, beauty in the life of Matter, in the utilisation of Matter.””

(Champaklal:) “When writing materials like fountain pens, ball-pens and pencils were offered to the Mother, she would often try them immediately. Here is what she wrote about five pencils tried out on a piece of paper:

the good pencil

a nice pencil

another nice pencil

a still better pencil

the perfect pencil”

(Mother to Huta:) “Whenever I feel like giving something to a person – no doubt, there are so many things before me – I never think what I should give. Simply I ask the material things, “Who wants to go?” And at once I get the reply, “I!” And I pick up the very thing and give to the person.”

(Nolini Kanta Gupta:) “Today I leave aside the Mother’s role as our guide on the path of sadhana or yogic discipline. Let me speak in a very general way of an aspect of her teaching that concerns the first principles of the art of living.
         The core of this lies in elevating our life to a cleaner level, and the first and most important need is to put each thing in its place. The training that the Mother has throughout been giving us — I am not here referring to the side of spiritual practice but to the daily routine of our ordinary life — is precisely this business of putting our things in order. We do not always notice how very disorderly we are: our belongings and household effects are in a mess, our actions are haphazard, and in our inner life we are as disorderly as in our outer life, or even more. Indeed it is because we are so disordered within that there is such disorder in our outer life. Our thoughts come to us pell-mell and our brains are crowded with straying bits of random thought. We cannot sit down quietly for a few minutes and pursue a particular line of thought with any kind of steadiness or order. Our heads are full of noise like a marketplace without any peace or restraint or harmony. If the mind is in such a state, the vital being is still worse. One cannot keep count of the strange desires and impulses that play about there. If the brain is a marketplace, the heart is no better than a madhouse.
         Well, I shall not now enlarge further on the state of our inner being. One of the things the Mother has been trying to teach us both by her word and example is this, that to keep our outer life and its materials in proper order and neat and tidy is a very necessary element in our life upon earth. I do not know to what extent we have been able to assimilate this teaching in our individual or collective living. How many of us have realised that beauty is at least half the sense of life and serves to double its value? And even if we do sometimes realise it, how many of us are impelled to shape our lives accordingly?”

(Chitra Sen:) “One very basic aspect we learnt from the Mother was the care of material things. Once the Mother had gone to the school to see something. Everything was spruced up for the Mother's visit. When She arrived, She went straight to a cupboard and had it opened. What the people there couldn't finish in a hurry was all dumped inside! On another occasion when She visited one of the departments, She went straight to the store. It was the Building Department. Here again were all the things which had been put pell mell. They asked the Mother, “Why did you have to come here?” She said, “I heard the call! They were saying, ‘Come and first see us. How they have kept us.’ ” So it is very important for us to know how to respect material things. Respect the divine consciousness in matter, in the physical.”

(Mother:) “I have noticed something else: people whose minds are in disorder keep their rooms and their belongings in a similar state of disorder. I have seen people who had no order in their minds and if you open their chest of drawers or their cupboards, you will find an awful mess — everything is in a jumble. There are people who are intelligent and have slips of paper on which they jot things down — authors, for example — but if by chance they need one of these notes, they have to spend an hour hunting it out and turning everything upside down! They either find the paper in the waste-paper basket or in the drawer where they put their handkerchiefs. Well, that’s how it is, isn’t it?
         There are people who may not be very intelligent, but who have taken the trouble to put some order among the few ideas they have. If you open their cupboard, you will find that they have very few things, but these things are neatly and tidily arranged, because they have organised material things in the same way as they have organised their thoughts. The mind is therefore an instrument of organisation.
         People who have some power of organisation may start by organising their little personal belongings, then their lives and the events in their lives. They may be in charge of a certain number of people — they can organise a business, a school, anything. Or else if they have the power to govern, they are able to organise a country. Some people have this power of organisation and others don’t.”

(Amal Kiran:) “A peep into the unusual state of subtle perception in which the Mother lived we once had when at the end of the morning's meeting with us and interviews with people she started to walk towards the stairs leading up to her room on the second floor. Before she had gone a dozen steps she stopped. She was looking down at the carpet under her feet. We were curious to know what had happened. So we inquired. She turned round and said: “Suddenly this carpet which has been lying here for years asked, ‘How do you find me?’ I replied, ‘I find you very nice indeed.’” At another time she told us that in the room where we used to meet her the furniture had at last got into the right relative positions and there was a harmonious consciousness in it which should not be disturbed.”

(Sehra:) “Dearest Mother,
         I am very sorry to trouble you but a certain experience needs to be told so that I may have your guidance. It has been going on for several months and now it is more intense. All objects around me – including bottles and soaps and even stones and walls – are like living beings. You know that I was always in contact with the life of trees, but this is something new. To make you see how far it has gone I will tell you my experience of last night.
         I woke up suddenly from sleep as if somebody had been calling me. I sat puzzled for a while and then thought of going to the bathroom. The moment I entered it, all objects started speaking to me. The mug said, “You haven't put me in my right place near the pail.” And the water in the pail said, “You didn't wash your face with me but with tap-water.” There were also other things I had not done as usual – things which I purposely do every day to satisfy the demand of the objects.
         So I understood that these objects had woken me up. I felt as if they were beginning to possess me. I don't mind making them happy, but I shouldn't get cracked. What is happening and what should I do?”

The Mother's remarks:
There is nothing to be alarmed about. I consider this sensitiveness as natural. It is simply that you are becoming more conscious, and there is not much difficulty in telling these things, before you retire, to keep quiet during the night in order not to disturb your sleep.
         With love and blessings.

Sehra's interview 1.10.1963:
As soon as I went to Mother, she asked, “Are you still in cantact with them?”
         “With whom?” I questioned, a little surprised.
         “With the objects around you.”
         “Yes, Mother, but I must tell you that after I wrote to you I felt rather guilty. At night they seemed to say, ‘So you have told Mother about us.’ ”
         “There is nothing to feel guilty about. And, as I wrote to you, you must keep in contact with them, because you will then begin to see many things. But you must have some control over the objects. To them you are like a God and they will obey and do what you want. You must be calm and firm with them and not allow them to grip you in any way.
         You know how, when I used to give flowers, the flowers spoke to me, sometimes asking to be picked up. Even when I was in France, objects used to speak. I had a vegetable and flower garden. Often the vegetables would call me from afar when I was in my own room. They would say, ‘Pick us up, we are ready.’ And I would go and see and find they were right... It is good to open yourself. You will learn a lot.”

(Champaklal:) “In the early days, as you know, Sri Aurobindo used to smoke cigars. It was my work to collect the empty boxes and sell them in the market. Each time, on the way to the market, I wondered: the boxes in which Sri Aurobindo's cigars have come, which have been handled by him and also touched by the Mother, how can we give them away to people who don't value them for all this? So I was always tempted to keep them and pay their market price to the Mother, but I managed to resist the desire and control my wish.
         One day Mother brought an old timepiece from Sri Aurobindo' s room, gave it to me and asked me to sell it to a watch repairer at whatever price he offered. Dutifully I took it to the shop and he offered a rupee and a quarter or perhaps two rupees and odd. I could not bring myself to part with the timepiece. So, I brought it back and told Mother what had happened.
         “May I keep it?” I asked her with trepidation.
         She smiled beautifully. “All right,” she said, but took it back.
         Imagine my surprise when the next morning Sri Aurobindo took the timepiece in his hand and smiling sweetly asked me: “Champaklal, you want the clock?” And he placed it in my hands.
         Thereafter it stayed with me. Once, however, Dikshitbhai who had come on a visit had no watch with him and Punamchandbhai suggested I give this clock to him. Naturally I was reluctant, but finally, thinking that my reluctance was due to what many called my ‘bugbear of selfishness’, I yielded. And the tragedy of it was that the clock was stolen from Diskshitbhai's room. When occasion arose I mentioned the incident to the Mother. To my mind the clock was invaluable because it was used by Sri Aurobindo – it used to be kept on the table near him when he saw people in the mornings in the verandah of Library House.
         From childhood I disliked anyone using my things. Instead when possible I used to buy books, pens etc. and give rather than loan the ones I used to others; in fact I did this several times; only I could not understand why I behaved like that. But when I heard that Mother too did the same thing, I was sure that this behaviour was not rooted in selfishness. And when I asked Mother about it she explained everything to me very nicely, in detail, and finally said, “There was no selfishness at all in your not wanting to lend the clock to Dikshit.” Then she added, “It was a lesson.” ”

(Dyuman, 1932): “Mother,
         When P handed the monthly Prosperity things to me I thought: “What will Mother do if the stock of toothbrushes is exhausted? Mother must have this one – it goes to Mother.”

(Mother:) I have taken already my precautions. Since more than four months I am using my finger as a toothbrush and find it quite convenient. So I am sending back your toothbrush. If you have no use for it, you can return it to the stores.”

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See also

• Subtle physical
• Sri Smriti