Chapter 73The Mother’s Help in Difficulties · The Mother’s Protection

trust in others — which you have often expressed in your letters; your quickness to take offence, your readiness to suspect people’s motives, especially in their behaviour towards you. Others have these faults, but they try to control them. You, when a mood like these comes upon you, seem to yield to it and let it have free course.

If you want to get on in your sadhana and if you want people to feel comfortable with you and ready to help you, you must get rid of these vital moods and defects — you must put there to help you, but there must be your active consent and cooperation, your own steady will and endeavour.

1 November 1933

*

I cannot do anything myself so long as the inertia in me is so strong. May I ask, what does the Mother mean to do with the inertia in me?

If Mother’s “doing” with the inertia were sufficient, it would have been done long ago and also the supramental down in you. The question is not what the Mother is going to do with it but what you are going to do with it.

29 November 1936

* These ideas are wrong suggestions that you must throw away. There is no reason why you should be able to do nothing in this life or all should be postponed to another. It is in this life that you not left you to yourself. But I think it is advisable that you should spend some time daily in concentration to keep the conscious connection and also write more often; if not every day, yet every second or third day.

17 December 1936

* It is not that I want you to do all by your own strength; the Mother’s force is there. I should like you however to persist in meditation and the endeavour to be quiet within; even if at present there is no definite self-understanding or experience, this is the way to open the nature to them; we will try to do the rest for you.

20 December 1936 There is nothing wrong in your experience or insincere in your expression of it; to write is helpful and it is our wish that you should go on doing it. An occasional sinking of the consciousness happens to everybody. The causes are various, some touch from outside, something not yet changed or not sufficiently changed in the vital, especially the lower vital, some inertia or obscurity rising up from the physical parts of nature.When it comes, remain quiet, open yourself to the Mother and call back the true condition, and aspire for a clear and undisturbed discrimination showing you from within yourself the cause or the thing that needs to be set right.

4 March 1932

*

The attack of darkness is over, but my body is still restless and my consciousness troubled. I have lost connection with your peace, the peace that used to make the feelings quiet and the body restful. But I can still aspire and I am hopeful to get back your touch again.

However strong the attack may be and even if it overcomes for the time being, still it will rapidly pass away if you have formed the habit of opening to the Mother. The peace will come back, if you remain quiet and keep yourself open to it and to the Force. Once something of the Truth has shown itself within you, it will always, even if for a time heavily clouded over with wrong movements, shine out again like the sun in heaven. Therefore persevere with confidence and never lose courage.

14 March 1932

* You should not allow yourself to get upset by these small things. If when the movements you complain of come, you remain quiet and open to the Mother and call her, after a time you will find a change beginning to come in you. Meditation is not enough; think of the Mother and offer your work and action to her, that will help you better.

7 April 1932

* The play of the mental and vital defects in the human nature which belongs to the Ignorance is allowed — as also the attacks and suggestions of the Asuric forces — so long as there is anything in the nature which responds to these things. If they rise in you in the presence of the Mother, it is because then a strong pressure is put on them so that they have either to go out or to put up a fight for existence. The remedy is to open to the Mother only and to reject entirely and at all times all other forces, and to reject them most when they become most active. Faith, sincerity, perseverance will do the rest.

16 November 1932

*

Yesterday I prayed, “O Divine Mother, how can I realise that I am always guided by Thee and that Thy presence is in all things and everywhere. I pray that I may love Thee and be Thy child and an instrument for Thy work.”

Yes. The more one is open to the Mother’s action, the more easily difficulties get solved and the right thing is done.

21 September 1934 by their own act or attitude they go out of the circle of the protection there may be undesirable consequences.

1 April 1933

*

I think that one observes the rules here either because one feels it is for one’s spiritual good or because it is better, for love of the Mother, not to do otherwise and thus go out of her protection.

It is precisely that — one immediately goes out of the protection.

8 June 1933

*

I was invited by friends to go to a restaurant and accepted. Later I learned that you were opposed to the idea. What should we — those of us who live outside the Asram — do?

occult forces and the best possible conditions for the protection of the sadhaks from certain forces of death and disease etc. It cannot work perfectly because the sadhaks themselves have not the right attitude towards food and kindred vital-physical things. But still there is a protection. If however the sadhaks go outside her formation, it must be on their own responsibility — ment is for the Asram and not for those who are outside.

14 July 1933

*

When the Mother’s protection is put around a person, how does he go out of it?

By desire, wrong thoughts, wrong actions, wrong feelings — by revolt, pride, ambition, lust or any other vital indulgence.

16 July 1933

*

Last night I dreamt that in my native village I entered a house where a madman came to attack me. Being afraid of the madman, I ran away for I have always been afraid of madmen, especially violent ones. My movement was slow, but along the way I found a stick and got rid of the attacker.

It was a dream of the vital plane where all kinds of dangers occur until you get courage to face them. If there is no fear or if there is the protection of the Mother (which becomes manifest by remembering or calling her) then these dangers come to nothing. It is the fear of madmen that brought the thing in the vital; such things as this fear have to be thrown out of the nature.

8 September 1933

*

All would like the Mother’s protection to remain with them; but perhaps certain conditions have to be fulfilled to allow her to encircle them fully?

There are very few who allow it. There is a general protection around all, but most go out of it by their attitude, thoughts or actions or open the way to other forces.

24 August 1934

*

If a sadhak has the Mother’s circle of protection around him, I don’t think he will have gloom, depression, doubt or anything hostile to the Divine.

These things may try to come but they will not be able to enter or stay.

24 August 1934

*

Yesterday I went with X and Y for an outing. We bought plantains from the market and ate them. After our return I began to feel out of sorts and by the time of meditation the body appeared to be weak and a little feverish. Was my going out and eating plantains inadvisable?

It is better to let the Mother know when you go far out like that so that it may be with her protection that you go. The eating of plantains from the bazaar was indeed a mistake — Mother has several times warned against it and X knows that. The body often becomes sensitive at a certain stage of the Yoga, but there should at the same time be the development of a higher Force which will protect and push back all attacks upon it.

* These things that come to frighten you are merely impressions thrown on you by small vital forces which want to prevent you (by making you nervous) pushing on in sadhana. They can really