Chapter 74The Mother’s Help in Difficulties · Calling the Mother in Difficulty

do nothing to you, only you must reject all fear. Keep always this with me, nothing bad can happen”; for when there is the psychic opening and one puts one’s faith in the Mother, that is sufficient to ward these things off. Many sadhaks learn, when they have alarming dreams, to call the Mother’s name in the dream itself and then the things that menace them become helpless or cease. You must therefore refuse to be intimidated and reject these impressions with contempt. If there is anything frightening, call down the Mother’s protection.

The heat you felt was probably due to some difficulty in the it has been working up till now. When such sensations or the unease you once felt or similar things come, you must not be alarmed, but remain quiet and let the difficulty pass.

What you had before that, the moonlight in the forehead, was this working in the centre there between the eyebrows, the centre of the inner mind, will and vision. The moonlight you saw is the light of spirituality and it was this that was entering into your mind through the centre, with the effect of the widening in the heart like a sky filled with moonlight. Afterwards came some endeavour to prepare the lower part of the mind whose centre is in the throat and join it with the inner mind and make it open; but there was some difficulty, as is very usually the case, which caused the heat. It was probably the fire of tapas, Agni, trying to open the way to this centre.

The experience of being taken up into the sky is a very common one and it means an ascent of the consciousness into a higher world of light and peace.

The idea that you must go more and more within and turn wholly to the Mother is quite right. It is when there is no attachment to outward things for their own sake and all is only for the Mother and the life through the inner psychic being is centred in her that the best condition is created for the spiritual realisation.

11 November 1935

* Fear in these experiences is a thing one must get rid of; if there is any danger, a call to the Mother is sufficient, but in reality there is none — for the protection is there.

29 November 1935

*

This morning around eight o’clock I heard a great crash. I ran out and found our X sitting on the footpath with blood coming out of the wound on his forehead. The wheels of his cycle were under the wheel of a car. Could the Mother not have foreseen the possibility of this accident and prevented it? Or could it not be prevented because X had in some manner gone out of the zone of her protection?

It was not possible to prevent the accident. When the danger comes, a call to the Mother is the first thing to be done, that makes the general protection at once effective. X was in too externalised a state to do that and he did the very opposite thing to what should have been done — trying to get away in front of the car instead of behind it. But the true cause was something more internal — one of those choices made by the inner being (not necessarily known to the conscious mind) which bring these things as a response.

27 January 1936

* The experience you had of the power of the Name and the protection is that of everyone who has used it with the same faith and reliance. To those who call from the heart for the protection, it cannot fail. Do not allow any outward circumstance to shake the faith in you; for nothing gives greater strength than this faith to go through and arrive at the goal. Knowledge and tapasya, whatever their force, have a less sustaining power — faith is the strongest staff for the journey.

The protection is there over you and the watchful love of the Mother. Rely upon it and let your being open more and more to it — then it will repel attacks and always uphold you.

8 October 1936

* It is not because the Mother has withdrawn her protection — she has not done that. It is more likely that it [the difficulty] came because you have been going too much out of your inner being and externalising yourself. It is better to draw back within again and recover the inner calm and peace.

Why this bad feeling? I am feeling all bad today.

When in difficulties always remain as quiet within as possible and call the Mother.

Surely the Mother’s force is there to transform you and it will prevail.

You must progress to a point at which there is always something within which in spite of any surface disturbance is always quiet, unshaken, holding on to the Mother — then these things will no longer be able to cloud the inner consciousness as now.

* Plenty of people have this condition (it is human nature) and there is naturally a way of coming out of it — having full faith in the Mother to quiet the inner mind (even if the outer continues to be troublesome) and call in it the Mother’s Peace and Force, which is always there above you, into the Adhar. Once that is there, consciously, to keep yourself open to it and let it go on working with a full adhesion, with a constant support of your consent, with a constant rejection of all that is not that, till all the inner being is tranquillised and filled with the Mother’s Force, Peace, Joy, Presence — then the outer nature will be obliged to follow suit in its turn.

8 May 1933

*

In a dream I saw a dull painting with an expanse of water in the background, and in the centre a temple with trees in front. As I was looking at it, I went on calling the Mother and the painting began changing — the waters actually began to move and white light was falling on them here and there until the whole picture was sparkling like silver. Then I woke up. Does this mean that some light will come into the obscurity in me?

Yes, it is a symbol, — the expanse of water means the ordinary outward consciousness which is obscure and dull, the temple is the psychic centre behind it. By calling the Mother her white light comes upon the dark consciousness and begins to change the darkness into lustre.

27 May 1933

*

For about a month I have the feeling that devotion, love and way even during the morning pranam. Mother, I pray to Thee to shower Thy Grace and inspire me to have devotion, love and aspiration for Thee once again. What may be the reason for this?

You may have allowed your consciousness to go too much outward and get taken up by ordinary things. It is usually when the outer physical consciousness covers up the inner being that this happens. The aspiration is not gone, but it no longer rises to the surface. If you remain very quiet inwardly and call to the Mother, it should come back.

13 July 1933

*

When I awoke this morning, I found the atmosphere sur-charged with the Mother’s presence. The air around me, the cot on which I lay, everything was filled with her presence. A burning aspiration was in my heart. The consciousness there was aspiring intensely, flapping its wings like a caged bird, trying to leave the body and unite with the Mother present everywhere. After some time it seemed to me that although I was in the body I was free, free of every limitation, but helpless, strengthless, drifting away and exposed to the hostile forces. Then I saw the red, rolling, frowning eyes of X, threatening me. Helpless in this limitless space, I called the Mother and the atmosphere was clear.

What happened in your experience was that the vital being got free from the body through its desire to unite with the Mother (you met the Mother on the border between the vital and physical) and lived with its own life independent of the body. It entered into the vital world and, not being sheltered any longer in the body, felt helpless at first, till it called the Mother. The appearance of X there might possibly have been some part of the vital of X himself, but was more probably a vital being in his shape, perhaps the very vital being who has been troubling him. When you go into the vital world, you meet many such things, — the one sufficient protection is to call the Mother.

7 September 1933

*

This morning after pranam I felt a sudden uprush of impatience, restlessness, uneasiness and a quick, strong beating of the pulse. Confusion was there too. I sat down and after a long time the dark forces began to grow less, bringing a normal state again. My pulse also became normal. Is it due to the Mother’s action? Have I been able to make some place for her in the lower parts of my being?

It is the forces of the Ignorance that begin to lay siege and then make a mass attack. Every time such an attack can be defeated and cast out, there is a clearance in the Adhar, a new field gained for the Mother in the mind, vital or physical or the adjacent parts of the being. That the place in the vital occupied by the Mother is increasing is shown by the fact that you are now offering a strong resistance to these sieges that used formerly to overpower you altogether.

In the afternoon all my problems started coming to the front. I felt that they had become too big a burden for me to bear. Then I felt an opening in the heart, and I opened up a conversation with the Mother. I told her all my joys and sorrows and I got some consolation and strength.

That is good. To be able to call the Mother’s presence or force at such times is the best way to meet the difficulty.