Chapter 76The Mother’s Help in Difficulties · The Mother’s Help and the Hostile Forces

only so far as they are necessary for that and for the Divine work.” This latter portion about prayer for outer things is not clear to me. Can you kindly explain?

All depends on whether the outer things are sought for one’s own convenience, pleasure, profit etc., or as part of the spiritual life, necessary for the success of the work, the development and fitness of the instruments etc. It is a question mainly of inner attitude. If for instance you pray for money for buying nice food to please the palate, that is not a proper prayer for a sadhak; if you pray for money to give to the Mother and help her work, then it is legitimate.

I quote several types of prayers which I offer and shall be grateful to know which of them are outer or inner, right or wrong, helpful or hindrance, or what amendment to them can make them pure: 1. In the night-time when I sit to read and an untimely attack of sleep comes, I pray to the Mother to be freed from the attack.

If your reading is part of the sadhana, that is all right.

2. When I go to sleep, I pray to the Mother for her Force to take over my sadhana during the sleep, to make my sleep conscious and luminous, to protect me during the sleep, to keep me conscious of the Mother.

3. When I wake up any time in the sleep, I pray to the Mother to be with me and protect me.

These two are part of the sadhana.

4. While going out for a walk and during it, I pray to the Mother to give me force to take more exercise and to gain more strength and health and I thank the Mother for the help.

If strength and health are requested as being necessary for the sadhana and the development of the perfection of the instrument it is all right.

5. When I see any dog on the way while walking, I at once pray to the Mother to protect me from its attack and remove my fear.

A call for protection is always permissible. The removal of fear is part of the sadhana.

6. When I go for food, I pray for the Mother’s Force to help me to offer every morsel to the Mother, to get everything easily digested, to make a growth of complete equality and detachment in my consciousness enabling me to take any food with equal Rasa of universal Ananda without any insistence or seeking or greed or desire.

This is again part of the sadhana.

7. When I go for work, I pray for the Mother’s Force to take over my work, help me and make me do it well and carefully with love, devotion and pleasure, with the remembrance of her without ego or desire.

This also.

8. During the work also when there is a pause, I pray for force, This also.

9. When any bad or impure thought, seeing or sensation comes into me, I pray for its removal and purity.

This also.

10. When I am reading, I try to pray when possible to understand all quickly, to grasp and absorb completely.

If it is as sadhana or for the development of the instrument, it is all right.

11. When I commit any mistake in the work, I pray to be more conscious, alert and unerring.

This also is part of the sadhana.

12. When I go to the post office to register a parcel of Prasad to my friend, I pray to have the parcel accepted immediately and avoid any delay.

That can be done, if avoidance of waste of time is considered as part of the right regulation of the life of sadhana.

13. When I sit down for meditation, I pray for Mother’s Force to take over my meditation and make it deep, steady, concentrated and free from all attacks of troubling thoughts, vital restlessness, etc.

This is part of the sadhana.

14. In depression, difficulty, wrong suggestions, doubt, inertia, on any occasion or happening I pray to the Mother to have courage, keep faith, face them and overcome them.

This also.

15. At all other times as far as I can, I pray to the Mother to fill me with her peace, power, light etc., or offer any other kind of required prayer, and thank her for supporting, strengthening and sustaining me.

This also.

16 September 1938 There are times when I think myself to be a simple vessel and imagine that things coming from the outside have no importance, for the adhar can be purified and what is not wanted can either be thrown out or allowed to end in a natural way. But at other times I feel that every outside contact may have harmful effects, and care and tapasya are needed to avoid confusion. I want to know which view is correct.

It is not possible to make a fixed rule covering all cases and circumstances; sometimes one has to remain quiet waiting for the Mother’s light and force to act, sometimes it is necessary to use an active tapasya. But one thing is always necessary, to refuse to accept the adverse forces and suggestions that try to disorganise and disturb the system; for the basis of the Yoga must be peace, quiet, clarity, self-possession and nothing should be allowed to invade and upset the basis and substitute confusion and disorder.

13 September 1931

* It might be charitable to warn X not to listen to imbecile remarks [about the Mother] of this kind, from whomsoever they may come, and, if he hears them, to do nothing to propagate them. He had been progressing extremely well because he opened himself to the Mother; but if he allows stupidities like that to enter his mind, it may influence him, close him to the Mother and stop his progress. As for Y, if he said and thought a thing like that, it explains why he has been suffering in health so much lately. If one makes oneself a mouthpiece of the hostile forces and lends oneself to their falsehoods, it is not surprising that something in him should get out of order.

7 January 1932

* I see now the damage I have done by my disobedience in work. I must go about my work consciously, performing it as a service to the Mother. I must work with full concentration and feel a connection with the Mother.

The difficulty this time must have come from this very act of distrust and disobedience. For distrust and disobedience are like falsehood (they are themselves a falsity, based on false ideas and impulses), — they interfere in the action of the Power, prevent it from being felt or working fully and diminish the force of the Protection. It was the same thing that made you lose touch for a while — for the adverse vital Formation always makes use of these wrong movements to cloud the consciousness. Not only in your inward concentration, but in your outward acts and movements you must take the right attitude. If you do that and put everything under the Mother’s guidance, you will find that difficulties begin to diminish or are much more easily got over and things become steadily smoother. Now that these things have happened you should learn from them and feel the necessity of being, as you say, conscious in your work. In your work and acts you must do the same as in your concentration. Open to the Mother, put them under her guidance, call in the peace, the supporting Power, the protection and, in order that they may work, reject all wrong influences that might come in their way by creating wrong, careless or unconscious movements. Follow this principle and your whole being will become one, under one rule, in the peace and sheltering Power and Light.

17 March 1932

* At 4.30 in the afternoon, while serving vegetables in the Dining Room, I suddenly fell into a very unhappy condition. My consciousness entered into a world of obscurity and uneasiness and wild vital forces. Innumerable hostile suggestions pierced my helpless consciousness. Then the form of X appeared and he threatened me, saying that my fate would be the same as his — I would have to leave the Asram. Later, while in this condition I passed by Y’s room and felt that the Mahakali forces of the Mother were around me; I also felt that her very name would create fear in the hostile forces. As I thought of her with feeling, suddenly all was clear.

It is the Force that attacks everyone in the Asram who can at all be attacked in this way — the X form is merely an appearance which it took for the sake of having a more concrete effect. It is a vital violence which suggests always a catastrophic breaking of the personal sadhana or of my work. Such a Force is naturally met by the power of Mahakali. You felt it while passing Y’s room because it is always there with Y, and it is by that that he meets