Chapter 26The Mother and the Discipline in the Ashram · The Mother’s Advice on Some Practical Matters

by suppression from outside. Each one has to deal with them from within.

4 September 1933

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Sometimes things that I want come to me in a surprising way. But why don’t I get what I want from the Mother? Someone told me that the universal Divine gives according to a universal law. But with the Mother, it is her Will which gives or refuses depending on what is good for us.

But what you want from the Mother does not come through a pull in the vital — it can come only by the faith and surrender — the psychic purifying the mind and the vital of all wrong desire.

July 1934

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I sometimes have a desire to eat nice things, and now I feel this desire as I have never felt it before. What to do for it?

The only thing to do for it is to throw the desire away. It is absurd to allow small animal greeds like this to come up and obscure the whole consciousness. You have not come here to eat nice things and Mother is under no obligation to give them. In fact, if you have such desires as that, it is a very good reason for not giving them to you, as it would only feed the desire. Get rid of these movements once for all. Let the true consciousness grow and reject these things.

22 September 1934

If a person is here from childhood, is it true that he has no sexual difficulties?

It is not automatically true — it is only possible — but on condition he gets fully into the influence of the Mother, is not too open to the atmosphere of other sadhaks who have it, does not get upset at the critical age and also does not upset himself by reading erotic literature etc. There is no one who has been able to do all that yet.

8 November 1933

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After taking the position of witness, one feels strengthened to change it to that of governor in matters of sex.

out of the sadhaks — as it is a great obstacle. So it must go.

29 October 1934

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How does it matter if I do not have perfect Brahmacharya?

It matters a good deal to the Mother, even if it does not matter to you. It is part of what she asks from all so that her work may be done.

If I become wholly pure I might merge in the Mother, but then there would be no excitement left.

There would be many things left better than excitement.

It is for excitement then that you want to live, not for the Mother?

2 December 1936

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I find that after several years the sex hunger has reawakened in me and clamours for satisfaction. What is the use of my undergoing a slow torture? As nothing else succeeds, I suggest the exhaustion of this complex which somehow has got formed.

idea that by fully indulging the sex hunger it will be finished and disappear for ever is a deceptive pretence held out by the vital to the mind in order to get a sanction for its desire — it has no other raison d’ˆetre or truth or justification. If an occasional indulgence keeps the sex desire simmering, a full indulgence would only sink you in its mire. This hunger like other hungers does not cease by temporary satiation; it renews itself after a temporary abeyance and wants again indulgence. Neither sops nor gorgings are the right treatment for it. It can only go by a radical psychic rejection or a full spiritual opening with the increasing descent of a consciousness that does not want it and has a truer Ananda.

23 April 1937

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You say physical sex action must be avoided by all means. Why so strict on it while tolerating vital-physical lapses?

Because the physical action breaks a law without which the Asram cannot stand and the work cannot be done. It is not a personal matter, but a blow aimed at the very soul of the Mother’s work.

Outside sadhaks indulge and get a child, e.g. X and others. Mother disapproves and the man who does it has no longer the same grace as before, but he is not in the Asram and his lapse hurts only himself and his wife.

2 August 1937

When I mix with X, I experience some uneasiness but I also get some pleasure. And when I mix with too many people, then also I feel some inner uneasiness. What should I do?

Observe carefully the people with whom you have an uneasy feeling and tell the Mother. The uneasiness and the pleasure can go together, because they are two different movements in different parts of you. Mother is not asking you for mental judgment about people, but simply with whom you feel this uneasiness.

29 November 1932 It is not without reason that the Mother gives directions such as that — about not going home after nine without a sadhak to accompany you. It is because there are many people of bad character who are about at that time, and if any women go about unprotected by men at that time, they are supposed to be women of bad character, so anything may happen. Even before nine, after nightfall it is much safer not to go about alone.