Chapter 83The Mother’s Attitude towards Music and · Other Arts

Aspects of the Mother’s Life

in the Ashram It is not by knowledge of music that the understanding [of the Mother’s music] comes; nor is it by effort of the mind — it is by becoming inwardly silent, opening within and getting the spontaneous feeling of what is in the music.

* I feel within me a tendency for music, but I understand nothing of harmony, tune and rhythm. Yet sometimes when I hear the Mother’s music, I am spellbound and lose all sense of time.

It is not necessary to have technical knowledge in order to feel what is behind the music. Mother of course does not play for the sake of a technical musical effect, but to bring down something from the higher planes and that anyone can receive who is open.

16 September 1933

* When I entered the Mother’s room, she had just finished play-ing for a long time — that is why I did not expect her to play for me.

so it is no trouble to her to sing or play several times.

16 September 1933

* Why does my mind become so full of joy listening to the Mother’s music? Today while listening to her play, my mind, my heart, my whole consciousness became full of peace and joy and then went high up somewhere.

What else is the Mother’s music except the bringing down of these things? She does not play or sing merely for the music’s sake, but to call down the Divine Consciousness and its Powers.

16 September 1933

* Yesterday when the Mother was playing her music, I was much struck by the descent of forces in me. I clearly experienced these three elements: aspiration, surrender and the receiving of blessings. First, her soul as the immanent Divine aspired to the transcendent Divine; it was a call for her transcendent Self to come down and take possession of the downtrodden natures of her children. Then the surrender: in her zeal for union with her highest Divine Self, she almost loses herself. Then from the highest, her Voice comes down for the benefit of her children. She receives the blessings from above and showers them upon all her children. I do not know how far I am right.

I think it is fairly correct. At any rate the first and second parts are quite correct. I do not remember the third in this form but it was a firm assurance of the realisation.

27 September 1933

* Is it true that when the Mother plays on the organ she calls down the Gods of the higher planes to help us?

Not consciously.

9 February 1934

* You wrote in reply to my letter of yesterday: “Not consciously.” Does it mean that the Gods are attracted to the Mother’s music and so come down to hear it?

They may be.

10 February 1934

* When the Mother plays the organ, something new enters into my consciousness. Does she really bring down something while playing?

If she did not bring something, why should she play at all?

19 April 1934

* Yesterday I heard the Mother playing Indian music and a few days ago she was corresponding with X about Indian music.

through her — she does not usually play any previously composed music whether European or Indian — the latter in fact she has never learned.

11 September 1934

* Some people think that in the Overmind and Supermind there will be no need of prayer or aspiration. They must have forgotten that even our Mother has aspired constantly, day and night, or that when she plays her music we feel that she is praying.

Yes. All that is very true. It is a prayer or an invocation that Mother makes in the music.

1 June 1935 Why should you think the Mother does not approve of expression, — provided it is the right expression of the right thing, — or suppose that silence and true expression are contradictory? The truest expression comes out of an absolute inner silence. The spiritual silence is not a mere emptiness; nor is it indispensable to abstain from all activity in order to find it.

26 April 1931

* For the moment I am answering only to your question about the music. Let me say at once that all of you seem to have too great an aptitude for making drastic conclusions on the strength of very minor facts. It is always perilous to take two or three small facts, put them together and build upon them a big inference. It