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WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

11 January 1967

A disciple complained that people took Mother's time with questions often useless, while less and less time was left for her to attend to apparently more important work. Mother commented:

It has to be like that, since it is like that.

It is perhaps a lesson (it is an indication), but it has a purpose. The lesson that I have to understand, I am trying to understand. I am learning to be patient, oh! such a patience.... Always there are revolts, insults, all that. For me it is absolutely zero and sometimes it is even amusing. When I am in my own condition, the true condition of compassion, it changes nothing, it does not raise even a small ripple on the surface, nothing.

The question was put to me yesterday; I was asked if insult, the feeling of being insulted, and what is called in English "self-respect" (something corresponding a little to amour-propre in French) had any place in the sadhana. Of course, there is no place for it, it is well understood! But I have seen the movement, it was very clear, I have seen that without ego, when the ego is not there, there cannot be this sort of ruffle in the being. Because I went back far into the past to a time when I still used to feel it (many years ago), but now, it is no longer something foreign even, it is something impossible. The whole being, and even (it is strange), even the physical constitution does not understand what that means. It is the same thing when there is materially a shock (Mother shows a scratch on her elbow), like that for example; it is no longer felt as one feels an injury, it is no longer felt like that. Most often there is nothing at all, it passes absolutely unperceived in the whole; but when something is felt, it is only the impression--a very, very gentle, very intimate impression of a help seeking to make itself felt, [new p. 55]a lesson that is to be learnt. But not as one does in the mental way in which there is always a stiffening; it is not that, it is immediately [old p. 55]a sort of offering of the being, which gives itself in order to learn. I am speaking of the cells. It is very interesting. Evidently if you mentalise, you must say that it is the feeling or consciousness of the divine Presence in all things and that the mode--the mode of contact--derives from the state in which you are.

Yes, that is the experience of the body.

And in individuals, when there is any knock or shock, always the only perception is a clear vision of the ego--the ego manifesting itself. They say, "It is the other." I would not say, "Oh! That one was angry" or "Oh! This one...", no, it is his ego; not even his ego: the ego, the ego principle--the ego principle which still intervenes. It is very interesting, because the ego has become for me a kind of impersonal entity, while for everybody else it is the acute sense of his personality! Instead of that, it is a kind of way of being (terrestrial or human, one can say), which is in greater or lesser quantity here or there or there, giving each one the illusion of personality. It is very interesting.

Yes, but the trouble is that others do not learn their lesson, so...

Oh! If they learnt their lesson everything would change very quickly.

So the result is that you are invaded, engulfed.

Cannot!

All your time is taken, all your...

They cannot engulf me! (Mother laughs) I am too big! [new p. 56]

Materially, all the same, you are overwhelmed. [old p. 56]

I have noticed that if I resist, it becomes bad. If I have the feeling of fluidity, there are no more knocks. It is the same thing as for this scratch (Mother shows her elbow.) If you stiffen and things resist, you get a knock. It is like men who know how to fall: they fall, they break nothing; whereas men who do not know how to fall, just a little fall and they break something. It is the same thing. One must learn how to be... the perfect unity. To correct, to straighten, is still resistance. So what will happen if the invasion, as you say, continues? It will be amusing, let us see! (Mother laughs.) As others are not in the same state, perhaps they will be vexed, but I am helpless! (Mother laughs.)

One must always laugh, always. The Lord laughs, and He laughs, and His laugh is so nice, so nice, so full of love. It is a laugh that envelops you with an extraordinary sweetness.

This too men have deformed--they have deformed everything (Mother laughs).

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 11, pp. 54-56