WRITINGS BY THE MOTHER
© Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust

30 May 1958

The Anti-Divine

I have noticed one thing, that in at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this [attack by adverse forces] is an excuse which people give to themselves. I have seen that practically almost all who write to me: "I am violently attacked by adverse forces", give this as an excuse. It is because there are many things in their nature which do not want to surrender, so they put all the blame on the adverse forces.

In reality I am turning more and more towards something where the role of the adverse forces will be reduced to that of an examiner; that is to say, they are there to test the sincerity of your spiritual seeking. These things have their reality in the action and for the work--and it is a great reality--but when you have gone beyond a certain region, all that reaches a point where it is no longer so distinct and clear-cut. In the occult world, or rather, if you look at the world from the occult point of view, these adverse forces are very real, their action is very real, completely concrete, and their attitude towards the divine realisation is positively hostile. But as soon as you pass beyond this domain and enter into the spiritual world where there is nothing other than the Divine, who is everything, and where there is nothing that is not divine, these "adverse forces" become a part of the total play and they can no longer be called adverse forces. It is only a posture that they have taken; to speak more exactly, it is only a posture that the Divine has taken in his play.

This also forms part of the dualities of which Sri Aurobindo speaks in The Synthesis of Yoga, the dualities that are reabsorbed. I do not know if he has spoken of this particular one[new p. 346]--I do not think so--but it is the same thing; it is just a way of seeing. He has spoken of the dualities Personal-Impersonal, Ishwara-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti. There is one more: the Divine and the Anti-Divine.

Collected Works of The Mother, First Edition, Volume 15, p. 366