Sri Aurobindo and the Mother remind us that the Age of Religions is over. As always each one of us tries to put our own meaning into Their words. The extreme view point even goes as far as barring any and every form of worship offered to the Eternal as a sacrilegious act. There are even interpretations that to love the Divine and give one’s heart and being to Him, to adore Him and to offer the body’s prayer through ritual acts that spring up spontaneously soul also belong to the religious tendency in man and hence their utility is over as if to cling to the Divine, to nestle into His arms are mere sentiments and weaknesses tolerable to an inferior humanity. Thus the human mind complicates the path and makes the difficult journey even more difficult. What it does however mean is that the Age of the gods, the Age when humanity grew under the influence of the gods is over. The gods would now become friends and collaborators of man in his great journey of ascension. At the same time all our worship, the heart’s adoration, the soul’s need for Divine Love, the very body’s aspiration to feel the Divine Touch concretely as it feels today material objects will find its Divine consummation in an integral Spirituality that universalizes the workings of the gods. What was symbolic will now become real and manifest in everyday life. The day of victory of Durga over the demons will also take a new sense and meaning, that of an inner victory over all that obstructs and blocks our way. Thus religion will discover its core spiritual element and integrate itself in a new transformed way with the future life of humanity, actively participating in the New Creation rather than closed and shut in temples where the priest becomes the intermediary and the ritual act is mechanical and determined by an outer text rather than flow freely from a heart of devotion.
Today we take a look at what Victory means in the eyes of the Divine and how we can participate in it.
Words of the Mother
…..In any case, to simplify things, it could be said that characteristically the old world, the creation of what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, was an age of the gods, and consequently the age of religions. As I said, the flower of human effort towards what is above it gave rise to innumerable religious forms, to a religious relationship between the best souls and the invisible world. And at the very summit of all that, as an effort towards a higher realisation there has arisen the idea of the unity of religions, of this “one single thing” which is behind all these manifestations; and this idea has truly been, so to speak, the extreme limit of human aspiration. Well, that is at the frontier, it is something that still belongs completely to the Overmind world, the Overmind creation and which from there seems to be looking towards this “other thing” which is a new creation it cannot grasp—which it tries to reach, feels coming, but cannot grasp. To grasp it, a reversal is needed. It is necessary to leave the Overmind creation. It was necessary that the new creation, the supramental creation should take place.
And now, all these old things seem so old, so out-of-date, so arbitrary—such a travesty of the real truth. In the supramental creation there will no longer be any religions. The whole life will be the expression, the flowering into forms of the divine Unity manifesting in the world. And there will no longer be what men now call gods. These great divine beings themselves will be able to participate in the new creation; but to do so, they will have to put on what we could call the “supramental substance” on earth. And if some of them choose to remain in their world as they are, if they decide not to manifest physically, their relation with the beings of a supramental earth will be a relation of friends, collaborators, equals, for the highest divine essence will be manifested in the beings of the new supramental world on earth.
When the physical substance is supramentalised, to incarnate on earth will no longer be a cause of inferiority, quite the contrary. It will give a plenitude which cannot be obtained otherwise…..
CWM 9: page 149 – 152
* * *
To discover the obstacles, the failings, the resistances in one’s own being, in one’s own consciousness, isn’t a defeat, it’s a great victory. And one shouldn’t lament, one should rejoice….
All discoveries are always graces – wonderful graces. When you discover that you can’t do anything, when you discover that you are a fool, when you discover that you have no capacity, when you discover that you are so petty and mean and stupid, well … “Oh, Lord, I thank You so much, how good You are to show me all this!” And then, it’s over. Because the minute you discover it, you say, “Now this is up to You. You will do what has to be done for all this to change.” And the best part of it is that it does change! It does change. When you do like this (gesture of offering to the Heights), sincerely: “Oh, take it, take it, take it, rid me of it, let me be … only You” …
It’s wonderful…..
January 31, 1966
* * *
(Last day of the Durga festivals, Vijaya dashami, marking the Victory of the Universal Mother over an Asura.)
It was clear, very clear today, a sort of Pressure to say: Victory is Harmony; Victory is the Divine; and for the body, Victory is good health. Any, any discomfort, any disease is a falsehood. It came this morning. It was very CLEAR. It was convincing, you know.
So it’s all right.
It’s as if, through the Pressure, all the Falsehood had been brought out (gesture surging up from below). The most unexpected things. In people, things, circumstances. It’s really…. No imagination can equal it. It’s incredible.
But it’s a good sign, isn’t it?
Oh, yes! Oh, yes!… Only, the appearances in the Ashram are very … (Mother nods her head), it’s as if there were a poison, you know, and by putting pressure, the poison comes out to be got rid of – and how it’s coming out!
Later we’ll be able to talk about it. But it’s really interesting, really. Yes, it’s a good sign, a very good sign.
Yes, it means that all those forces that have remained hidden underneath for thousands of year …
Yes.
… have lost their hiding place.
Yes, that’s it. That’s it.
We’ll see. Only, it can’t be spoken about yet – later.
Incredible, mon petit!
But a Power! A power, oh!… (Mother closes her eyes and smiles.)
September 29, 1971
* * *
(Mother shows Satprem a card with her photo and the following text in English printed on it.)
No human will can finally prevail against the Divine’s will.
Let us put ourselves deliberately and exclusively on the side of the Divine and the victory is ultimately certain.
The Mother
Strange how human nature resists that. Ordinary human nature is such that it prefers defeat on its own terms to victory in another way. I am making amazing discoveries these days – just amazing.
Human stupidity is abysmal. Abysmal.
It’s as if the Force I mentioned before wanted to go like this (gesture like a power drill), deeper and deeper into the subconscient.
There are incredible things in the subconscient – incredible. I spend entire nights watching them. And it goes down and down and down … IMPERATIVELY.
So the human subconscient cries out, “Oh, not yet, please, not yet – not so fast!” And that’s what you are up against. A general subconscient.
Naturally, the resistance brings about catastrophes, and then people say, “See! See your beneficient action, it is only causing catastrophes.”
Unbelievable, they are unbelievably stupid.
I see it in myself; never have I felt the resistance of the lower nature in such a….
Yes, oh yes! It has increased tremendously.
Yes, tremendously. One wonders how it will end, and at times one gets really worried.
No, you shouldn’t. You simply … keep clinging to the Divine. For, of course, the resistance has such wonderful reasoning! “You see,” it says, “You see where all this is leading you, you see …… Oh, it’s … it’s more than a resistance; it is PERVERSE…..
But I don’t know what to do. Nothing seems able to subdue it. I don’t know what to do.
Well, the only way is…. If you can avoid listening, it’s better, but if you do listen, the only reply is: “I don’t care what you say, I don’t care” – constantly. “You’ll become stupid” – I don’t care. “You’ll spoil all your work” – I don’t care…. To all those perverse arguments the same reply: I don’t care.
If you can experience that it’s the Divine that does everything, then with an unshakable faith, you say, “All your arguments are worthless; the joy of being with the Divine, conscious of the Divine, surpasses everything” – it surpasses the creation, surpasses life, surpasses happiness and success, it surpasses everything (Mother raises one finger): THAT.
That’s all. Then all is well. And it’s over.
It’s as if That drove all the worst things in nature out into bright daylight, out into the open, into contact with that Force …
Yes!
… so as to have done with them.
Besides, it seems to attack what was good-willed in us.
After some time it becomes absolutely wonderful, but one goes through some difficult moments.
Yes. Yes, there are times when you wonder if everything isn’t going to be swept away.
(Mother laughs) That’s absurd! Absurd. What’s going to be swept away is the resistance.
More and more I feel there’s but one way…. (Laughing) It makes an amusing picture: to sit on the mind – just sit on the mind: shut up. That’s the only way.
You sit on the mind (Mother gives a little slap): shut up.
(silence)
…..Ah, mon petit, we don’t have faith! The moment one has faith….
We say, “We want a divine life” – but we’re afraid of it! The second the fear disappears and we are sincere … really, everything changes.
We say, “We want nothing more of this life,” but … (laughing) something in us clings to it!
It’s so ridiculous.
We cling to our old ideas, our old … to this old world bound for extinction – we’re afraid!
While the divine child sitting on the mind’s head plays! … I wish I could draw that picture, it’s so wonderful.
We are so silly we even say (Mother puts on an air of offended dignity): the Divine is wrong, “You shouldn’t handle things that way!” It’s comical, mon petit.
(silence)
The best remedy (I mean the easiest) for me, is: what You will – what You will, in all sincerity. In all sincerity. And then – then understanding comes. Then you understand. But you don’t understand mentally, not here (Mother touches her head).
What You will.
April 12, 1972
* * *
When you become simple, you know, like a child … all goes well.
But you mustn’t be afraid. Neither afraid of falling ill, nor of becoming imbecile, nor even … of dying – you must be like this (vast and quiet gesture, like the sea).
If we could only have (I have it from time to time, it comes: it’s on its way) a feeling of smiling trust. But to get that the consciousness must be as vast as the creation itself. You are as vast as the creation, and totally trusting…. Ultimately, it always boils down to this (which can be put in a very childlike manner): He knows better than we what has to be done.
There.
He knows better than we what has to be done.
That’s my own method. I find it the easiest; there may be other methods (I am sure there are), but for me it’s the easiest. Whenever something is apprehensive or balks: “He knows better than you what’s necessary.” That’s all.
If we could smile, it would be so much easier.
May 17, 1972
* * *
I always feel like telling people, “Oh, I beg you, keep calm! …” But not the “calm” of apathetic quietude, not slumped in a corner and you don’t move anymore (while anyway it keeps going like this inside [gesture of seething]), no: calm, quiet, like this (vast gesture) in the consciousness, then everything becomes limpid. And in that limpidity you see very clearly, decide very clearly, everything works out, things organize themselves, you don’t even need to intervene.
All difficulties … I see that, I’ve seen it lately with regard to political organizations, relations between nations and all that, all the problems to be solved – it’s all the same thing: people are like this (same gesture of tremor), all the time, all the time … one wave of restlessness, another wave of restlessness, yet another wave of restlessness coming on top of it – and you don’t see anything anymore! You can’t see anything anymore! While if one can keep calm for a while …
It’s the same with all the questions I am asked (I receive innumerable questions), it’s all like this (same gesture), everything is like this and one can’t see anything. If one keeps calm … the Light comes through, everything grows limpid, transparent, and … it becomes so natural, so simple! So simple, so obvious: there is ONE thing that can be done and it’s the true thing. All the rest … (same gesture of seething).
Some people live in a constant whirl, and they’re quite surprised that everything goes wrong! They meet with complications, with … And it’s always like this (same gesture).
I am not referring to those who are tamasic and completely inert: they are like an inert mass, so the Light can’t go through – what goes through is others’ restlessness, it stirs them up! No! I am talking about a Light … (vast gesture) above things, untouched by them, which sees. And this Light is in a … (how can I explain? …) The whole, entire universe moves forward with fantastic speed and in perfect immobility. Words seem idiotic, but you can feel this – you can feel it, see it, live it. A luminous immobility moving forward with fantastic speed.
In that immobility there is perfect transparency … and the problem does not exist: the solution comes ahead of the problem. That is to say, things organize themselves (gesture showing the movement of universal forces) in such a way that they can change positions or take a different place in order to express the new thing that must be expressed: something new constantly enters the manifestation (as if emerging from the Nonmanifest), it enters the manifestation and transforms. And it takes place automatically. A vast, immense movement … (Mother smiles with her eyes closed) in which one can participate only if one is per-fect-ly peaceful and calm and translucent.
Tell me, it would be lovely if one could take people’s consciousness as one takes a flower, and then, because one looks at it and holds it and the vibration is that Vibration of supreme Love, it opens up, like that, becomes organized, and grows magnificent.
It would be fine if one could do that – (laughing) perhaps one can!
March 15, 1967
Oct 20, 2015
