The Mother
BIR TH February 21, 1878
ARRIVAL IN INDIA March 29, 1914
MAHA SAMAD HI November 17, 1973
CENTENARY February 21, 1978
De Luxe Volume 2 COLLECTED WORKS OF THE MOTHER - CENTENARY EDITION © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1978. Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram The Mother and Abdul Baha
The Mother and Abdul Baha INTRODUCTION TO A TALK
~.the prophets, all the instructors who have come to bring f knew Abdul Baha very well, the successor of the dtvme word to men, have, on one point at least, given an Baha Ullah, founder of the Bahai religion; Abdul Baha was his identical teaching. son. He was born in prison and lived in prison till he was forty, I believe. When he came out of prison his father was dead and All of them have taught us that the greatest truths are sterile he began to preach his father's religion .... 1 unless they are transformed through us into useful actions. All have proclaimed the necessity of living their revelation in daily * ** life. All have declared that they show us the path but that we must tread it ourselves; no being, however great, can do our He was the son of the famous Baha Ullah who had been ,.; á~'"' work in our stead. put into prison for spreading ideas that were more progressive and broad-minded than those of the Sufis, and was resented by I • I I Baha Ullah was no exception to this rule. I shall not quote
I orthodox Muslims. After his death, his son, the sole heir, be- ! ' the texts to you, you know them as well and better than I do. came determined to preach his father's religious ideas, and for How many times Abdul Baha has said: "Do not talk, act; words this purpose he travelled to many countries of the world. He ' • are of no use without actions, we must be an example to the had an excellent nature. He was as simple as his aspiration was world." great. I liked him very much .... '.'l!~ It is indeed very necessary that each one of us should be His sincerity and his aspiration for the Divine were simple an example to the world. For it is only by showing to men how and very spontaneous. One day, when I went to visit him, he an inner commerce with the eternal truths transforms disorder was to give a lecture to his disciples. But he was sick and could into harmony and suffering into peace, that we shall induce not get up. Perhaps the meeting would have to be postponed. them to follow the way which will lead them towards liberation. When I came near to him, he said, "Go and take my place at But Abdul Baha is not content to give us this teaching, he is today's lecture." I was startled, unprepared as I was to hear such living it, and therein lies all his power of persuasion. a request. I said to him, "I am not a member of your sect and Indeed, who has seen Abdul Baha and not felt in his pre- I know nothing about it, so how can I talk to them about any- sence this perfect goodness, this sweet serenity, this peace ema- thing ?" But he insisted, saying, "It does not matter. Say any- nating from his being ? thing at all, it will be quite all right. Go and talk .... Concentrate And the revelations of Baha Ullah -imparted through the in the sitting-room and then speak." At last he persuaded me to mouth of his son are all the more comprehensible and convin- do it .... cing to us since he is living them within himself. Then one day he asked me to stay in Paris and take the To some of you, perhaps, this reflection will occur: "If responsibility for his disciples. But I told him that as I did not Abdul Baha can realise this beauty, it is because he is the mas- myself accept the beliefs of his sect, it was out of the question ter, but for us ... " for me to do so ... ! Certainly, our indolence could not formulate a better rea- ' Questions and Answers 1950-51 (14 April), pp. 316-17. son for refusing to make any effort, but thi~ is merely a lazy ' From an unpublished talk. excuse.
104 105 Words of Long Ago The Mother and Abdul Baba
There is, without doubt, an almost ineradicable difference as dream and is very intimately 1.mked witá h th e fi rst, as you between individuals, the one arising from their special role, will see. 1 their place, their status in the infinite hierarchy of beings; but whatever this role or status may be, within it each one can de- The very ancient traditions, whether Chaldean or Hindu velop his own qualities to perfection, each one can and must have taught from all. time that thoughts are formations: by hi~ aspire to gain the perfect purity, the perfect sincerity, the deep t~~ught a human bemg has the power of giving birth to real, harmony which bring us into accord with the laws of order in hvmg and active entities. the universe. And it should not be thought that this can be done only I knew an old sage who used to compare men to minerals thro~gh so~e extraordinary and dangerous practice known as that were more or less crude, more or less rich, but all contain- magic. Nothing of the kind. ing gold. Let this ore undergo the purifying flames of spiritual- ~y thou~t that is at all strong and persistent, any desire isation and at the bottom of the crucible will be found an ingot that 1s. at all mte~e - which is again a way of thinking_ which is more or less heavy, but always of pure gold. dete.rmme mechanically, so to say, in their own medium, a for- We must therefore seek to release from its matrix the pure mation whose duration and power of action will depend on the gold that is within us. force and intensity of the thought or desire which has given How many methods have been recommended for this ! birth to it. á They are all excellent, but each one applies to a special cate- To make myself understood more clearly, I have brought gory of mentality and character, and each individual must find you a few passages from an as yet unpublished philosophical the one that best suits his temperament. volume. That is why, unless I am mistaken, Miss Sanderson asks one person or another to set forth here his own special view of "All that lives is substantial, but all that is substantial is the question or else the method which he finds most effective. living. Every state of substance is a world of living forces of real forms. ' I do not intend today to expound any one of these methods to you in its entirety. . "~o restrict the real to the sole domain of the forms we per- I would like - since we are taught that our first duty is to ceive .1s to restrict the universal intelligence to its physical mani- act and, moreover, that our acts are for ourselves the most festation alone, all light to the one field of our vision. powerful agents of transformation - I would like only to draw "However, no space exists where there is no vibration of your attention to two categories of action which, in my opinion, light, no depth exists where the essence of the intelligible does are not always accorded the full importance they have with not assume appropriate forms." regard to others and to ourselves. They are purely mental actions, but nonetheless, very much "So long as we imagine that the whole universal reality is alive, very powerful and consequently very beneficial or very confined to the one order of substance, to the one state of mate- harmful according to the direction imparted to them. riality perceived by our senses, we know nothing and can ex- plain nothing. The first is our faculty of mental formation, thought; the 1 This introduction seems originally to have preceded the third talk on second is our activity in states of sleep, which is usually known thought (pp. 83-92) and the talk on dreams (pp. 30-37).
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"When science endeavoured to understand what light is, it And yet we must kindle the stars that one by one will come had to break out of the too narrow space and too limited area to illumine this night. This is, from the mental point of view, of perceptible phenomena, and it postulated, under the name of what Abdul Baha expects from us all. This is the way to be ether, a subtle state of reality. But, in reaching this state, it has intellectually an example to the world. taken only its first steps on the path of infinite transcendence .... For such an action more than for any other, perhaps, the "Thus, we can now become aware that the realm of being usefulness of meetings such as this one becomes clearly visible. which we know is merely the field of manifestation, of a more By uniting our thoughts for one or two hours around a very complete materialisation of its own distant and anterior modes, pure and lofty idea, in a common will for disinterested progress, the last among the fields of life." we create a mental atmosphere that is ever more luminous and strong. But this is not enough; it would even be very little if, "If we could perceive the living images which thoughts pro- when leaving these meetings, we were to plunge back defence- duce around us at each moment, if we could measure the force less into this coarse and heavy atmosphere. For in the mental of their power of formation, we would understand what can be as in the physical domain we are in a state of perpetual inter- created by the concourse of our converging wills and the for- change with the corresponding environment.1 midable concert of the collective ideas and beliefs of a people, 10 March 1912 a civilisation, a race." "Certainly, all ideas are not creative to the same degree. In fact, few minds are capable of thinking real thoughts; and most NOTES FOR A MEETING individual mental formations are no more than distortions, malformations of stereotypes formed by some anonymous thinker What a true meeting should be. which have become common property. The forms they assume Mr. Ber. talked to us last Friday about mantras. in the intellectual substance are usually crude and stupid; be- 2 kinds of masters according to Ramakrishna: sides, they do not last long. The master who gives the mantra and who is thus an indirect "But as soon as an idea becomes an idea-force, a true men- means of spiritualisation. tal dynamism, it tends to produce and maintain its plastic re- . The master who has had the deep experience of divine presentation in á a more stable and precise form. And great union and who by his presence alone transmits spirituality - thoughts, co-ordinated syntheses of intellectual force, are in Abdul Baha. - actual fact, in the s,ubstance they have assumed, living creations What a single man can do by his spiritual power can be and active entities." achieved by a group if it unites in a thought of goodwill: Chaldean initiation: (At this point, in this talk of 10 March, the Mother pre- "When you are twelve united in righteousness, you will sented again some material already given in the third talk on manifest the Ineffable." thought, including the "description of the mental atmosphere Groups are subject to the same laws as individuals. of a city like Paris" (p. 83)- the "night" referred to in the 1 This talk continues with passages which have come already in On sentence which follows.) Thought - Jll, etc.
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More favourable moments due to collective suggestions. To think of someone is to be near him, and wherever two Renewals: the beginning of each new year, whatever date is beings may find themselves, even if they are physically separa- chosen as a starting-point. ted by thousands of kilometres, if they think of each other they An opportunity is given to awaken in oneself the idea that are together in a very real way. If we are able to concentrate all things can be new and the resolution to make them so. our thought sufficiently and to concentrate sufficiently in our Consequently, the usefulness of meeting at fixed times to thought, we can become integrally conscious of what we are make favourable resolutions together. thinking of, and if it is a man, sometimes see or hear him - Reading. in any case know his thought. 3January1913 Thus separation no longer exists, it is an illusory appearance. And in France, in America, in Persia or in China, we are always near the one we love and think of. THE DEPARTURE OF ABDUL BARA But this fact is all the more real in a case such as ours, where we want to come into contact with an especially active Last Monday, Abdul Baha took leave of us; in a very few and conscious thought, a thought which assumes and manifests days he will have left Paris, and I know many hearts which will an infinite love, a thought which enfolds the whole earth with feel a great void and will grieve. a loving and fatherly solicitude that is only too glad to come to Yet only the body is leaving us, and what is the body if not the help of those who entrust themselves to it. precisely that in which men are most alike, be they great or Experience this mental communion and you will see that small, wise or ignorant, terrestrial or divine? Yes, you may rest there is no room for sorrow. assured that only his body is leaving us; his thought will remain Each morning when you get up, before you begin your day, faithfully with us, and his unchanging affection will enfold us, and his spiritual influence will always be the same, absolutely ( with love and admiration and gratefulness hail this great family, these saviours of mankind who, ever the same, have come, the same. Whether materially he is near or far matters little, for come and will come until the end of time, as guides and instruc- the divine forces elude completely the laws of the material tors, as humble and marvellous servants of their brothers, in world: they are omnipresent, always at work to satisfy every order to help them to scale the steep slope of perfection. Thus receptivity, every sincere aspiration. when you wake up, concentrate on them your thought full of So although it may be pleasant for our outer being to see trust and gratitude and you will soon experience the beneficial his physical appearance or hear his voice, to dwell in his pre- effects of this concentration. You will feel their presence res- sence, we must truly tell ourselves that, inasmuch as it seems ponding to your call, you will be surrounded, imbued with their indispensable to us, this shows that we are still little conscious light and love. Then the daily effort to understand a little better, of the inner life, the true life. to love a little more, to serve more, will be more fruitful and Even if we do not attain to the marvellous depths of the easier at the same time. The help you give to others will be- divine life, of which only very rare individuals are constantly come more effective and your heart will be filled with an unwa- conscious, already in the domain of thought we escape the laws vering joy. of time and space. 9 June 1913
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