Words of Long Ago
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: The Mother, Words of Long Ago, bahai-library.com.
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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).

106                                                                       107
Words of Long Ago                                                                                                        The Mother and Abdul Baba

"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.

108                                                                     109
Words of Long Ago                                                                                                        The Mother and Abdul Baba

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

110                                                                       111
-- Words of Long Ago (Used by permission of the curator)