Nature

(Mother to Mona Sarkar:) “When one has this inner vision which opens the doors within our being and one begins to see the truth behind things, then one perceives that even in this material world there are so many things which escape our ordinary sight. Even what one sees under the microscope or through the telescope or what one has been able to reproduce by means of modern photography, are but gropings, the first steps towards the discovery of the secrets of Nature. No man-made machine can describe what lies behind the functioning of Nature. It is so beautiful, so varied, so subtle and so splendid in the perfection of its minute functioning, in its exactitude, that one can never describe it with this puny brain. …
         It is because man forgets the why, the raison d'être and the aim of his terrestrial existence that he searches blindly, by indirect and inapt methods. It is this that makes him go astray and mover further and further away from that which he envisages. … But when he understands, when he is guided towards this inner domain where dwells a portion of the Divine, then he will see not only the mysteries of the other worlds with a sense of the Beautiful, the True and the Unique, but also in this world and in Nature, the truth of existence and the means to surpass them: how Nature works, how she creates – how to each one and in each thing she gives a personality appropriate to its character and its mode of existence and plants the seed of progress for its development, for it to blossom fully in its category, in its type and which in its origin is linked to the Divine.
         That is why, in each thing in this universe we find that spark of the Divine Light which gives life to all the beings, animate or inanimate. It is this which gives the élan, the power to subsist, to create, to multiply, to recreate, to form and to develop, to blossom towards a new stage, a new light – all this process which Nature tries out in this creation and launches herself towards new horizons, towards the unknown progress in order to rediscover the Divine who is hidden in each atom. ...
         And above all, it is not a blind movement of the Lord. It is equipped and endowed with a precision of unmatched, incomparable perfection, not bound by human logic or its ways of understanding, and certainly not by its ways and methods. But it follows the logic of the Beyond, of the Infinite, which is supple, plastic and not bound by any worldly constraint. It is that, and it exists, it acts in full harmony and in a wonderful interdependence of one with the other. And man has that audacity to find it poor, incomplete, something that works badly. Hmm! What does he know! Not even … a thousandth part of what happens.”

(Mother to Mona Sarkar:) “You understand, in a grain of dust I see all the processes of the macrocosm, of the entire universe, the macrocosm in the microcosm. In the ray of the sun is reflected the panorama of the millions of sparks and the beauty and the splendours of the entire universe.
         In the atom, in the molecules, in a drop of water … I see not only their thoughts and their characteristics but the intuition of the species, the origin of its mode of development, the goal of their existence, the Immanent Divine hidden in things, the joy and the delight that they contain and which, moreover, give an élan and the urge to rediscover the truth of existence.”

(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri:)

“The inner ear that listens to solitude,

Leaning self-rapt unboundedly could hear

The rhythm of the intenser wordless Thought

That gathers in the silence behind life,

And the low sweet inarticulate voice of earth

In the great passion of her sun-kissed trance

Ascended with its yearning undertone.

Afar from the brute noise of clamorous needs

The quieted all-seeking mind could feel,

At rest from its blind outwardness of will,

The unwearied clasp of her mute patient love

And know for a soul the mother of our forms.”

(Student:) “Mother, here Sri Aurobindo writes: “the dumb secrecy of her inconscience”. Why her ‘inconscience’?

(Mother:) Whose inconscience?

Nature’s.

No, Nature is not unconscious, but she has an appearance of unconsciousness. It began with the inconscience, but in the depths of the inconscience there was consciousness, and this consciousness is gradually developing. (It is not the consciousness which develops, it is the manifestation of consciousness which develops, its expression: it expresses itself more and more.) For instance, mineral nature, stones, earth, metals, water, air, all this seems to be quite unconscious, although if one observes closely... And now science is discovering that this is only an appearance, that all this is only concentrated energy, and of course it is a conscious force which has produced all this. But apparently, when we see a rock, we don’t think it is conscious, it does not give the impression of being conscious, it seems to be altogether unconscious.
         It is the appearance that is inconscient. It becomes more and more conscious. Even in the mineral kingdom there are phenomena which reveal a hidden consciousness, like certain crystals, for instance. If you see with what precision, what exactitude and harmony they are formed, if you are in the least open, you are bound to feel that behind there’s a consciousness at work, that this cannot be the result of unconscious chance.
         Have you seen rock-crystals?... You have never seen a rock-crystal?

Yes.

It is pretty, isn’t it? It is something very artistic.
         And the movements of the sea, the movements of the air, of the wind, one can’t help feeling that behind there is a consciousness or even many consciousnesses at work. In fact, it is like that. Only the most superficial appearance is inconscient.”

(Mother to Mona Sarkar:) “It rains, it rains, it rains incessantly … All this is necessary, I think. Nature knows her job better than us. It is better not to comment, because Nature acts according to the necessity and the terrestrial need for establishing an equilibrium in the plant and animal realms. If there is a lack or a void, she knows very well how to fill them up and bring in an equilibrium or eliminate them completely if the proportion increases. She has formidable means, and it is truly astonishing, the way she acts. That is why one must know the cause before commenting. And she has a knowledge of things and their functions.... It is extraordinary.”

New Year message of 1958:

“O Nature, Material Mother, thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate and there is no limit to the splendour of this collaboration.”

(Mother:) “It [the message] does not mean that when we do not want it to rain, it will not rain! Or when we want some event to take place in the world, it will immediately take place, or that all difficulties will be abolished and everything will be like a fairy tale. It is not like that. It is something more profound. Nature has accepted into her play of forces the newly manifested Force and has included it in her movements. But as always, the movements of Nature take place on a scale infinitely surpassing the human scale and invisible to the ordinary human consciousness. It is more of an inner, psychological possibility that has been born in the world than a spectacular change in earthly events.”

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See also

• Natural disasters
• Earth
• Life
• Environmentalism

External links

• “Song of the Universal” by Ola Gjeilo (YouTube, 11:31)