The Divine

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Letters on Yoga – I
“The Divine and Its Aspects”

Letters on Yoga I - The Divine and Its Aspects.jpg
PDF (8 pages)
  Letters on Yoga – II
“Seeking the Divine”

Letters on Yoga II - Seeking the Divine.jpg
PDF (14 pages)


“Why are we on earth?”

(Mother:) To find the Divine who is in each of us and in all things.”[1]


(Mona Sarkar:) “Mother, if it is not forbidden to tell, then tell me, how does one feel when one realises the Divine?

(Mother:) Certainly, these are not things of which it is easy to speak, and even if one speaks, they are still more difficult to understand for those who have not had the experience.
         But I can formulate it briefly like this: One feels perfectly free, perfectly happy, perfectly conscious.”[2]


(Mother to Mona Sarkar:) “Though the world and men are covered with ignorance and inconscience, there is also, behind, the luminous ray of His Presence. Though there is evil, suffering, ugliness and decay, hatred and the vain inutility of existence, there is also behind this appearance, Joy, Beauty, Light, Peace, Truth, the Consciousness, and the Joy of living, the ecstasy in expectation. It is this which gives the conviction, the assurance that all is not in vain, that there is a greater power which sustains, which animates, which vivifies, which gives the élan, that behind this appearance which we see, which we feel, which we live or which we imagine, there is a formidable Presence, all-powerful, which guides all the actions in this world and in this creation.”[3]


(Mother to students, 1955:) “It’s because it is in you, because it’s a part of your consciousness, somewhere, otherwise you could never become aware of it. If one did not carry the Divine within oneself, in the essence of one’s being, one could never become aware of the Divine; it would be an impossible venture. And then if you reverse the problem, the moment you conceive and feel in some way or other, or even, to begin with, admit that the Divine is in you, as well as you are in the Divine, then already this opens the door to realisation, just a little, not much — slightly ajar. Then if later the aspiration comes, the intense need to know and to be, then that intense need widens the opening until one can creep in. Then when one has crept in, one becomes aware of what he is. And that’s exactly what Sri Aurobindo says, that one has forgotten, that due to this separation of Sat, Chit, Ananda, forgetfulness comes, forgetfulness of what one is; one thinks oneself to be somebody, you see, anyone at all, a boy, a girl, a man, a woman, a dog, a horse, anything at all, a stone, the sea, the sun; one believes oneself to be all this, instead of thinking oneself the One Divine — because, in fact, if one had continued thinking oneself the One Divine, there would have been no universe at all.”[4]


(Mother to small group of Aurovilians, 1970:) “When we say, “We are at the service of the Divine”, it is not just words. It is He who should act through us, not we ourselves. The greatest objection is: How can we know the divine Will? But as a matter of fact, I tell you: if you sincerely renounce your personal will, you will know.”[5]


(Mother, 1954:) “To learn how to will is a very important thing. And to will truly, you must unify your being. In fact, to be a being, one must first unify oneself. If one is pulled by absolutely opposite tendencies, if one spends three-fourths of one’s life without being conscious of oneself and the reasons why one does things, is one a real being? One does not exist. One is a mass of influences, movements, forces, actions, reactions, but one is not a being. One begins to become a being when one begins to have a will. And one can’t have a will unless one is unified.
      And when you have a will, you will be able to say, say to the Divine: “I want what You want.” But not before that. Because in order to want what the Divine wants, you must have a will, otherwise you can will nothing at all. You would like to. You would like it very much. You would very much like to want what the Divine wants to do. You don’t possess a will to give to Him and to put at His service. Something like that, gelatinous, like jelly-fish... there... a mass of good wills — and I am considering the better side of things and forgetting the bad wills — a mass of good wills, half-conscious and fluctuating....”[6]


(Nirodbaran, 1940:) “People say after reading our poems, “What is this God and God and God in every poem?”

(Sri Aurobindo:) What else do they expect us to write about?”[7]


(Mother, 1957:) “Now, you know that Sri Aurobindo and I are always one and the same consciousness, one and the same person. Only, when this unique force or presence is felt in your individual consciousness, it assumes different forms or appearances depending upon your temperament, your aspirations, your needs, the particular cast of your nature. Your individual consciousness is like a filter, a pointer, as it were; it makes a choice and settles upon one possibility in the infinity of divine possibilities. In truth, the Divine gives to each one exactly what he expects from Him. If you believe the Divine to be distant and cruel, He will be distant and cruel, because it may be necessary for your supreme wellbeing to feel the wrath of God. He will be Kali for the worshippers of Kali, and bliss for the bhakta. He will be the All-Knowledge of seekers after Knowledge, the Transcendent Impersonal of the illusionist. He will be an atheist for the atheist, and the love of the lover. He will be fraternal and near, an ever faithful friend, ever helpful, to those who feel him as the inner guide of each movement, at each minute. And if you believe that He can erase everything, He will erase all your faults, all your errors, tirelessly, and at each moment you will feel his infinite Grace. In truth, the Divine is what you expect of Him in your deep aspiration.
         And once you enter into this consciousness where all things are seen with a single look, the infinite multitude of the Divine's relationships with men, you realize how wonderful everything is, in every detail. You can also look at the history of mankind and see how much the Divine has evolved depending upon what men have understood, desired, hoped for or dreamed; how he was materialistic with the materialist, and how each day he grows, draws nearer, becomes more luminous, as the human consciousness widens. Everyone is free to choose. The perfection of this endless variety of relationships between man and God throughout the history of the world is an unutterable wonder. Yet all this together is but a second in the total manifestation of the Divine.”[8]




  1. Words of the Mother – II, p.3
  2. Blessings of the Grace: Conversations with the Mother Recollected by Mona Sarkar and Some of Her Written Answers, p.185
  3. Ibid., p.141
  4. Questions and Answers 1955, p.236
  5. Words of the Mother – I, p.333, Aspiration Talks
  6. Questions and Answers 1954, p.348
  7. Talks with Sri Aurobindo, p.364, 17 January 1940
  8. Mother's Agenda 1951-1960, Undated 1957



See also