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Sadhana through Work for the Mother
Finding the Mother’s Force in Work and Action
Yesterday I worked with great vigour and after I saw Mother in the evening I felt that there was no physical tiredness at all and that I could work for twelve hours more. It is the Mother’s energy that comes down into the vital and physical for those who are open. 12 February 1933
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I told you that I could work peacefully at the Granary, but alas, I am unable to do so. As I sit quietly doing my work, X comes and starts talking about many things and creates a disturbance in me. I pray that you will help me. You must be able to find the Mother in work and action as well as in concentration and silence. It is quite possible even if there is the silence within you and no restless movement, to move and act and do all that is needful. It is in fact when all within is silent, free from desire and with no restless movement that the Mother’s force can act best and do things in the right way. You should aspire to the Mother for the right force to act and do work and find her in the work and action. 31 May 1933
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When I do any work for myself or do any work as my own, I get tired. But my mind realises now that this tiredness comes because I have not offered the work to my Divine Parents. If there is the full surrender in the work and you feel it is the Mother’s and that the Mother’s force is working in you, then fatigue does not come. July 1933
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During the work, is it good to go on thinking: “It is the Mother who does the work through us”? If it is work, you can always do that, provided you realise that it depends on the instrument whether the Mother’s force works fully or not.
But if we think it is the Mother who is working through us, wrong movements may hide in the disguise of the Mother? If you think all your actions come from the Mother, then of course it will have that effect —the actions come from Prakriti. Work is a different matter, for it is the Mother’s work you are doing. 16 August 1933
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Today I felt as if someone other than myself was carrying out my actions. Of course I was there, but in the background. Was it not the Mother’s Force trying to take me into itself integrally? It is too much to say that. What you say amounts only to some glimpse of the cosmic Force behind all the actions. 2 June 1934
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Everybody is in the Mother, but one must become conscious of that, not of the work only. 1 April 1935
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The feeling that all one does is from the Divine, that all action is the Mother’s is a necessary step in experience, but one cannot remain in it —one has to go farther. Those can remain in it who do not want to change the nature, but only to have the experience of the Truth behind it. Your action is according to universal Nature and in that again it is according to your individual nature, and all Nature is a force put out by the Divine Mother for the action of the universe. But as things are it is an action in the Ignorance and the ego; while what we want is an action of the divine Truth
Page – 242 unveiled and undeformed by the Ignorance and the ego. So when you feel that your actions are all done by the force ( শক্তি ) of the Mother, that is a true experience. But the will of is that all you do should be done not the Mother ( মায়ের ইচ্ছা ) by her force in Nature as now, but her own direct force in the Truth of her nature, the higher divine Nature. So also it was correct, what you thought afterwards, that unless there is this change, the experience that all you do is done by her will cannot be altogether true. So it will not be permanent till then. For if it were permanent now, it might keep you in the lower action as it does many and prevent or retard the change. What you need as a permanent experience now is that of the Mother’s Force working in you in all things to change this ignorant consciousness and nature into her divine consciousness and nature. It is the same with the truth about the instrument. It is true that each being is an instrument of the cosmic Shakti, therefore of the Mother. But the aim of the sadhana is to become a conscious and perfect instrument instead of one that is unconscious and therefore imperfect. You can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when you are no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature, but in surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within you. So here too your intuition was perfectly true. But all this cannot be done in a day. So you are once more right in not being anxious or uneasy. One must be vigilant, but not anxious and uneasy, ব্যস্ত . The Mother’s Force will act and bring the result in its own time —provided one offers all to her and aspires and is vigilant, calling and remembering her at all times, rejecting quietly all that stands in the way of the action of her transforming Force. Your second view of this was more from the right angle of vision than the first. To say that it is not I who have to act, so I need not mind, is to say too much —one has to act in so far as one has to aspire, offer oneself, assent to the Mother’s working, reject all else, more and more surrender. All else will be done in time; there is no need for anxiety or depression or impatience. 13 July 1935
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What is meant by being an instrument or being used by the Mother’s Force? When one acts on impulse, often it is a wrong movement —how can that be a case of being an instrument? When you wrote to X, “You are being used as an effective instrument”, did you write it as a temporary encouragement? So long as one is not conscious of the Force working through one, one is moved by the Prakriti. The Prakriti may be used sometimes by the Divine for some work to be done, but that is not what is meant in the Yoga by being an “instrument”. I do not know to what you refer as regards X, —his poetry was inspired by us and he felt it and it certainly helped several people; to that extent he was an effective instrument for the work so long as he was in the right attitude. Naturally, it is for the work that one can be an instrument, not for things like sex which have nothing to do with the Yoga or the work. But the real instrumentality begins when the consciousness of the Force working begins within. 30 October 1935
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In a letter about work Sri Aurobindo says: “As for the dedication make the sankalpa always of offering it, remember and pray when you can. . . . This is to fix a certain attitude. Afterwards, the Force can take advantage of this key to open the deeper dedication within.” May I know in what terms this deeper dedication can be expressed? One begins to feel a double consciousness, one an inner being within which is always dedicated, spontaneously and silently full of the devotion to the Mother or aware of her Force working or of her presence or all these together and another the outer through which the work is done. 1936
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During work, the consciousness, however high it was before, falls at once into inertia. Is this condition never to change? It is not necessary to fall into inertia, but one always comes into a less intensity of consciousness during work unless one
Page – 244 has established in work the conscious contact with the Mother’s Force and is aware of that during the work or unless one has developed a double consciousness, the inner concentrated, the outer doing the work. 12 April 1936
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You seem to have written to X that there is a special force for the work and, if it is brought down, its action need not remain a separate thing from meditation. What is this special force for work? It is the Mother’s force, naturally. 16 May 1936
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It is only when work and action are done in that way, without insistence on one’s personal ideas and personal feelings but only for the Divine’s sake without thought of self that work becomes fully a sadhana and the internal and the external nature can arrive at a harmony. It makes it more possible for the inner being to take up and enlighten the outer action and grow conscious of the Mother’s force behind it guiding it in its works. 3 January 1937
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Should one try to put out the Mother’s Force during work, if one is conscious of it? It is the Mother’s Force that has to work through the sadhak, not the sadhak who has to work through the Mother’s Force. If one is not yet conscious of her Force, should one put out one’s inner energy in work? How is the inner energy related to the outer energy? The first stage is when one works with the outer energy, but there is an inner consciousness supporting it which relies wholly on the Mother. The second is when there is an inner consciousness and force which uses the outer instruments —the outer energy
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being quiescent or else a part only of the inner —while this inner consciousness knows that the force is the Mother’s or feels the Mother’s presence in it: there are different experiences in this respect. The third is when all is the Mother’s Force working. 10 April 1937
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There are two ways of making an offering to the Mother: one is to offer an act at her feet as one might offer a flower; the other is to withdraw one’s personality and feel as though she were doing all the actions. Which of these ways is better for the sadhana? There is no need to ask which is the better as they are not mutually exclusive. It is the mind that regards them as opposites. The psychic being can offer the act while the nature is passive to the Force (the ego being expunged or having withdrawn) and feels the Mother’s Force doing the act and her Presence in it. 5 November 1938
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Efface the stamp of ego from the heart and let the love of the Mother take its place. Cast from the mind all insistence on your personal ideas and judgments, then you will have the wisdom to understand her. Let there be no obsession of self —will, ego —drive in the action, love of personal authority, attachment to personal preference, then the Mother’s force will be able to act clearly in you and you will get the inexhaustible energy for which you ask and your service will be perfect. 27 November 1940 Work for the Mother in the Integral Yoga
To go entirely inside in order to have experiences and to neglect the work, the external consciousness, is to be unbalanced, onesided in the sadhana —for our Yoga is integral; so also to throw oneself outward and live in the external being alone is to be unbalanced, one —sided in the sadhana. One must have the same Page – 246 consciousness in inner experience and outward action and make both full of the Mother.
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There should be not only a general attitude, but each work should be offered to the Mother so as to keep the attitude a living one all the time. There should be at the time of work no meditation, for that would withdraw the attention from the work, but there should be the constant memory of the One to whom you offer it. This is only a first process; for when you can have constantly the feeling of a calm being within concentrated in the sense of the Divine Presence while the surface mind does the work, or when you can begin to feel always that it is the Mother’s force that is doing the work and you are only a channel or an instrument, then in place of memory there will have begun the automatic constant realisation of Yoga, divine union, in works. April 1930
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Those who do work for the Mother in all sincerity, are prepared by the work itself for the right consciousness even if they do not sit down for meditation or follow any particular practice of Yoga. It is not necessary to tell you how to meditate; whatever is needful will come of itself if in your work and at all times you are sincere and keep yourself open to the Mother. 15 March 1932
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The Mother does not think that it is good to give up all work and only read and meditate. Work is part of the Yoga and it gives the best opportunity for calling down the Presence, the Light and the Power into the vital and its activities; it increases also the field and the opportunity of surrender. It is not enough to remember that the work is the Mother’s —and the results also. You must learn to feel the Mother’s force behind you and to open to the inspiration and the guidance. Always to remember by an effort of the mind is too difficult;
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but if you get into the consciousness in which you feel always the Mother’s force in you or supporting you, that is the true thing. 18 August 1932
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The Mother refuses to relieve you of all work —work is a necessary part of this Yoga. If you do not do work and spend all the time in “meditation”, you and your sadhana will lose all hold of realities; you will lose yourself in uncontrolled subjective imaginations such as those you are now allowing to control you and lead you into actions —like your absenting yourself from Pranam, becoming fanciful and irregular in your taking of food, coming to the Mother at a wrong time and place under the imagination that she has called you —actions dictated by error and false suggestion and not by Truth. It is by doing work for the Mother with surrender to her, with obedience to her expressed will, without fancies and vital self —will that you can remain in touch with the embodied Mother here and progress in the Yoga. Mere subjective experiences without control by us will not lead you to the Truth and may lead you far from it into sheer confusion and error. If you do not want to do the B. D. [Building Department] account and letter work, you can take up the work of keeping the gate daily from 12 to 2; but it is better if you combine this gate work with the typing of letters whenever needed. If you do not want to do the gate work, then you must go on with the work you now have. If you take the gate work only, you must hand over the typewriter to the B. D. so that it may continue to be used for the work you were doing up till now. I must warn you that by withdrawing into a one —sided subjective existence within and by pushing away from you all touch with physical realities, you are running into a wrong path and imperilling your sadhana. What happens to sadhaks who do this is that they make a mental Formation and put it in place of the true embodied Mother here, and then under its inspiration they begin to lose touch with her and disobey her and follow the false suggestions of their mental Formation. The first thing it does is
Page – 248 to instigate them not to write to her, not to come to Pranam, not to act as regards food, work etc. on the lines laid down by her, to disobey her —as you have disobeyed her with regard to coming to Pranam this morning. Another very bad sign of this false condition is when they feel not in touch with the Mother when they meet her in the body and guided only by some disembodied Mother in their own egoistic consciousness —that is a sure sign that a Falsehood is getting into their sadhana. As regards their way of life, they do not wish to do like the others, but to have a special way of life of their own, governed by some Imagination within them. All this you must stop. You must come to Pranam regularly, take your food regularly, sleep regularly, do the work given you conscientiously, following the lines laid down for this Asram by the Mother, and through a right consciousness in this life you must realise her Truth in the physical existence. Your unwillingness to come to the Pranam because that would interrupt some subjective experience is altogether out of place. No experience in formal meditation, not a hundred experiences together can be worth the touch of the Mother in the Pranam. If you had the psychic being in front in the physical or even in the heart and the vital, you would feel that at once. Moreover, these experiences are not supramental as you seem to imagine. The supramental Truth could never stand behind such errors as you are making now. Moreover to get the supramental Light is not so easy as you fancy; I have warned again and again the sadhaks against the error of thinking they are already in possession of the supermind or in touch with it. One has to go through a long and patient development through many lower stages of consciousness before one can be even within measurable distance of the supermind. All attachment and self —indulgence are dangerous —attachment and self —indulgence in subjective experiences and remote "meditations", pushing aside the Truth in objective life is as dangerous as any other. Draw back from these errors and get back into the true balance of the sadhana. If you want the psychic in the physical, you cannot get it by merely sitting in meditation and having abstract experiences; you can get it only by seeking
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it in physical life and action, by work for the Mother, obedience and surrender in work to the Mother who is present in her own body here. 15 September 1932
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When I am alone for some time, I feel aspiration in the heart, peace and Samata. I feel as if nothing can disturb me. But when I come out to work or move here and there and mix with others, I lose this feeling. Why does it happen like this? It is the difficulty of being calm and surrendered in action and movement; when there is no action and one is simply sitting still, it is easy to be quiet. How can this weakness be rejected from the nature so that I can live in peace and Samata in the midst of work and everywhere? By rejecting ego and desire and living and working for the Divine alone. Will those who live in peace and Samata but do not work for the Mother’s sake or do little work be transformed fully? No; they do not get transformed at all. 7 May 1933
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If one works with an attitude of service and love, but does not meditate, will it not lead to stagnation from an inner standpoint? Many say, “We are doing Mother’s work and that is sufficient.” If they do it in the right spirit, then it may be sufficient for them, as it will bring the rest —because of the spirit in which they do it. It is a matter of idiosyncrasy —there are some who cannot get anything by meditation, so that work or bhakti is their only resource. 24 May 1933
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Page – 250 People say, “As long as the lower nature is not fully purified, it is dangerous to do a lot of meditation. If one meditates too much before one has become purified by means of work, things might rise up from the lower nature and upset the sadhak. When the higher forces come down into a nature not sufficiently purified through work, it is difficult to bear the descent of the divine forces.” It is not the descent of the higher or divine forces that upsets a sadhak, it is his acceptance of forces of falsehood through ambition, vanity, desire to be a great Yogi or an attachment to his experiences without regard to their truth or their source. It is not well to spend the whole time or the greater part of the time in meditation unless one is very strong in mind —for one gets into a habit of living in an inner world entirely and losing touch with external realities —this brings in a onesided inharmonious movement and may lead to disturbance of balance. To do both meditation and work and dedicate both to the Mother is the best thing. 6 August 1933
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My thoughts, emotions and sensations are all turned towards the Mother. But how can I make them serve her in practical life? I still make mistakes and do not always get the right inspiration. That depends on the physical mind. It has to learn to stop listening to itself and following its own ideas and to call seriously and persistently for the inspiration of the Mother —your physical mind has to become a portion of hers, answering at once and accurately to whatever comes from her. 27 December 1933
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X says that he cannot feel your presence during work as he can during meditation. He does not understand how work can help him. He has to learn to consecrate his work and feel the Mother’s
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power working through it. A purely sedentary subjective realisation is only a half realisation. 23 January 1934
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I pray that I may feel the Mother’s protection while working. I feel happy to work. I am not able to meditate every day, but as long as I am working I feel that the work itself is sadhana. Work for the Mother done with the right concentration on her is as much a sadhana as meditation and inner experiences. 14 March 1934
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During physical pursuits, I find that the Mother’s Force takes them up. But when I am not working, what should I aspire for? For the Mother’s power to work and bring down by the proper stages the higher consciousness. Also for the system to be more and more fit —quiet, egoless, surrendered. 5 June 1934
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It is not our experience that by meditation alone it is possible to change the nature, nor has retirement from outward activity and work much profited those who have tried it; in many cases it has been harmful. A certain amount of concentration, an inner aspiration in the heart and an opening of the consciousness to the Mother’s presence there and to the descent from above are needed. But without action, without work the nature does not really change; it is there and by contact with men that there is the test of the change in the nature. As for the work one does, there is no higher or lower work; all work is the same provided it is offered to the Mother and done for her and in her power. You have probably taken too much work on yourself by adding to the rest accounts, etc. That was not necessary. There is no reason why you should not do a normal amount and have time and energy for meditation as well. If you wish, however, to change, Mother may consider it, though she does not just now see how to arrange. 6 October 1934
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Page – 252 This [experience of the true attitude] happens when the work is always associated with the Mother’s thought, done as an offering to her, with the call to do it through you. All ideas of ego, all association of egoistic feelings with the work must disappear. One begins to feel the Mother’s force doing the work; the psychic grows through a certain inner attitude behind the work and the adhar becomes open both to the psychic intuitions and influences from within and to the descent from above. Then the result of meditation can come through the work itself. 5 May 1936
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Just as you give yourself through work to the Mother doing all for her, so there is an inner giving or consecration. Ordinarily the mind and vital live for themselves, want this or that, seek after it and feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled if they do not get it. But when they give themselves, this ceases. Whatever the Mother does with them that they accept —ask for nothing, rely on her entirely, live for her will and not for their desires. Then they begin to be empty of their old selves and old movements, fill with the presence of the Mother, the will of the Mother, the workings of the Mother —that becomes all their life. 27 July 1936
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Once in an interview the Mother told me, “Why do you make any difference between me and work?” I am not sure if I have been able to reproduce the exact words, but they are almost like that. I pray to you to make the idea a little more explicit. As it stands, it has no meaning. What Mother must have said is “Why do you make any separation between me and work?” It is she who is doing the work, she is there in it, so it is a mistake to make an opposition between concentration on her and the work. Her presence is there in both. 1936
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This state of mind, described in your letter, must be due to a tension created by an urge in the psychic to make a complete
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surrender to the Mother and some obstruction in the vital mind and surface intellect. This mind supports the obstruction by an excessive self —depreciation (not well —founded as a sound and just self —examination would be) and a questioning of all you do so that you can see only defects and wrong motives. That creates unrest, doubt and strain and hampers your sadhana and prevents the psychic impulse from acting freely. You should do your work simply in the confidence that it is accepted and appreciated by the Mother, as indeed it is, —for your work has been very good and helpful to her. Let the psychic movement express itself simply and spontaneously in action without allowing the outer mind to interfere; that would very likely release the tension and then your sadhana could proceed in a quiet cheerfulness, confident of its own truth and the Mother’s loving acceptance. 6 December 1943 Work for the Mother as Karmayoga
He should carry on his work and do all things else in the right consciousness, offering all he does to the Mother and keeping in inner touch with her. All work done in that spirit and with that consciousness becomes Karmayoga and can be regarded as part of his sadhana. 10 March 1932
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What you received and kept in the work is indeed the true basic consciousness of Karmayoga —the calm consciousness from above supporting and the strength from above doing the work, with that the Bhakti which feels it to be the Mother’s consciousness present and working. You know now by experience what is the secret of Karmayoga. 15 September 1936
The conditions for following the Mother’s will are to turn to her for Light and Truth and Strength, to aspire that no other force shall influence or lead you, to make no demands or conditions Page – 254 in the vital, to keep a quiet mind ready to receive the Truth but not insisting on its own ideas and formations, —finally, to keep the psychic awake and in front, so that you may be in constant contact and know truly what her will is; for the mind and vital can mistake other impulsions and suggestions for the Divine Will, but the psychic once awakened makes no mistake. A perfect perfection in working is only possible after supramentalisation; but a relative good working is possible on the lower planes if one is in contact with the Divine and careful, vigilant and conscious in mind and vital and body. That is a condition, besides, which is preparatory and almost indispensable for the supramentalisation. 23 February 1932
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How can I become master of myself and keep self —discipline? Observe yourself so that nothing passes without being conscious of it. Do not allow yourself to be moved by the forces of nature without the inner consent. Obey the Mother’s will always; let your consent or refusal to the movement of forces be in consonance with her Truth. 10 June 1933
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How can the will be made one with the Mother’s Will? The will can be made one with the Mother’s by establishing a constant contact of the consciousness with hers. 24 June 1933
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Does “constant contact of the consciousness” mean mental contact or psychic? It means the whole —with the psychic as the base. 25 June 1933
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I have been thinking that to change one’s nature first one
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must restrain one’s desire, then one must act according to the Mother’s will and gradually there will be no will of one’s own any more —all will happen by the Mother’s will. Am I right? At first one must put one’s will in unison with the Mother’s will knowing that it is an instrument only and that it is the Mother’s will behind that alone can give the result. Afterwards, when one becomes conscious fully of the Mother’s force working within, then the personal will is replaced by the divine. 15 July 1935 The Mother’s Consciousness and the Divine Law
What I seek is the total transformation of myself, so that no movement can be outside the Divine Law. Establish the Divine Consciousness (the Mother’s consciousness) in you and the Divine Law will flow from that. 25 March 1932
Demands should not be made. What you receive freely from the Mother helps you; what you demand or try to impose on her is bound to be empty of her force. The Mother deals with each person differently according to his true need (not what he himself fancies to be his need) and his progress in the sadhana and his nature. For you the most effective way to get the strength you need would be to do the work conscientiously and scrupulously, allowing nothing to interfere with its exact discharge. If you did that, opening yourself at the same time to the Mother in your work, you would receive more constantly the grace and would come to feel her power doing the work through you; you would thus be able to live constantly with the sense of her presence. If on the contrary you allow your fancies or desires to interfere with your work or are careless and negligent, you interrupt the flow of her grace and give room for sorrow and uneasiness and other foreign forces to enter into you. Yoga through work is the Page – 256 easiest and most effective way to enter into the stream of this sadhana. 8 March 1930
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Even the most purely physical and mechanical work cannot be properly done if one accepts incapacity, inertia and passivity. The remedy is not to confine yourself to mechanical work, but to reject and throw off incapacity, passivity and inertia and open yourself to the Mother’s force. If vanity, ambition and self —conceit stand in your way, cast them from you. You will not get rid of these things by merely waiting for them to disappear. If you merely wait for things to happen, there is no reason why they should happen at all. If it is incapacity and weakness that oppose, still, as one opens oneself truly and more and more to the Mother’s force, the strength and capacity necessary for the work will be given and will grow in the adhar. 11 March 1932
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It is owing to the good psychic condition in which you are that this lightness and power of work comes into you; for then you are open to the Mother’s Force and it is that that works in you, so that there is no fatigue. You felt the fatigue formerly after the work was over because your vital was open and the vital energy was the instrument of the work, but the body consciousness was not quite open and had some strain. This time the physical seems to have opened also. 1932
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In the ordinary condition of the body if you oblige the body to do too much work, it can do with the support of vital force. But as soon as the work is done, the vital force withdraws and then the body feels fatigue. If this is done too much and for too long a time, there may be a breakdown of health and strength under the overstrain. Rest is then needed for recovery. If however the mind and the vital get the habit of opening to the Mother’s Force, they are then supported by the Force and may even be fully filled with it —the Force does the work
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and the body feels no strain or fatigue before or after. But even then, unless the body itself is open and can absorb and keep the Force, sufficient rest in between the work is absolutely necessary. Otherwise although the body may go on for a very long time, yet in the end there can be a danger of a collapse. The body can be sustained for a long time when there is the full influence and there is a single —minded faith and call in the mind and the vital; but if the mind or the vital is disturbed by other influences or opens itself to forces which are not the Mother’s, then there will be a mixed condition and there will be sometimes strength, sometimes fatigue, exhaustion or illness or a mixture of the two at the same time. Finally, if not only the mind and the vital, but the body also is open and can absorb the Force, it can do extraordinary things in the way of work without breaking down. Still, even then rest is necessary. That is why we insist on those who have the impulse of work keeping a proper balance between rest and labour. A complete freedom from fatigue is possible, but that comes only when there is a complete transformation of the law of the body by the full descent of a supramental Force into the earth —nature. Remembering the Mother in Work
It is only by an inner development that you can remember in the midst of work. Meanwhile offer all your work inwardly to the Mother. 21 May 1933
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How to remember the Mother during work? I have tried to follow a mental rule, without success. Perhaps it is the inner consciousness that remembers while the outer is busy? One starts by a mental effort —afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother because it is always conscious of her. 31 May 1933
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Page – 258 During mental activities my outer being never remembers the Mother. Please show me the way to remain conscious of her in the midst of intellectual pursuits. It can be done when you become the witness detached from the mental actions and not involved in them, not absorbed in them as the mental doer or thinker. 20 March 1934
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Since yesterday I have always been in touch with the Mother during work. Not only do I remember her but the connection with her remains during work. Her Force constantly flows into the Adhar and the work is done automatically, but swiftly, perfectly, unhesitatingly —without personal anxieties and responsibilities; instead, there is confidence, sureness, strength, calmness. I feel that if I can do work in this attitude, it will be perfect, flawless, the work of the Mother’s child, not of an egoistic man. Kindly let me know if I am correct. Yes, it is a very good progress and the first step towards the right use of the Power for action. 1 April 1935
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The little experience I have of sadhana through works makes me incline to the view that work as sadhana is the most difficult of all. I don’t remember any experience got through it nor can I remember that I am doing the Mother’s work; whereas in poetry, though I may be unlucky as regards experiences, when one writes a poem one does try to think of her, at least mentally. I can even say that it is only by thinking of her that I can compose the lines. Many find it easy to think of the Mother when working; but when they read or write, their mind goes off to the thing read or written and they forget everything else. I think that is the case with most. Physical work on the other hand can be done with the most external part of the mind, leaving the rest free to remember or to experience. 10 January 1936 260
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Offering Actions to the Mother
Whatever work you do, take it as the Mother’s and offer it to the Mother. 14 November 1933
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After finishing any activity, even eating and drinking, I make an offering of it to the Mother, saying, “I offer this work done by me to Thee.” But now a sense is growing in me that all works are done by the Mother’s Power of Nature through the individual nature. Accordingly, can I substitute the wording in this way, “All the work that is done by the (or my) individual nature is wholeheartedly offered to Thee”? Or what to say? All that is done in me by Nature, I offer wholeheartedly for transformation to Thee, O Mother. 5 March 1934
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I have read in many places that we should refer all our actions to the Mother. But I don’t know how to refer them and get her answer as to whether the actions should be done or not. There is no question of getting an answer. It is simply to offer the actions to the Mother and call her Force to guide or do what is necessary. 13 January 1936 Work for the Mother and the Worker’s Ego
Is it always necessary for our work to be prompted or initiated by the Mother in an outward way? Could one not feel so intensely that a thing has to be done that it is almost an inner prompting? It would be dangerous to take every “inner prompting” as if it were a prompting or initiation of action from the Mother. What seems an inner prompting may come from anywhere, any Force good or bad seeking to fulfil itself. One may have ego about the work even if the work itself comes from the Mother. The ego of the instrument is one of the things against which there must be special care in the Yoga. Page – 260 When one is doing the work, usually the urge of the force that works and the preoccupation of doing it and getting it done or the pleasure of doing it are sufficient and the mind does not think of anything else. Afterwards the sense of “I did it” comes up. With some however the ego is active during the work itself. 3 November 1935
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In order to separate the being from the constant interference of the ego, I propose to do only those actions that I feel are one with the Mother’s will. I know that the ego will still present itself, but it will be easy to recognise its interference as something coming from outside. Of course it is a way. But one has still to be careful about the ego. Even people who sincerely think they are doing only the Mother’s will are yet actuated by ego without knowing it. 4 April 1936
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