Publisher's Note

This volume contains the talks given by Mother to the students, teachers and sadhaks of the Ashram in her "Wednesday classes" from the beginning of 1957 to the end of November 1958. These were the last of the talks given at the Playground. Mother generally began by reading from one of her French translations of Sri Aurobindo's works. From January to April 1957 the text was Thoughts and Glimpses, from April to October The Supramental Manifestation Upon Earth and from October 1957 to November 1958 the last six chapters of The Life Divine. After the reading, Mother commented on the text or answered questions.

The talks, given in French, were tape-recorded. Texts and translations of passages of most of the talks were first published in the quarterly Bulletin of Physical Education (later Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education) between February 1957 and November 1959, in August 1961 and from February to August 1963. The first complete edition of the French text of the talks of 1957 was published in 1969 under the title Entretiens 1957. Entretiens 1958 appeared in 1972. A new English translation of the complete series was brought out in book-form in 1973 as Questions and Answers 1957-58. The present volume, number nine of the Collected Works of the Mother (Centenary Edition), is a revision of the 1973 edition.

For quoted passages from Sri Aurobindo's works, references are to the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library edition