The outline of a study project “On the Spiritual History of India” was read to the Mother.

(The outline of a study project “On the Spiritual History of India” was read to the Mother. She commented:)

No! It won't do. It is not to be done that way. You should begin with a big bang!

You were trying to show the continuity of history, with Sri Aurobindo as the outcome, the culmination. It is false entirely.

Sri Aurobindo does not belong to history; he is outside and beyond history.

Till the birth of Sri Aurobindo, religions and spiritualities were always centred on past figures, and they were showing as ‘the goal’ the negation of life upon earth. So, you had a choice between two alternatives: either

– a life in this world with its round of petty pleasures and pains, joys and sufferings, threatened by hell if you were not behaving properly, or

– an escape into another world, heaven, nirvana, moksha.…

Between these two there is nothing much to choose, they are equally bad.

Sri Aurobindo has told us that this was a fundamental mistake which accounts for the weakness and degradation of India. Buddhism, Jainism, Illusionism were sufficient to sap all energy out of the country.

True, India is the only place in the world which is still aware that something else than Matter exists. The other countries have quite forgotten it: Europe, America and elsewhere.… That is why she still has a message to preserve and deliver to the world. But at present she is splashing and floundering in the muddle.

Sri Aurobindo has shown that the truth does not lie in running away from earthly life but in remaining in it, to transform it, divinise it, so that the Divine can manifest here, in this PHYSICAL world.

You should say all this at the first sitting. You should be square and frank… like that! (With her hands Mother makes a big square sign on the table.)

Then, when this is told, strongly, squarely, and there is no doubt about it – and then only – you can go on and amuse them with the history of religions and religious or spiritual leaders.

Then – and then only – you will be able to show the seed of weakness and falsehood that they have harboured and proclaimed.

Then – and then only – you will be able to discern, from time to time, from place to place, an ‘intuition’ that something else is possible; in the Vedas, for instance (the injunction to descend deep into the cave of the Panis); in the Tantras also… a little light is burning.

31 March 1967 210-211