Guidance on Education

Publisher's Note

This compilation consists mainly of selections from the Mother's correspondence and conversations with the students and teachers of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, the school of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. There are, in addition, a few notes and messages and some letters to young people living in the Ashram in the 1930s. Most aspects of education are discussed here, with the exception of physical education; the Mother's statements on that subject will be published in a separate book, as will her essays on education and oral commentaries on them.

This book is divided into two parts, the first consisting of written statements, the second, of conversations. A glossary of Sanskrit and other terms used in the text has been placed at the end of the book.

We present below a brief history of the Mother's educational effort at the Ashram, culminating in the founding of the Centre of Education. This background should help the reader to better understand the statements in the book.

During the 1930s, the Mother's educational guidance in areas other than spiritual practice was limited to teaching French to a few people and offering general advice on other subjects. At that time there were only a handful of children living in the Ashram, a situation which changed in the early 1940s when several families were accepted. The children who came then were at first tutored informally, but in December 1943 the Mother officially opened a school for them. During the next few years the number of students steadily rose. Soon after Sri Aurobindo's passing in December 1950, the Mother announced her wish to establish a University Centre in his name. One year later, on 6 January 1952, she inaugurated the Sri Aurobindo International University Centre; this name was changed in 1959 to Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.

Classes at the Centre of Education range from nursery level to college level, with courses in the humanities, fine arts, sciences, engineering and vocational training. Mathematics and the sciences are generally taught in French, other subjects in English. Besides French and English, students often learn a simplified Sanskrit and their mother-tongue; some study other languages as well.

"It is not brilliant students that we want," said the Mother, "it is living souls." Thus the Centre of Education tries to develop all the aspects of the student's personality, and not only the mind. In addition to training the intellect through the sciences and humanities, there is an emphasis on cultivating the emotional and aesthetic faculties through the arts, and the body through physical exercise. As for spiritual growth, the Mother once observed that "this cannot be done by any external method"; therefore there are no prescribed courses or Observances, though most of the older students study the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

In its teaching method, the Centre of Education employs, as far as possible, what is called the free progress system. In this system the student is encouraged to assume responsibility for his own growth by choosing his own courses of study and pursuing them largely on his own. The teacher acts primarily as a guide rather than an instructor. In practice, the school's teaching system is a combination of the free progress system and the traditional method of direct instruction by the teacher. The Centre of Education does not hold formal examinations nor award degrees or diplomas because it seeks to awaken in its students a love of learning which is independent of utilitarian motives.

THE AIM

Students' Prayer

Make of us the hero warriors we aspire to become. May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that is to be born, against the past that seeks to endure, so that the new things may manifest and we may be ready to receive them.

*

The aim of education is not to prepare a man to succeed in life and society, but to increase his perfectibility to its utmost.

Why are no diplomas and certificates given to the students of the Centre of Education?

For the last hundred years or so mankind has been suffering from a disease which seems to be spreading more and more and which has reached a climax in our times; it is what we may call "utilitarianism".
People and things, circumstances and activities seem to be viewed and appreciated exclusively from this angle. Nothing has any value unless it is useful. Certainly something that is useful is better than something that is not. But first we must agree on what we describe as useful useful to Whom, to what, for what?

For, more and more, the races who consider themselves civilised describe as useful whatever can attract,

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At an age when they should be dreaming of beauty, greatness and perfection, dreams that may be too sublime for ordinary common sense, but which are nevertheless far superior to this dull good sense, children now dream of money and worry about how to earn it.

So when they think of their studies, they think above all about what can be useful to them, so that later on when they grow up they can earn a lot of money.

And the thing that becomes most important for them is to prepare themselves to pass examinations with success, for with diplomas, certificates and titles they will be able to find good positions and earn a lot of money.

For them study has no other purpose, no other interest.

To learn for the sake of knowledge, to study in order to know the secrets of Nature and life, to educate oneself in order to grow in consciousness, to discipline oneself in order to become master of oneself, to overcome one's weaknesses, incapacities and ignorance, to prepare oneself to advance in life towards a goal that is nobler and vaster, more generous and more true...they hardly give it a thought and consider it all very utopian. The only thing that matters is to be practical, to prepare themselves and learn how to earn money.

Children who are infected with this disease are out

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of place at the Centre of Education of the Ashram. And it is to make this quite clear to them that we do not prepare them for any official examination or competition and do not give them any diplomas or titles which they can use in the outside world.

We want here only those who aspire for a higher and better life, who thirst for knowledge and perfection, who look forward eagerly to a future that will be more totally true.

There is plenty of room in the world for all the others.

*

What is the real purpose, the aim of our Education Centre? Is it to teach Sri Aurobindo's works? And these only? And all or some of these? Or is it to prepare students to read Sri Aurobindo's works and Mother's? Is it to prepare them for the Ashram life or also for other 'outside' occupation? There are so many opinions floating around, and even those older people whom we expect to know make so many different statements, that one does not know what to believe and act by. Then on what basis can we work without any real sure knowledge? I pray, Mother, give us your guidance.

It is not a question of preparing to read these works or other works. It is a question of pulling all those who are capable to do so, out of the general human routine of thought, feeling and action; it is to give all opportunities to those who are here to cast off from them the slavery to the human way of thinking and doing; it is

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to teach all those who want to listen that there is another and truer way of living, that Sri Aurobindo has taught us how to live and become a true being and that the aim of the education here is to prepare the children and make them fit for that life.

For all the rest, the human ways of thinking and living, the world is vast and there is place out there for everybody.

*

We are not here to do (only a little better) what the others do.

We are here to do what the others cannot do because they do not have the idea that it can be done.

We are here to open the way of the Future to children who belong to the Future.

Anything else is not worth the trouble and not worthy of Sri Aurobindo's help.

6 September 1961

It should be known and we should not hesitate to say openly that the purpose of our school is to discover and encourage those in whom the need for progress has become conscious enough to orient their life.

5 August 1963

*

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The best students are those who want to know, not those who want to show.

23 April 1966

*

The Whole question is to know whether the students go to school to increase their knowledge and to learn what is needed to know how to live well or whether they go to school to pretend and to have good marks which they can boast about.

Before the Eternal Consciousness, one drop of sincerity has more value than an ocean of pretence and hypocrisy.

*

School is just a preparation to make the students capable of thinking, studying, progressing and becoming intelligent if they can all that must be done during the entire life and not only in school.

November 1967

*

What should he the guiding principles of the new ideal of education?

Truth, Harmony, Liberty.

November 1967

*

Don't you think that in our programme of education children should he taught to do some disinterested work for the Ashram, at least once a week.?

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It is always good to do disinterested work. But it becomes much better if the work becomes an enjoyment and not a boring task.

Blessings.

26 November 1969

*

To develop the spirit of service is part of the training here and it completes the other studies.

13 June 1971

My little ones, you are the hope, you are the future. Keep always this youth which is the faculty to progress; for you the phrase "it is impossible" will have no meaning.

22 April 1949

*

Of one thing you can be sure your future is in your hands. You will become the man you want to be and the higher your ideal and your aspiration, the higher will be your realisation, but you must keep a firm resolution and never forget your true aim in life.

*

28 March 1967

*

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Sincerity, humility, perseverance and an insatiable thirst for progress are essential for a happy and fruitful life. Above all, one must be convinced that the possibility of progress is unlimited. Progress is youth; one can be young at a hundred.

14 January 1972

*

If the growth of consciousness were considered as the principal goal of life, many difficulties would find their solution.

The best way to avoid growing old is to make progress the goal of our life.

18 January 1972

*

To learn constantly, not just intellectually but psychologically, to progress in regard to character, to cultivate our qualities and correct our defects, so that everything may be an opportunity to cure ourselves of ignorance and incapacity then life becomes tremendously interesting and worth living.

27 January 1972

*

The child does not worry about his growth, he simply grows.

*

There is a great power in the simple confidence of a child.

17 November 1954

*

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When a child lives in normal conditions, it has a spontaneous confidence that all it needs will be given to it.

This confidence should persist, unshaken, throughout life; but the limited idea, ignorant and superficial, of its needs which a child has, must be replaced progressively by a wider, deeper and truer conception which culminates in the perfect conception of needs in accordance with the supreme wisdom, until we realise that the Divine alone knows what our true needs are and rely upon Him for everything.

19 November 1954

Why do children have fear? Because they are weak.

Physically they are weaker than the grown-ups around them and, generally, they are also weaker vitally and mentally.

Fear stems from a sense of inferiority.

However, there is a way to be free from it: it is to have faith in the Divine Grace and to rely on It to protect you in all circumstances.

The more you grow up, the more will you get over your fear if you let the contact with your soul develop in you that is to say, with the truth of your being and if you always strive that all you think, all your speak, all you do should be more and more the expression of this deep truth.

When you will consciously live in it, you will fear nothing any longer, in any domain of your being, because you will be united with the universal Truth which governs the world.

8 August 1964

*

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STUDY

Be happy, my child, it is the surest way of progress.

*

My dear children, love work and you Will be happy. Love to learn and you will progress.

1961

*

In order to be truly happy in life, one must love work.

1961

*

The days pass, the weeks pass, the months pass, the years pass and time fades into the past. And later on, when they have grown up, those who no longer have the immense advantage of being Children regret the time that they have wasted and that they could have used to learn all the things which are needed to know how to live.

March 1961

Never believe that you know.

Always try to know better.

Blessings.

12 July 1964

To do good work one must have good taste. Taste can be educated by study and the help of those who have good taste.

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To learn, it is necessary to feel first that one does not know.

15 December 1965

When you feel that you know nothing then you are ready to learn.

December 1965

My dear child,

The true wisdom is to be ready to learn from whatever source the knowledge can come.

We can learn things from a flower, an animal, a child, if we are eager to know always more, because there is only One Teacher in the world the Supreme Lord, and He manifests through everything.

With all my love.

9 March 1967

*

You see, my child, the unfortunate thing is that you are too preoccupied with yourself. At your age I was exclusively occupied with my studies finding things out, learning, understanding, knowing. That was my interest, even my passion. My mother, who loved us very much my brother and myself never allowed us to be ill-tempered or discontented or lazy. If we went to complain to her about one thing or another, to tell her that we were discontented, she would make fun of us or scold us and say, "What is this nonsense?

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Don't be ridiculous. Quick! off you go and work, and never mind Whether you are in a good or a bad mood! That is of no interest at all."

My mother was perfectly right and I have always been very grateful to her for having taught me the discipline and the necessity of self-forgetfulness through concentration on What one is doing.

I have told you this because the anxiety you speak of comes from the fact that you are far too concerned about yourself. It would be better for you to pay more attention to what you are doing and to do it well (painting or music), to develop your mind, which is still very uncultivated, and to learn the elements of knowledge which are indispensable to a man if he does not want to be ignorant and uncultured.

If you worked regularly eight to nine hours a day, you would be hungry and you would eat well, you would feel sleepy and sleep peacefully, and you would have no time to wonder whether you are in a good or a bad mood.

I am telling you these things with all my affection, and I hope that you will understand them.

Your mother who loves you.

15 May 1934

*

Mother,

I want a discipline.

This is quite excellent and I approve of it. Without order and inner discipline, one can achieve nothing in life, either spiritually or materially. All those who have been able to create something beautiful or useful have

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always been persons who have known how to discipline themselves.

Always with you in all love.

23 June 1934

*

My little mother,

I shall he so happy when all the clouds and shadows are dissolved. I want a new life.

My dear child,

You are quite right in wanting a new life, and you may be sure that I shall do my best to help you in that. I am quite sure that perseverance in study and the acceptance of a discipline of work and order in life will be a powerful help to you in renewing yourself.

All my love is with you to help you and guide you.

*

My dear child,

Will and energy can be cultivated just as the muscles are: by exercise. You must exercise your will to be patient and your energy to reject depression. I am always near you to help you with all my love.

*

On the days when I do not study, I feel uneasy. But when I begin to study, happiness comes. I do not understand this process.

What do you mean by process? It is not a process; the disappearance of the uneasiness is the very natural result of concentrating the mind on study, which on the

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3 December 1934

*

Just this morning there is a very big depression and so it is becoming impossible to study. O Mother, what shall I do?

Force yourself to study and your depression will go away. Can you imagine a student in school coming and telling his teacher, "Sir, I did not do my homework today because I felt depressed"?

Surely the teacher would punish him most severely.

I think You do not like it very much when I do not apply myself to my studies.

Studies strengthen the mind and turn its concentration away from the impulses and desires of the vital. Concentrating on study is one of the most powerful ways of controlling the mind and the vital; that is why it is so important to study.

28 January 1935

*

My mind does not become peaceful, I think, because I do not study hard enough. Studying does not give me much pleasure.

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One does not study for the sake of pleasure  one studies to learn and to develop one's brain.

1 February 1935

It is quite impossible for me to study, because inertia is there.

If you do not study, the inertia will go on increasing.

4 March 1935

*

You tell me to study, but I dislike studying.

You do not give enough time to study, that is why it does not interest you. Everything one does with care necessarily becomes interesting.

10 April 1935

*

Which path must I take then? What is the right and true way of making the effort?

Do what I explained to you yesterday  make your brain work by studying regularly and systematically; then during the hours when you are not studying, your brain, having worked enough, will be able to rest and it will be possible for you to concentrate in the depths of your heart and find there the psychic source; with it you will become conscious of both gratitude and true happiness.

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My studies are suffering because of constant depression.

I have told you that it is by study that you can overcome the depression.

*

I would like to know whether as a general rule it is good for little children to play all the time.

For children there should be a time for work and study and a time for play.

16 November 1936

I am turning more and more towards study and giving less attention to my sadhana. I do not know whether this is desirable.

It is all right; study can become part of the sadhana.

8 December 1936

*

If someone is teaching me, is it necessary for him to identify himself with me, to concentrate on me?

Without concentration one can achieve nothing.

18 May 1937

Concentration and will can be developed as well as muscles; they grow by regular training and exercise.

*

It takes more than a few months to learn something.

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*

What is the utility of reason in our life?

Without reason, human life would be incoherent and unregulated; we would be like impulsive animals or unbalanced madmen.

6 April 1961

*

Sweet Mother,

Here our activities are so varied that it is difficult to stick to one thing till the end. Perhaps that is why we are not able to go beyond a mediocre average. Or is it because of our lack of solid concentration?

The cause of mediocre work is neither the variety nor the number of activities, but the lack of power of concentration.

One must learn to concentrate and do all that one does with full concentration.

4 July 1961

*

Sweet Mother,

In a discussion with a friend about our physical education programme and the countless other activities we have here, he asked me: "Can you give me a valid example of even one person who takes part in so many activities and maintains a fairly high standard one single person in the whole world?"

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Do not forget all of you who are here  that we want to realise something which does not yet exist upon earth; so it is absurd to seek elsewhere for an example of what we want to do.

He also told me this: "Mother says that there is full freedom and every facility for those who are gifted in a particular subject and want to pursue it to the full. But where is this freedom to become, for instance, a great musician?" Sweet Mother, can you please say a few words on the subject of this freedom?

The freedom I speak of is the freedom to follow the will of the soul, not all the whims of the mind and vital.

The freedom I speak of is an austere truth which strives to surmount all the weaknesses and desires of the lower, ignorant being.

The freedom I speak of is the freedom to consecrate oneself wholly and without reserve to one's highest, noblest, divinest aspiration.

Who among you sincerely follows this path? It is easy to judge, but more difficult to understand, and far more difficult still to realise.

18 November 1962

Sweet Mother,

There are moments when I feel it would be better to sit silently instead of reading or doing something else. But I am afraid of wasting time. What should I do?

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It all depends on the quality of the silence  if it is a luminous silence, full of force and conscious concentration, it is good. If it is a tamasic and unconscious silence, it is harmful.

10 June 1963

*

Sweet Mother,

I have too much "grey" matter in my head, which prevents me from thinking clearly and grasping new ideas quickly. How can I free myself from this?

By studying much, by reflecting much, by doing intellectual exercises. For instance, state a general idea clearly, then state the opposite idea, then look for the synthesis of both that is, find a third idea which harmonises the other two.

25 June 1963

Sweet Mother,

I am not properly prepared for the lst December performance,' and, what is more, I don't feel at all enthusiastic.

From the moment one has decided and accepted to do something, it must be done as well as one can.

One can find in everything a chance to progress in consciousness and self-mastery. And this effort for progress immediately makes the thing interesting, no matter What it is.

26 September 1963

1. The annual cultural programme of the Centre of Education.

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Sweet Mother,

I am very irregular in my studies; I don't  know what to do.

Shake off your "tamas" a little otherwise you will become a blockhead!

27 December 1963

*

Sweet Mother,

Until I am ready for a spiritual discipline, what should I do, apart from aspiring that the Mother may pull me out of the slumber and awaken my psychic consciousness?

To develop your intelligence, read the teachings of Sri Aurobindo regularly and very attentively. To develop and master your vital, carefully observe your movements and reactions with a will to overcome desires, and aspire to find your psychic being and unite with it. Physically, continue with what you are doing, develop and control your body methodically, make yourself useful by working at the Playground and your place of work, and try to do it as selflessly as possible.

If you are sincere and scrupulously honest, my help is certainly with you and one day you will become aware of it.

22 July 1964

*

Sweet Mother,

There are times when I feel like abandoning all my activities  the Playground, band, studies, etc. and devoting all my time to work. But my logic

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does not accept this. Where does this idea come from and why?

In this case your logic is right. In the outer nature there is often a tamasic tendency to simplify the conditions of life in order to avoid the effort of organising more complicated circumstances. But when one wants to Progress in the integrality of the being, this simplification is hardly advisable.

19 August 1964

Sweet Mother,

How can one increase single-mindedness and will-power? They are so necessary for doing anything.

Through regular, persevering, obstinate, unflagging exercise I mean exercise of concentration and will.

*

Are mental indifference and lack of curiosity a sort of mental inertia?

Usually they are due to mental inertia, unless one has obtained this calm and indifference through a very intense sadhana resulting in perfect equality for which good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant no longer exist. But in that case, mental activity is replaced by an intuitive activity of a much higher kind.

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Sweet Mother,

How can one get out of this mental laziness and inertia?

By wanting to do so, with persistence and obstinacy. By doing every day a mental exercise of reading, organisation and development.

This should alternate in the course of the day with exercises of mental silence and concentration.

1 June 1966

Sweet Mother,

What are knowledge and intelligence? Do they play important roles in our life?

Knowledge and intelligence are precisely the higher mental qualities in man, those that differentiate him from the animal.

Without knowledge and intelligence, one is not a man but an animal in human form.

Blessings.

30 December 1969

*

It is a passing impulse which pushes me so much to study.

So long as you need to form yourself, to build your brain, you will feel this strong urge to study; but when the brain is well formed, the taste for studies will gradually die away.

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SILENCE OF MIND

Practise silence of mind, it gives power of understanding.

*

With words one can at times understand, but only in silence one knows.

*

All that you know, however fine it may be, is nothing in comparison with what you can know, if you are able to use other methods.

*

The best way to understand is always to rise high enough in the consciousness to be able to unite all contradictory ideas in a harmonious synthesis.

And for the correct attitude, to know how to pass flexibly from one position to another without ever losing sight even for a moment of the one goal of self consecration to the Divine and identification with Him.

*

The important point is to know that the mind is in capable of understanding the One Supreme  that is why all that is said and thought about it is a travesty and an approximation and is necessarily full of irreconcilable contradictions.

That is also why it has always been taught that mental silence is indispensable in order to have true knowledge.

31 August 1965

*

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How does one teach a student to think correctly?

Mental capacity is developed in silent meditation.

23 March 1966

*

How to get rid of mental inertia?

The cure is not in trying to wake up the mind but in turning it, immobile and silent, upward towards the region of intuitive light, in a steady and quiet aspiration, and to wait in silence, for the light to come down and flood your brain which will, little by little, wake up to this influence and become capable of receiving and expressing the intuition.

I shall try to work with the help of intuition. Help me in my efforts.

Calm the vital.

Silence the mind.

Keep the brain silent and still like an even surface turned upwards and attentive.

And wait....

29 September 1967

*

How far can "intellectual culture" help us on our path?

If intellectual culture is carried to its furthest limit, it leads the mind to the unsatisfactory acknowledgement

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that it is incapable of knowing the Truth and, in those who aspire sincerely, to the necessity of being quiet and opening in silence to the higher regions which can give you knowledge.

27 September 1969

Mother, a free, quiet, silent mind is such a nice thing; I would like to have more of that. I want to be free from the constant whirlwinds of thoughts and emotions within me, tossing me like a toy.

It comes progressively.

Do not strain.

*

Please help me to distinguish between the bubbling of ideas and an inner vision of necessities.

The mind must be quiet and silent before you can receive an inspiration from above.

*

A very very quiet head is indispensable for a clear understanding and vision and a right action.

How to stop discussions in the mind?

The first condition is to talk as little as possible.

The second is to think just of what you are doing at the moment and not of what you have to do or of what you have done before.

Never regret what is past or imagine what will be. Check pessimism in your thoughts as much as you can and become a voluntary optimist.

*

In Your Conversations You have said that the intellect is like an intermediary between the true knowledge and its realisation here below. Does it not follow that intellectual culture is indispensable for rising above the mind to find there the true knowledge?

Intellectual culture is indispensable for preparing a good mental instrument, large, supple and rich, but its action stops there.

In rising above the mind, it is more often a hindrance than a help, for, in general, a refined and educated mind finds its satisfaction in itself and rarely seeks to silence itself so as to be surpassed.

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X has just written to me about the great number of novels that you read. I do not think that this kind of reading is good for you and if it is to study style, as you told me, an attentive study of one good book by a good author, done with care, teaches much more than this hasty and superficial reading.

25 October 1934

*

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I had two reasons for reading novels, to learn words and style.

In order to learn you must read With great care and carefully choose what you read.

25 October 1934

*

Do You think I should stop reading Gujarati literature?

It all depends on the effect this literature has on your imagination. If it fills your head with undesirable ideas and your Vital With desires, it is certainly better to stop reading this kind of book.

*

Mother, is it good to go to X's house to read the poems he has written in Gujarati?

It all depends on the effect it has on you. If you come away feeling more peaceful and content, it is all right. If, on the contrary, it makes you feel melancholy and dissatisfied it would be better not to go there. You can simply observe and see how it affects you and decide accordingly.

13 December 1934

*

When one reads a dirty book, an obscene novel, does not the vital enjoy it through the mind?

In the mind also there are perversions. It is a rather

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poor and unrefined vital which can take pleasure in such things!

In unformed minds what they read sinks in without any regard to its value and imprints itself as truth. It is advisable therefore to be careful about what one gives them to read and to see that only what is true and useful for their formation gets a place.

*

(A teacher suggested that books dealing with subjects like crime, violence and licentiousness should be withheld from the school children.)

It is not so much a question of subject matter but of vulgarity of mind and narrowness and selfish common sense in the conception of life, expressed in a form devoid of art, greatness or refinement, which must be carefully removed from the reading matter of children both big and small. All that lowers and degrades the consciousness must be excluded.

1 November 1959

*

(While choosing a text to study with a young Indian teacher who wanted to improve her French, a French teacher asked Mother for her opinion of La Peste by Albert Camus.)

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true compassion; but here in India it is not necessary. And it is not good to give an even darker picture of a life that is already dark enough in itself.

May 1960

Sweet Mother,

You have said that I do not think well. How can one develop one's thought?

You must read with much attention and concentration, not novels or dramas, but books that make you think. You must meditate on what you have read, reflect on a thought until you have understood it. Talk little, remain quiet and concentrated, and speak only when it is indispensable.

1 June 1960

*

I am reading a book on cars, but I read it hastily; I skip the descriptions of complicated mechanisms.

If you don't want to learn a thing thoroughly, conscientiously and in all its details, it is better not to take it up at all. It is a great mistake to think that a little superficial and incomplete knowledge of things can be of any use whatsoever; it is good for nothing except making people conceited, for they imagine they know and in fact know nothing.

*

Read carefully whatever you read, and read it again a second time if you have not understood it properly.

*

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In a French class for Indian teachers, several students wanted to read the works of contemporary authors, because the language in them is more up-to-date than in classical writings. What does Mother think?

What I know of modern authors has taken away any wish I might have had to read more of them.

Why step deliberately into the mire? What is to be gained by it? The knowledge that the Western world is wallowing in the mud? It is hardly necessary. Selected passages, carefully selected, seem to be the solution.

May 1963

*

Why do you read novels? It is a stupid occupation and a waste of time. It is certainly one of the reasons why your brain is still in a muddle and lacks clarity.

27 June 1963

I want to see what will happen to me if I stop reading completely.

It is difficult to keep one's mind always fixed on the same thing, and if it is not given enough work to occupy it, it begins to become restless. So I think it is better to choose one's books carefully rather than stop reading altogether.

*

A library should be an intellectual sanctuary where one comes to find light and progress.

*

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It is no use reading books of guidance if one is not determined to live What they teach.

What a Child Should Always Remember

The necessity of an absolute sincerity.
The certitude of Truth's final victory.

The possibility of constant progress with the will to achieve.

*

The things to be taught to a child

1. The necessity of absolute sincerity.

2. The certitude of the final victory of Truth.

3. The possibility and the will to progress.

Good temper, fair play, truthfulness.

Patience, endurance, perseverance.

Equanimity, courage, cheerfulness.

An Ideal Child

IS GOOD-TEMPERED

He does not become angry when things seem to go against him or decisions are not in his favour.

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IS GAME

IS TRUTHFUL

He never fears to say the truth whatever may be the consequences.

Is PATIENT

He does not get disheartened if he has to wait a long time to see the results of his efforts.

IS ENDURING

He faces the inevitable difficulties and sufferings without grumbling.

IS PERSEVERING

He never slackens his effort however long it has to last.

IS POISED

He keeps equanimity in success as well as in failure.

IS COURAGEOUS

He always goes on fighting for the final victory though he may meet with many defeats.

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He knows how to smile and keep a happy heart in all circumstances.

IS MODEST

He does not become conceited over his success, neither does he feel himself superior to his comrades.

IS GENEROUS

He appreciates the merits of others and is always ready to help another to succeed.

IS FAIR AND OBEDIENT

He observes the discipline and is always honest.

Bulletin, August 1950

THE IDEAL CHILD

...likes to study when he is at school,

..he likes to play when he is in the playground,

..he likes to eat at mealtime,

..he likes to sleep at bedtime,

...and always he is full of love for all those around him,

...full of confidence in the divine Grace.

..full of deep respect for the Divine.

*

What should be the main concern in education for children aged eleven to thirteen?

Page 34

The most important thing to teach them is the absolute necessity of being sincere.

All untruth, however slight, should be refused.

They should also be taught to progress constantly, for as soon as one stops making any progress, one falls back and that is the beginning of decay.

*

I suggest the same remedy as the one I was using in my childhood when disagreeing with my young playmates. I was at that time, as you are, very sensitive and I felt hurt when abused by them, especially by those whom I had shown only sympathy and kindness. I used to tell myself: "Why be sorry and feel miserable? If they are right in what they say, I have only to be glad for the lesson and correct myself; if they are wrong, why should I worry about it it is for them to be sorry for their mistake. In both cases the best and the most dignified thing I can do is to remain strong, quiet and unmoved."

This lesson which I was giving myself and trying to follow when I was eight years old, still holds good in all similar cases.

*

Some words to the children.

1. Never make fun of anyone if you do not want others to make fun of you.

2. Always act in a respectable way if you want others to respect you.

3. Love everybody if you want everybody to love you.

*

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( An extract from the minutes of a teachers' meeting:) The teachers felt concern over lack of discipline, good manners and right behaviour among some students.

I insist on the necessity of having good manners. I do not see anything grand in the manners of a guttersnipe.

4 March 1960

*

(A class of young children decided with their teacher on a programme for the year: to speak in French, to read correctly, to write French without mistakes, to count properly, to understand arithmetical problems, to learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. The Mother replied in the class notebook:)

My dear children, I have read your letter and I agree that it would be very good if by the end of the year you knew all the things that you have listed here.

But there is one point on which I want to draw your attention, because it is the central point and the most important one: it is your attitude in class and the state of mind in which you come to school.

To benefit from your daily attendance in class, you must go there with a sincere will to learn, to be attentive and concentrated, to listen to what your teacher tells you and to work quietly and seriously.

If you spend your time shouting, fidgeting and upsetting everything like unconscious and ill-mannered children, you are wasting your time, you are wasting

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the teacher's time and you will learn nothing at all. And at the end of the year I will have to say that you are bad students and do not deserve to move up into a higher class.

You must come to your class with the will to learn, otherwise it is a waste of time, because even if only one of you misbehaves all the others will be disturbed. So this is the decision I want you to take: to be good, quiet, attentive, and to work hard. This is what you must promise me to do in this notebook.

And when each of you has written, with all his goodwill, then send the notebook back to me so that I can give you my blessings.

1961

*

It is no more tiring to hold yourself straight than to hold yourself badly. When you hold yourself straight, the body grows harmoniously. When you hold yourself badly, the body becomes misshapen and ugly.

It is no more tiring to write neatly than to scran. When your work is neatly written, it is read with pleasure. When it is too badly written, it cannot be read at all.

To do with care all that one does is the basis of all progress.

1961

To THE STUDENTS

Page *37

It is forbidden to fight at school, to fight in class, to fight in the playground, to fight in the street, to fight at home (whether at your parents' house or in a boarding).

Always and everywhere children are forbidden to fight among themselves, for each time that one gives a blow to another, one gives it to one's own soul.

15 January 1963

*

True strength and protection come from the Divine Presence in the heart.

If you want to keep this Presence constantly in you, avoid carefully all vulgarity in speech, behaviour and acts.

Do not mistake liberty for license and freedom for bad manners: the thoughts must be pure and the aspiration ardent.

26 February 1965

*

Isn't this immense freedom we are given dangerous for those of us who are not yet awake, who are still unconscious? How can we account for this good fortune we have been given?

Danger and risk are part of every forward movement. Without them, nothing would ever stir; besides, they are indispensable in moulding the character of those who want to progress.

13 April 1966

*

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According to what I see and know, as a general rule, children over 14 should be allowed their independence and should be given advice only if and when they ask for it.

They should know that they are responsible for managing their own existence.

July 1968

*

Mother, why are the hours before midnight better for sleep than the hours after it?

Because, symbolically, during the hours before midnight the sun is setting, while from the first hour after midnight it begins to rise.

Blessings.

22 August 1969

*

Why is it better to go to bed early and to get up early?

When the sun sets, a kind of peace descends on earth and this peace is helpful for sleep.

When the sun rises, a vigorous energy descends on earth and this energy is helpful for work.

When you go to bed late and get up late, you contradict the forces of Nature, and that is not very wise

Blessings.

21 December 1969

*

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Sweet Mother,

What is Your opinion about fashion, dress and ornaments? What do You consider to be of good taste in our Ashram life?

Thank God, I have no opinions.

For me good taste means being simple and sincere.

*

Sweet Mother,

What should our attitude be towards the captains and teachers here?

An obedient, willing and affectionate attitude. They are your elder brothers and sisters who take a lot of trouble to help you.

Blessings.

1 February 1970

*

As girls and boys are educated together here we have always insisted on the relations between them to be those of simple comradeship without any mixture of sex feeling and sensuality; and to avoid all temptation they are forbidden to go into one another's room and to meet anywhere privately. This has been made clear to everybody. And if these rules are strictly followed, nothing unpleasant can happen.

16 August 1960

*

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Astrologers say that those who are born in November will be mad about sex.

Why do you believe in What the astrologers say? It is the belief that brings the trouble.

Sri Aurobindo says that a man becomes what he thinks he is.

Try this method of thinking that you are a good boy and will become sex free.

Try this method for five years persistently and obstinater Without admitting any doubt or discouragement, and after five years you Will tell me the result.

Be very careful never to have a doubt about the result.

1965

*

I have already asked of you all not to think that you are girls or boys, but human beings equally endeavouring to find, become and manifest the Divine.

16 February 1966

*

A complete lack of knowledge about sex can produce serious trouble. I want to give some information to children whom I know.

A simple notion of medical knowledge may be useful in taking away this silly old harmful feeling of shame which brings perversion.

Sweet Mother,

Nowadays in schools elsewhere, especially in

Page 41

What is "sex-education"? What do they teach?

For myself, I don't like people to be preoccupied with these things. In my time we were never preoccupied with these things. Now children talk about them all the time  it is in their minds, in-their feelings. It is disgusting. It is difficult, very difficult.

But if they talk about it elsewhere, we have to talk about it here too. They should be told the consequences of these things. Especially the girls ought to be told that the consequences can be disastrous. When I was young, in those days, people never spoke about all that, they never paid attention to these things. In those, days, people did not talk about all that. Here, I did not want this subject to be discussed. That is Why we do physical culture. In that way the energies are used to develop strength, beauty, skill and all that; and one is more capable of control. You will see, the ones who do a lot of physical culture, they are much more capable of mastering their impulses.¹

(After meditation) The energies that are used in human beings for reproduction and which take such a predominant place in their existence should on the contrary be sublimated and used for progress and higher development, to prepare the advent of the new race. But first the vital and the physical must be freed from all desire, otherwise there is a great risk of disaster.

1 February 1972

1. Oral reply (first three paragraphs only).

Page 42

HOLIDAYS

The second one is the men, the creatures, during six days work for their personal interests and egoistic motives, and the seventh they stop working to take rest and have time to look inwardly or upwardly, in contemplation of the source and origin of their existence and consciousness, in order to take a dip in It and renew their energies.

It is scarcely necessary to mention the modern manner of understanding the word or the thing, that is to say, all the possible ways of wasting time in a futile attempt at amusing oneself.

*

Sweet Mother,

Some children ask me what is the best way of spending their holidays here.

It is an excellent opportunity to do some interesting work, to learn something new or develop some weak point in their nature or their studies.

It is an excellent opportunity to choose some occupation freely and thus discover the true capacities of their being.

Blessings.

1 November 1969

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STUDIES ELSEWHERE

No doubt from the exterior point of View, you will find in England all that you want for learning what human beings generally call knowledge, but from the point of View of Truth and Consciousness, you can find nowhere the atmosphere in which you are living here. Elsewhere you can meet with a religious or a philosophic spirit, but true spirituality, direct contact with the Divine, constant aspiration to realise Him in life, mind and action are in the world realised only by very rare and scattered individuals and not as a living fact behind any university teaching however advanced it may be.

Practically, as far as you are concerned, there will be a great risk of drifting away from the experience you have realised and then you cannot know what will happen to you.

That is all I wanted to say now it is left to you to choose and decide.

22 October 1952

Sweet Mother,

We see many people leaving the Ashram, either to seek a career or to study; and they are mostly those who have been here since childhood. There

Page 44

is a kind of uncertainty in our young people when they see others leave here and they say cautiously: "Who knows whether it won't be my turn some day!" I feel there is a force behind all this. What is it?

This uncertainty and these departures are due to the lower nature, which resists the influence of the yogic power and tries to slow down the divine action, not out of ill-will but in order to be sure that nothing is forgotten or neglected in the haste to reach the goal. Few are ready for a total consecration. Many children who have studied here need to come to grips with life before they can be ready for the divine work, and that is why they leave to undergo the test of ordinary life. 

11 November 1964

*

(A student had nearly completed his course of studies. Uncertain whether to attend college in the United States or to remain at the Ashram to live and work, he asked the Mother to make the decision.)

If, on the contrary, you aspire at getting ready for the future and the new creation it prepares, remain here and prepare yourself for what is to come.

17 January 1969

*

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Sweet Mother,

Should those who are much attracted by the pleasures of ordinary life, such as cinemas, restaurants, social life, etc., come to study in our school? For, as a rule, one feels that this is why most of our students go out during the holidays, and everytime they come back they need quite a long time to readjust themselves here

Those who are strongly attached to ordinary life and its agitation should not come here, for they are out of their element and create disorder

But it is difficult to know this before they come, for most of them are very young, and their character is not yet well formed.

But as soon as they are caught in the frenzy of the world, it would be better, for themselves and for others, that they return to their parents and their habits.

Blessings.

*

Sweet Mother,

For the students who know that they will go away from here after their studies, is it not necessary for them to go out from time to time in order to be able to adjust themselves later to ordinary life?

There is no difficulty in adapting to ordinary life, it is bondage to which one is subjected from birth, for all carry it in themselves by atavism, and even those who are born to be freed need to struggle seriously

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and continuously to get rid of this atavism in order to be truly free.

Blessings.

*

Sweet Mother,

What do you expect of those students who are going to leave after their studies here? Surely there must he a great difference between them and ordinary people. What is the difference?

Often, as soon as they find themselves in the midst of ordinary life, many of them realise the difference and regret what they have lost. Few of them have the courage to give up the comforts they find in their ordinary surroundings, but even the others no longer face life with the same unconsciousness as those who have never been in contact with the Ashram.

Blessings.

18 November 1969

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TEACHING

To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can make to a child, to learn always and everywhere.

*

It is an invaluable possession for every living being to have learnt to know himself and to master himself. To know oneself means to know the motives of one's actions and reactions, the why and the how of all that happens in oneself. To master oneself means to do what one has decided to do, to do nothing but that, not to listen to or follow impulses, desires or fancies.

No one has a right to sit in judgment over moral and social laws, unless he has taken his seat above them; one cannot abandon them, unless one replaces

Page 48

July 1930

*

There is one thing that I must emphasise. Don't try to follow what is done in the universities outside. Don't try to pump into the students mere data and information. Don't give them so much work that they may not get time for anything else. You are not in a great hurry to catch a train. Let the students understand what they learn. Let them assimilate it. Finishing the course should not be your goal. You should make the programme in such a way that the students may get time to attend the subjects they want to learn. They should have sufficient time for their physical exercises. I don't want them to be very good students, yet pale, thin, anaemic. Perhaps you will say that in this way they will not have sufficient time for their studies, but that can be made up by expanding the course over a longer period. Instead of finishing a course in four years, you can take six years. Rather it would be better for them; they will be able to assimilate more of the atmosphere here and their progress will not be just in one direction at the cost of everything else. It will be an all round progress in all directions.¹

10 September 1953

1. Oral comment noted by a teacher and later approved by the Mother for publication.

Page 49

Personality Traits of a Successful Teacher¹

2. In the matter of self-confidence, must also have a sense of the relativity of his importance.

Above all, must have the knowledge that the teacher himself must always progress if he wants his students to progress, must not remain satisfied either with what he is or with what he knows.

3. Must not have any sense of essential superiority over his students nor preference or attachment whatsoever for one or another.

4. Must know that all are equal spiritually and instead of mere tolerance must have a global comprehension or understanding.

5. "The business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material."(Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle)

Published June 1954

*

1. These comments were written by the Mother after she was shown the questionnaire submitted to the Centre of Education by a training college for teachers.

Page 50

Never forget that to be a good teacher one has to abolish in oneself all egoism,

10 December 1959

*

What you should do is to teach the children to take interest in what they are doing that is not the same thing as interesting the students! You must arouse in them the desire for knowledge, for progress. One can take an interest in anything in sweeping a room, for example if one does it with concentration, in order to gain an experience, to make a progress, to become more conscious. I often say this to the students who complain of having a bad teacher. Even if they don't like the teacher, even if he tells them useless things or if he is not up to the mark, they can always derive some benefit from their period of class, learn something of great interest and progress in consciousness.

Most teachers want to have good students: students who are studious and attentive, who understand and know many things, who can answer well good students. This spoils everything. The students begin to consult books, to study, to learn. Then they rely only on books, on what others say or write, and they lose contact with the superconscient part which receives knowledge by intuition. This contact often exists in a small child but it is lost in the course of his education.

For the students to be able to progress in the right direction, it is obvious that the teachers should have understood this and changed their old way of seeing

Page 51

*

Regarding the questions that will be put to the students I would ask the teachers to think with ideas instead of with words.

And, a little later, when it becomes normal for them to think with ideas, I shall ask of them a greater progress, which will be the decisive progress, that is, instead of thinking with ideas, to think with experiences. When one can do that, one really begins to understand.

*

Sweet Mother,

You have asked the teachers "to think with ideas instead of with words". You have also said that later on you will ask them to think with experiences. Will you throw some light on these three ways of thinking?

Our house has a very high tower; at the very top of this tower there is a bright and bare room, the last before we emerge into the open air, into the full light.

Sometimes, when we are free to do so, we climb up to this bright room, and there, if we remain very quiet, one or more visitors come to call on us; some are tall, others small, some single, others in groups; all are bright and graceful.

Usually, in our joy at their arrival and our haste to

1. Oral comment noted by a teacher and later approved by the Mother for publication.

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welcome them, we lose our tranquillity and come galloping down to rush into the great hall that forms the base of the tower and is the storeroom of words. Here, more or less excited, we select, reject, assemble, combine, disarrange, rearrange all the words in our reach, in an attempt to portray this or that visitor who has come to us. But most often, the picture we succeed in making of our visitor is more like a caricature than a portrait.

And yet if we were wiser, we would remain up above, at the summit of the tower, quite calm, in joyful contemplation. Then, after a certain length of time, we would see the visitors themselves slowly, gracefully, calmly descend, without losing anything of their elegance or beauty and, as they cross the storeroom of words, clothe themselves effortlessly, automatically, with the words needed to make themselves perceptible even in the material house.

This is what I call thinking with ideas.

When this process is no longer mysterious to you, I shall explain what is meant by thinking with experiences.

1 June 1960

*

When you think with words, you can express what you think with those words only. To think with ideas is to be able to put the same idea in many kinds of words. The words can also be of different languages, if you happen to know more than one language. This is the first, the most elementary thing about thinking with ideas.

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When you think with experience, you go much deeper and you can express the same experience with many kinds of ideas. Then thought can take this form or that form in any language and through all of them the essential realisation will remain unchanged.

*

It is not through uniformity that you obtain unity.

It is not through uniformity of programmes and methods that you will obtain the unity of education.

Unity is obtained through a constant reference, silent or expressed, as the case demands, to the central ideal, the central force or light, the purpose and the goal of our education.

The true, the supreme Unity expresses itself in diversity. It is mental logic that demands sameness. In practice, each one must find and apply his own method, that which he understands and feels. It is only in

this way that education can be effective.

13 October 1960

*

The school should be an opportunity for progress for the teacher as well as for the student. Each one should have the freedom to develop freely.

A method is never so well applied as when one has discovered it oneself. Otherwise it is as boring for the teacher as for the student.

*

Sweet Mother,

It really is a problem to know how to create interest in the students, whether in games, athletics

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or gymnastics. Even our own enthusiasm dwindles when we see their lack of interest in everything.

The interest of the students is proportionate to the true capacity of the teacher.

12 July 1961

*

X asked me some time ago whether I would like to work in the Free Progress classes. At present I am teaching in classes where what is called the "old way" is used.

Mother, tell me whether I should remain where I am now or whether I should work in the Free Progress classes?

The old method of teaching is obviously outdated and will be gradually abandoned throughout the whole world.

But to tell the truth, each teacher, drawing his inspiration from modern ideas, should discover the method which he finds best and most suited to his nature. Only if he does not know what to do may he join his class to those of X.

*

Mother, would you please define in a few words what you mean essentially by "free progress"?

A progress guided by the soul and not subjected to habits, conventions or preconceived ideas.

*

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concern about the irregular study and attendance of the students in the Free Progress classes. In the teachers' opinion, only a few students were doing satisfactory work. As a solution, they suggested a more strict organisation of classes. The Mother commented:)

First for the teachers:

I am satisfied with the figures indicated in the report. In spite of What one might think, the proportion of very good students is satisfactory. If out of 150 students, there are 7 individuals of genuine value, it is very good.

The classes as a whole may be reorganised so as to fulfil the needs of the majority, that is to say, of those who, in the absence of any outside pressure or imposed discipline, work badly and make no progress.

But it is essential that the present system of education in the new classes should be maintained, in order to allow outstanding individuals to show themselves and develop freely. That is our true aim. It should be known  we should not hesitate to proclaim it  that the whole purpose of our school is to discover and encourage those in whom the need for progress has become conscious enough to direct their lives. It ought to be a privilege to be admitted to these Free Progress classes.

At regular intervals (every month, for example) a selection should be made and those who cannot take advantage of this special education should be sent back into the normal stream.

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The criticisms made in the report apply to the teachers as much as to the students. For students of high capacity, one teacher well versed in his subject is enough  even a good textbook, together with encyclopedias and dictionaries would be enough. But as one goes down the scale and the capacity of the student becomes lower, the teacher must have higher and higher capacities: discipline, self-control, consecration, psychological understanding, infectious enthusiasm, to awaken in the student the part which is asleep: the will to know, the need for progress, self-control etc.

Just as we organise the school in such a way as to be able to discover and help outstanding students, in the same way, the responsibility for classes should be given to outstanding teachers.

So I ask each teacher to consider his work in the school as the best and quickest way of doing his Yoga. Moreover, every difficulty and every difficult student should be an opportunity for him to find a divine solution to the problem.

5 August 1963

*

If the children, even very small, are taught to put things in order, classify objects by kind, etc. etc., they like it very much and learn very well. There is a wonderful opportunity to .give them good lessons of arrangement and tidiness, practical, effective lessons, not theory.

Try and I am sure the children will help you to arrange things.

14 December 1963

*

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The students cannot learn their lessons, even when they have their books.

One must have a lot of patience with young children, and repeat the same thing to them several times, explaining it to them in various ways. It is only gradually that it enters their mind.

*

It is very difficult to choose games which are useful and beneficial for a child. It asks for much consideration and reflection, and all that one does unthinkingly may have unhappy consequences.

Mother,

Sometimes I have personal talks with my students. Some of the good students give so much importance to money that it gives me a shock. They want to he doctors  to earn more" I am thinking whether I can have a debate in Hindi Sabha on "Whether money is the most important thing in life". Will it give them a chance to think seriously? I wonder.

Yes, try it is very much needed. Money seems to have become the Supreme Lord these days. Truth is receding in the background; as for Love it is quite out of sight!

I mean Divine Love, because what human beings call love is a very good friend of money.

Blessings.

13 June 1964

*

Page 58

Mother,

For giving true education you have said: "Get out of conventions and insist on the growth of the soul." I can write two pages on this, but actually I do not understand it at all. When I teach the Ramayana I can lay stress upon the surrender to the Divine or such matters, but when I take up grammar or some other aspect of literature, what can I do?

The contradiction comes from the fact that you want to "mentalise" and this is impossible. It is an attitude, an inside attitude mostly but which governs the outside as much as possible. It is something to be lived much more than to be taught.

Blessings.

28 October 1965

*

The education we are given here at present differs little from the education that is given elsewhere. This is precisely why we should try here to educate the latent and spiritual faculties of the student. But how can we do this in school?

This cannot be done by any external method. It depends almost entirely on the teacher's attitude and consciousness. If he does not have the Vision and the inner knowledge himself, how can he transmit them to his students?

To tell the truth, we rely mainly on the all surrounding atmosphere charged with spiritual force,

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which has an effect even if it is not perceived or felt.

20 April 1966

Mother,

In the context of your recent messages to the school emphasising the future: As a language teacher I have been laying great stress on the Ramayana and the songs of Kabir, Mira, etc. and the stories of the Upanishads and the Mahabharata. Please tell me what to do. If I stop them as belonging to the past, how to replace them? If I continue them, shall I not be going against your current?

Not at all, it is the attitude that is important.

Even in the lower classes I lay stress upon the stories of Indian literature. We have no vision of the future and if we discard all these as things of the past, then what will remain in the literature?

The past must be a spring-board towards the future, not a chain preventing us from advancing.

As I said  all depends on the attitude towards the past.

As I can see for myself, the best would be to give up teaching and writing and go back to purely physical work and wait for the advent. But that would mean finding fault with you, because it is you who gave me these works against my apparent wishes.

And I continue to give you the work. If you feel that a change is needed it can be in the attitude giving more

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importance to What is to be said and realised and using the past as a preparation for the future.

This is not a very difficult thing to do and I am quite sure that you will easily do it.

With love and blessings.

17 April 1967

*

If we are to have a new system, what exactly will this system be?

It will be put into practice in the best way possible, according to the capacity of each teacher.

25 July 1967

*

Mother,

It is very difficult to understand what exactly you want in the field of education, but from what I can understand it seems that all we are doing is pretty useless. Hindi poetic literature has some higher things, but what are those heights in comparison to what you want? If we. want to learn good language and proper usage, we have to read stories and novels which are of a very low type because they portray human life as it is.

The difficulty comes when I have to do what I know is not what you want, and I have no courage to throw myself completely into your hands.

Your difficulty comes from the fact that you have still the old belief that, in life, there are some high things and some low things. It is not exact. It is not the things or activities that are high or low, it is the consciousness of the doer which is true or false.

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If you unite your consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness and manifest It, all you think, feel or do becomes luminous and true. It is not the subject of the teaching which is to be changed, it is the consciousness with which you teach that must be enlightened.

31 July 1967

All studies, or in any case the greater part of studies consists in learning about the past, in the hope that it will give you a better understanding of the present. But if you want to avoid the danger that the students may cling to the past and refuse to look to the future, you must take great care to explain to them that the purpose of everything that happened in the past was to prepare what is taking place now, and that everything that is taking place now is nothing but a preparation for the road towards the future, which is truly the most important thing for which we must prepare.

It is by cultivating intuition that one prepares to live for the future.

*

Ordinary classes belong to the past and Will gradually disappear. As for the choice between working alone or joining the "Vers la Perfection" classes,¹ that depends on you. Because to teach and to conduct a class one must move away from theory and intellectual speculations

1. A group of classes based on the Free Progress System.

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to a very concrete application which has to be worked out in all its details.

Learning to teach While taking a class is certainly very good for the would be teacher, but certainly less useful for the students.

To join "Vers la Perfection" is a kind of training which may be very useful for a beginner, who can easily learn the practical side of teaching there.

The choice is yours.

6 October 1967

(Concerning a choice of textbooks for a mathematics class)

The French book is the only one that seems possible to me the others are forbidding and make you disinclined to work.

But I would not advise giving this French book to the students. They do not really need books. The teacher or teachers should use the book to prepare lessons that are adapted to the knowledge, the capacity and the needs of the students. That is to say that the teachers should learn what is in the book and transcribe it and explain it to the students, bit by bit, a little at a time, with plenty of explanations, comments and practical examples so as to make the subject accessible and attractive, that is, a living application instead of dead, dry theory.

3 December 1967

*

Some teachers have said that there is a conflict

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between the needs of the individual's progress and those of the progress of the group of which the individual in question is a member. How to reconcile and resolve this conflict?

It has been contended that if the individual remains more or less with his group, he gets the advantage of sharing the group's experience, of group discussions and of a collective study.

All that is useless if the individual can progress at his maximum the group will necessarily benefit by it. If the individual is submitted to the possibility and capacity of the group, he loses his chance of total progress.

22 December 1967

*

I have observed two contradictory kinds of ideas in myself: one kind in favour of individual work, another in favour of group work.

Isn't it possible to divide the class time into two parts (equal or unequal according to the need) and to try out both systems? This would give diversity to the teaching and provide a wider field for observation of the students and their capacities.

*

I have read with satisfaction what you say about your work and I approve of it for your own work.

But you must understand that other teachers can conceive their own work differently and be equally right.

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I am surprised at your criticism of Y, for it does not correspond to what I know of him and his attitude.

I take this opportunity to assure you that spiritual progress and the service of Truth are based on harmony and not on division and criticism.

25 November 1968

Sweet Mother,

Is it possible to teach the ideal to those who do not understand it, and how can it be taught to them? Are we, instructors and teachers, worthy of this formidable task?

What we want to teach is not only a mental ideal, it is a new idea of life and a realisation of consciousness. This realisation is new to all, and the only true way to teach others is to live according to this new consciousness oneself and to allow oneself to be transformed by it. There is no better lesson than that of an example. To tell others: "Do not be selfish," is not much use, but if somebody is free from all selfishness, he becomes a wonderful example to others; and someone who sincerely aspires to act in accordance with the Supreme Truth, creates a kind of contagion for the people around him. So the first duty of all those who are teachers or instructors is to give an example of the qualities they teach to others.

And if, among these teachers and instructors, some are not worthy of their post, because by their character they give a bad example, their first duty is to become

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worthy by changing their character and their action; there is no other way.

Blessings.

4 November 1969

Sweet Mother,

What qualifications do you consider essential for an instructor or a teacher in the Ashram? Isn't it better not to do this work if one feels incapable of doing it well? For then it is the children who suffer because of us, isn't that so?

Whatever imperfections the teachers and instructors here may have, they will always be better than those from outside. For all who work here do so without remuneration and in the service of a higher cause. It is clearly understood that each one, whatever his worth or capacity, can and must progress constantly to realise an ideal which is still much higher than the present realisation of humanity.

But if one is truly eager to do one's best, it is by doing the work that one progresses and learns to do it better and better.

Criticism is seldom useful, it discourages more than it helps. And all goodwill deserves encouragement, for with patience and endurance, there is no progress which cannot be made.

The main thing is to keep the certitude that whatever may have been accomplished, one can always do better if one wants to.

The ideal to attain is an unflinching equality of

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soul and conduct, a patience that never fails and, of course, the absence of any preference or desire.

It is obvious that for one who teaches, the essential condition for the proper fulfilment of his task is the absence of all egoism; and no human being is exempt from the necessity of this effort.

But, I repeat, this effort is easier to make here than anywhere else.

Blessings.

5 November 1969

*

You must have lived what you want to teach.

To speak of the new consciousness, let it penetrate you and reveal to you its secrets. For only then can you speak with any competence.

To rise into the new consciousness, the first condition is to have enough modesty of mind to be convinced that all that you think you know is nothing in comparison to what yet remains to be learnt.

All that you have learnt outwardly must be just a step allowing you to rise towards a higher knowledge.

16 December 1969

*

The attitude of consciousness which is required [of a teacher] is an inner certitude that, in comparison with all that is to be known, one knows nothing; and that at every moment one must be ready to learn in order to be able to teach. This is the first indispensable point.

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we must constantly keep a living aspiration for the Truth.

Blessings.

19 December 1969

*

Progress lies in widening, not in restriction.

There must be a bringing together of all points of View by putting each one in its true place, not an insistence on some to the exclusion of others.

22 October 1971

The teachers have to grow into the needed consciousness, emphasis should be on the actual experiences of work and there should be no difference in the child's mind between work and play all should be a joy of interest. It is the teacher's job to create that interest.

If the interest is there, the right work will follow.

1 November 1971

Sweet Mother,

How are we to teach the children to organise the freedom that You give us here?

Children have everything to learn. This should be their main preoccupation in order to prepare themselves for a useful and productive life.

At the same time, as they grow up, they must discover in themselves the thing or things which interest them most and which they are capable of doing well.

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There are latent faculties to be developed. There are also faculties to be discovered.

Children must be taught to like to overcome difficulties, and also that this gives a special value to life; when one knows how to do it, it destroys boredom for ever and gives an altogether new interest to life.

We are on earth to progress and we have everything to learn.

Yesterday You wrote: "There are latent faculties to he developed. There are also faculties to he discovered."

What is the role of the teacher or the instructor in the discovery of these faculties?

The teacher should not be a book that is read aloud, the same for everyone, no matter what his nature and character. The first duty of the teacher is to help the student to know himself and to discover what he is capable of doing.

For that one must observe his games, the activities to which he is drawn naturally and spontaneously and also what he likes to learn, whether his intelligence is awake, the stories he enjoys, the activities which interest him, the human achievements which attract him.

The teacher must find out the category to which each of the children in his care belongs. And if after careful observation he discovers two or three exceptional children who are eager to learn and who love progress, he should help them to make use of their energies

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for this purpose by giving them the freedom of choice that encourages individual growth.

The old method of the seated class to which the teacher gives the same lesson for all, is certainly economical and easy, but also very ineffective, and so time is wasted for everybody.

15 January 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

You have written: "If after careful observation, he [the teacher] discovers two or three exceptional children who are eager to learn and who love progress, he should help them to make use of their energies for this purpose by giving them the freedom of choice that encourages individual growth."

Do You mean that freedom of choice should he given only to exceptional children? What about the others?

I said we should give freedom of choice to exceptional children because for them it is absolutely indispensable if we truly want to help them to develop fully.

Of course this freedom of choice can be given to all the children, and after all it is a good way to find their true nature; but most of them will prove to be lazy and not very interested in studies. But, on the other hand, they may be skilful with their hands and be willing to learn to make things. This too should be encouraged. In this way the children will find their true place in society, and will be prepared to fulfil it when they grow up.

Everyone should be taught the joy of doing well

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Whatever he does, whether it is intellectual, artistic or manual work, and above all, the dignity of all work, Whatever it may be, when it is done with care and skill.

16 January 1972

Sweet Mother,

For the exceptional children, do You think that we should turn their energies towards their special talent or is it better to direct them towards a total development?

It depends entirely on the child and his capacities.

18 January 1972

Sweet Mother,

You have written: "The teacher must find out the category to which each of the children in his care belongs."

How can we distinguish the categories of children?

By watching them live.

To be able to classify the children one must find out about their nature by observing their habits and reactions.

The teacher must not be a machine for reciting lessons, he must be a psychologist and an observer.

19 December 1972

Sweet Mother,

Should we put the children of each category 

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together?

That has both advantages and disadvantages. The grouping of students should be made according to the resources at our disposal and the facilities we have. The arrangement should be flexible so that it can be improved upon if necessary.

To be a good teacher one must have the insight and knowledge of a Guru with an unfailing patience.

19 January 1972

Sweet Mother,

You have said: "The first duty of the teacher is to help the student to know himself."

How can we help a student to know himself? For that, isn't it necessary for us to have attained a higher level of consciousness ourselves?

Oh, yes indeed!

The attitude of the teacher must be one of a constant will to progress, not only in order to know always better what he wants to teach the students, but above all in order to be a living example to show them what they can become.

(After five minutes' meditation) The teacher should be the living example of what he asks the students to become.

*

Sweet Mother,

Is that the only way of teaching the students to

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know themselves?¹

It is the only right way. You see, a teacher who tells them, "You must not lie" and yet lies himself; "you must not lose your temper" and loses it himself  what would the result be? The children will not only lose confidence in the teacher but also in what he teaches...

19 January 1972

Sweet Mother,

When we attempt to organise the children into categories based on their capacity for initiative, we see that there is a mixture of levels of achievement in various subjects. That makes the work very difficult for certain teachers who are in the habit of taking ordinary classes in the old classical way.

We are here to do difficult things. If we repeat what others do, it is not worth the trouble; there are already many schools in the world.

Men have tried to cure the ignorance of the masses by adopting the easiest methods. But now we have passed that stage and humanity is ready to learn better and more fully. It is up to those who are in the lead to show the way so that others can follow.

21 January 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

How do You conceive the organisation of our

1. Oral question and reply.

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education, to enable the children to discover their capacities and then follow the path of their individual development?

This is what we are trying to do here. But doing it well depends on the teacher, on the trouble he takes, and on his power of psychological understanding. He must be capable of recognising the character and possibilities of the student, so that he can adapt his teaching to the needs of each individual.

22 January 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

Should the teaching be classified by subject? Is that the best way?

Classification by subject is important when one wants to study one or several subjects in depth, once an overall grounding that is useful for everyone has already been provided equally to all: for example, reading and writing, speaking at least one language correctly, a little general geography, a general outline of modern science and a few indispensable rules of conduct for group or communal living.

For a detailed and thorough study of one subject the appropriate age depends on the child and his capacity to learn. The precocious ones can start at the age of twelve. For most it will be more like fifteen and even seventeen or eighteen.

And when one wants to master a particular subject, especially a scientific or philosophical subject, on must be prepared to spend one's whole life learning;

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one must never stop studying.

22 January 1972

Sweet Mother,

I come back to the same question. What do You mean exactly by "categories of children"?

Do these categories correspond only to their character or also to their interests?

The categories of character.

In assessing the possibilities of a child, ordinary moral notions are not of much use. Natures that are rebellious, undisciplined, obstinate, often conceal qualities that no one has known how to use. Indolent natures may also have a great potential for calm and patience.

It is a whole world to discover and easy solutions are not much use. The teacher must be even more hard working than the student in order to learn how to discern and make the best possible use of different characters.

23 January 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

Yesterday You mentioned rules of conduct. What are the rules of conduct You consider indispensable in our community?

Patience, perseverance, generosity, broad-mindedness, insight, calm and understanding firmness, and control over the ego until it is completely mastered or even abolished.

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Mother, this is not exactly what I wanted to ask. What I understand by "rules of conduct" was "manners ".

Manners belong to the moral rules of ordinary life and have no value from our point of View.

23 January 1972

Sweet Mother,

You have spoken of arranging students according to categories of character In our present state of ignorance, if we try to impose a classification, would it not be something very arbitrary and even a dangerous game for the growing child?

Naturally, it is better not to take arbitrary and ignorant decisions. It would be disastrous for the children.

What I have said is for those who are capable of recognising characters and assessing them rightly, otherwise the result would be awful and more harmful than the usual mechanical teaching.

24 January 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

To be able to do what You have asked of us, isn't it the teacher's first duty to do an intense and sincere yoga instead of acting in a hasty and arbitrary manner?

Certainly!

What I have written is an ideal to be realised; you must prepare yourselves to be able to do it.

To be able to adopt this method, the teacher must

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be a discerning psychologist and that requires time and experience.

24 January 1972

Sweet Mother,

You have said that the teacher must be a discerning psychologist, a Guru. You know very well that we are far from being all that. The teachers being what they are, how should the system of education be organised in order to improve our way of teaching?

By doing what they can, knowing that they have everything to learn. In this way they will gain experience and do things better and better. That is the best way to learn, and if they do it in all sincerity, in two or three years they will become experts and will be truly useful.

Naturally, work done in this way becomes really interesting and makes the teachers as well as the students progress.

25 January 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

Should we also have categories for the teachers as we do for the children according to their way of teaching, of seeing things, and their affinity for certain subjects?

For that, the teacher who organises the studies must be a discerning psychologist, observant and full of good will, knowing that he too has to learn and progress.

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The true attitude is to take life as a field of perpetual study, Where one must never stop learning and think that one knows everything there is to know. One can always know more and understand better.

25 January 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

If the children want to do practical work from the age of nine in the field of electronics or technology, should they be encouraged?

Yes, of course.

25 January 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

You said the other day that there were teachers who were not capable, and that they should stop teaching. What is the criterion for assessing the capacity of a teacher?

First, he must understand, he must know what we want to do and understand well how to do it.

Secondly, he must have a power of psychological discernment in dealing with the students, he must understand his students and what they are capable of doing.

Naturally, he must know the subject he is teaching. If he is teaching French, he must know French. If he is teaching English, Geography, Science, he must know what he is teaching.

I have always thought that something in the teacher's character was responsible for the indiscipline of his students.

*

Never tell a Child something it has to forget in order to truly know. Never do something in front of a child that it must not do when it is grown up.

*

Mother, what should he done in a class when a child refuses to conform to a discipline? Should he be left to do as he likes?

Generally speaking, above the age of twelve all children need discipline.

Some teachers believe that you are opposed to discipline.

For them, discipline is an arbitrary rule that they impose on the little ones, without conforming to it themselves. I am opposed to that kind of discipline.

So discipline is a rule which the child should impose on himself. How can he he led to recognise

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the need for it? How can he be helped to follow it?

Example is the most powerful instructor. Never demand from a child an effort of discipline that you do not make yourself. Calm, equanimity, order, method, absence of useless words, ought to be constantly practised by the teacher if he wants to instil them into his pupils.

The teacher should always be punctual and come to the class a few minutes before it begins, always properly dressed. And above all, so that his students should never he, he must never lie himself; so that his students should never lose their tempers, he should never lose his temper with them; and to have the right to say to them, "Rough play often ends in tears", he should never raise his hand against any of them.

These are elementary and preliminary things which ought to be practised in all schools without exception.

*

...the children are very noisy.

A minimum of silence is necessary. I know that the most undisciplined children are usually the most intelligent. But to be tamed they must feel the pressure of an intelligence that is more powerful than their own. And for that, one must be able not to come down to their level, and above all know how to remain unaffected by what they do. In fact, it is a yogic problem.

Mid-1960

*

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(The teacher of a class of seven to nine year olds found the children turbulent, rather lazy and as talkative as parrots. She asked:) Is it like this because their real interest is not turned towards study?

Yes.

What can we do to obtain calm and quietness in the class and get the children to do some work?

The only effective thing is to create or awaken in them a real interest in study, the need to learn and to know, to awaken their mental curiosity.

(The teacher complained of a lack of results.)

It is only after months, and even years of assiduous, regular and obstinate effort that one can rightfully say (and even then!) that it has been useless and fruitless.

What should he done?

Compulsion is neither the best nor the most effective principle of education.

True education must reveal what is already present in the developing beings and make it blossom. Just as flowers blossom in the sun, children blossom in joy. It goes without saying that joy does not mean weakness, disorder and confusion, but a luminous kindliness which encourages the good and does not severely insist on the bad.

Grace is always much closer to Truth than justice.

January 1961

*

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The work and the discipline are becoming slack. Is it because of a "vital strike" on the teacher's part?

Certainly. It is a weakening of the force due to the non collaboration of the vital which causes the slackening. Children do not live in their minds enough to obey spontaneously a mental will that is not sustained by a vital force which influences them by its mere presence, without requiring any outer expression. When the vital collaborates, my force works through it and automatically maintains order simply by its presence in the vital.

Young children are not very sensitive to a mental power that is not clothed with vital power. And in order to have vital power you yourself must be perfectly calm.

February 1961

*

A difficult period is beginning. What would be the true attitude for the teacher?

The psychic inspiration alone is true. All that comes from the vital and the mind is necessarily mixed with egoism and is arbitrary. One should not act in reaction to outer contact, but with an immutable vision of love and goodwill. Everything else is a mixture which can only have confused and mixed results, and perpetuate the disorder.

(Extract from one of the teacher's letters:) It seems that it is merely mental impulses that are making me act, and that they miss the mark. That is why although I intervene very little, I feel that it is still

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too much, because it is not the real thing. And I think I have learnt from You that true calm is much more effective than any external intervention.

It also seems that if I am going through an experience, perhaps the same thing may be true for the children, and in fact we are going through this experience together, we have embarked on the same boat, the Divine alone knows its meaning and its outcome.

The problem is more far-reaching than it appears at first sight. It is in fact a revolt of the vital forces of the children against all discipline and all constraint. The normal ordinary method would have been to expel all the undisciplined children from the school and to keep only those who are "good". But this is a defeat and an impoverishment.

If, by transmitting the inner force, in absolute calm, one can finally control this revolt, it becomes a conversion and a true enrichment. That is what I want to try and I hope that it will be possible for you to go on collaborating With my action. And now that you have understood not only what I want to do, but also the mechanism and the process of this action, I am confident that we shall succeed. We must expect relapses and not be discouraged by them.

Vital forces, especially in children whose reason is not very well developed, fight desperately before accepting the light and allowing themselves to be converted by it. But success is certain in the end, and we must know how to endure and wait.

March 1961

Page *83

Does calm in the teacher necessarily bring about calm in the class, that is to say, "a quiet atmosphere where each one can work according to his own rhythm and capacities, without noise or restlessness, without impatience or laziness. ..? "

If your calm is integral, that is, both inner and outer, founded on the perception of the Divine Presence, and unchanging, that is to say, constant and unvarying in all circumstances, it will undoubtedly be all powerful, and the children will necessarily be influenced by it and the class will certainly become, spontaneously and almost automatically, What you want it to be.

April 1961

*

One can be in psychological control of the children only when one is in control of one's own nature.

16 July 1963

*

First, know thoroughly what you have to teach. Try to get a good understanding of your students and their particular needs.

Be very calm and very patient, never get angry; one must be master of oneself in order to be a master of others.

7 December 1964

*

The students talk so much in the class that I have to scold them often.

It is not With severity but with self-mastery that children

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are controlled.

*

The most important is to master yourself and never lose your temper. If you don't have control over yourself, how can you expect to control others, above all, children, who feel it immediately when someone is not master of himself?

*

I must tell you that if a teacher wants to be respected, he must he respectable. X is not the only one to say that you use violence to make yourself obeyed; nothing is less respectable. You must first control yourself and never use brute force to impose your will.

*

You are a good teacher but it is your way of dealing with the children that is objectionable.

The children must be educated in an atmosphere of love and gentleness.

No violence, never.

No scolding, never.

Always a gentle kindness and the teacher must be the living example of the virtues the child must acquire.

The children must be happy to go to school, happy to learn, and the teacher must be their best friend who gives them the example of the qualities they must acquire.

And all that depends exclusively on the teacher.

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What he does and how he behaves.

To the teachers of all the infant classes

One rule which must be rigorously applied:

It is absolutely forbidden to hit the children all blows are forbidden, even the slightest little slap or the so called friendly punch. To give a blow to a child because he does not obey or does not understand or because he is disturbing the others indicates a lack of self-control, and it is harmful for both teacher and student.

Disciplinary measures may be taken if necessary, but in complete calm and not because of a personal reaction.

Mother,

I am rather disappointed with my work in the school this year. This year I am trying to have the initiative come from the students. I put dozens of proposals before them as to what we could do and how we could do it. But I get absolutely no response, no initiative, no proposal  as if I were speaking to a wall. Yet the students are good, friendly and intelligent. Something must be missing in me that in spite of my best effort I get no response. I feel like leaving the class. For the first time I am having this experience. Yesterday I was on the point of saying I am not coming to the class any more. Something stopped me. Even in this class, if I impose my will I get a good response.

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Why should you not impose your will? It is evidently more enlightened than theirs and has the right to lead them.

Of course, it is out of the question for you to leave the class  but use your will and make it advance.

With love and blessings.

*

Sweet Mother,

How far do you consider it the duty of a teacher or an instructor to impose discipline on the students?

To prevent the students from being irregular, rude or negligent is obviously indispensable; unkind and harmful mischief cannot be tolerated.

But as a general and absolute rule, the teachers and especially the physical education instructors must be a constant living example of the qualities demanded from the students; discipline, regularity, good manners, courage, endurance, patience in effort, are taught much more by example than by words. And as an absolute rule: never to do in front of a child What you forbid him to do.

For the rest, each case implies its own solution, and one must act with tact and discernment.

That is why to be a teacher or an instructor is the best of all disciplines, if one knows how to comply with it.

Blessings.

20 November 1969

*

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A child ought to stop being naughty because he learns to be ashamed of being naughty, not because he is afraid of punishment.¹

In the first case, he makes true progress.

In the second, he falls one step down in human consciousness, for fear is a degradation of consciousness.

*

Sweet Mother,

Do the responsibilities of a teacher or an instructor cease after his working hours at school or at the playground?

I am asking this because our children usually behave very badly in the streets. They walk where they like, they talk in the middle of the road and the most difficult problem is when they ride their bicycles without lights or brakes, or double. None of us takes any notice of all that because it is outside our working hours.

And as nothing is being done to put a stop to this, indifference to the law has become so widespread that one even sees responsible people disregarding these laws.

The best remedy for this sorry state of affairs would be, when all the children are assembled (probably at the playground), to give them a short lesson on how to behave in the street  what one may do and what one

1. Oral reply (this paragraph only).

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ought not to do. Someone who knows how to speak to them and tell them this in an interesting, and even if possible an amusing way, could no doubt obtain a result.

Blessings.

21 November 1969

Sweet Mother,

Does this mean that once we have explained properly to the children how to behave in the street, we no longer have any responsibility for what they do outside our working hours?

It is difficult to interfere in an incident one has not witnessed. Gossip is always suspect. But if one of the instructors personally witnesses the bad behaviour of one of his students, then it is appropriate for him to intervene, on condition, of course, that his relation with the student is friendly and affectionate.

Blessings.

22 November 1969

*

Sweet Mother,

What is the role of parents or guardians in the Ashram? How should they contribute to a better education of their children?

Here, the first duty of the parents or guardians is not to contradict either by word or example the education that is given to their children.

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In a positive way, the best thing they can do is to encourage the children to be docile and disciplined.

Blessings.

*

Sweet Mother,

What is the essential difference between the behaviour and responsibility of a teacher with regard to young children and with regard to older students (over fourteen or fifteen, for instance)?

Naturally, as the consciousness and intelligence develop in the children, it is more and more through them that we can deal with the children.

3 February 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

Should one punish a child?

Punish? What do you mean by punish? If a child is noisy in class and prevents the others from working, you must tell him to behave himself; and if he continues, you can send him out of the class. That is not a punishment, it is a natural consequence of his actions. But to punish! To punish! You have no right to punish. Are you the Divine? Who has given you the right to punish? The children too can punish you for your actions. Are you perfect yourselves? Do you know what is good or what is bad? Only the Divine knows. Only the Divine has the right to punish.¹

The vibrations that you emit bring you into contact

1. Oral reply (this paragraph only).

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with corresponding vibrations. If you emit harmful and destructive vibrations, quite naturally you draw corresponding vibrations towards yourselves and that is the real punishment, if you want to use that word; but it does not correspond at all to the divine organisation of the world.

Every action has its consequences, good or bad, but the idea of reward and punishment is a purely human idea and does not at all correspond to the way in which the Truth-Consciousness acts. If the Consciousness that rules the world had acted according to human principles of punishment and reward, there would have been no men left on earth for a long time.

When men become pure enough to transmit the divine vibrations without distorting them, then suffering will be abolished from the world. That is the only way.

3 February 1972

Sweet Mother,

Could you write something on discipline for us?

Discipline is indispensable to physical life. The proper functioning of the organs is based on a discipline. It is precisely when an organ or a part of the body does not obey the general discipline of the body that one falls ill.

Discipline is indispensable to progress. It is only when one imposes a rigorous and enlightened discipline on oneself that one can be free from the discipline of others.

The supreme discipline is integral surrender to the

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17 February 1972

*

Sweet Mother,

Yesterday You wrote on discipline. But what attitude should we take towards the imposed discipline to which we must conform in communal life?

Communal life must necessarily have a discipline so that the weaker are not bullied by the stronger; and this discipline must be respected by all those who want to live in that community.

But for the community to be happy, this discipline should be set by the most broad-minded person or persons, if possible the person or persons who are conscious of the Divine Presence and are surrendered to it.

For the world to be happy, power should only be in the hands of those who are conscious of the Divine Will. But for the time being that is impossible because the number of those who are truly conscious of the Divine Will is very small, and because they necessarily have no ambition.

In fact, when the time comes for this realisation, it will take place quite naturally.

The duty of each one is to prepare for it as completely as he can.

18 February 1972

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HOMEWORK

I cannot say they are wrong.

All the teachers who give lessons to a certain group of students should agree among themselves to allot the work so that the students are not overworked and can enjoy a rest and a relaxation that are indispensable.

This collective preparation must be ready before I can give any useful advice.

As for the subjects, it is indispensable to choose those which coincide with their personal experience so as to encourage introspection, observation and analysis of personal impressions.

December 1959

*

(A teacher of mathematics asked whether he should strictly adhere to the policy at that time, that children below the age of ten should not be given homework; a few of his students had asked for problems to do at home. The Mother wrote:)

This homework is a very thorny matter. Let those who want to do homework write to me directly about it.

1960

*

In our arithmetic class we would like to be given

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some homework to do.

If only you could write French a little more correctly!

You may do some homework if you really want to  but it is better to do a little well than to do much without care or concentration.

If you want to be able to do anything at all, you must learn to discipline yourselves and to concentrate.

28 June 1960

*

(About a Centre of Education circular dealing with homework)

This has come up after receiving many letters from both parents and children complaining that because of homework the children go to bed late and are very tired as they do not sleep enough.

I know that all these complaints are exaggerated, but they are also the indication that some progress must be made in the routine.

This project has to be worked out in its details with plasticity and suppleness.

Things are to be arranged and organised. The details of execution will be fixed later on.

26 September 1967

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TESTS, PROMOTIONS, PRIZES

About Tests

Tests may be useful in giving you the academic worth of a Child, but not his real worth.

As for the real worth of a child, something else is to be found, but that will be for later on, and will be of a different nature.

I am not opposing real worth to academic worth; they can coexist in the same individual, but it is a rather rare phenomenon which produces exceptional types of people.

1962

*

It is not by conventional examinations that students can be selected for a class. It is only by developing in oneself the true psychological sense.

Select children who want to learn, not those who want to push themselves forward.

29 October 1965

*

(About cheating in tests)

What should I do? Must we do what is done outside  put three teachers in a room to invigilate? The teachers do not like doing things in this way here in the Ashram.

Or should we abolish tests? I find this proposal doubtful, since the same thing happens with home work and essays.

In any case the problem exists, and in order to

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find the real solution we should understand why the children behave like this.

Please tell me the cause of this misbehaviour and the solution to this problem.

It is very simple. It is because most of the children study because they are compelled to do so by their families, by custom and prevalent ideas, and not because they want to learn and know. As long as their motive for studying is not rectified, as long as they do not work because they want to know, they will find all kinds of tricks to make their work easier and to obtain results with a minimum of effort.

June 1967

*

(The Mother said that repetition of the followingstatement a hundred or a thousand times a day, until it became a living vibration, would help the student to instil in himself the right will and motive for studying.)

To be repeated each day by all the students:

It is not for our family, it is not to secure a good position, it is not to earn money, it is not to obtain a diploma, that we study.

We study to learn, to know, to understand the world, and for the sake of the joy that it gives us.

June 1967

*

The only solution is to annul this test and all that are to come. Keep all the papers with you in a closed bundle  as something that has not been and continue

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quietly your Classes.

At the end of the year you will give notes to the students, not based on written test-papers, but on their behaviour, their concentration, their regularity, their promptness to understand and their openness of intelligence.

For yourself you will take it as a discipline to rely more on inner contact, keen observation, and impartial outlook.

For the students it will be the necessity of understanding truly what they learn and not to repeat as a parrot what they have not fully understood.

And thus a true progress will have been made in the teaching.

With blessings.

21 July 1967

*

I find tests an obsolete and ineffective way of knowing if the students are intelligent, willing and attentive.

A silly, mechanical mind can very well answer a test if the memory is good and these are certainly not the qualities required for a man of the future.

It is by tolerance for the old habits that I consented that those who want tests can have them. But I hope that in future this concession will not be necessary.

To know if a student is good needs, if the tests are abolished, a little more inner contact and psychological knowledge for the teacher. But our teachers are expected to do Yoga, so this ought not to be difficult for them.

22 July 1967

*

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Mother,

I have seen your messages about tests. I fully agree that examinations are useless. Personally I have some questions. I teach a language, Hindi. I have to see whether my students have a grasp over the language. In one of my classes I have replaced tests by essays. The result is satisfactory. But what to do in such cases:

1. X  She has a good grasp of Hindi, but she is very careless, does not work and is often absent.

2. Y Very intelligent and capable, but she always shirked from work and tried to cheat me by her sweet and intelligent talk. I had to give up.

3. Z Very much interested, she can appreciate literature, but she cannot write one sentence correctly.

There are others in the same category in various degrees in the lower classes.

Those who are insincere do not truly want to learn but to get good marks or compliments from the teacher they are not interesting.

Is it possible for a teacher to know by his inner contact whether the student knows the language well and he can be promoted? W was wonderful in my class for ten days in a year; on the rest of the days she was just a listener. I always promoted her on the basis of the possibility based on those ten days.

It is all right.

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Naturally the teacher has to test the student to know if he or she has learnt something and has made a progress. But this test must be individual and adapted to each student, not the same mechanical test for all of them. It must be a spontaneous and unexpected test leaving no room for pretence and insincerity. Naturally also, this is much more difficult for the teacher, but so much more living and interesting also.

Blessings.

25 July 1967

Mother,

I seek your guidance about promotion in the classes.

X is very weak and irregular. If she wants she can do well, and since Y's birthday celebration she has become more intelligent. She was a star there.

Intelligence and capacity of understanding are surely more important than regularity in work. Steadiness may be acquired later.

5 October 1967

*

Mother,

My newly trained teachers, X, Y and Z, are trying to do their work properly but I find their classes lack life. They are dull. The whole class seems to be asleep. How to bring life into their work?

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In the playground activities we have competitions and prizes. In the school they have been abolished.

The prizes belong to a rather low standard of life but if we are still there...

Do it, if you find it necessary.

29 May 1968

*

Sweet Mother,

Is it good to give prizes to the children or reward them in order to make them work or to create some sort of interest?

It is obvious that for the children it is better to study in order to develop their consciousness and learn a little of all they do not know; but to give prizes to those who have been particularly studious, disciplined and attentive, is not bad.

17 December 1969

*

What should he the criteria for giving prizes in our "Free Progress Classes"?

The prizes certainly should not be based on competitive grades.

A prize of appreciation, of equivalent value, could be given to those who have exceeded a certain level of (1) capacity, plus (2) goodwill and regularity of effort.

Both should be there to warrant the prize.

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GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

To know how to read and write, to speak at least one language correctly, to know a little general geography, have an overall view of modern science and know some rules of conduct this is indispensable for living in a group or a community.

*

History and geography can only become interesting to minds that are eager to know the earth on which they live.

Before one can take an interest in these two subjects, one must widen the horizons of one's thirst for knowledge as well as one's field of consciousness.

*

X was absent today and I found, after the class, that be has Your permission to stop coming to my class and take woodwork instead.

He told me he liked much better to do manual work instead of studies. I thought he was right in his instinct and his choice was the best for his nature. So I gave him the permission required.

26 March 1946

*

It seems to me that psychology without yoga is lifeless. The study of psychology must necessarily lead to

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yoga, at least to practical yoga if not theoretical.

23 December 1960

How can we improve the children's spelling?

Generally, for spelling, one must take the help of the eyes. Each word should have its own form, which the eye remembers. Visual memory is more useful than mental memory. One should read a lot see, see, see, on the blackboard, in books, on pictures.

And as for style, gender, and grammar too, the best thing is to read, to read a great deal. In this way all this goes into the subconscient. It is the best way to learn.

January 1962

There are some things which are good for my progress but seem to me very uninteresting. For example, mathematics is a good subject but it does not appeal to me. Please tell me, how can I take interest in the things to which I am not drawn?

There are a lot of things that we need to know, not because we find them specially interesting but because they are useful and even indispensable; mathematics is one of them. It is only when we have a strong background of knowledge that we can face life successfully.

*

How can mathematics, history or science help me to find You?

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They can help in several ways:

1. To become capable of receiving and bearing the light of the Truth, the mind must be made strong, wide and supple. These studies are a very good way to achieve this.

2. If you study science deeply enough, it will teach you the unreality of appearances and thus lead you to the spiritual reality.

3. The study of all the aspects and movements of physical Nature will bring you into contact with the universal Mother, and so you will be closer to me.

17 December 1966

*

As for arithmetic, I am much more in favour of practical than of written arithmetic, with an emphasis on the development of the faculty of mental arithmetic. It is more difficult, but it greatly increases the capacity for inner visualisation and reasoning. It is a very effective way of developing true intelligence instead of memorised knowledge.

When one knows mental arithmetic and understands arithmetic, it then takes very little time to learn written arithmetic.

With the help of similar objects  you can begin with the children themselves for small numbers and then take pebbles and counters when it comes to tens and hundreds.

In this way, by taking a little trouble, you can teach them all the operations logically and so they become for the children something real and living which has a concrete meaning.

*

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If you want to know what is really happening in the world, you should not read newspapers of any sort, for they are full of lies.

To read a newspaper is to take part in the greatest collective falsehoods.

2 February 1970

Mother,

Your note about reading newspapers was shown to me yesterday. Now tell me personally for myself. I have been reading regularly since I was 13. If you say that I have to stop reading them, I can.

Not necessary to stop. You must have got the discrimination.

4 February 1970

Sweet Mother,

How could we know what is happening in other countries and even in our own if we did not read newspapers? At least we get some idea from them, don't we? Or would it be better not to read them at all?

I did not say that you must not read newspapers. I said that you must not blindly believe everything you read; you should know that the truth is altogether different.

Blessings.

4 February 1970

*

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Sweet Mother,

How can we know the truth of the facts when reading newspapers? What is the best way of knowing the truth of the world?

The best way is to find the truth in ourselves  then we shall be able to see the Truth wherever it is.

Blessings.

5 February 1970

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(To a child learning French)

My dear little smile,

You are absolutely right, and I don't see why, instead of reading interesting things, you should start doing boring exercises.

To learn a language one must read, read, read and talk as much as one can.

With all my love.

10 July 1935

*

I want to resume my study of French, particularly for speaking. Can I have some hints?

The best is to speak... courageously at every opportunity.

Mother, will You tell me the names of some good writers I could read?

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22 September 1936

*

How should we teach French to the young children?

The best thing would be to tell them a story, using very simple words and phrases so that they can understand (a little story, short and interesting or amusing), and then afterwards ask them to write down in class what they have heard.

1960

*

Mother, I have started reading French hooks  X has given me a list.

It is good for you to read a lot of French; it will teach you how to write.

7 April 1965

*

French gains by being written with simplicity and clarity; an accumulation of complicated images always renders the style pretentious.

*

Should French he considered as a special language, to bring the children into contact first with you and then with a certain vibration of beauty?

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Something like that.

All I can say is that we are considered to be one of the best perhaps the very best school in India for teaching French and I think it would be a good thing to deserve this appreciation.

In my relations with the children here, I always  speak to them in French.

Why should science be taught in French?

There are many reasons of which the deeper ones you ought to know in your heart without needing to be told.

Among the exterior ones I can say that French, being a very precise language, is better for Science than English which is far superior for poetry.

There are also a few practical reasons among which is the fact, for all those who will have to earn their living when they are grown up, that all those who know French thoroughly well have most easily found employment.

9 February 1969

*

Sri Aurobindo loved French very much. He used to say that it was a clear and precise language, whose use encouraged clarity of mind. From the point of view of he development of the consciousness, that is precious. In French, one can say exactly what one wants to say.

19 October 1971

*

Today I took class E5 and we continued the reading and the explanation of Words of the Mother. Although I am constantly pointing to the beauty of the language with which Words is written, I am also conscious that I am putting more emphasis on the explanation than on the teaching of English.

It is quite all alright because it obliges them to think in English which is the best way to learn a language.

2 May 1946

*

French is indeed the most precise and clearest language. But from the spiritual point of View it is not true that French is the best language to use; for English has a suppleness, a fluidity which French does not have, and this suppleness is indispensable for not deforming what is vaster and more comprehensive in the experience than what mental expression can formulate.

January 1950

(A disciple wrote that he wanted to give up teaching because his Hindi students were so apathetic. His letter ends:)

It is said that you give no importance to the Indian languages. Do you want me to continue in spite of my students' apathy or can I give it up?

Continue without hesitation.

I have the deepest respect for Indian languages and continue to study Sanskrit when I have time.

Amrita says that the situation of his Tamil class is much worse than that of the Hindi one. He says that

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he will continue even if the students come no more... he will teach himself!

With love and blessings.

30 September 1959

*

(Two or three teachers were having a discussion about the language of instruction in the school. Their discussion was submitted to the Mother with the remark.) Sri Aurobindo says in his book on education that the child should be taught in his mother-tongue.

23 August 1965

*

X has asked Your guidance in a difficulty concerning the education of his two young sons. He has put one of them in an Italian missionary school in Bombay where the medium of instruction is English and he also intends to put the other one in the same school shortly. But now, because of the current controversy about the language problem in India, he is feeling puzzled because he finds it difficult to decide whether it is good to give education to his children through the medium of English or whether it should be done through the mother

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tongue, i.e. Marathi. In the latter case it will be necessary to change the school. He wants to have your guidance in this matter.

The mother tongue is all right. But for those who want to do higher studies, the English is indispensable.

Blessings.

3 November 1967

*

At present many of our Higher Course students do not know sufficiently well any one language in which they could express their thoughts and feelings adequately and sensitively. Is this required or not, Mother? And if so, which language should they learn? Should it he a common or international language' or their vernacular?

If only one language is known this is better.

*

(Languages to he studied in Auroville)

(1) Tamil
(2) French
(3) Simplified Sanskrit to replace Hindi as the language of India
(4) English as the international language.

15 December 1970

*

1. The Mother underlined "a common or international language" and from her reply drew an arrow to the phrase, thus indicating her preference.

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*

The Sanskrit ought to be the national language of India.

19 April 1971

*

On certain issues where You and Sri Aurobindo have given direct answers, we (Sri Aurobindo's Action) are also specific, as for instance... on the language issue where You have said for the country that (1) the regional language should he the medium of instruction, (2) Sanskrit should he the national language, and (3) English should he the international language.

Are we correct in giving these replies to such questions?

Yes.

4 October 1971

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THE ARTS

BEAUTY

On the physical plane it is in beauty that the Divine expresses Himself.

*

In the physical world, of all things it is beauty that expresses best the Divine. The physical world is the world of form and the perfection of form is beauty. Beauty interprets, expresses, manifests the Eternal. Its role is to put all manifested nature in contact with the Eternal, through the perfection of form, through harmony and a sense of the ideal which uplifts and leads towards something higher.

*

Let beauty be your constant ideal.

Beauty of the soul

Beauty of sentiments

Beauty of thoughts

Beauty of action

Beauty in work

So that nothing comes out of your hands which is not an expression of pure and harmonious beauty.

And the Divine Help shall always be with you.

*

Supreme art expresses the Beauty which puts you in Contact with the Divine Harmony.

*

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True art means the expression of beauty in the material world. In a world wholly converted, that is to say, expressing integrally the divine reality, art must serve as the revealer and teacher of this divine beauty in life.

*

In art also we must remain on the heights.

*

Good taste is the aristocracy of art.

PAINTING

The true painting aims at creating something more beautiful than the ordinary reality.

3 April 1932

Would you like me to draw birds or animals some times?

If you like  but drawings from nature are best for learning.

23 December 1932

*

I have done this picture without anybody's help. How is it? Will I be able to learn?

If you are ready to study hard and regularly, then

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you can begin, otherwise it is better not to try.

*

If these painters were sincere, if they truly painted what they feel and see, the picture would be the expression of a confused mind and an unruly Vital. But, unhappily, the painters are not sincere and then these pictures are nothing else than the expression of a falsehood, an artificial imagination based only on the will to be strange and to bewilder the public in order to attract attention and that has indeed very little to do with beauty.

27 March 1955

*

The largest of the flower paintings is the best because it is more spontaneous and free. You must feel what you paint and do it with joy.

Copy many beautiful things, but try even more to catch the emotion, the deeper life of things.

12 August 1962

*

My dear child,

I have seen your paintings  they are almost perfect. But what they lack is not technique it is consciousness. If you develop your consciousness you will spontaneously discover how to express yourself.

Nobody, and especially not official teachers, can teach you that.

So to leave here and go anywhere else, to any of

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the "Art Academies", would be to leave the light and step into a pit of obscurity and unconsciousness.

You cannot learn to be an artist with tricks  it is as if you wanted to realise the Divine by imitating religious ceremonies.

Above all and always the most important thing is sincerity.

Develop your inner being find your soul, and at the same time you will find the true artistic expression.

With my blessings.

25 May 1963

*

I have seen your paintings and certainly there has been progress over the last year.

Modern art is an experiment, still very clumsy, to express something other than the simple physical appearance. The idea is good but naturally the value of the expression depends entirely on the value of that which wants to express itself.

At present almost all artists live in the lowest vital and mental consciousness and the results are quite poor

Try to develop your consciousness, endeavour to discover your soul, and then what you will do will be truly interesting.

This is the programme I am giving you for the year which starts for you today.

*

I am sorry to have to say that in the paintings, I do not See much improvement on last year. They lack sincerity

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and spontaneity; it: is not seen, it is thought and thought in a childish way. What I said last year has yet to be achieved. The consciousness must grow in light and sincerity and the eyes must learn to see artistically.

*

I was not able to look at your paintings until today. Certainly they represent an effort, and the one which is framed is pleasing to the eye. But you think too much and you do not see enough. In other words, your vision is not original, spontaneous or direct, which means that your execution is still conventional and lacks originality an imitation of What others do.

There is, behind all things, a divine beauty, a divine harmony: it is with this that we must come into contact; it is this that we must express.

12 August 1965

MUSIC

I do not know who is spreading the rumour that I do not like music. That is not true at all  I like music very much, but it should be heard in a small circle, that is, played for five or six people at the most. When there is a crowd it becomes a social gathering, more often than not, and the atmosphere that is created is not good.

*

To keep yourself occupied with music and writing is always good; for your nature finds there its inborn occupation

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and that helps to maintain the vital energy and keep the balance.

About sadhana I should like to ask you: why not do sadhana through your music? Surely meditation is not the only way of doing sadhana. Through your music bhakti and aspiration can grow and prepare the

nature for realisation.

If moments of meditation and concentration come of themselves then it is all right; but there is no need to force it.

23 January 1939

*

Music follows the rule of all things on earth unless they are turned to the Divine they cannot be divine.

25 May 1941

*

Sweet Mother, how can one enter into the feelings of a piece of music played by someone else?

In the same way that one can share the emotions of another person  by sympathy, spontaneously, by an affinity more or less deep, or else by an effort of concentration which ends in identification. It is this latter process that we adopt when we listen to music with an intense and concentrated attention, to the point of stopping all other noise in the head and obtaining a complete silence into which fall, drop by drop, the notes of the music whose sound alone remains; and With the sound all the feelings, all the movements of emotion can be captured, experienced, refelt as if they

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20 October 1959

*

What should one try to do when one meditates with your music at the Playground?

This music aims at awakening certain profound feelings.

In listening to it, one should make oneself as silent and passive as possible. And if, in the mental silence, a part of the being can take the attitude of the witness who observes without reacting or participating, then one can notice the effect that the music produces on the feelings and emotions; and if it produces a state of deep calm and semi-trance, that is very good.

*

What is it we should look for in music?

How to judge the quality of a piece of music?

How to develop good taste (for music)?

What do you think of the light music (cinema, jazz, etc.) which our children like very much?

The role of music lies in helping the consciousness to uplift itself towards the spiritual heights.

All that lowers the consciousness, encourages desires and excites the passions, runs counter to the true goal of music and ought to be avoided.

It is not a question of name but of inspiration and the spiritual consciousness alone can be the judge there.

22 July 1967

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POETRY

Poetry is sensuality of the spirit.

*

For me true poetry is beyond all philosophy and beyond all explanation.

*

Well, I think it would be better not to lay too much Stress, in your studies of poetry, on the human side of love as it is not helpful for sadhana and for some it is distinctly harmful.

13 July 1943

PHOTOGRAPHY

Modern photography has become an art and, like all other arts, it can effectively express the inner feelings and the soul, with a true sense of beauty.

*

Photography is an art when the photographer is an artist.

*

Photography is said to be a medium of modern art. What is your opinion about this?

It all depends on the way in which photography is used. Its natural purpose and common use is documentary; the more exact and precise it is, the more useful it is.

But undeniably, there are artists who use photography

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as a medium of expression. But then what they do is no longer an exact copy of Nature, it is an arrangement of forms and colours intended to express something else which is usually hidden by physical appearances.

4 September 1969

CINEMA

Sweet Mother,

We see too many films these days and I fail to see how they educate us!

When one has the true attitude, everything can be an opportunity to learn.

In any case, this abundance should make you understand that the desire to see films, which is so imperious in some people, is just as pernicious as any other desire.

11 May 1963

*

We would like to be able to show the children pictures of life as it should be, but we have not reached that point, far from it. These films have yet to be made. And at present, most of the time, the cinema shows life as it should not be, so strikingly that it makes you disgusted with life.

This too is useful as a preparation.

Films are permitted in the Ashram not as an amusement but as part of education. So we are faced with the problem of education.

If we consider that the child should learn and know

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only what can keep him pure of every low, crude, violent and degrading movement, we would have to eliminate at a stroke all contact with the rest of humanity, beginning with all these stories of war and murder, of conflict and deception which go under the name of history; we would have to eliminate all present contact with family, relatives and friends; we would have to exercise control over all the vital impulses of their being.

This was the idea behind the enclosed monastic life of convents, or the ascetic life in caves and forests.

This remedy proved to be quite ineffectual and failed to pull mankind out of the mire.

According to Sri Aurobindo, the remedy is quite different.

We must face life as a whole, with all the ugliness, falsehood and cruelty it still contains, but we must take care to discover in ourselves the source of all goodness, all beauty, all light and all truth, in order to bring this source consciously into contact with the world so as to transform it.

This is infinitely more difficult than running away or shutting our eyes so as not to see, but it is the only truly effective way the way of those who are truly strong and pure and capable of manifesting the Truth.

29 May 1968

Sweet Mother,

How should we watch a film? If we identify with the characters and if the film is tragic or full of suspense, we get so involved that we cry or feel

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frightened. And if we keep aloof we cannot appreciate it properly. So what should we do?

It is the vital that gets touched and moved.

If you watch mentally, the interest is no longer the same; instead of being moved or troubled, you can calmly judge the value of the film, whether it is well made or well acted or whether the scenes have any

artistic value.

In the first case you are a "good audience", in the second case you are more peaceful.

Blessings.

30 January 1970

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Yesterday in our Synthesis of Yoga class, You said that it is useless and even stupid to comment on Sri Aurobindo's writings. Sweet Mother, I have been committing this stupidity in my classes for years. May I beg you to allow me to stop giving them?

So you should continue with the class; but in making

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*

*

*

Page 125

Page 126

*

for India but an essential and fundamental education for all mankind. But, is it not true, Mother, that this education, because of India's special fitness (by virtue of its past cultural striving and attainment), is India's privilege and special responsibility towards herself and the world? At any rate, this essential education is India's national education to my mind. In fact, I regard this as the national education of each great country with characteristic differentiations peculiar to each nation.

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5 August 1965

*

PART II

Page 137

For, in human beings, there is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart  but the physical heart but the psychic centre of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of this Presence.

Page 143

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Page 165

Well, I don't think there are many who take care to teach this to their children.

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