India - the Mother

June 7, 1967

(A few days earlier, Mother was asked for a definition of the Divine. She replied: "The Divine can be lived, but not defined. The Divine is an absolute of perfection, eternal source of all that exists, whom we grow progressively conscious of while being Him from all eternity.")

I have something to add to what we said the other day about the Divine. Someone asks me, "And whatever is God?" So I have replied:

"It is the name man has given to all that exceeds and dominates him, all that he cannot know but is subject to."

I am intentionally not giving any definition. Because my lifelong feeling has been that it's a mere word, and a word behind which people put a lot of very undesirable things.... It's that idea of a god who claims to be "the one and only," as they say: "God is the one and only." ... That was what had made me a complete atheist, if I may say so, when I was a child; I refused to accept a being, WHOEVER HE WAS, who proclaimed himself to be the one and only and almighty. Even if he were indeed the one and only and almighty (laughing), he should have no right to proclaim it! That's how it was in my mind....

At any rate, I have given what I find is the most objective definition.... Here I wanted to fight against the use of the word which, to me, is hollow, but dangerously so.

(The conversation turns to the war in the Middle East)

We had here an American, a very nice boy who, before he came here, was a paratroop instructor in Israel's army.... When those two [Israel and Egypt] started quarrelling, he wrote me a letter in which he explained that, and also paid great compliments to the Israeli nation, saying they had achieved a really remarkable sense of brotherhood and cooperation. That was his impression of the country. And he said that if war broke out, he would like to go back there to help them as much as he could. So as soon as they started bombing each other, he decided to go. He left yesterday evening. And I saw him in the afternoon, before he left.

While he was here, Sri Aurobindo ... (how can I explain?), the impression is that Sri Aurobindo "concretizes" (he is always here, but at certain times he seems to concretize, as though ... [Mother makes a gesture of gathering or condensing]. *That's really the impression: he concretizes and starts speaking). So then, first Sri Aurobindo said to him (but there was a whole WORLD in it), "My blessings are with you."

The man was very touched (I didn't tell him it was Sri Aurobindo; I spoke, you understand, it was my mouth that spoke then, but it was Sri Aurobindo who spoke). Then I concentrated, and Sri Aurobindo said with great force :

"All the countries live in falsehood.
If only one country
stood courageously for truth,
the world might be saved."

Towards the end of the day, when I was alone, I began asking Sri Aurobindo precisely what he meant. Naturally, his hope is that the country that "stood for Truth" would be India—for the moment, she is very far from it. But ... And since the subject was before me, I asked him how he saw the terrestrial possibility in a harmonious future.

Then he said to me—it was very simple, very clear: "A -federation of all nations and countries without exception, all continents. A single federation : the federation of all human nations of the earth." And a group—a governing group—consisting of one representative from each country, the most able man from the standpoint of political and economic organization. And nothing of the proportional question that would give large countries many representatives and small ones only one—one representative for every country. Because every country represents one aspect of the problem. And they would sit in rotation.

It was a vast vision, not so much with words as with a vision....

You see, every national entity has a right to free and independent existence, provided it doesn't interfere in the free and independent existence of all other entities. Ambitions, territorial expansions—of course, all colonies and all of that—must be swept out of the picture.

... For the moment, at any rate, all diplomatic relations are based on falsehood—and the crudest falsehood at that: it's recognized as a necessity and the only way out. That's how they consider it. So that's what must be abolished to begin with.

(After a silence) There is a group in the new Indian parliament, a group of people dissatisfied with the position taken by India, who have declared their wish to act according to Sri Aurobindo's ideal and instructions. And they've asked if we could send someone from here to hold conferences in Delhi.... It's a "group"—naturally not the whole parliament.

It's something to be envisaged.

But the difficulty is to find the "someone," because it should be a man who knows Sri Aurobindo thoroughly to begin with, who is capable of receiving his inspirations directly (a very difficult condition), and has at the same time a very strong character with a power—a contagious power—and a force that can arouse the inert masses.... For years I have been looking for that man, without finding him.

There was a man who would have done—not fully well, not with enough breadth of mind to fully understand Sri Aurobindo, but very straight and strong—he was assassinated in Kashmir.

Assassinated?

He is the one who came here when we wanted to have a conference for the opening of the University; he presided over it.⁶¹ A rather tall man, and strong. I forget his name. But it was in Kashmir that he was assassinated (not officially, of course: he "fell ill.")

It wasn't perfect, it was a stopgap, but anyway he would have done. But now ... Among the young people whom I don't know?... What is needed is power combined with that breadth of mind capable of understanding Sri Aurobindo's inspiration and transmitting it; and along with that, vital power. The two things together.

Mother's Agenda: June 7, 1967