The Mother

Disciple: It seems the general consciousness has gone down since the Ashram began to grow in large proportions. What is the reason and how to raise the general level?

The Mother: This is a thing somewhat complicated. I will try to explain it. For a long time the Ashram was only a gathering of individuals, each one representing something as an individual, but without any collective organisation. It was like isolated pawns on a chessboard and possessed only an apparent unity; there was rather the bare superficial fact of their living together at the same place and having some common habits, a few only, not many. Each one progressed-or did not progress-according to his own capacity and had a minimum relation with others. So in the measure of the individuals constituting this heterogeneous body, one could say there was a general value, but a very floating value with no collective reality. That lasted a very very long time.
It is only quite recently that the necessity of a collective reality began to appear, a collective reality not necessarily limited to the Ashram but embracing all who have declared themselves - I do not mean physically, I mean in their consciousness - as disciples of Sri Aurobindo, and who have endeavoured to live his teaching. In all of them and more strongly since the manifestation of the supramental consciousness and force, the necessity of a true common existence has awakened, which is based not merely upon purely material circumstances, but represents a deeper truth, and which is the beginning of what Sri Aurobindo calls a supramental or gnostic community.
Naturally Sri Aurobindo has said that for this the individuals constituting the collectivity must themselves possess the supramental consciousness, but even before this perfection is attained individually, it has become necessary to make an inner effort to create this collective individuality, if one may say so. The need of a true union, a deeper bond is being felt and the effort has tended towards such a realisation. That has brought some trouble; because the tendency before was so much individualistic that certain habits have been upset. I do not mean physically, for things are not very different from what they were, but internally, in a little deeper consciousness, and a certain interdependence has been created-I insist on this point above all-which has somewhat lowered the individual level except for those who had already arrived at an inner realisation strong enough to resist the levelling action.
It is this that gives the impression that the general level has come down, which is not exact; the general level is on a higher plane than what was before, but the individual level has gone down in many cases, and individuals who were capable of one realisation or another have felt, without understanding it, weighed down under a load which they had not to carry before and which is due to this interdependence. But it is quite a temporary result and will finally end, on the contrary, in an amelioration, a very perceptible general progress. Naturally, if each individual were conscious, ii, instead of yielding to this kind of levelling, he resisted in order to transform, transmute, sublimate the elements, the influences and currents received from others, then the whole would rise to a higher consciousness, much in advance of what was before.
It was towards that that I was leading without explaining the thing in detail when I spoke of a more and more urgent necessity to make an effort and I meant precisely one day to explain to you that the individual effort you may put in, instead of being merely an individual progress, will spread, so to say, and have very important collective results, but I said nothing for months. I wanted to prepare the consciousness of each individual so that they might admit, I should even say recognise the necessity of a collective individuality.
It is that which has to be explained now. There is no other reason for this sort of apparent lowering, but it is not really so. It is the spiral movement of progress which necessarily implies that one should travel away from a certain realisation so that it may be made not only wider but also higher. If everyone collaborates consciously and with goodwill, it will be done more quickly. It was an imperative necessity if the life of the Ashram were to continue. A thing that does not progress necessarily declines and perishes, and if the Ashram were to last, it had to make a progress in its consciousness and become a living entity. That is all. In the spiral of our progress we are a little away from the line of realisation that we were following for some years, but we shall come back to it on a higher level. That is the reason.
Apparently there may be movements seeming to contradict what I have just told you, but it is always so; for every time you want to realise something, the first difficulty that you meet is the opposition from all that was not active before and now awakens to offer resistance. All that does not want to acquiesce in this change naturally wakes up and revolts, but that has no importance. It is the same thing as happens in the individual being. When you want to make a progress, the difficulty you wished to conquer increases tenfold in importance and intensity in your consciousness. You have only to persevere. That is all, it will pass away.

The Mother


This version has been formerly published in the on-line journal "Jyoti" of the Sri Aurobindo Center in Los Angeles, USA.

See also the version from "Questions and Answers"
See the Original in French