Questions and Answers 1956
Ah! my child... it is as though you were asking me the difference
between a dog and a cat!
(Long silence)
Imagine someone who, in some way or other, has heard of something
like the Divine or has a personal feeling that something of
the kind exists, and begins to make all sorts of efforts: efforts of
will, of discipline, efforts of concentration, all sorts of efforts to
find this Divine, to discover what He is, to become acquainted
with Him and unite with Him. Then this person is doing yoga.
Now, if this person has noted down all the processes he has
used and constructs a fixed system, and sets up all that he has
discovered as absolute laws—for example, he says: the Divine is
like this, to find the Divine you must do this,make this particular
gesture, take this attitude, perform this ceremony, and you must
admit that this is the truth, you must say, “I accept that this is the
Truth and I fully adhere to it; and your method is the only right
one, the only one which exists”—if all that is written down,
organised, arranged into fixed laws and ceremonies, it becomes
a religion.
Can one realise the Divine by this method [of religion]?
Those who carry within themselves a spiritual destiny and are
born to realise the Divine, to become conscious in Him and live
Him, will arrive, no matter what path, what way they follow.
That is to say, even in religion there are people who have had the
spiritual experience and found the Divine—not because of
the religion, usually in spite of it, notwithstanding it—because
they had the inner urge and this urge led them there despite all
obstacles and through them. Everything served their purpose.
But if these very people want to express their experience,
they naturally use the terms of the religion in which they were
brought up, so they restrict their experience and inevitably limit
it very much, they make it sectarian, so to say. But they themselves
may very well have gone beyond all the forms and all the
limitations and all the conventions and may have had the true
experience in its pure simplicity.
Sweet Mother, in the world today most people follow
some sort of religion. Are they helped?
Not much.
Perhaps they are taking it up again now, but for a very long
time, towards the beginning of this century, they had repudiated
religion as something opposed to knowledge—at least all intellectual
people had. And it is only recently that a movement of
return to something other than a thorough-going positivism has
begun.
People follow religion by social habit, in order not to get into
the bad books of others. For instance, in a village it is difficult
not to go to religious ceremonies, for all your neighbours will
point at you. But that has absolutely nothing to do with spiritual
life, nothing at all.
(Silence)
The first time I came to India I came on a Japanese boat. And on
this Japanese boat there were two clergymen, that is, Protestant
priests, of different sects. I don’t remember exactly which sects,
but they were both English; I think one was an Anglican and the
other a Presbyterian.
Now, Sunday came. There had to be a religious ceremony
on the boat, or else we would have looked like heathens, like the
Japanese! There had to be a ceremony, but who should perform
it? Should it be the Anglican or should it be the Presbyterian?
They just missed quarrelling. Finally, one of them withdrew with
dignity—I don’t remember now which one, I think it was the
Anglican—and the Presbyterian performed his ceremony.
It took place in the lounge of the ship. We had to go down
a few steps to this lounge. And that day, all the men had put on
their jackets—it was hot, I think we were in the Red Sea—they
put on their jackets, stiff collars, leather shoes; neckties well set,
hats on their heads, and they went with a book under their arm,
almost in a procession from the deck to the lounge. The ladies
wore their hats, some carried even a parasol, and they too had
their book under the arm, a prayer-book.
And so they all crowded down into the lounge, and the
Presbyterian made a speech, that is to say, preached his sermon,
and everybody listened very religiously. And then, when
it was over, they all came up again with the satisfied air of
someone who has done his duty. And, of course, five minutes
later they were in the bar drinking and playing cards, and
their religious ceremony was forgotten. They had done their
duty, it was over, there was nothing more to be said about
it.
And the clergyman came and asked me,more or less politely,
why I had not attended. I told him, “Sir, I am sorry, but I don’t
believe in religion.”
“Oh! oh! you are a materialist?”
“No, not at all.”
“Ah! then why?”
“Oh!” I said, “if I were to tell you, you would be quite
displeased, perhaps it is better for me not to say anything.”
But he insisted so much that at last I said, “Just try to see, I
don’t feel that you are sincere, neither you nor your flock. You
all went there to fulfil a social duty and a social custom, but not at
all because you really wanted to enter into communion with
God.”
“Enter into communion with God! But we can’t do that!
All that we can do is to say some good words, but we have no
capacity to enter into communion with God.”
Then I said, “But it was just because of that I didn’t go, for
it doesn’t interest me.”
After that he asked me many questions and admitted to me
that he was going to China to convert the “heathens”. At that I
became serious and told him, “Listen, even before your religion
was born—not even two thousand years ago—the Chinese
had a very high philosophy and knew a path leading them to
the Divine; and when they think of Westerners, they think of
them as barbarians. And so you are going there to convert those
who know more about it than you? What are you going to teach
them? To be insincere, to perform hollow ceremonies instead of
following a profound philosophy and a detachment from life
which lead them to a more spiritual consciousness?... I don’t
think it’s a very good thing you are going to do.”
Then he felt so suffocated, the poor man; he said to me,
“Eh, I fear I can’t be convinced by your words!”
“Oh!” I said, “I am not trying to convince you, I only described
the situation to you, and how I don’t quite see why
barbarians should want to go and teach civilised people what
they have known long before you. That’s all.”
And there, that was the end of it.
Mother, in the Buddhist traditions it is said...
Oh! Oh! you are becoming a Buddhist. It’s the fashion.
Yes?
It is said that two thousand five hundred years after his
birth...
Yes, he will return to earth to preach a new Buddhism, is that
it?
It seems his teaching will come to an end, and will be
replaced by something new.
Yes, it is that gentleman, what is his name... X, who told you
that?
But that is his theory. He told me also that he thought that
it was Sri Aurobindo who had realised the teachings of the
Buddha. Is that it? You didn’t go to his lecture?... No, then what
did you want to ask?
Because it is now—tomorrow is the day the two thousand
five hundred years will be over—does this correspond
to the new thing?
What new thing?
The new Supramental Manifestation.
Oh! Listen, this seems tome just the kind of discovery one makes
when one wants something sensational.
There are always many ways of interpreting texts, and one
does it according to what one likes them to say.
(Silence)
That reminds me of something: (turning to a teacher) have they
found the sounds with which hieroglyphs are to be read?
Egyptian?
Yes, hieroglyphs are Egyptian!
I think so.
That means they have found the spoken language of five thousand
years ago?
I think so. And there are hieroglyphs which are also
phonetic.
Phonetic! Where can we get this information from?
In the library, Mother, there is something.
Oh!... Because I was wondering how they had restored the
names of the pharaohs and gods. Naturally, more recent peoples
have spoken about them, the Greeks mention them, the Phoenicians
speak of them; they had phonetic writing. But earlier than
that? The first pharaohs and all those names of the gods, who
discovered these?
According to tradition it is Champollion, with the
Rosetta Stone; they found a stone with inscriptions
in Egyptian, Greek and Coptic, which enabled them to
solve the problem.
He was sure it was the same thing written in Egyptian and in
Greek? How was he sure of that?
There was a vague idea, there were some points of reference
and cross-checking.
But that was for the meaning, not for the sounds.
Yes.
What language was spoken in the Schools of Initiation? How
did they express themselves, those people?
I know that sounds are given for the words. Now,
whether they know the exact pronunciation or not is
anothermatter. They don’t even know the pronunciation
of ancient Greek.
Greek? They don’t know the pronunciation?
They don’t know how it used to be pronounced.
Is the language of ancient Egypt contemporaneous with the earliest
Sanskrit, or is it earlier still? And then, something else: was
the cuneiform script of Assyria phonetic or hieroglyphic?
I believe that there too it is possible to read the sounds,
for quite a number of names given in the Bible have
been set right and it has been found that there were
deformations: Nabuchodonsor, for example.
Yes. Oh! that has been changed.
Now, whether they are absolutely sure of having found
the sounds...
Yes, that seems strange to me. For a book came to my hands
in which the names had been restored, and had become a little
queer! But still, there must have been a certain way of pronouncing
them. I mean, does any other human language go
back further than the earliest Sanskrit?
I don’t know the dates of the earliest language.
And one last thing: is this hieroglyphic Egyptian language related
to the Chaldean line or to the Aryan? There are Sanskrit roots
in all the languages. That was precisely what I wanted to ask.
I read somewhere that the priests of Egypt used to give
initiation with mantras.
Sanskrit mantras? But that must be in a novel, surely!
A few Sanskrit words.
There are Sanskrit roots—with some distortions—in all languages.
And there is a very old tradition claiming to be older
than the two bifurcating lines, Aryan and Chaldean. But Greek,
for instance, which is relatively recent, is it a language of Aryan
or Chaldean origin?
Greek is entirely Aryan.
Entirely Aryan.
Egyptian is of Chaldean origin.
Chaldean, yes. But everywhere there was an intermixture of
Egyptian and Greek.
The Phoenician language was older. From the point of
view of the written language, it was earlier than Greek.
But Phoenician is phonetic, it is a phonetic language.
And hieroglyphs were written from top to bottom and from
right to left, or was it from left to right?
From right to left.
From right to left. Chaldean languages are written like that.
Chinese and Japanese also. Only Aryan languages are written
from left to right.
(Meditation)
Much later, when this talk was first published, a disciple asked
Mother what gave rise to these questions on hieroglyphs.
It used to interest me very much once, to know about them.
I tried to recall the memory of the elements which existed at
that time, but I could not get any answer. There was a complete
blank.
Did you hear any sounds?
(After a silence) Look, I’ll give you an instance. About two years
ago, I had a vision about Z’s son.... She had brought him to me,
he was not quite one year old, and I had just seen him there, in
the room where I receive people. He gave me the impression of
someone I knew very well, but I didn’t know who. And then, in
the afternoon of the same day, I had a vision. A vision of ancient
Egypt, that is to say, I was someone there, the great priestess or
somebody—I don’t know who, for one doesn’t tell oneself “I am
so and so”: the identification is complete, there is no objectifying,
so I don’t know. I was in a wonderful building, immense! so high!
but quite bare, there was nothing, except a place where there
were magnificent paintings. So there I recognised the paintings
of ancient Egypt. And I was coming out of my apartments and
was entering a kind of large hall. There was a sort of gutter
running all round the base of the walls, for collecting water.
And then I saw the child, who was half naked, playing in it.
And I was quite shocked, I said, “What! this is disgusting!”—
but the feelings, ideas, all that was translated into French in my
consciousness. There was the tutor who came, I had him called.
I scolded him. I heard sounds. Well, I don’t know what I said,
I don’t remember the sounds at all now. I heard the sounds I
was articulating, I knew what they meant, but the translation
was in French, and the sounds I could not remember. I spoke to him,
told him, “How can you let the child play in there?”
And he answered me—and I woke up with his reply—saying
—I did not hear the first words, but in my thought it was—
“Amenhotep likes it.” I heard Amenhotep, I remembered. Then
I knew the child was Amenhotep.
So I know that I spoke: I spoke a language but I don’t
remember it now. I remembered “Amenhotep” because I know
it in my waking consciousness: “Amenhotep.” But otherwise,
the other sounds did not remain. I have no memory for sounds.
And I know I was his mother; at that moment I knew who I
was, for I know Amenhotep is the son of so-and-so—besides, I
looked up the history. Otherwise there is no connection: a blank.
I always admire those mediums—usually very simple people—
who have the exact memory of the sound, who can tell
you, “Look, I said this and this.” In that way one would have the
phonetic notation. If I could remember the sounds I pronounced,
we would have the notation, but I don’t.
I remember this conversation; suddenly I said to myself, “It
would be so interesting if one could hear that language”, and
then, from curiosity, “How did they discover the pronunciation?
How?” Besides, all the names we were taught as children, in
ancient history, have been changed today. They say they have
discovered the sounds, or at least they claim to have discovered
them. But I don’t know.
It is the same thing for ancient Babylon: I have extremely
precise memories, completely objective, but when I speak I don’t
remember the sounds I utter, there is only the mental translation.
I have no memory for sounds.
I was wondering what had prompted all your questions.
It’s just that, it is that I am aware I have no memory for sounds.
There are people who have a memory for sounds, I don’t have
that memory. So I would be interested to know that. Otherwise
I have always been able—when there was something of the past
which was doubtful for me, or interesting or incomplete
—I have always found the means of making it come back to
my consciousness. But sounds don’t come. It comes as a state of
consciousness which is translatedmentally, and so it is translated
mentally into words which I know. So it is not at all interesting.
Even now, while I was playing music, the memory of the
sounds was vague and incomplete. I had the memory of the
sounds I heard in the “source of music” (with an upward gesture),
and then, when the material music reproduced something
of these sounds, I recognised them; but there is not that precision,
that exactness which wouldmake it possible for me to reproduce
with the voice or with an instrument the exact sound. That is
not there, that is missing.While the memory of the eyes was... it
was stupefying. A thing I had seen just once—it was fixed, never
forgotten.
Several times in this way, in visions—“visions”, actually
memories: memories relived—I have spoken the language of
that time, spoken it, heard myself speaking, but the sound has
not remained. The sense of what I said has remained but the
sound hasn’t.
It is a pity.
Open to Sri Aurobindo's consciousness and let it transform your life.
- The Mother (26 September 1971)
