Mother’s Conversation dated 14 June 1965

We are putting together … (what can I call it?) a set of rules (oh, that's an ugly word) for admission to the Ashram … Yes! … Not that if you accept the rules you're admitted, it's not that, but when someone is admitted, we tell him, "But, you know, here is …" (when he is potentially admitted), "here is what you are committing yourself to by becoming a member of the Ashram." Because requests for admission are pouring in like locusts, and at least ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it's from people who want to come here to be comfortable and rest and do nothing—one in a hundred comes because he has a spiritual aspiration (oh, and even then … it's mixed). So they shouldn't tell us afterwards (because we've had such experiences), "Oh, but I didn't know it was that way," with the excuse that they hadn't been told. For instance, "I didn't know we weren't allowed to ..." (Mother questions herself for a moment) What isn't allowed? ... (laughing) Smoking isn't allowed. And drinking alcohol isn't allowed, being married isn't allowed, except nominally, and so on. And then you have to work, and all your desires aren't automatically satisfied. So they send me letters, "But you told me that …" (oh, things I never said, naturally), "at such-and-such a date" (you understand, sufficiently far back for me not to remember!), "you told me that …" And from what they write I see very clearly what I said and how they turned it upside down. So now we'll prepare a paper that we'll give them to read, and we'll ask them, "Have you clearly understood?" And when they have said they've clearly understood and have signed, at least we'll keep the paper, and when they start being a nuisance, we can show it to them and tell them, "Beg your pardon, we told you this wasn't a …" (what's the word?) "an Eden where you can stay without doing anything and where your bread is buttered on both sides!"

So I put as first condition (I wrote it in English): the sole aim of life is to dedicate oneself to the divine realization (I didn't put it in these terms, but that's the idea). You must first (you may deceive yourself, but that doesn't make any difference), first be convinced that this is what you want and you want this alone—primo. Then Nolini told me that the second condition should be that my absolute authority had to be recognized. I said, "Not like that!", we should put that "Sri Aurobindo's absolute authority is recognized" (we can add [laughing!], "represented by me," because he cannot speak, of course, except to me—to me he speaks very clearly, but others don't hear!). Then there are many other things, I don't remember, and finally a last paragraph that goes like this (Mother looks for a note) … Previously, I remember, Sri Aurobindo had also put together a little paper to give people, but it's outdated (it was about not quarrelling with the police! And what else, I don't remember—it's outdated.) But I didn't want to put prohibitions in, because prohibitions … first of all, it's an encouragement to revolt, always, and then there is a good proportion of characters who, when they are forbidden to do something, immediately feel an urge to do it—they might not even have thought of it otherwise, but they just have to be told about it to ... "Ah, but I do as I like." All right.

(Mother starts reading) To those … I am making a distinction: there are people who come here and want to dedicate themselves to divine life, but they come to do work and they will work (they won't do an intensive yoga because not one in fifty is capable of doing it, but they are capable of dedicating their life and of working and doing good work disinterestedly, as a service to the Divine—that's very good), but in particular, To those who want to practice the integral yoga, it is strongly advised to abstain from three things … So, the three things (laughing) you put your fingers in your ears): sexual intercourse (it comes third) and drinking alcohol and ... (whispering) smoking.

I must tell you that I was born in a family in which nobody smoked: my father had never smoked and neither had his brothers—anyway, no one smoked. So since my early childhood, I hadn't been used to others smoking. Later, when I lived with artists … Artists smoke, of course (it seems it gives them "inspiration"!), but I detested the smell. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to be unpleasant, but I detested it. Then I came here—Sri Aurobindo smoked. He smoked deliberately, he smoked in order to say: one can do the yoga while smoking, I say one can smoke and do the yoga, and I smoke. And he smoked. And naturally all the disciples smoked, since Sri Aurobindo smoked. For some time, I even gave them pocket money so they could buy cigars (they smoked cigars—it was ghastly!). Then I came to live in Sri Aurobindo's house, we spoke freely, and one day I told him, "How awful the smell of smoke is! (laughing) It's disgusting!" So he said to me, "Oh, you don't like the smell?" "Oh, no!" I said, "Not only that, but I had to make a yogic effort to stop it from making me feel sick!" The next day, he had stopped. It was over, he never smoked again … That was kind. It wasn't on principle, it was because he didn't want to impose the smell on me. But I had never said anything: it was simply because he asked me just like that, while talking, so I told him. And when he stopped smoking, everyone had to stop too—smoking wasn't allowed anymore, since he didn't smoke anymore.

No, for those who don't smoke (laughing), others' smoke is very …

But it was the same thing for food, meat and so on. For a long time we ate meat; it was even very funny. Pavitra was a strict vegetarian when he came, and at the time, not only were we not vegetarian but the chickens were killed in the courtyard (!) and … (laughing) Pavitra had the room right next to the kitchen—the chickens used to be killed under his nose! Oh, poor Pavitra! Then it stopped for a very simple reason (not at all on principle): feeding people with meat is far costlier than being vegetarian! It meant complications. I was personally vegetarian out of taste—everything is out of taste, not on principle. I became vegetarian at the beginning of the century, oh, a long time ago … (yes, it must have been more than sixty years ago), because in my childhood I was forced to eat meat, and it disgusted me (not the idea: it was the taste I didn't like, it disgusted me!) and the doctor said I should be given pickles and all sorts of things to mask the taste. So as soon as I was independent and free, I said, "Finished! (laughing) Ah, no! I won't eat meat anymore"—not as a rule, since now and then I still take foie gras (that's not vegetarian!) and for a long time I went on eating crayfish or lobster, things like that—no rules, oh, for heaven's sake no rules, but taste. But … it's "complications," that's exactly how I felt. And when I moved to this room (you know that they stuck me in bed for I don't know how long—I can't manage to find out how long, no one wants to tell me), and when I started eating again, the doctor made me take chicken bouillon; but for that chicken bouillon they had to assassinate one chicken a day—they assassinated one chicken every day for me to have my chicken bouillon. Then, when the hot season came, they told me that the chickens were sick (the heat makes them sick) and that, after all, maybe it wasn't so good to eat sick-chicken soup! So I said, "Stop it, do stop it!" And once I had stopped, ah, my heart was glad: "Now (laughing) we don't assassinate chickens anymore!" So I said, "Finished, we won't do it again." But as it happens, it's precisely during that time that I put on two kilos (at the time the doctor used to take my weight), and he said, "See, you have put on weight!" I told him, "But I am not keen to put on weight!"

Courtesy: http://mother-agenda.narod.ru/

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The Lives of Sri Aurobindo: Two Examples

The house on rue François Martin that Aurobindo and his companions moved into on October 11, 1913 was in the White Town … there was a single tap for bathing and only enough soap for use every three or four days … Lacking oil and shampoo, Aurobindo’s shoulder length hair got so dirty and tangled that his combs broke after a month of use. He had neither brush nor stick to clean his teeth; yoga force and an occasional rubbing with cigar ash sufficed. The others were amazed that, despite this treatment, his teeth retained their whiteness and freshness. [1]

The main meal consisted of rice and fish, often wine, which was cheap in French Pndicherry ... 

Aurobindo had been a smoker since his student days in England. The Bengalis in the household followed his example to the extent that a measurable portion of the household budget went to cigarettes, cigars, and matches. Aurobindo’s conviction that yoga had nothing to do with what one ate, drank, or inhaled made him unwilling to give up the habit. Once when someone suggested that his persistent cough was due to his cigars, he flared up, saying, “If the cigars are going to kill me I am not worthy of living. I would prefer to die.” [2] His attitude towards alcohol was similar, and once or twice he drank bhāng, a cannabis preparation, to see what effect it would have on him. It had no effect at all. Wine enhanced his power of vision, but he never deliberately drank to stimulate what came to him naturally. [3]

Living conditions at 41 François Martin remained Spartan. Subscriptions to the Arya and remittances from Motilal Roy brought in just enough to repair the house, mend clothes, or stock up on soap. This “ascetic tendency,” Aurobindo wrote in Record, was just something “that circumstances seemed to demand.” [4]

Aurobindo and Mrinalini had been married for seventeen years … Her father summed up the situation in a sentence: “There was no issue of the marriage.” After Aurobindo entered what he called “the sexual union dignified by the name of marriage,” he seems to have found the state bothersome and uninteresting.” [5]

[1] The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, p. 248. Reference regarding “whiteness and freshness” has been made to Purani’s manuscripts in the Archives. However, be it noted that young Purani’s first meeting with Sri Aurobindo was after the Armistice of November 1918 whereas the date given here is 11 October 1913. What was Purani’s source to what prevailed prior to his arrival in Pondicherry in the year 1918? In fact we do not have any idea about the date of the said manuscript itself, its bibliographical background etc, nor are known the contextual details.

[2] Reference is made to Purani manuscripts in the Archives.

[3] The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, p. 248. No reference to the source of information given.

[4] The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, p. 312. Reference to the Record given here has the following entry: “There is a struggle between the ascetic tendency which the circumstances seem to demand & Janaka ideal which has hitherto been imposed.” The mention of “ascetic tendency” obviously must be read in the context of “persistent recurrence of Kamananda” in the previous paragraph and not to be related to the financial position implied in the Lives; in fact the entire record here speaks of things at an altogether different level. The entry in the Record mentioned here—28 April 1914—belongs to the period before the Arya was launched.

[5] The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, p. 318. We have no idea wherefrom the details have been picked up or in what context these were made. When did he find “the state bothersome and uninteresting”?

Thought for the Day

You can’t stay young forever. But you can be immature for the rest of the life also.