Mother is not dead

I do not believe that Mother is dead. I feel constrained to write this because some people seem to think that Mother stopped communicating with us in 1973, and all we can do when we seek guidance now is to read what she wrote or said before that time. It gives rise to the plaintive refrain increasingly heard today – “If only Mother was here…”

But Mother made it very clear that physical death is not a terminus, merely a change of state, (a ‘change of rooms’, she once called it) and she often spoke of meeting Sri Aurobindo and conversing with him in the subtle physical after his ‘passing’ in 1950. Why should it be any different with Mother? Why should she not be there for us now? Not just as a presence – which is something a number of people experience – but as a specific guide to what we need to do at this moment? 

Moreover, when we freeze, enshrine, her words from the distant past, we neglect the fact that, particularly in her final years in the body, she was moving at light speed in terms of inner discoveries: discoveries which, she often remarked, sometimes made what she had previously understood to be true no more than partially valid, or even wrong. Why do we believe that her physical dissolution should stop this ongoing process of discovery? Why, in other words, should we believe that she had said everything she needed to say about Auroville before November 1973? (And it’s worth remembering that even during her lifetime her view of the kind of town Auroville would be and its importance to the world changed radically.)

I believe that she keeps moving, just like the universe which, she once remarked, is created new every single moment. And I believe it is her ability to identify with the Becoming, which means refusing to stand still and cling to old verities, which is one of the greatest gifts she is offering, communicating, to us today in various ways. If only we can fall silent and listen. 

Ah, there’s the rub. For, at present, our conflicting attempts to persuade others of what should happen in Auroville are generating so much noise that we cannot hear that “still, small voice”.  

The implication is obvious: if we really want to hear her, we need to quieten the noise to help create the best conditions for receiving her. Which means, among other things, that all of us, whatever our orientation, need to abandon our preconceptions about how things should be  in order to make room for the Mother of today; for That which is continually new, continually unfolding. And, maybe, hopefully, utterly surprising. For I sense that, in spite of our best intentions, many of us – and I certainly include myself in this – seem stuck in old frameworks of thought and action. 

This certainly doesn’t mean that we should ignore or downgrade everything she has already expressed. Clearly, her explanations of the divine provenance of Auroville, and the indispensable conditions for receiving the New Consciousness or becoming a ‘true’ Aurovilian are not up for discussion.  But it does suggest that some of her other statements can be viewed as doorways rather than final destinations, to be explored further in the light of what she is revealing moment by moment of the eternal Unfolding.

In this context, clearly the psychic guidance is indispensable. But even before the full psychic contact is made I believe that Mother provides indications, in many subtle ways, of what should or should not be done. Having said that, I find it hard, very hard to listen for that guidance – I, too, have many preferences about what should happen which get in the way – but I believe, I absolutely believe, that that guidance is there, waiting to be heard. And then – even harder – acted upon. 

Of course, we need to be wary of those who too readily claim to be hearing the voice of Mother. We know this has been misused. But this should not prevent us from making the attempt, and encouraging others to do so. For if we don’t make the attempt, I feel we consign her to the grave… Along, of course, with ourselves.