Veneration and condenmation for the feminine principle in India

 

The Mother with inmates of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry

[Words of the Mother:]

Indeed, is it not in India that we find the most intense adoration, the most complete veneration of the Supreme Mother, creatrix of the universe, conqueror of all enemies, mother of all the gods and all the worlds, dispenser of all boons?

And is it not in India too that we find the most radical condemnation, the uttermost contempt for the feminine principle, Prakriti, Maya, corrupting illusion, cause of every fall and every misery, Nature that deceives and defiles and lures away from the Divine?

The whole life of India is shot through with this contradiction; she suffers from it in both mind and heart. Everywhere feminine deities are erected on her altars; the children of India await salvation and liberation from their Mother Durga. And yet is it not one of her children who said that the Avatar would never incarnate in the body of a woman, because no rightminded Hindu would recognise him! Fortunately, the Divine is not affected by such a narrow sectarian spirit or moved by such petty considerations. And when it pleases him to manifest in a terrestrial body, he cares very little whether or not he is recognised by men. Besides, in all his incarnations, he seems always to have preferred children and simple hearts to the learned.

In any case, until the manifestation of a new conception and consciousness compels Nature to create a new species which would no longer have to yield to the necessity of animal procreation and thus be under the obligation of dividing into two complementary sexes, the best that can be done for the progress of the present human race is to treat both sexes on a footing of perfect equality, to give them the same education and training and to teach them to find, through a constant contact with a Divine Reality that is above all sexual differentiation, the source of all possibilities and harmonies.

And it may be that India, the land of contrasts, will also be the land of new realisations, even as she was the cradle of their conception. 

The Mother 

Bulletin, April 1955 

[Title added, On Education, Collected Works of The Mother, Vol 12,  Pg 105]

Why I was made to start Auroville: The Mother

 

[The Mother speaks]

They wanted to prepare a sort of brochure on Auroville to distribute to the press, the government, etc., on the 28th, * and before that, there is in Delhi in two or three days a conference of all nations ("all nations" is an exaggeration, but anyway they say "all nations"). Z is going there, and she wants to take with her all the papers on Auroville. They have prepared texts – always lengthy, interminable: speeches and more speeches. So then I asked, I concentrated to know what had to be said. And all of a sudden, Sri Aurobindo gave me a revelation. That was something interesting. I concentrated to know the why, the how and so on, and all of a sudden Sri Aurobindo said... (Mother reads out a note:)

"India has become...
It was the vision of the thing, and it instantly translated into French words.
"India has become the symbolic representation of all the difficulties of modern mankind.
"India will be the land of its resurrection – the resurrection to a higher and truer life."

And the clear vision: the same thing which in the history of the universe made the earth the symbolic representation of the universe so as to concentrate the work on one point, the same phenomenon is now taking place: India is the representation of all human difficulties on earth, and it is in India that the... cure will be found. And then, that is why – THAT IS WHY I was made to start Auroville.
It came and it was so clear, so tremendously powerful!

So I wrote it down. I didn’t tell them how or why, I told them, "Put this at the beginning of your paper, whatever it is; you can say whatever you like, but put this first."
                                                                                                                                              (silence)

It was very interesting. It remained the whole time, for more than an hour, such a strong and clear vision, as if suddenly everything became clear. I often used to wonder about it (not "wonder," but there was a tension to understand why things, here in India, have become such a chaos, with such sordid difficulties, and all of it piling up), and instantly, everything became clear, like that. It was really interesting. And immediately there was: "Here is why you have made Auroville." I didn’t know it, you understand, I did the thing under pressure, and it took larger and larger proportions (it’s becoming really worldwide), and I would wonder why.... For a time I thought it was the only present possibility to prevent a war, ** but it seemed to me a somewhat superficial explanation. Then it came all of a sudden: "Ah! That’s why."

- The Mother

* February 28, Auroville Inauguration
** See Agenda 8, September 21, 1966.
[Excerpt from February 3, 1968 Mother's Agenda]