PROGRESS
Who is this “Mother”?
The following progressive practice resonated with me and I shared it online in 2011, and in my book in 2019 with that question in mind:
Becoming Aware of ‘Oneself’
“It’s one of the most indispensable things to do if one wants to succeed in having self-control and even a limited self-knowledge: to be able to localise one’s consciousness and move it about in the different parts of one’s being, in such a way as to distinguish between one’s consciousness and one’s thoughts, feelings, impulses, become aware of what the consciousness is in itself. And in this way one can learn how to shift it: one can put one’s consciousness in the body, put it in the vital, put it in the psychic (that’s the best place to put it in); one can put one’s consciousness in the mind, can raise it above the mind, and with one’s consciousness one can go into all the regions of the universe.
But first of all one must know what one’s consciousness is, that is, become conscious of one’s consciousness, localise it. And for this there are many exercises. One of them is very well known, it is to observe oneself and watch oneself living, and then see whether it is really the body which is the consciousness of the being, what one calls ‘myself’; and then when one has realised that it is not at all the body, that the body expresses something else, then one searches in his impulses, emotions, to see whether it’s that, and again one finds out that it is not that; and then one seeks in his thoughts, whether the thought is truly himself, what he calls ‘myself’, and at the end of a very short time one becomes aware: “No, I am thinking, therefore ‘myself’ is different from my thoughts.”
And so, by progressive eliminations one succeeds in entering into contact with something, something which gives you the impression of being — “Yes, that’s ‘myself’. And this something I can move around, I can move it from my body to my vital, to my mind, I can even, if I am very … how to put it? … very practised in moving it, I can move it into other people, and it’s in this way that I can identify myself with things and people. I can with the help of my aspiration make it come out of my human form, rise above towards regions which are not longer this little body at all and what it contains.”
And so one begins to understand what one’s consciousness is; and it’s after that that one can say, “Good, I shall unite my consciousness with my psychic being and shall leave it there, so that it may be in harmony with the Divine.” Or else, “If by this exercise of rising above my faculties of thinking and my intellect I can enter a region of pure light, pure knowledge …”, then one can put his consciousness there and live like that, in a luminous splendour which is above the physical form.
But first this consciousness must be mobile, and one must know how to distinguish it from the other parts of the being which in fact are its instruments, its modes of expression. The consciousness must make use of these things, and you should not mistake these things for the consciousness. You put the consciousness in these things, so you become conscious of your body, conscious of your vital, conscious of your mind, conscious of all your activities through your will for identification. But for this, first you must be sure that your consciousness is not entangled, mixed, or joined, so to say, with all these things. It must not take them for itself, must not be mistaken.
When one thinks of oneself (obviously out of millions of men perhaps there are not ten who do otherwise), one thinks “Myself … that’s my body, that’s what I call ‘myself’, what’s like this. And so, I am like that; and then my neighbour, he also is the body. When I speak of another person, I speak of his body.” And so, as long as one is in this state, one is the plaything of all possible movements and has no self-control. The body is the last instrument and yet it’s this which one calls ‘myself’ most of the time, unless one has begun to reflect.”
– The Mother
2011.01.28
Who is this “Mother”?
The Question
Is the Beacon
That Beckons
The Quest
2019.01.28
Answers reveal themselves spontaneously along progressive/regressive stages of the quest. It took many years before I discovered this book online:
The Mother, The Story of Her Life by Georges Van Vrekhem
http://sri-aurobindo.in/workings/other/van_vrekhem-mother.htm
. . .
– excerpt from One Earth, The Divine Field of Our Evolving Consciousness and Life – Poems Sharings & Yoga
Happy birthday dearest Mother, and thank you so much for everything, even leaving us an Auroville, and especially for incarnating with Sri Aurobindo and giving birth to the New World.

In eternal gratitude please continue to bestow upon us your blessings, your guidance, your clarity, your protection and your Grace so that this bundle of We may continue what You both have started towards a Life Divine here on Earth.
Om Namo Bhagavate

— Zech . 2022.02.21
Featured Flower:
Progress
This is why we are on earth.
. . .
Give up all personal seeking for comfort, satisfaction, enjoyment or happiness. Be only a burning fire for progress, take whatever comes to you as an aid to your progress and immediately make whatever progress is required.
. . .
It is especially the will for progress and self-purification that lights the fire. The will for progress. When those who have a strong will turn it towards spiritual progress and purification, they automatically light the fire within themselves.
. . .
The thirst for progress, the thirst to know, the thirst to transform yourself, and above all the thirst for Love and Truth – if you keep that, you go faster. Truly a thirst, a need, you know, a need. All the rest has no importance, what you need is that.
No more bonds – free, free, free, free! Always ready to change everything, except one thing: to aspire. That thirst. The “Something” we need, the Perfection we need, the Light we need, the Love we need, the Truth we need, the supreme Perfection we need – and that’s all. The formulas – the fewer the formulas, the better. A need, a need, a need . . . which only the Thing can satisfy, nothing else, no half measure. Only That. And then, move on, move on! Your path will be your path, it doesn’t matter; any path, any path whatever.
THE MOTHER