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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center; line-height:150%;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><b>
<span
lang=EN-GB><font size="4">A Canadian Question</font><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<div class=Section1>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><span lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Arial Narrow";
mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>Question:<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:
10.3pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB><span
style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>IT is written in <i>A Practical <span
lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:"Arial Narrow"'>Guide
</span>to Integral Yoga</i>&sup1;<i>:<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:10.3pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><span
lang=EN-GB><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:27.0pt;text-align:justify;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:27.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB>The physical nearness to the Mother is
indispensable for the fullness of the sadhana on the physical plane. Transformation
of the physical and external being is not possible otherwise.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent3 style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><span lang=EN-GB>My question is: How are we to
interpret these words in the light of the Mother's recent passing? Does this
mean that a full transformation is no longer possible to the aspirant? Or has
discipleship on the material level in the path of the Integral Yoga come to an
end?</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><span lang=EN-GB>Answer:<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:11.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Obviously, the immediate
programme of a physical transformation is postponed – not cancelled.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>But what we have been given is not less of a miracle. Mother has
prepared for us her new body in the inner world, in the subtle physical which
is as living and tangible as her physical body even though not as concrete. In
one of her last Notes2 she refers to this new transformed body and she
describes it as presented to her vision. That body she has built up in her long
arduous labours, built up in a complete form and left with us and with
humanity.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:11.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>This new body of hers,
prepared behind the material curtain, she sought to infuse into the material
form, even press into it or</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:11.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span style='mso-tab-count:1' lang="EN-GB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:11.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>&sup1; </span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt'>Sri Aurobindo
Ashram Trust, 1970, p. 179.<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:11.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>&sup2; </span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt'>Notes on the Way:
Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education – August 1972
(Notes on </span><st1:date Year="1972" Day="25" Month="3"><span lang=EN-GB
 style='font-size:10.0pt'>25-3-72</span></st1:date><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:10.0pt'>).</span><span
lang=EN-GB><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:center 143.75pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page
– 88<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:12.0pt;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:center 143.75pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE><span lang=EN-GB>force into it this
new element; but Matter and man's physical nature were not yet ready: Earth
still considered it as an intrusion, as something foreign. The material casing
broke down in consequence – perhaps not broke down, rather broke through: but
that must be another story.</span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>But it is there living and glorious in its beauty and power and is
still at work within us, and around us in the world, incessantly, towards the
final consummation of its material embodiment.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>What is expected of us is to see this golden Mother within us and
try to become, as she always wanted, her golden children, within and without.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>Sri Aurobindo speaks of an inner mind, an inner vital, <span
class=GramE>an</span> inner physical. Only the other day the passage was read
out at the playground-meditation.&sup3; <span class=GramE>The</span> golden body,
the new body, is formed out of an inner mind, an inner vital and an inner
physical, renewed and reshaped. We can show our love for her, requite the debt
that we owe to her Grace by admitting her Presence into our physical being and
allowing her to do the work she has undertaken to do.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>(2)</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>For us now it is time to make amends for the lapses of the past – there
were lapses, indeed, grievous lapses. So long her physical body was our
protection; we did not suffer the full consequences of our Karma because her
body acted as buffer: it broke the force of the impact of the karma and reduced
its evil effects to a minimum. Her body bore our burden and relieved us of the
misery otherwise due to us. Mankind, the the world even, does not know the
saving Grace that her material frame brought to them They would have gone down
to destruction and dissolution but for the presence of the Divine Body.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.55pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>The world has <span class=GramE>survived,</span> mankind has an
assured future, that is the work done by her body. It aimed at a little more,
to show us something of the concrete form of the future, but evidently that was
not to be, because something from us also,</span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.55pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB>&sup3; </span><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt'>Sri Aurobindo: <i>Letters on Toga, </i>Sri
Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol. 22, pp. 307-8.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>
<span
lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 89<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:12.0pt;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE><span
lang=EN-GB>from the world and mankind, some
helping hand in the labour was needed – we remember her ringing words: <i>Si l’humanit&eacute;
consentait &agrave; &ecirc;tre </i>spiritualis&eacute;e</span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-family:
"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>ï€ƒ</span><span
lang=EN-GB> –<i> well, </i>that is the minimum, that minimum was also not granted
to her body. Her body was made so easily available to all without any trouble
and effort on our part that we lost all sense of the precious things brought to
us, brought to our very door. We did not know how to make use of it and have
the true benefit out of it. Many a time she did say something to us to that
effect regretfully, we wasted a treasure like the pampered prodigal son.</span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>It is regrettable but she has left no cause for our regret <span
class=GramE>She</span> has left with us the true source of her protective
power, her living Consciousness concretised in the earth's atmosphere, in the
personal atmosphere of each one of us. We have only to open our grateful eyes
and see it. The ladder has been taken away, but she has come nearer to us and a
little uplift will replace us within her arms.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.75pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB>Since we have no longer the support of her body on which we depended
almost exclusively, we are compelled to seek the true support, the support of
her, consciousness, the inner reality – her inner presence, her living Person
within – which her body represented, whose acquaintance we were not careful
enough to cultivate. Now we are thrown upon the only alternative available.
The way will be arduous; we could have much more easily mounted up the ladder
of consciousness with the aid of her body, almost playfully like children. Now
a little bit of austerity will be needed to go on our own, the austerity will
be needed to bring our external life and physical consciousness in line with <span
class=GramE>her own</span> consciousness, to prepare them, to make them ready.
Her material body offered an unconditional help and protection, now all that
will be conditional – conditional upon our willing co-operation, our happy and
conscious collaboration – of course the Grace will be always there. Once she
asked us point-blank, for the crisis was upon us – Are you ready? Almost
unthinkingly, in a gesture of bravado and gallantry, many answered &quot;yes,
we are.&quot; But we were not in fact.</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:11.25pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB><span style='mso-tab-count:1'>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>The task then for us and
for the world is to make ourselves ready, that is to say, make our physical
being and consciousness</span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:11.25pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&nbsp;</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;tab-stops:11.25pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
lang=EN-GB style='font-family:"Book Antiqua";mso-bidi-font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>ï€ƒ</span><span
lang=EN-GB> </span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt'>&quot;If only
mankind consented to be spiritualised.&quot;<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:11.25pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 90<o:p></o:p></span></p>

<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:12.0pt;
mso-pagination:none;tab-stops:11.25pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none'>

<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center>

</div>

<div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;mso-border-bottom-alt:
solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 0in'>

<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:0;text-align:justify;line-height:150%;
mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none;border:medium none;
mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 0in 0in; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE><span lang=EN-GB>free of the old
reactions, instilling into them the consciousness that she is, with which she still
embraces us – so that when the next call comes, although the call is always
there, we may answer with truth on our lips – &quot;We are ready.&quot;</span></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-top:0;text-align:center;
line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:
none;border:medium none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in;
mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 0in 0in; margin-bottom:0'>
<span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;
'>Page – 91<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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