Page 22 - All India Magazine Sep-2026

The Mother's advice on Japa
Sri Aurobindo gave me two days of this — total bliss. But all
the same, by the end of the second day I realised that I could not
continue to remain there, for the work was not advancing. The
work must be done in the body; the realisation must be attained
here in this physical world, for otherwise it is not complete. So I
withdrew from that world and set to work here again.
And yet, it would take little, very little, to pass from this
world to the other, or for the other to become the real world. A
little click would be enough, or rather a little reversal in the inner
attitude. How should I put it? ... It is imperceptible to the ordi-
nary consciousness; a very little inner shift would be enough, a
change in quality.
It is similar with this japa: an imperceptible little change, and
one can pass from a more or less mechanical, more or less effi-
cient and real japa, to the true japa full of power and light. I even
wondered if this difference is what the tantrics call the 'power'
of the japa. For example, the other day I was down with a cold.
Each time I opened my mouth, there was a spasm in the throat
and I coughed and coughed. Then a fever came. So I looked, I
saw where it was coming from, and I decided that it had to stop.
I got up to do my japa as usual, and I started walking back and
forth in my room. I had to apply a certain will. Of course, I could
do my japa in trance, I could walk in trance while repeating the
japa, because then you feel nothing, none of all the body's draw-
backs. But the work has to be done in the body! So I got up and
started doing my japa. Then, with each word pronounced — the
Light, the full Power. A power that heals everything. I began the
japa tired, ill, and I came out of it refreshed, rested, cured. So
those who tell me they come out of it exhausted, contracted,
emptied, it means that they are not doing it in the true way.
I understand why certain tantrics advise saying the japa in

22 All India Magazine, September 2026