Page 8 - All India Magazine Sep-2026

meditation or concentration, something around them remains
hazy and vague. Whereas the japa imparts to those who prac-
tice it a kind of precision, a kind of solidity: an armature. They
become galvanised, as it were.
The Mother: Conversation with a disciple, May 19, 1959
Japa and the physical body
Japa, like meditation, is a procedure — apparently the most
active and effective procedure — for joining, as much as possi-
ble, the Divine Presence to the bodily substance. It is the magic
of sound, you see.
Naturally, if there's also an awareness of the idea behind
it, if one does japa as a very active conscious invocation, then
its effects are greatly multiplied. But the basis is the magic of
sound. This is a fact of experience, and it's absolutely true. The
sound OM, for instance, awakens very special vibrations (there
are other such sounds as well, but of course that one is the
most powerful of all).
It is an attempt to divinise material substance.
From another, almost identical point of view, it fills the
physical atmosphere with the Divine Presence. So time spent
in japa is time consecrated to helping the material substance
enter into more intimate rapport with the Divine.
And if one adds to this, as I do, a mantric program, that is, a
sort of prayer or invocation, a program for both personal devel-
opment and helping the collective, then it becomes a truly ac-
tive work. Then there's also what I call "external" work: contact
with others, reading and answering letters, seeing and speaking
to people, and finally all the activities having to do with the or-
ganisation and running of the Ashram (in meditation this work
becomes worldwide, but physically, materially, it is limited for
the moment to the Ashram).
The Mother: Conversation with a disciple, February 3, 1962

8 All India Magazine, September 2026