True mastery — Mother

To master something, a movement, is simply, by your presence, without a word or explanation, to replace the wrong vibration by the right vibration. It is this which constitutes the power of mastery; not speaking or explaining. With the word and the explanation, and even with a certain emanation of force, you can have an influence over someone, but you cannot master the movement. The mastery over the movement means the capacity to set against the vibration of this movement, a vibration that is stronger and more true and that can put a stop to the other vibration.

     I will give you a very easy example. Two persons are quarrelling before you. Not only are they quarrelling but they are about to come to blows. You explain to them that it is not a thing to be done, you give them good reasons so that they may stop and they do stop. You would have had an influence upon them. But if simply you stand before them, you look at them and put forward a vibration of peace, calm, tranquillity without uttering a single word, without any explanation, the other vibration can exist no more, it falls by itself. That is mastery.

It is the same thing for the cure of ignorance. If you need words to explain something, it is not the true knowledge. If I have to utter all that I utter in order to make you understand me, it is not mastery, it is simply an influence that I am able to exercise upon your intelligence and help you to understand, awaken in you the desire to know, to discipline yourself etc. But if I am not able by simply looking at you, without saying a word, to put into you the light that will make you understand, then I would not have mastered the state of ignorance. You understand ? (The questioner makes a sign of yes). Good.

Q: The problem arises in the class.

Mother: Oh ! Oh ! You get angry with your students ?

Q: No, but how to control or discipline them, when one has not the mastery over oneself ?

Mother: One cannot !

Q: But if we are to do as you say, have the mastery, that will take the whole life.

 Mother:   It is a pity ! (laughter) But how do you propose to do otherwise ? For example, you have a student who is undisciplined, disobedient, insolent; that means a certain vibration in the atmosphere which is moreover, unfortunately, very contagious; but if you do not have, you, in yourself, the contrary vibration, the vibration of discipline, order, humility, a quietness and peace that nothing can upset, then how can you hope to have any influence? Are you going to tell him, that it should not be done? Either he will turn worse or he will make fun of you. And if by any chance you do not have yourself the control and you become angry, then it is finished, you lose for the whole of your life any possibility of having authority over your pupils.

     Teachers who do not possess a perfect calm, an unfailing endurance, an unshakable quietness, who are full of self-conceit will reach nowhere.

    One must be a saint and a hero to become a good teacher.

    One must be a great Yogi to become a good teacher.

    One must have the perfect attitude in order to be able to exact from one’s pupils a perfect attitude.

    You cannot ask of a person what you do not do yourself. It is a rule.

    You must then look within you at the difference between what is and what should be, and this difference will give you the measure of your failure in the class.

    That is all I can offer to you.

   And I add, since I have the occasion, this : We ask many students here, when they are grown up and know something, to teach others. Some, I suppose, know why; but there are also those who think that it is because to serve in some way is good and because after all there is need of teachers and you are content to have them. But I tell you—for it is a fact—I have never asked any of those—who were educated here—to give lessons unless I saw that it would be for him the best means of disciplining himself, of learning in the best way what he has to teach and to attain an inner perfection which he would never have if he were not a teacher and had not this occasion for disciplining himself, which is exceptionally hard.