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Words of Sri Aurobindo

The role of the leader, the captain, the power and skill of his leadership, his ability to command the confidence and ready obedience of his followers is of the utmost importance in all kinds of combined action or enterprise; but few can develop these things without having learned themselves to obey and to act as one mind or as one body with others. This strictness of training, this habit of discipline and obedience is not inconsistent with individual freedom; it is often the necessary condition for its right use, just as order is not inconsistent with liberty but rather the condition for the right use of liberty and even for its preservation and survival. In all kinds of concerted action this rule is indispensable: orchestration becomes necessary and there could be no success for an orchestra in which individual musicians played according to their own fancy and refused to follow the indications of the conductor.

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Words of the Mother

Every group, if it is a real one – that is, one made up according to the ability of the individuals who compose it – must necessarily be hierarchical.

But there are considerable obstacles to the realisation of this hierarchy:

(1) First, when the group is incomplete – that is, when it does not have all the members necessary to constitute the hierarchy and certain functions or intermediaries are missing.

(2) The indiscipline of certain members refusing wholly or in part to occupy the place assigned to them. When order and harmony are established, the hierarchy is organised quite naturally and spontaneously.

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Words of the Mother

Mother, to continue this question about the last sentence: “The Supreme has laid his luminous hand upon a chosen human vessel of his miraculous Light...”

Yes.

Can this be applied generally or is it for one in a million?

What do you mean by “generally”? Everyone on earth? Is that what you mean?

All those who aspire and do yoga, or is it only one person?

Oh! now it begins to take shape! (Laughter) Is it only one individual the Divine chooses to manifest Him or can He choose several? – He chooses several.

But here too there is a hierarchy. One can understand nothing of the spiritual life if one does not understand the true hierarchy.

Nowadays it’s not in fashion. It is something which human thought doesn’t favour at all. But from the spiritual point of view, it is automatic, spontaneous and indisputable. And so, if the hierarchy is true, there is a place for everybody; and for each individual in his own place, his individual truth is absolute. That is to say, each element which is truly in its place has a total and perfect relation with the Divine – in its place. And yet, on the whole, there is a hierarchy which too is quite absolute. But to understand spiritual life one must first understand that; and it isn’t very easy.

Everyone can be a perfect expression of the Divine in himself, on condition that he knows his place and keeps to it.

And if they do not know the hierarchy, they cannot know this?

But they don’t need to know that they form a hierarchy, it is not necessary to know it. It is only if one wants to physically organise a spiritual society – then one has to materialise the hierarchy. But generally, in the world as it is, there are so many gaps in this hierarchy that it seems a confusion.

The perfect hierarchy is a total hierarchy, and it is not concerned with time and space. But when you want to realise this physically it becomes very difficult. It’s like weaving a piece of cloth with lots of holes everywhere; and the holes disturb the general harmony. Always people are missing, steps are missing, pieces are missing on the chess-board – all this is missing. So it looks like a confusion. But if everything were expressed and each thing in its place, it would be a perfect harmony and a perfect hierarchy.

There is somewhere – not in the material universe, but in the manifested universe – this perfect hierarchy; it exists. But it is not yet manifested upon earth.

Perhaps this will be one of the results of the supramental transformation: the world will be ready for a perfect, spontaneous, essentially true hierarchical manifestation – and without any kind of coercion – where everyone will become aware of his own perfection.

Mother, what does a spiritual hierarchy mean exactly? Because when we speak of hierarchy that implies something graded in a superior and inferior order, doesn’t it?

Yes, and that’s quite wrong. That is to say, materially it is like that. But this is not what I call a hierarchy.

Then what is a hierarchy?

It is the organisation of the functions and the manifestation in action of the particular nature of each person.

We have often tried to find comparisons, but they are worthless. For none of the things we know physically can answer to that condition. There is always the sense of superiority and inferiority as you say.... Some have compared a hierarchy to the various functions of the body, for example. But that always gives the impression that the head is at the top and the feet at the bottom, so it is a nuisance!

Each element is the whole Divine at the same time, then how can we speak of a hierarchy?

Each element has a direct and perfect relation with the Divine.

But can’t they become the whole Divine?

Yes, all become the Divine; but not the totality of the Divine, for the Divine is everything. You can’t take a piece of the Divine and say, “This is the Divine.” And yet, in his spiritual consciousness each one has a perfect relation with the Divine, that is to say, each one is the Divine as perfectly as he can be. But to reconstruct the Divine, all the Divine is necessary. And it is precisely this that constitutes the very essence of hierarchy. But as each one is perfect in himself, there can be no feeling of inferiority or superiority.

I don’t think the human mentality can understand that. I think it must be lived; once one has lived it, it is very simple, it appears luminously simple. But to understand it with the mind is not possible, it seems impossible. Above all because the mind, in order to understand anything at all, has to divide and contrast everything, otherwise it does not understand, it gets confused. By its very functioning, it becomes incapable of understanding.

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Words of the Mother

Mother, I do not understand what You mean by the formation of a hierarchicised group.

A hierarchicised group means a group in which the activities and functions are organised according to individual ability, with a leader at the centre. A military organisation, for example, is a hierarchy.

Here is a diagram of the ancient traditional hierarchies.

1 – 4 – 8 – 16 and so on.

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Words of the Mother

And if each one goes on doing what he thinks best, the whole organisation will end in a chaos.

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