The Two Who Are One
Sri Aurobindo | The Mother
The Two Who are One
There are Two who are One and play in many worlds;
In Knowledge and Ignorance they have spoken and met
And light and darkness are their eyes’ interchange;
Our pleasure and pain are their wrestle and embrace,
Our deeds, our hopes are intimate to their tale;
They are married secretly in our thought and life.
The universe is an endless masquerade:
For nothing here is utterly what it seems;
It is a dream-fact vision of a truth
Which but for the dream would not be wholly true,
A phenomenon stands out significant
Against dim backgrounds of eternity;
We accept its face and pass by all it means;
A part is seen, we take it for the whole.
Thus have they made their play with us for roles:
Author and actor with himself as scene,
He moves there as the Soul, as Nature she …
This is the knot that ties together the stars:
The Two who are one are the secret of all power,
The Two who are one are the might and right in things.
His soul, silent, supports the world and her,
His acts are her commandment’s registers.
Happy, inert, he lies beneath her feet:
His breast he offers for her cosmic dance
Of which our lives are the quivering theatre,
And none could bear but for his strength within,
Yet none would leave because of his delight …
– Sri Aurobindo
(While looking at the Samadhi)
I do not want to be worshipped. I have come to work, not to be worshipped; let them worship Thee to their heart’s content and leave me, silent and hidden, to do my work undisturbed – and of all veils the body is the best.
– The Mother
Without him, I exist not;
without me, he is unmanifest.
– The Mother
Part 1 AN INDIVISIBLE UNITY
Chapter 1
One Consciousness
Words of Sri Aurobindo
The opposition between the Mother’s consciousness and my consciousness was an invention of the old days (due mainly to X, Y and others of that time) and emerged in a time when the Mother was not fully recognised or accepted by some of those who were here at the beginning. Even after they had recognised her they persisted in this meaningless opposition and did great harm to them and others. The Mother’s consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in two, because that is necessary for the play. Nothing can be done without her knowledge and force, without her consciousness – if anybody really feels her consciousness, he should know that I am there behind it and if he feels me it is the same with hers. If a separation is made like that (I leave aside the turns which their minds so strongly put upon these things), how can the Truth establish itself – from the Truth there is no such separation.
Chapter 2
One Force
Words of Sri Aurobindo
Is there any difference in your working and the Mother’s working – I mean any difference in the force or effectivity?
No, it is a single Power.
Words of Sri Aurobindo
Of course you are right in saying we are one and whatever is given is from both. If I give, the Mother’s Force goes with it, or else the sadhak would get nothing, and if the Mother gives, my support goes with it and gives it my light as well as the Mother’s. It is two sides of one indivisible action, one carrying with it the other. It is the Mother’s Force that gives the push, but also the peace.