God as the ultimate existence that stands up creation,
I would not see this as the Mother’s fancy.
It was not her might.
It wasn’t even what she was doin’.
She was an Integral on Earth,
a divine mother in human form.
She was perfect and cast away all cares?
What does a Mother mistake look like?
It doesn’t look strong.
We can pick apart her works,
accept what we want,
throw away the rest.
No, we would not find the Mother there,
but we need to know she’s strong,
who made mistakes.

Who couldn’t see her mistakes,
would that be a bridge too far?
It’s the point of contention.
It’s where we start.
Now an integral arrangement sees everything
in light of integrality.
I will melt this understanding
if I say it too quickly.

The Yoga of Integral Perfection
calls for perfection before you start.
Is that the gardener of the house?
What does it mean be perfect in everything you do,
always be perfect,
never falter,
never let your guard down once,
and be austere always
and ban pleasure from the room,
all forms of pleasure,
and wait for the bliss divine?
I’ve paraphrased what the Mother said.

I’ve told you the truth.
You can read it yourself.
Do we take this and run with it?
We die.
It’s not possible in a human life.
This is what we avoid,
rigidity,
a non-integral arrangement.
What happened here?

The Mother spoke from her gun.
She didn’t lift her voice and sing.
She got carried away
with the force of her words.
She wanted divine perfection now.
She couldn’t possibly tell us to get there that way:
no flesh in the pan;
put it on immediately.
And yet this is what the Mother told us.
It gives us scars.
It makes us chew nails.
It can’t be right.

We are left wonderin’ what to do,
and we go to another place and she said
balance your way there;
don’t be moral-minded;
don’t be a puritan;
take it one step at a time;
come to integrality slowly
as fast as you can;
give yourself room to breathe;
it’s okay darlin’ I love you.

Can the Yoga see this,
the Mother made mistakes?
We would have to look at her death,
months of moanin’ agony,
and Pranab said she never mentioned the Work.
We have to look at this.
I’m sorry we have to.
Was this a baseball card?
No, it was her death.
It happened to the Mother,
and she spoke so bravely of death
on so many occasions.

What happened there?
All her austerities came to bear.
She couldn’t lift them no more.
They caught up to her,
and in the end they ruled her.
Do you know what she did?
She kept death at bay.
She actually, physically, kept death at bay,
and it was her time to go.
That’s what we must see,
the strength of a God was in that will,
but it was misplaced,
misapplied,
because she was there to conquer death you see.

Oh wait a minute I’m backin’ up.
She was there to override death,
make the physical a plaything of matter.
My gun has misfired,
I’m sorry.
Make the physical obey the will of the Mother.
In all her austerities involving matter,
that was her aim.

She didn’t get that far.
She came upon her consciousness
and wanted done with it,
and here’s where I do you business.
She wanted done with the spiritual transformation
before it was complete.
How do I climb that mountain?
Have patience with yourself my dear.
How did I come to that conclusion?
Evidence of the ego in Mother’s Agenda,
her outbursts of anger
on the floor,
her impatience with herself,
her still working it out in dream,
her pride
at being who she was.
The Gods wanted her darshan
she told a child once,
who had angered the Mother for not waiting on her.
Watch her hide her toothless grin.
What do you say Donny?
Mother I love you.

In his haste to put things right,
make her where the Yoga stands,
Sri Aurobindo overlooked these things in her,
and no one could challenge him otherwise.
Do you watch the Agenda?
Early on is it?
She tells Satprem she has gone beyond Sri Aurobindo.
The exact nature of her words mean that.
I think it’s the next session or shortly thereafter,
she reports Sri Aurobindo with a stomachache.
It’s all over his face.
Now this is vision of course.
What was he trying to tell her?
She missed it completely.
Do you see it?
She hadn’t gone beyond Sri Aurobindo.

These are ugly things to look at,
and we don’t want to.
The Yoga of Integral Perfection bids us do.
In her mistakes we are made right.
We let them do what they need to do,
give us some indication of the hardness of our endeavor,
know that it’s not worked out yet
the Yoga,
and help us do it ourselves,
avoiding those mistakes.

My God I’m sorry I’m showin’ this to yah.
I’ve dealt with it for years.
Maybe you have too?
There was the Mother in books,
and there was the Mother holding my hand,
now my kid’s hand,
sometimes very different Mothers.
Can you hear this?
You’d have to get concrete inner contact to see it.

I’m not down on her.
She is the one I follow
to make this yoga work for me.
It’s her hand I hold.
It’s her eyes that direct me where I’m to go.
To write this poem
I tried to tell her no.
I don’t want to make you mad at me.
Maybe we’re newfound friends?
I obey the Mother,
not always,
not every time,
but in my life
she eventually gets her way.
I concede.

In you’re hearin’ this poem
I do.
Please don’t shoot me for it.
I love the Mother.
I am her disciple,
and I take her to heart,
an integral, loving, mother
that is the divine power behind this yoga,
our protection,
and our abide by Sri Aurobindo.
Do I give you all my knowledge at once?
They are one you know.

Now let’s get this beer can
away from my lips.
The Mother wants it so.
Now every once in awhile
is fine.
Now here’s the deal:
how do you break the rules by followin’ them?
There has to be a plan,
and the Mother laid this one out for me.
I like beer,
just a beer in the evening one or two times a week,
but that would be every evening and two beers before long,
and the Mother knows that.
I could become an alcoholic
so easily.
The Mother’s told me that.
Okay here it is:
an austerity of every once in awhile
has to be followed to the letter,
and I will know what that letter is
when it comes time for another beer
inner contact with the Mother and sincere.

Can I get you a train?
She’s here for all of us,
and she’s right there with the plan
for your sadhana.
The divine mother she is.
Expanded so after death,
became that omniscient being
as far as we’re concerned
sadhaks of the Integral Yoga.
She’s our Shakti.
She’s our boss.
She’s such a loving mother,
incredibly above cars,
and you and me are a car
takin’ our yoga down the street.
My job these days
get that yoga goin’,
by principlin’ it in myself
every time I turn around,
using myself as the chopping block.
I try everybody.
It’s not like I always succeed,
but I’m the Yoga
speaking about itself.
Will you give me the time of day?
Thank you.

The Mother waits
for integral understanding,
move this yoga down the road.
Am I just a blight on y’all’s ears?
Correction.
I have the integral word.
Will you hear it?
You mean practice?
If you could do it.
Okay this is the church process.
No, it’s everything that touches you throughout the day.
It gets bigger you understand,
a divine process.
That’s an integral arrangement.

Gonna application
in the very spots that give you problems,
and you’ll get better at it every day,
with many drawbacks,
even goin’ backwards.
It’s piecemeal with sudden starts
into a brand new day.
Ever the horizon waits
for you to arrive,
and another horizon comes into view,
day after day after day.
You just integral see
you’re comin’ together on the plan,
and it’s all comin’ home to yah now
you get better at it.

Enjoy yourself some,
yeah sure.
Vital letting the hair down
puts this yoga in perspective,
and sometimes it’s not even wrong.
I can’t rulebook.
This is as plastic as infinity,
and all your nature’s on the line,
learnin’ how to control itself,
learnin’ how to be made right,
learnin’ the way to go.
It doesn’t happen all at once.
It’s a blind see
in the very beginning,
a hope and promise
in the middle,
a really coming unto yourself
a divine keeper
as you arrive.
Awesome the world looks,
and it’s not your master anymore.

Can I glide here?
This is where every minute counts.
This is where you have to do it or die.
This is what you’ve all built up to,
and you really pull it together here,
with the Mother’s help,
and it is always there,
the Mother’s see.

All I know is that cat,
she gets and spites you,
that muse of creation,
but I didn’t close this poem off to the public.
This better be good.
Because I struggled with the Mother in writing for years,
her presentation on paper,
the discrepancy between that and the Mother
that was guiding me,
and I’m not the only one.
She’s soft and warm,
but she’s fierce in her picture.
She can sound so ego
in the things that she said.
She can sound ridiculous
a time or two,
like she wasn’t grounded in reality,
especially near the end.
Her obsession with truth for example,
would if you’re hiding Jews?

Somethin’ happened to her later in life.
She became obsessed with questions
that body of hers could not answer.
She wanted immortality
that the body wrote,
and she left Sri Aurobindo’s teachings,
here and there,
in the yelp of her cells,
a sadhana so perilous,
she almost lost her mind.
She gave Satprem a golden key
to screw up the Yoga after she died,
with the transformation of the cells
what the Yoga now means
to so many in Auroville
and around the world.

She set him up for failure,
and we could not ignore him,
she put so much attention into him,
and we need to ignore him.
He was an egoistic maniac.
And what of Pranab,
did you ever meet ‘im?
A hateful man.
The Mother chose him to be her guardian,
and we’re left with his legacy today.
What a hateful ashram we have.
I’m dealin’ with that now.
My little boy makes ‘em mad,
bein' with a White man,
and they’ve been mean to him.
I can’t write poems there now.

Do you know what the Mother said about music?
Narad was gonna bring down the new music,
and he tried and tried.
There was no understandin’ what the new music was,
but it’s basically music played or sung to you on the inside,
and you’re open to supramental life.
Narad didn’t get that.
He was not a vehicle to get there.
Ananda Reddy was given a mandate to spread Sri Aurobindo’s gospel,
make it understandable to men.
He’s tried and tried.
Thinks he’s done it
from what I understand.
He’s gotten the Yoga off track
and is not open to the Mother.
He hates me,
and Narad won’t speak to me,
ever.
What do you do with that?
You call it ill will.

We’re left with the Mother speaks,
and that was not always correct.
Can we find our way around that?
I have.
I’ve confronted it head on.
I’ve seen behind the veil,
and I understand the Mother in time.
They said if you saw her you would understand.
She was more than human.
I’ve questioned so many people about that.
Her presence caused people to wonder
if not God had filled the room.
Did you know she slapped a little girl
across the face?
I heard it from her brother himself.
He witnessed it,
was a kid too.
She got mad at the child and hit her,
and no one said a word.
It was at a function and the child misbehaved,
nothing major.

Was that the first time?
Why did I hear about it?
I would imagine you haven’t.
That about wraps it up,
the last image I want you to see,
to understand
the Mother was wrong sometimes
in her earthly embodiment.
A Yoga of Self-Perfection she wore
she didn’t live up to,
never mind the Goddess behind the frame.
She told us to be perfect,
and we can’t,
not at least from day one.
I’m finished,
a poem
so real on itself
fulfills the time on the Earth.