Marvellous creatures

In animals there is sometimes a very intense psychic truth. Naturally, I believe the psychic being is a little more formed, a little more conscious in a child than in an animal. But I have experimented with animals, just to know; well, I assure you that in human beings I have rarely come across some of the virtues which I have seen in animals, very simple unpretentious virtues. As in cats, for example: I have studied cats a lot; if one knows them well they are marvelous creatures. I have known mother-cats which have sacrificed themselves entirely for their babies- people speak of maternal love with such admiration, as though it were purely a human privilege, but I have seen this love manifested by mother-cats to a degree far surpassing ordinary humanity…

It was altogether spontaneous instinct. But what is instinct? – it is the presence of the Divine in the genus of the species, and that, that is the psychic of animals; a collective, not an individual psychic. I have seen in animals all the reaction, emotional, affective, sentimental, all the feelings of which men are so proud. The only difference is that animals cannot speak of them and write about them, so we consider them inferior beings because they cannot flood us with books on what they have felt.

I had a puss, the first time it had its kittens it did not want to move from there. It did not eat, did not satisfy any call of nature. It remained there, stuck to her kittens, shielding them, feeding them; it was so afraid that something would happen to them. And that was quite unthought out, spontaneous. It refused to move, so frightened it was that some harm might come to them – just through instinct. And then, when they were bigger, the trouble it took to educate them- it was marvelous. And what patience! And how it taught them to jump from wall to wall, to catch their food, how, with what care, it repeated once, ten times, a hundred times if necessary. It was never tired until the little one had done what it wanted. An extraordinary education! It taught them how to skirt houses following the edge of walls, how to walk so as not to fall, what had to be done when there was much space between one wall and another, in order to cross over. The little ones were quite afraid when they saw the gap and refused to jump because they were frightened and then the mother jumped, it went over to the other side, it called them: come, come along. They did not move, they were trembling. It jumped back and then gave them a speech; it gave them little blows with its paw and licked them, yet they did not move. It jumped. I saw it do this for over half an hour. But after half an hour it found that they had learnt enough, so it went behind the one it evidently considered the most ready, the most capable, and gave it a hard knock with its head. Then the little one, instinctively, jumped. Once it had jumped, it jumped again and again and again…

There are few mothers who have this patience.

(“Collected works of the Mother”, Volume 4, Centenary Edition , Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1972, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry)