69—Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection. The sense of virtue helps us to cherish our sins in secret.
These aphorisms clearly express the futility of our ideas of sin and virtue. You had also said, following your experience of 3 February 1958,fnSee the Mother’s comments on her experience in Questions and Answers 1957–58 (19 February 1958). “I saw that what helps people to become supramental or prevents them from doing so, is very different from what our usual moral notions imagine.” You said besides, “What is very clear is that our appraisal of what is divine or undivine is not correct.… At that time I had the impression… that the relation between this world and the other completely changed the standpoint from which things should be evaluated or appraised. This standpoint had nothing mental about it and it gave a strange inner feeling that many things we consider to be good or bad are not really so. It was very clear that everything depended on the capacity of things, on their ability to express the supramental world or to be in relation with it.”
What is this supramental standpoint like? What is this capacity or this aptitude to express the supramental world or to be in relation with it?
I have already spoken a little about that in connection with 112the story of the stag going through the forest.fnSee Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Vol. XIII: 2 (April 1961), p. 23. There was an indication there.
Then I put myself in contact again with this experience of the supramental boat. My vision of things has not changed since. And I realised that the experience had had a decisive effect on the situation; it established the required conditions very clearly, very precisely, very definitively.
Once and for all it swept away not only all the ordinary notions of morality, but everything that is considered here in India as necessary for the spiritual life. From this point of view it was very instructive. First of all this kind of so-called ascetic purity. Ascetic purity is simply the rejection of all vital movements; instead of taking up these movements and turning them towards the Divine, that is to say, instead of seeing the supreme Presence in them and letting the Supreme act freely on them, you tell Him, “No, that is not your concern.” He is not allowed to interfere with them.
As for the physical, it is an old story, everyone knows: the ascetics have always rejected it, but then they added the vital. Only the things that were classically recognised as sacred or permitted by religious tradition, as for example, the sanctity of marriage and things like that, were accepted, but to live freely—oh! that was incompatible with any religious life.
So all that was completely swept away once and for all.
Which is not to say, however, that what is required is any easier. It is probably much more difficult.
First of all, from the psychological point of view, there must be the condition I spoke about in the story of the stag: perfect equality. It is an absolute condition. I have observed since 1956, for years, that no supramental vibration can be transmitted except in this perfect equality. If there is the least opposition to this equality—in fact the least movement of ego, any preference of 113the ego, it does not come through, it is not transmitted. This is already difficult enough.
Added to this, there are two conditions for the realisation to become total and they are not easily fulfilled. It is not very difficult on the intellectual plane—I am not speaking here of just anyone at all but of people who have already practised yoga and followed a discipline—it is relatively easy; on the psychological plane too, if you bring in this equality, it is not very difficult. But as soon as you come to the material plane, that is, the physical and then the body, it is not easy. The two conditions are: first, a power of expansion, of widening, that is unlimited, so to say, so that you can widen yourself to the dimension of the supramental consciousness, which is total. The supramental consciousness is the consciousness of the Supreme in His totality—when I say “His totality”, I mean the Supreme in His aspect of Manifestation. Naturally, from the higher point of view, the point of view of the essence—the essence of what becomes the Supermind in the Manifestation—there must be a capacity for total identification with the Supreme, not only in His aspect of Manifestation, but also in his static or nirvanic aspect, beyond the Manifestation—Non-Being. But in addition to this, one must be able to identify oneself with the Supreme in the Becoming. This implies two things: first a widening that is at least unlimited, as I have said, and at the same time a total plasticity in order to be able to follow the Supreme in His Becoming. It is not at one particular moment that one must be as wide as the universe, but indefinitely, in the Becoming. These are the two conditions; they must be there potentially.
So long as there is no question of physical transformation, the psychological and, in a large measure, subjective point of view is sufficient. And that is relatively easy. But when it comes to including Matter in the work, Matter as it is in this world, where the very starting-point itself is wrong—we start from Inconscience and Ignorance—then it is very difficult. Because, in fact, so that this Matter could reach the individualisation 114needed to recover the lost Consciousness, it was made with a certain fixity indispensable to make forms last and precisely to maintain this possibility of individuality. And that is the chief obstacle to the widening, the plasticity, the suppleness needed to be able to receive the supermind. I am constantly faced with this problem, which is a very concrete, absolutely material one, when one is dealing with these cells which must remain cells and not evaporate into a reality which is no longer physical. And at the same time, they must have this suppleness, this lack of fixity which enables them to widen indefinitely.
[Silence]
The experience of the boat took place in the subtle physical. And the people who had dark patches and who had to be taken back were always the ones who lacked the suppleness needed for these two movements, but especially the movement of widening, more than the movement of progression to follow the Becoming; this seemed to be a preoccupation later, for those who had landed, after the landing. But the preparation on the boat was for this capacity for widening.
There was also something else which I did not mention when I described my experience: the boat had no machines. Everything, everything was set in motion by the will—individuals and things—even people’s dress was a result of their will. And this gave a great suppleness to all these things and to the forms of individuals; because one was conscious of this will, which is not a mental will but a will of the Self, or a spiritual will, one might say, a will of the soul, if one gives that meaning to the word soul. But this is something which can be experienced here when one acts with an absolute spontaneity, that is to say, when an action, such as speech or movement, is not determined by the mind—I am not speaking of thought and intellect—not even by the mind which usually makes us act. Usually, when we do something, we perceive within us the will to do this thing—115when we are conscious and observe ourselves doing it, we can see that; there is always—it may be very fleeting—the will to do it. It is the intervention of the mind, the habitual intervention, the order in which things happen. Whereas the supramental action is decided by overleaping the mind. It is not necessary to pass through the mind, it is direct. Something enters into direct contact with the vital centres and makes them act—without passing through the thought, but with full consciousness. The consciousness does not work in the usual order, it goes directly from the centre of spiritual will to Matter.
As long as one can keep this absolute immobility of the mind, the inspiration is absolutely pure, it comes pure. If one can catch it and keep it while speaking, what comes through is also unmixed, it remains pure.
It is an extremely delicate working, probably because it is unfamiliar—the least movement, the smallest mental vibration disturbs everything. But as long as it lasts it is perfectly pure. And that must be the constant state of a supramentalised life. The mentalised spiritual will should no longer intervene; because one may very well have a spiritual will, one can live constantly expressing the spiritual will—that is what happens to all those who feel that they are guided by the Divine within—but that comes through a mental transcription. And so long as it is like that, it is not the supramental life. The supramental life no longer passes through the mind. The mind is an immobile zone of transmission. The slightest twitch is enough to disturb it.
[Silence]
One could say that the constant state that is needed for the Supermind to be able to express itself through a terrestrial consciousness is the perfect equality that comes from spiritual identification with the Supreme. Everything becomes the Supreme in a perfect equality. And it is automatic—not the equality achieved by the conscious will, by intellectual effort or 116an understanding prior to the state; it is not that. It must be spontaneous and automatic; one should no longer respond to everything that comes from outside as if one were responding to something coming from outside. This kind of reflection and response should be replaced by a state of constant perception—which I cannot call identical because each thing necessarily calls for a special response—but free from any rebound, if one may say so. It is the difference that exists between something coming from outside, that strikes you and that you respond to, and something which is circulating and which quite naturally brings with it the vibrations needed for the general action. I do not know whether I am making myself clearly understood.… It is the difference between a vibratory movement circulating in a unitary field of action and a movement coming from something outside, striking from outside and obtaining a response—that is the usual state of human consciousness. On the other hand, when the consciousness is identified with the Supreme, the movements are internal, so to say, in the sense that nothing comes from outside; there are only things that circulate and naturally bring about certain vibrations in the course of their circulation, by similarity and necessity—or that change the vibrations in the medium of circulation.
It is something very familiar to me, because it is my constant state at present—I never have the impression of things coming from outside and striking, but of inner, multiple and sometimes contradictory movements, and of a constant circulation bringing about the inner changes needed for the movement.
That is the indispensable basis.
The widening follows almost automatically, demanding adjustments in the body itself which are difficult to resolve. This is a problem in which I am still completely immersed.
And then the suppleness needed to follow the movement of Becoming; suppleness, that is, the capacity for decrystallisation—the whole period of life spent in individualisation is a period of conscious and deliberate crystallisation, which later has to be 117undone. Becoming a conscious and individual being is a constant crystallisation—constant and deliberate—of all things; and afterwards one must make the opposite movement, constantly, and also, even more so, deliberately. At the same time, one must not lose the benefit, in the consciousness, of what one has acquired by individualisation.
I must say that it is difficult.
From the point of view of thought it is elementary, very easy. And even from the point of view of feelings, it is not difficult; for the heart, that is, the emotional being, to widen itself to the dimension of the Supreme is relatively easy. But the body! It is very difficult, very difficult without the body losing—how to put it?—its centre of coagulation; without it dissolving into the surrounding mass. And even then, if one were in the midst of Nature with mountains, forests and rivers, and great natural beauty, plenty of space, it would be rather pleasant! But one cannot take a single step materially, out of one’s body, without coming across things that are painful. It occasionally happens that one comes in contact with a substance that is pleasing, harmonious, warm, that vibrates with a higher light. But this is rare. Yes, flowers, sometimes flowers—sometimes, not always. But this material world, oh!… You get knocked everywhere—scratched, scratched, scraped, knocked by all kinds of things that won’t unfold. Oh, how difficult it is! How little human life has blossomed! It is shrivelled up, hardened, without light, without warmth—to say nothing of joy.
But sometimes, when one sees flowing water or a ray of sunlight in the trees—oh, everything sings, the cells sing, they are happy.
The idea is that first of all some beings must reach a certain 118realisation here in the physical world that would give them the power to materialise a supramental being.
I told you that once I endowed a vital being with a body, but I would never have been able to… it would have been impossible to make this body material: something is missing, something is missing. Even if it could be made visible, it probably could not be made permanent—at the very first opportunity it would dematerialise. It is this permanence that we cannot obtain.
I had discussed this with Sri Aurobindo—“discussed” is a manner of speaking—we had talked about it and he saw it the same way as I did, that is, there is a power we do not have, the power to fix the form here on earth. Even for those who have the capacity to materialise things, they do not remain, they cannot remain, they do not have the quality of physical things.
So the continuity of creation could not be assured without something which possessed that quality.
I knew the whole occult process in detail, but I could never have made the thing more material, even if I had tried—visible, yes, but impermanent, incapable of progressing.
12 January 1962
70—Examine thyself without pity, then thou wilt be more charitable and pitiful to others.
Very good!
It is very good, very good for everybody, particularly for people who think themselves very superior.
But this really corresponds to something very profound.
In fact, this is an experience which I have been having for some time. It is almost like a reversal of attitude.
Indeed, men have always considered themselves victims harassed by adverse forces; those who are courageous fight, the others complain. But I have an increasingly concrete vision of the role that the adverse forces play in the creation, of the almost 119absolute necessity for them, so that there can be progress and for the creation to become its Origin once again—and such a clear vision that instead of asking for the conversion or abolition of the adverse forces one must realise one’s own transformation, pray for it and carry it out. This is from the terrestrial point of view, I am not taking the individual standpoint. We know the individual standpoint; this is from the terrestrial point of view. It was the sudden vision of all the error, all the misunderstanding, all the ignorance and obscurity, and even worse, all the bad will in the terrestrial consciousness which felt responsible for the perpetuation of these adverse beings and forces and which offered them in a great aspiration—more than an aspiration, a kind of holocaust—so that the adverse forces might disappear and have no further reason to exist, so that they might no longer be there to point out everything that has to be changed.
Their presence was made unavoidable by all these things that were negations of the divine life. And this movement of offering of the earth consciousness to the Supreme, in an extraordinary intensity, was like a redemption so that the adverse forces might disappear.
It was a very intense experience which expressed itself like this: “Take all the faults I have committed, take them all, accept them, efface them so that these forces may disappear.”
This aphorism is the same thing from the other end, it is the same thing in essence. As long as it is possible for a human consciousness to feel, act, think or be contrary to the great divine Becoming, it is impossible to blame anyone else for it; it is impossible to blame the adverse forces which are maintained in creation as the means of making you see and feel all the progress that has yet to be made.
[Silence]
The state I found myself in was like a memory—a memory that is eternally present—of that Consciousness of supreme 120Love which the Lord emanated upon earth, in the earth—in the earth—to bring it back to Him. For that was truly a descent into the most total negation of the Divine, the negation of the very essence of the divine Nature, and therefore a renunciation of the divine state in order to accept earth’s obscurity and bring earth back to the divine state. And unless this supreme Love becomes all-powerfully conscious here on earth, the return can never be final.
This experience came after the vision of the great divine Becoming,fnSee the commentary on the preceding aphorism. and I asked myself, “Since this world is progressive, since it is becoming more and more the Divine, will there not always be this intensely painful feeling of the thing which is undivine, of the state which is undivine compared to the one which is to come? Will there not always be what we call ‘adverse forces’, that is, something which is not following the movement harmoniously?” Then the answer came, the vision came: no, indeed the time for this possibility is near, the time for the manifestation of that essence of perfect Love which can transform this unconsciousness, this ignorance and the bad will which results from it into a progression that is luminous, joyful, eager for perfection and all-inclusive.
It was very concrete.
And this corresponds to a state in which one is so perfectly identified with all that is, that one becomes all that is anti-divine in a concrete way, and that one can offer it—one can offer it and truly transform it by offering it.
Basically, this kind of will for purity, for good, in men—which expresses itself in the ordinary mentality as the need to be virtuous—is the great obstacle to true self-giving. This is the origin of Falsehood and even more the very source of hypocrisy—the refusal to accept to take upon oneself one’s own share of the burden of difficulties. And in this aphorism Sri Aurobindo has gone straight to this point in a very simple way.
121Do not try to appear virtuous. See how much you are united, one with everything that is anti-divine. Take your share of the burden, accept yourselves to be impure and false and in that way you will be able to take up the Shadow and offer it. And in so far as you are capable of taking it and offering it, then things will change.
Do not try to be among the pure. Accept to be with those who are in darkness and give it all with total love.
21 January 1962
71—A thought is an arrow shot at the truth; it can hit a point, but not cover the whole target. But the archer is too well satisfied with his success to ask anything farther.
But it is obvious! It is so obvious for us.
Stop being an archer!
It is a fine image. This is good for people who are in a state where they imagine they have discovered the Truth.
It is a good thing to say to those who think they have found the Truth because they have touched one point.
But so often, we have said something else.
You know the story of the philosopher who lived in the south of France—I do not remember his name, a very well-known 122man who was a professor at the University of Montpellier and who lived on the outskirts of the city? There were several roads leading to his house. Every day this man would leave his university and arrive at the crossroads where all the roads leading to his house branched out—this way, that way, another way. And every day he would stop and ask himself, “Which one shall I take?” Each one had its advantages and disadvantages. And all this went on in his head, the advantages and disadvantages, and this and that, and he would waste half an hour choosing his way home.
He used to give that as an example of the thought’s incapacity for action: if one begins to think, one can no longer act.
It is all right down here, on this plane, as long as one is the archer and hits only one point. But above it is not true—quite the contrary! All intelligence below is like that; it sees all kinds of things, and as it sees all kinds of things, it cannot choose in order to act. But in order to see the whole target, to see the Truth in its entirety, you must cross over to the other side. And when you cross over to the other side, you do not see a sum of multiple truths nor a countless number of truths added one to another, which you see one after another so that you cannot grasp the whole all at once. When you rise above, it is the whole that you see first; the whole presents itself all at once, in its entirety, in its wholeness, without division. And then you no longer have to make a choice, you have a vision: this is what has to be done. It is not a choice between this and that, or this or that, because it is no longer like that. You no longer see things successively, one after another; you have the simultaneous vision of a whole that exists as a unity. Then the choice is simply a vision.
But as long as you are in the state of the archer, you cannot see the whole—you cannot see the whole successively, you cannot see the whole by adding one truth to another. That is precisely the incapacity of the mind. The mind cannot do it. It will always see successively, it will always see a sum of things 123and it is not that—something will escape, the very meaning of the truth will elude it.
It is only when one has a global, simultaneous perception of the whole in its oneness that one can possess the truth in its entirety.
And then action is no longer a choice subject to error, rectification and discussion, but the clear vision of what is to be done—which is infallible.
3 February 1962
72—The sign of dawning Knowledge is to feel that as yet I know little or nothing; and yet, if I could only know my knowledge, I already possess everything.
But it is a whole world in itself! It is not one question, but twenty!
There are all kinds of premonitory dreams. There are premonitory dreams that are fulfilled immediately, that is to say, you dream in the night what will happen on the next day, and there are premonitory dreams that are fulfilled over varying lengths of time. And according to their position in time, these dreams are seen on various planes.
The higher we rise towards absolute certainty, the greater 124the distance is, because these visions belong to a region which is very close to the Origin and the length of time between the revelation of what is going to be and its realisation may be very great. But the revelation is certain, because it is very close to the Origin. There is a place—when one is identified with the Supreme—where one knows everything absolutely, in the past, the present, the future and everywhere. But usually people who go there forget what they have seen when they return. An extremely strict discipline is needed to remember. And that is the only place where one cannot make a mistake.
But the links of the chain of communication are not always all there and one very rarely remembers.
To come back to what I was saying, according to the plane on which one has seen, one can more or less judge the time that the vision will take to be fulfilled. And the immediate things are already realised, they already exist in the subtle physical and they can be seen there—they simply are, they exist there. They are only the reflection—not even a transcription—the reflection or projection of the image in the material world which will appear on the next day or in a few hours. There you see the exact thing in all its details, because it already exists; so everything depends on the accuracy of the vision and the power of vision. If you have a power of vision that is objective and sincere, you see the thing accurately; if you add your own feelings and impressions to it, it is coloured by them. So accuracy in the subtle physical depends exclusively on the instrument, that is to say, on the one who sees.
But as soon as you enter a more subtle region, such as the vital—and even more so in the mental, but already in the vital there is a small margin of possibility—then there you can see roughly what is going to happen, but in detail it may be like this or like that; there are wills and influences that may possibly intervene and create a difference.
And this is because the original Will is reflected, so to say, in the various regions, and each region alters the organisation 125and the relation of the images. The world we live in is a world of images. It is not the thing itself in its essence, it is the reflection of the thing. One could say that we are, in our material existence, only a reflection, an image of what we are in our essential reality. And the modalities of these reflections bring in every error and falsification—what you see in the essence is perfectly true and pure and exists from all eternity; the images are essentially variable. And according to the degree of falsehood that enters into the vibrations, the degree of distortion and alteration increases. One could say that every circumstance, every event, every thing has a pure existence, which is the true existence, and a considerable number of impure or distorted existences, which are the existence of the same thing in the various domains of being. For example, in the intellectual domain, there is already a good deal of distortion; in the mental domain there is a considerable amount of distortion, and as all the emotional and sensorial domains come in, the distortions increase. And once you reach the material plane, it is most often unrecognisable. It is completely distorted—so much so that it is sometimes very difficult to know that this is the material expression of that—they are no longer very much alike.
It is a rather novel way of approaching the problem and it may be the key to many things.
Thus when you know someone well and you often see him physically, if you see him in the subtle physical, already there are things which become more marked, more visible, more outstanding, which you had not seen physically, because in the greyness of the material world they had merged with many other things on the same plane. There are characteristics or expressions of character which become outstanding enough to be quite visible, although they had not been physically apparent. When you look at a person physically, there is the complexion, the features, the expression; at the same moment, if you see this face in the subtle physical, you suddenly notice that one part of the face is one 126colour, another part another colour; that in the eyes there is an expression and a kind of light which were not at all visible; and that the whole has quite a different appearance and, above all, gives a very different feeling, which to our physical eyes would seem rather extravagant, but which to the subtle vision is very expressive and revealing of the character, or even of the influences acting on this person. What I say here is the record of an experience that I had again a few days ago.
So according to the degree to which you are conscious and the extent to which you see, you perceive images, see events that are more or less near, and you see them more or less accurately. The only vision that is true and sure is the vision of the divine Consciousness. So the problem is to become aware of the divine Consciousness and to keep this consciousness in all details all the time.
Until then, there are all sorts of ways of receiving indications. The precise, accurate, familiar vision that certain people have may come from several sources. It may be a vision by identity with circumstances and things, when you are used to extending your consciousness all around you. It may be an indication given by a talkative being from the invisible world who amuses himself by informing you of what is going to happen; this happens very often. Then everything depends on the moral character of your “informant”; if he is amusing himself at your expense, he tells you all kinds of tales—and this is what happens most of the time to people who get information from entities. To lure people on, they may very often tell them things as they really will be, since they have a universal vision in some domain of the vital or of the mind; and then when they are quite sure that you will trust them, they may start telling you tales and you make a fool of yourself. This happens very often. You yourself should be in a higher state of consciousness than these individuals or entities or these little gods, as some people call them, and be able to verify from above what their statements are worth.
If you have a universal mental vision, you can see all mental 127formations. Then you see—and it is very interesting—how the mental world is organised to realise itself on the physical plane. You see the various formations, the way in which they approach and fight each other, combine together and organise themselves, the ones that prevail and gain influence and achieve a more complete realisation. Now if you really want to have a higher vision, you must rise above the mental world and see the original wills as they descend to express themselves. In this case, you may not possess all the details, but the central fact, the fact in its central truth, is indisputable, undeniable, absolutely correct.
Some people also have the power to predict things which already exist on earth, but at a distance, at a great distance, very far from the physical eyes. These are usually people who are capable of widening and extending their consciousness. They have a physical, but slightly more subtle vision, which depends on an organ that is more subtle than the purely material one—what might be called the life of this organ—and so, by projecting their consciousness with a will to see, they can see very well, they can see things: these things already exist, only they are not within the field of our ordinary vision. People who have this capacity and who tell what they see, who are sincere and who are not bluffers, see in a way that is absolutely precise and exact.
In fact, an important factor for those who predict or see, is their absolute sincerity. Unfortunately, because of people’s curiosity, their insistence, the pressure they apply—which very few can resist—what happens, when there is something they do not see exactly and precisely, is that there is an almost involuntary faculty of inner imagination, which adds the little missing element. This is what causes the flaws in their predictions. Very few have the courage to say, “Oh no, I do not know about that, it eludes me.” They do not even have the courage to say it to themselves. And then, just a touch of imagination, acting almost subconsciously, and they fill in the vision, the information—anything can happen. Very few people can resist that. I have known many, many clairvoyants, I have known many people 128who had a marvellous gift; very few of them would stop when they come to the end of their knowledge. Or else they would add some little detail. This is what always gives these faculties a rather doubtful quality. One must truly be a saint—a great saint, a great sage—and completely free, not at all influenced by other people. Naturally, I am not speaking of those who seek fame, because there they fall into the crudest traps; but even goodwill, the wish to make people happy, to please them, to help them, is enough to create a distortion.
I know of a very interesting example. There was a time when in the newspaper Le Matin—it was a long time ago, you must have been very young—every day there was a little cartoon of a boy pointing to something—a kind of page-boy dressed like that—and always showing the date or something—a little cartoon. Now the gentleman in this story was travelling and he was staying in a big hotel, I do not remember in which town, and one night or early in the morning, very early, he had a dream. He saw this page-boy pointing to his funeral carriage—you know, when they take people to the cemetery, in Europe—and inviting him to step into it! He saw that and then in the morning when he was ready, he left his room which was on the top floor, and there, on the landing, the same boy, dressed in the same way, was pointing out the lift for him to go down. That gave him a shock. He refused and said, “No thank you.” The lift fell and crashed, killing the people inside.
He told me that after that he believed in dreams.
It was a vision. He saw the boy, but instead of the lift, the boy was showing him his hearse. So when he saw the same gesture, the same boy—like the cartoon, you see—he said, “No thank you, I’ll walk down”, and the machine—it was one of those 129hydraulic lifts—broke and fell. It was right at the top. It was crushed to a pulp.
My explanation is that an entity had forewarned him. The image of the page-boy seems to indicate that an intelligence, a consciousness had intervened; it does not seem to have been his own subconscient. Or it might be that his subconscient was aware and had seen in the subtle physical that this was going to happen. But why did his subconscient give him an image like that? I do not know. Perhaps something in the subconscient knew, because it was already there, it was already in the subtle physical. The accident already existed before it happened—the law of the accident.
Obviously, there is always, in every case, some difference, sometimes a few hours—but that is the maximum—sometimes a few seconds. And very often, things tell you that they are there, and it takes them sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few seconds to come into contact with your consciousness. Constantly, constantly I know what is going to happen, and for things that are of absolutely no interest—there is no advantage in knowing it beforehand, it changes nothing; but it exists, it is all around you. If your consciousness is wide enough, you know all that, for example, that a certain person is going to bring you a parcel, things like that. And it is like that every day. Or that a certain person is about to arrive. It is because the consciousness is extended, so it contacts things.
But in that case we cannot say that it is a premonition, for it already exists, only the contact with our senses takes a few seconds to be realised, because there is a door or a wall or something that prevents us from seeing.
But several times I have had experiences like this. For example, once when I was walking in the mountains, I was on a path where there was only room for one—on one side the precipice, on the other sheer rock. There were three children behind me and a fourth person bringing up the rear. I was leading. The path ran along the edge of the rock; we could 130not see where we were going—and besides, it was very dangerous; if anyone had slipped, he would have been over the edge. I was walking in front when suddenly I saw, with other eyes than these—although I was watching my steps carefully—I saw a snake, there, on the rock, waiting on the other side. Then I took one step, gently, and indeed on the other side there was a snake. That spared me the shock of surprise, because I had seen and I was advancing cautiously; and as there was no shock of surprise, I was able to tell the children without giving them a shock, “Stop, keep quiet, don’t stir.” If there had been a shock, something might have happened. The snake had heard a noise, it was already coiled and on the defensive in front of its hole, with its head swaying—it was a viper. This was in France. Nothing happened, whereas if there had been any confusion or commotion, anything could have happened.
This kind of thing has happened to me very, very often—with snakes it happened to me four times. Once, it was completely dark, here, near the fishing village of Ariankuppam. There was a river and it happened just at the place where it flows into the sea. It was dark—the night had fallen very quickly. We were walking along the road and just as I was about to put my foot down—I had already lifted my foot and I was going to put it down—I distinctly heard a voice in my ear: “Be careful!” And yet nobody had spoken. So I looked and saw, just as my foot was about to touch the ground, an enormous black cobra, which I would have comfortably stepped on—those people don’t like that. He streaked away and across the water—what a beauty, my child! His hood open, head erect above the water, he went across like a king. Obviously, I would have been punished for my impertinence.
I have had hundreds and hundreds of experiences like that; at the very last moment, not a second too soon, I was informed. And in the most varied circumstances. Once, in Paris, I was crossing the Boulevard Saint Michel. It was during the last 131weeks; I had decided that within a certain number of months I would achieve union with the psychic Presence, the inner Divine, and I no longer had any other thought, any other concern. I lived near the Luxembourg Gardens and every evening I used to walk there—but always deeply absorbed within. There is a kind of intersection there, and it is not a place to cross when one is deeply absorbed within; it was not very sensible. And so I was like that, I was walking, when I suddenly received a shock, as if I had received a blow, as if something had hit me, and I jumped back instinctively. And as soon as I had jumped back, a tram went past—it was the tram that I had felt at a little more than arm’s length. It had touched the aura, the aura of protection—it was very strong at that time, I was deeply immersed in occultism and I knew how to keep it—the aura of protection had been hit and that had literally thrown me backwards, as if I had received a physical shock. And what insults from the driver! I jumped back just in time and the tram went by.
I could tell scores of such stories, if I could remember them.
The protection may come from many different sources. Very often it was someone who informed me: a little entity, or some kind of being; sometimes it was the aura that protected me. And it was for all kinds of things. That is to say, life was seldom limited to the physical body—this is convenient, this is good. It is necessary, it increases your capacities. This is what the person who taught me occultism told me straightaway: “You are depriving yourself of senses which are most useful even for the most ordinary life.” And this is true, quite true. We can know infinitely more things than we usually do, simply by using our own senses. And not only from the mental point of view, but also from the vital and even the physical point of view.
Oh, the method is very easy. There are disciplines. It depends on what you want to do.
132It depends. For each thing there is a method. And the first method is to want it, to begin with, that is, to take a decision. Then you are given a description of all these senses and how they work—that takes some time. You take one sense or several, or the one which is easiest for you to start with, and you decide. Then you follow the discipline. It is the equivalent of exercises for developing the muscles. You can even succeed in creating a will in yourself.
But for more subtle things, the method is to make for yourself an exact image of what you want, to come into contact with the corresponding vibration, and then to concentrate and do exercises—such as to practise seeing through an object or hearing through a sound,fnMother explained later: “To hear behind the sound is to come into contact with the subtle reality which is behind the material fact, behind the word or the physical sound or behind music, for example. One concentrates and then one hears what is behind. It means coming into contact with the vital reality which is behind the appearances. There can also be a mental reality, but generally, what lies immediately behind the physical sound is a vital reality.” or seeing at a distance. For example, once, for a long time, for several months, I was confined to bed and I found it rather boring—I wanted to see. I was in a room and at one end there was another little room and at the end of the little room there was a kind of bridge; in the middle of the garden the bridge became a staircase leading down into a very big and very beautiful studio, standing in the middle of the garden. I wanted to go and see what was happening in the studio, for I was feeling bored in my room. So I would remain very quiet, close my eyes and send out my consciousness, little by little, little by little, little by little. And day after day—I chose a fixed time and did the exercise regularly. At first you make use of your imagination and then it becomes a fact. After some time I really had the physical sensation that my vision was moving; I followed it and then I could see things downstairs which I knew nothing about. I would check afterwards. In the evening I would ask, “Was this like that? And was that like this?”
133But for each one of these things you must practise for months with patience, with a kind of obstinacy. You take the senses one by one, hearing, sight, and you can even arrive at subtle realities of taste, smell and touch.
From the mental point of view it is easier, for there you are accustomed to concentration. When you want to think and find a solution, instead of following the deductions of thought, you stop everything and try to concentrate and concentrate, intensify the point of the problem. You stop everything and wait until, by the intensity of the concentration, you obtain an answer. This also requires some time. But if you used to be a good student, you must be quite used to doing that and it is not very difficult.
There is a kind of extension of the physical senses. Red Indians, for example, possess a sense of hearing and smell with a far greater range than our own—and dogs! I knew an Indian—he was my friend when I was eight or ten years old. He had come with Buffalo Bill, at the time of the Hippodrome—it was a long time ago, I was eight years old—and he would put his ear to the ground and was so clever that he knew how far away… according to the intensity of the vibration, he knew how far away someone’s footsteps were. After that, the children would immediately say, “I wish I knew how to do that!”
And then you try. That is how you prepare yourself. You think you are playing but you are preparing yourself for later on.
27 February 1962
73—When Wisdom comes, her first lesson is, “There is no such thing as knowledge; there are only aperçus of the Infinite Deity.”
This is very good.
There is no need for any questions.
13474—Practical knowledge is a different thing; that is real and serviceable, but it is never complete. Therefore to systematise and codify it is necessary but fatal.
75—Systematise we must, but even in making and holding the system, we should always keep firm hold on this truth that all systems are in their nature transitory and incomplete.
I have looked at this very, very often. There was even a time when I thought that if one could have a total, complete and perfect knowledge of the entire working of physical Nature as we perceive it in the world of Ignorance, that might be a way to rediscover or to re-attain the truth of things. After my latest experiencefnA particular yogic experience which took place on 13 April 1962. I cannot think this any more.
I do not know if I am making myself clear. There was a time—for a very long period—when I thought that if science were to realise its full potential, but in an absolute way, if that were possible, it would reach true Knowledge. For example, in its study of the composition of Matter, by pushing and pushing its investigations further and further, a time would come when the two would meet. Well, when I had the experience of passing from the eternal Truth-consciousness to the consciousness of the individualised world, it became clear to me that this was impossible. And if you ask me now, I think that both these things, the possibility of a meeting by carrying science to its extreme and the impossibility of any true conscious connection with the material world, are equally incorrect. There is something else.
And these last few days, more and more, I find myself faced with the total problem, as if I had never seen it before.
Perhaps they are two paths leading to a third point, and at the moment perhaps it is this third point that I am not exactly 135studying, but searching for, where the two would meet in a third one which would be the True Thing.
But certainly, objective, scientific knowledge carried to its extreme, if it is possible for it to become absolutely total, leads at least to the threshold. That is what Sri Aurobindo says. Only he says that it is fatal, because all those who have devoted themselves to that knowledge, have believed in it as an absolute truth, and for them this has closed the door to the other approach. In that way it is fatal.
But according to my personal experience, I could say that for all those who believe in the exclusive spiritual approach, the approach through inner experience, at least if it is exclusive, is also fatal—because it shows them one aspect, one truth of the Whole, not the Whole. The other aspect seems equally indispensable to me, in the sense that while I was so totally immersed in the supreme Realisation, it was absolutely indisputable that the other realisation, the outer, the illusory one, was only a distortion, probably accidental, of something that was just as true as that one.
It is this “something” that we are searching for—perhaps not only searching for it, but making it.
We are being used so that we can participate in the manifestation of “that”, of “that” which is still inconceivable to everyone, because it is not yet there. It is an expression that is yet to come.
This is all I can say.
[Silence]
That is really the state of consciousness I am living in at present. It is as if I were confronted with this eternal problem, but from another standpoint.
These standpoints, the spiritual and the “materialist”, if one may say so, that think they are exclusive—exclusive and unique, so that one denies the value of the other, from the point 136of view of Truth—are insufficient, not only because they do not accept one another, but also because to accept both and to unite both is not enough to solve the problem. It is something else—a third thing which is not the result of these two, but something that is yet to be discovered, which will probably open the door to the total Knowledge.
This is the point I have reached.
I cannot say more because that is where I am.
This discovery?
Well!… Basically, it is always the same thing. It is always the same thing: to realise one’s own being, to enter into conscious relation with the supreme Truth of one’s own being, in any form, by any path—it does not matter at all—but this is the only way. We carry, each individual carries within him a truth, and this is the truth he must unite with, this is the truth he must live; and so the path he must follow to reach and realise this truth is the path that will lead him as near as possible to Knowledge. That is to say, the two are absolutely one: the personal realisation and the Knowledge.
Who knows, perhaps this very multiplicity of approach will yield the secret—the secret that will open the door.
I do not think that a single individual on the earth as it is now, a single individual, however great, however eternal his consciousness and origin, can on his own change and realise—change the world, change the creation as it is and realise this higher Truth which will be a new world, a world more true, if not absolutely true. It would seem that a certain number of individuals—until now it seems to have been more in time, as a succession, but it could also be in space, a collectivity—are indispensable so that this Truth can become concrete and realise itself.
Practically, I am sure of it.
That is to say, however great, however conscious, however 137powerful he may be, one Avatar cannot by himself realise the supramental life on earth. It is either a group in time, extending over a period of time, or a group spread out in space—perhaps both—that are indispensable for this Realisation. I am convinced of it.
The individual can give the impulsion, indicate the path, walk on the path himself—that is to say, show the path by realising it himself—but he cannot fulfil. The fulfilment obeys certain group laws which are the expression of some aspect of Eternity and Infinity—naturally, it is all the same Being! They are not different individuals or different personalities, it is all the same Being. And it is all the same Being expressing Himself in a way which for us becomes a body, a group, a collectivity.
There. Do you have another question on the same subject?
I repeat. For a very long time it seemed to me that if a perfect union could be achieved between the scientific approach carried to its extreme and the spiritual approach carried to its extreme—its extreme realisation—if both could be joined, we would find, we would naturally obtain the Truth we are seeking, the total Truth. But with the two experiences I have had—the experience of external life, with universalisation, impersonalisation, in short, all the yogic experiences one can have in the physical body, and on the other hand the experience of total and perfect union with the Origin—now that I have had these two experiences and that something has happened, which I cannot describe yet, I know that the knowledge of the two and the union of the two is not enough; that they lead to a third thing and it is this third thing which is in the making, in course of elaboration. It is this third thing that can lead to the Realisation, to the Truth we seek.
Is it clear this time?
138One can only give an approximation of that consciousness.
Through yoga, I had achieved a kind of relationship with the material world, based on the notion of the fourth dimension—inner dimensions, which become innumerable in yoga—and the use of this attitude and this state of consciousness. I studied the relationship between the material world and the spiritual world with a sense of the inner dimensions, and by perfecting the consciousness of these inner dimensions—that was my experience until the latest one.
Naturally, for a long time, there has no longer been any question of three dimensions—this belongs absolutely to the world of illusion and falsehood. But now the whole use of the sense of the fourth dimension with all that it entails seems superficial to me! This is so strong that I have lost it. The other one, the three-dimensional world is absolutely unreal; and this one seems to be—how to put it?—conventional. As if it were a conventional interpretation that allows you to make a certain kind of approach.
And as for saying what the other one is, the true poise… it is so far beyond any intellectual state that I am unable to formulate it.
Yet the formula will come, I know. But it will come through a series of experiences that must be lived and which I have not yet had.
[Silence]
This approach, which was very convenient, very helpful to me, which I used in my yoga, which gave me a hold on Matter, appeared to me as a method, a means, a process, but it is not that.
This is my present state.
More I cannot say.
24 May 1962
13976—Europe prides herself on her practical and scientific organisation and efficiency. I am waiting till her organisation is perfect; then a child shall destroy her.fnThe following conversation took place in December 1971, nearly ten years after the Mother’s commentaries on this group of aphorisms.
Where did Sri Aurobindo write that?
Yes, but he did not write a special book; these texts were collected from here and there.
[Silence]
“A child”… What did he put in English at the beginning?
Prides herself…
I would put it in.
140I don’t know.
Of course, only the power can be destroyed, because one cannot destroy the earth.
Yes.
Yes… but which child?
I have the impression that it came as something absolutely true, an absolutely true prediction—but I don’t know.
But now, on the contrary, I feel that it must be said.
But I do not think that the time has come yet, I mean “come” for the realisation; the time has come to say it, but not for the realisation.
Yes, it is possible—it is possible.
[Silence]
There is a terrifying power in it… something tremendous. You cannot imagine the power that is in it; it is really as if the Divine himself were speaking: “I am waiting… I am waiting…”
11 December 1971
14177—Genius discovers a system; average talent stereotypes it till it is shattered by fresh genius. It is dangerous for an army to be led by veterans; for on the other side God may place Napoleon.
78—When knowledge is fresh in us, then it is invincible; when it is old, it loses its virtue. This is because God moves always forward.
Sri Aurobindo is speaking here of knowledge by inspiration or revelation, when something suddenly descends and illumines the understanding. You suddenly have the impression that you know something for the first time, because it comes directly from the domain of Light, of true Knowledge, and it comes with all its innate power of truth—it illumines you. And when you have just received it, it seems indeed that nothing can resist that Light. And if you take care to allow it to act within you, it accomplishes all the transformation it can achieve in its own domain.
This is an experience one may often have. When it comes, for some time—not very long—everything seems to organise itself quite naturally around that Light. And then, little by little, it mingles with the rest; the intellectual knowledge remains—it is formulated in one way or another—it remains, but it is just as if it were empty. It no longer has that driving power which transforms all the movements of the being into the image of this Light. That is what Sri Aurobindo means: the world moves quickly, the Lord is always moving onward and all this is the trail He leaves behind Him, but it no longer has the same immediate and almighty power as when He projected it into the world.
It feels like a rain of truth falling; everyone who can catch even a drop of it receives a revelation. But unless they themselves are moving forward at a fantastic speed, the Lord with His rain of truth is already very far ahead and they must run very fast to catch up with it! This is what he means.
142Yes, it is the higher Knowledge, the Truth expressing itself, what Sri Aurobindo calls the true Knowledge, and it is this Knowledge that transforms all creation. But it is as if He were pouring it down all the time and you have to make great haste so as not to be too late!
But haven’t you ever had the feeling of a dazzling light in your head? And then it is translated by, “Oh, but of course!” Sometimes it is something you knew intellectually, but it was dull, lifeless, and it suddenly comes like a tremendous power that arranges everything within the consciousness around that Light. It does not last very long. Sometimes it lasts only a few hours, sometimes a few days, but never more than that, unless you are very slow in your movement. And in the meanwhile the source of the truth is moving, moving, moving.…
For the moment, I can’t say anything about that, my child, because I do not know.
No, I do not think so.
[Silence]
It may be another kind of action, but it is not another kind of knowledge.
143[Silence]
In truth, we shall only be able to speak of what transforms Matter when Matter is at least a little transformed, when there is a beginning of transformation. Then we shall be able to speak of the process. But for the moment…
[Silence]
But any transformation in the being, on any plane, always has some repercussion on the lower planes. There is always an effect; even things which seem to be purely intellectual certainly have some repercussion on the structure of the brain.
This kind of revelation can only occur in a silent mind—at least in a mind that is at rest, completely quiet and still, otherwise they do not come. Or if they come, you do not notice them, because of all the noise you are making. And of course, they help this quiet, this silence, this receptivity to become better and better established. This feeling of something so still—but not closed, still but open, still but receptive—is something which becomes established through repeated experiences. There is a great difference between a silence that is dead, dull, unresponsive and the receptive silence of a quietened mind. That makes a great difference. But that is the result of these experiences. All the progress we make always results, quite naturally, from truths coming from above.
They have an effect, all these things have an effect on the functioning of the body—the functioning of the organs, of the brain, of the nerves, etc. That will surely happen before—long before—there is any effect on the external form.
In reality, when people speak of transformation they are thinking mainly of a glamorous transformation, no? A beautiful appearance! luminous, supple, plastic, changing at will. But this rather unaesthetic business of transforming the organs—they don’t give it much thought! And yet that will certainly be 144the first thing to happen, long before the transformation of the appearance.
Yes, yes. He said three hundred years! [Mother laughs.]
[Silence]
Because if you think it over, you will understand quite easily. If it were only a matter of stopping one thing and starting something else, it could be done quite rapidly. But to keep a body alive, so that it goes on functioning, and at the same time to bring in a new functioning, sufficient for it to stay alive, and a transformation—that makes a kind of combination which is very difficult to realise. I am very much aware of this, very much so… the immense amount of time required to do this without catastrophe.
Especially when we come to the heart: the heart replaced by the centre of power, a tremendous dynamic power! [Mother laughs.] Precisely when are we going to cut off the circulation and release the Force?
It is difficult.
[Silence]
In ordinary life, you think things over and then you do them—it is just the opposite! In this life, first you must do the thing and then, afterwards, you understand, long afterwards. First you must do it—without thinking. If you think, you do nothing worthwhile; that is, you fall back into the old way.
6 October 1962
14579—God is infinite Possibility. Therefore Truth is never at rest; therefore, also, Error is justified of her children.
80—To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs; Heine was nearer the mark when he found in Him the divine Aristophanes.
Yes, he means that what is true at one time is no longer true at another. And this is why “Error is justified of her children.”
Yes, it is the same thing, another way of saying the same thing. That is to say, what we call Error was Truth at a certain time.
Error is a concept in time.
For a moment.
The impression is this: all our judgments are momentary. They are… one moment, it is like this; the next moment, it is no longer like this. And for us they are errors, because we see things one after another. But to the Divine they cannot appear like this, because everything is within Him.
Now just try to imagine that you are the Divine, for a moment! Everything is within you; you simply amuse yourself by bringing it out in a certain order. But for you, in your consciousness, everything is there at the same time; there is no time—neither past nor future nor present—everything is together. And every possible combination. He amuses Himself by bringing out first one thing and then another, like that. So the poor fellows down below who can see only a tiny part—they can see only so much of it—say, “Oh, that is an error!” In what way is it an error? Simply because they can only see a tiny part.
146This is clear, isn’t it? It is easy to understand. This concept of error is a concept that belongs to time and space.
It is like the feeling that something cannot be and not be at the same time. And yet this is true, it is and it is not. It is the concept of time which introduces the concept of error—of time and space.
It is, and at the same time there is its opposite. So, for us, it cannot be yes and no at the same time. But for the Lord it is all the time yes and no at the same time.
It is like our concept of space; we say, “I am here, therefore you are not here.” But I am here, you are here and everything is here! [Mother laughs.] Only you must be able to leave the concept of space and time behind in order to understand.
This is something that can be felt very concretely, but not with our way of seeing.
Certainly, many of these aphorisms were written at the point where the higher mind suddenly emerges into the Supermind. It has not yet forgotten how it is in the ordinary way, but it also sees how it is in the supramental way. And so the result is this kind of thing, this paradoxical form. Because the one is not forgotten and the other is already perceived.
[Long silence]
And yet if one looks attentively, one has to think that the Lord is staging a fantastic play for Himself! That the Manifestation is a play which He is acting for Himself and with Himself.
He has taken the stand of the spectator and He looks at Himself. And so in order to look at Himself, He must accept the 147concept of time and space, otherwise He cannot! And immediately the whole comedy begins. But it is a comedy, nothing more.
But we take it seriously, because we are puppets! But as soon as we stop being puppets, we can see quite clearly that it is a comedy.
Yes, we are the ones who make it tragic. We are the ones who make it tragic.
Recently, I have been looking at this carefully. I looked at the difference between similar incidents when they happen to men and when they happen to animals. If you identify yourself with the animals you see quite clearly that they do not take it tragically at all—except the ones which have come into contact with man; but then it is not their natural state, it is a transitional state. They become transitional beings between animal and man.… And the first things they naturally learn from man are his defects—they are always the easiest things to learn! And so they make themselves unhappy—for nothing.
So many things… So many things… Man has made a terrible tragedy out of death. These last few days, I have seen this, because last night or the night before I spent at least two hours in a world which is subtle physical, where the living and the dead intermingle without feeling any difference—it doesn’t make any difference. There, there is no difference. The living were there—those whom we call the “living” and those whom we call the “dead”. They were there together, they ate together, they moved together, they played together; and all this was in a pretty light, quiet and very pleasant, it was very pleasant. I said to myself, “There, men have made a break, like this, and then they say, ‘Now, dead.’ ” And “dead”—the best part of it is that they treat them as they would treat something unconscious—yet the body is still conscious.
148[Silence]
Where, where is Error? Where is Error?
That is to say, there is no error. Things only seem to be impossible, because we do not know that the Lord is all possibility and that He can do whatever He likes, as He likes. We cannot get that into our heads, we always say, “This is possible and that is not possible.” But it is not true! For our imbecility, it is not possible; but everything is possible.
[Silence]
You see, only the one who is watching the play is not worried, because he knows everything that is going to happen and he has an absolute knowledge of everything—everything that happens, everything that has happened and everything that is going to happen—and it is all there, as one presence for him. And so it is the others, the poor actors who do not even know, they do not even know their parts! And they worry a great deal, because they are being made to act something and they do not know what it is. This is something I have just been feeling very strongly: we are all acting a play, but we do not know what the play is, nor where it is going, nor where it comes from, nor what it is as a whole; we barely know—imperfectly—what we are supposed to do from moment to moment. Our knowledge is imperfect. And so we worry! But when one knows everything, one can no longer worry, one smiles—He must be having great fun, but we… And yet we are given the full power to amuse ourselves like Him.
We simply do not take the trouble.
Oh, if it were easy… if it were easy, we would get tired of it!
One also sometimes wonders why, why is this life so tragic? But if it were like a perpetual enchantment, first of all we would 149not even appreciate it, because it would be quite natural—mainly that, we would not appreciate it because it would be absolutely natural—and then, who is to say that we would not enjoy a little confusion just for a change? One cannot be sure.
Perhaps this is the story of the earthly paradise.… In paradise they had a spontaneous knowledge, that is to say, they lived, they had the same consciousness as the animals, just enough to be able to enjoy life a little, like that, to have the joy of living. But they started wanting to know why, how, where they were going, what they should do, etc., and then all the worries began—they got tired of being quietly happy.
[Silence]
I think that Sri Aurobindo meant that error is an illusion like all the rest—that there is no error, that all possibilities are there, that they are often—and necessarily—contradictory if they are all there. They appear contradictory. But one only has to look at oneself and say, “What do I call error?” If you look it in the face you see immediately that it is a stupidity—there is no error, it slips through your fingers.
[Silence]
I have a feeling that Sri Aurobindo was in his ascension; the intuitive mind was piercing a hole and coming into contact with the Supermind, and so it would come like that, pop! like an explosion in the thought, and he would write these things. And if you follow the movement you see the Origin.
Obviously what he meant is that Error is one of the innumerable, infinite possibilities. “Infinite” means that absolutely nothing is beyond possibility. So where does error fit into it? We call it error, but it is completely arbitrary. We say, “This is an error”—in relation to what? In relation to our judgment that “this is true”, but certainly not 150in relation to the judgment of the Lord, since it is a part of Himself!
Very few people can bear this widening of the understanding.
Now, when I start looking like this [Mother closes her eyes], two things are there at the same time: this smile, this joy, this laughter are there, and such peace! Such full, luminous, total peace, in which there are no more conflicts, no more contradictions. There are no more conflicts. It is one single luminous harmony—and yet everything we call error, suffering, misery, everything is there. It eliminates nothing. It is another way of seeing.
[Long silence]
There can be no doubt that if you sincerely want to get out of it, it is not so difficult after all: you have nothing to do, you only have to allow the Lord to do everything. And He does everything. He does everything. It is so wonderful, so wonderful!
He takes anything, even what we call a very ordinary intelligence and he simply teaches you to put this intelligence aside, to rest: “There, be quiet, don’t stir, don’t bother me, I don’t need you.” Then a door opens—you don’t even feel that you have to open it; it is wide open, you are taken over to the other side. All that is done by Someone else, not you. And then the other way becomes impossible.
All this… oh, this tremendous labour of the mind striving to understand, toiling and giving itself headaches!… It is absolutely useless, absolutely useless, no use at all, it merely increases the confusion.
You are faced with a so-called problem: what should you say, what should you do, how should you act? There is nothing to do, nothing, you only have to say to the Lord, “There, You see, it is like that”—that’s all. And then you stay very quiet. And then quite spontaneously, without thinking about it, without 151reflection, without calculation, nothing, nothing, without the slightest effort—you do what has to be done. That is to say, the Lord does it, it is no longer you. He does it, He arranges the circumstances, He arranges the people, He puts the words into your mouth or your pen—He does everything, everything, everything, everything; you have nothing more to do but to allow yourself to live blissfully.
I am more and more convinced that people do not really want it.
But you don’t even need to do it! He does it for you.
Yes, they try to come in again, by habit. You only have to say, “Lord, You see, You see, You see, it is like that”—that’s all. “Lord, You see, You see this, You see that, You see this fool”—and it is all over immediately. And it changes automatically, my child, without the slightest effort. Simply to be sincere, that is to say, to truly want everything to be right. You are perfectly conscious that you can do nothing about it, that you have no capacity. I feel more and more that this amalgam of matter, like this, of cells, all that, is pitiful. It is pitiful! I do not know whether there are certain states in which people feel powerful, wonderful, luminous, capable; but for me it is because they do not really know what they are like! When you really see how you are made—it is really nothing, nothing. But it is capable of everything, provided… provided that you allow the Lord to act. But there is always something that wants to do it by itself; that’s the trouble, otherwise…
No, you may be full of an excellent goodwill and then you 152want to do it. That’s what complicates everything. Or else you don’t have faith, you believe that the Lord will not be able to do it and that you must do it yourself, because He does not know! [Mother laughs.] This, this kind of stupidity is very common. “How can He see things? We live in a world of Falsehood, how can He see Falsehood and see…” But He sees the thing as it is! Exactly!
I am not speaking of people of no intelligence, I am speaking of people who are intelligent and who try—there is a kind of conviction, like that, somewhere, even in people who know that we live in a world of Ignorance and Falsehood and that there is a Lord who is All-Truth. They say, “Precisely because He is All-Truth, He does not understand. [Mother laughs.] He does not understand our falsehood, I must deal with it myself.” That is very strong, very common.
Ah! we make complications for nothing.
That depends on us!
Now I can feel Him everywhere, all the time, all the time… even a physical contact—it is subtle physical, but physical—in things, in the air, in people, in… like this. [Mother presses her hands to her face.] And then, it is not far to go, all I have to do is this [Mother turns her hands slightly inwards], one second of concentration—He is there! He is there, He is everywhere. He is far away only when we think He is far away.
Naturally, when we begin to think of all the zones, all the planes of universal consciousness and that it is at the very end, at the very end, right at the very end, then it becomes very far away, 153very, very far! [Mother laughs.] But when we think that He is everywhere, that He is everything and that it is only our perception that prevents us from seeing Him and feeling Him and that we only have to do this [Mother turns her hands inwards]; it is a movement like this and like that [Mother turns her hands alternately inwards and outwards], it becomes very concrete: you do this [outward movement], everything becomes artificial, hard, dry, false, untrue, artificial; you do this [inward movement], everything becomes wide, tranquil, luminous, peaceful, vast, joyful. And it is simply this, that [Mother turns her hands alternately inwards and outwards]. How? Where? It cannot be described, it is only, only a movement of consciousness, nothing else. A movement of consciousness. And the difference between the true consciousness and the false consciousness becomes more and more precise, and at the same time, thin—you don’t have to do “great things” to come out of it. Before that, one has the impression that one is living inside something and that a great interiorisation, concentration, absorption, is needed to get out of it; but now the impression is of something one accepts [Mother screens her face with her hand], something like a thin little peel that is very hard—very hard but malleable, very, very dry, very thin, very thin, something like putting on a mask; and then one does this [gesture], and it disappears.
One can foresee the time when it will not be necessary to be aware of the mask; it will be so thin that one will be able to see, to feel, to act through it with no need to put the mask on again. That is what has just begun.
But this Presence in all things.… It is a vibration, but it is a vibration that contains everything—a vibration which contains a kind of infinite power, infinite delight and infinite peace, of vastness, vastness, vastness; there are no limits.… But it is only a vibration, it does not… Oh, Lord! it cannot be thought, so it cannot be said. If you think, as soon as you think, the whole muddle begins again. That is why one cannot speak.
No, He is very far away because you think He is very far 154away. Even, you know, if you think He is there, like this [gesture close to her face] touching you… if you could feel—it is not like the touch of a person, it is not like that. It is not something alien, external, which comes in from outside. It is not that.… It is everywhere.
Then you feel—everywhere, everywhere, everywhere: inside, outside, everywhere, everywhere—Him, nothing but Him—Him, His vibration.
No, you must stop that [the head], until you stop that, you cannot see the True Thing—you look for comparisons, you say, “It is like this, it is like that.” Oh!
[Silence]
And how often, how often the impression… there is no form—there is a form and there is no form, it cannot be put into words. And the impression of a look and there are no eyes—there are no eyes, but there is a look—a look and a smile, and there is no mouth, there is no face! And yet there is a smile, there is a look and [Mother laughs] one cannot help saying, “Yes, O Lord, I am stupid!” But He laughs, one laughs, one is happy.
One cannot! It cannot be explained. It cannot be put into words. One cannot say anything. Whatever one says is nothing, nothing.
12 October 1962
81—God’s laughter is sometimes very coarse and unfit for polite ears; He is not satisfied with being Molière, He must needs also be Aristophanes and Rabelais.
82—If men took life less seriously, they could very soon make it more perfect. God never takes His works seriously; therefore one looks out on this wonderful Universe.
15583—Shame has admirable results and both in aesthetics and in morality we could ill spare it; but for all that it is a badge of weakness and the proof of ignorance.
Virtue has always spent its time eliminating whatever it found bad in life, and if all the virtues of the various countries of the world had been put together, very few things would remain in existence.
Virtue claims to seek perfection, but perfection is a totality. So the two movements contradict each other. A virtue that eliminates, reduces, fixes limits, and a perfection that accepts everything, rejects nothing but puts each thing in its place, obviously cannot agree.
Taking life seriously generally consists of two movements: the first one is to give importance to things that probably have none, and the second is to want life to be reduced to a certain number of qualities that are considered pure and worthy of existence. In some people—for example, those Sri Aurobindo speaks about here, the “polite” or the puritans—this virtue becomes dry, arid, grey, aggressive and it finds fault everywhere, in everything that is joyful and free and happy.
The only way to make life perfect—I mean here, life on earth, of course—is to look at it from high enough to see it as a whole, not only in its present totality, but in the whole of the past, present and future: what it has been, what it is and what it will be—one must be able to see everything at once. Because that is the only way to put everything in its place. Nothing can be eliminated, nothing should be eliminated, but each thing must be in its place in total harmony with all the rest. And then all these things that seem so “bad”, so “reprehensible”, so “unacceptable” to the puritan mind, would become movements of delight and freedom in a totally divine life. And then nothing 156would prevent us from knowing, understanding, feeling and living this wonderful laughter of the Supreme who takes infinite delight in watching Himself live infinitely.
This delight, this wonderful laughter that dissolves every shadow, every pain, every suffering! You only have to go deep enough within yourself to find the inner Sun, to let yourself be flooded by it; and then there is nothing but a cascade of harmonious, luminous, sunlit laughter, which leaves no room for any shadow or pain.
In fact, even the greatest difficulties, even the greatest sorrows, even the greatest physical pain—if you can look at them from that standpoint, from there, you see the unreality of the difficulty, the unreality of the sorrow, the unreality of the pain—and there is nothing but a joyful and luminous vibration.
In fact, this is the most powerful way of dissolving difficulties, overcoming sorrows and removing pain. The first two are relatively easy—I say relatively—the last one is more difficult because we are in the habit of considering the body and its feelings to be extremely concrete, positive; but it is the same thing, it is simply because we have not learnt, we are not in the habit of regarding our body as something fluid, plastic, uncertain, malleable. We have not learnt to bring into it this luminous laughter that dissolves all darkness, all difficulty, all discord, all disharmony, everything that jars, that weeps and wails.
And this Sun, this Sun of divine laughter is at the centre of all things, the truth of all things: we must learn to see it, to feel it, to live it.
And for that, let us avoid people who take life seriously; they are very boring people.
As soon as the atmosphere becomes grave you can be sure that something is wrong, that there is a troubling influence, an old habit trying to reassert itself, which should not be accepted. All this regret, all this remorse, the feeling of being unworthy, of being at fault—and then one step further and you have the 157sense of sin. Oh! To me it all seems to belong to another age, an age of darkness.
But everything that persists, that tries to cling and endure, all these prohibitions and this habit of cutting life in two—into small things and big things, the sacred and the profane.… “What!” say the people who profess to follow a spiritual life, “how can you make such little things, such insignificant things the object of spiritual experience?” And yet this is an experience that becomes more and more concrete and real, even materially; it’s not that there are “some things” where the Lord is and “some things” where He is not. The Lord is always there. He takes nothing seriously, everything amuses Him and He plays with you, if you know how to play. You do not know how to play, people do not know how to play. But how well He knows how to play! How well He plays! With everything, with the smallest things: you have some things to put on the table? Don’t feel that you have to think and arrange, no, let’s play: let’s put this one here and that one there, and this one like that. And then another time it’s different again.… What a good game and such fun!
So, it is agreed, we shall try to learn how to laugh with the Lord.
14 January 1963
84—The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that man’s ascent is not yet finished.
85—It is rationality and prudence to distrust the supernatural; but to believe in it is also a sort of wisdom.
86—Great saints have performed miracles; greater saints 158have railed at them; the greatest have both railed at them and performed them.
87—Open thy eyes and see what the world really is and what God; have done with vain and pleasant imaginations.
As for Sri Aurobindo, I only know what he told me several times. People give the name of “miracle” only to interventions in the material or the vital world. And these interventions are always mixed with ignorant and arbitrary movements.
But the number of miracles that Sri Aurobindo performed in the mind is incalculable; but naturally you could only see it if you had a very straight, very sincere, very pure vision—a few people did see it. But he refused—this I know—he refused to perform any vital or material miracles, because of this mixture.
My experience is that in the present state of the world, a direct miracle, material or vital, must necessarily take into account a great many elements of falsehood that are unacceptable—they are necessarily miracles of falsehood. And they are unacceptable. I have seen what people call miracles; I saw many of them at one period, but this gave a right of existence to many things which to me are not acceptable.
What men call “miracles” nowadays are almost always performed by vital beings or by men who are in contact with vital beings, and this is a mixture—it accepts the reality of certain things, the truth of certain things that are not true. And this is the basis on which it works. So that is unacceptable.
I mean that he used to introduce the supramental force into the mental consciousness. Into the mental consciousness, the mental consciousness that governs all material movements, he would introduce a supramental formation or power or force which immediately changed the organisation. This produces immediate effects which seem illogical because they do not follow the normal course of movements according to mental logic.
He himself used to say that when he was in possession of the supramental power, when he could use it at will and focus it on a specific point with a definite purpose, it was irrevocable, inevitable: the effect was absolute. That can be called a miracle.
For example, take someone who was sick or in pain; when Sri Aurobindo was in possession of this supramental power—there was a time when he said that it was completely under his control, that is, he could do what he wanted with it, he could apply it where he liked—then he would apply this Will, for example, to some disorder, either physical or vital or, of course, mental—he would apply this force of greater harmony, of greater order, this supramental force, and focus it there, and it would act immediately. And it was an order: it created an order, a harmony greater than the natural harmony. That is, if it was a case of healing, for example, the healing would be more perfect and more complete than any obtained by ordinary physical and mental methods.
There were a great many of them. But people are so blind, so embedded in their ordinary consciousness that they always give “explanations”, they can always give an explanation. Only those who have faith and aspiration and something very pure in themselves, that is, who truly want to know, they were able to perceive it.
When the Power was there, he even used to say that it was effortless; all he had to do was to apply this supramental 160power of order and harmony and instantly the desired result was achieved.
That depends on how you look at it, from this side or that.
You give the name of miracle only to things which cannot be clearly explained or for which you have no mental explanation. From this point of view you can say that countless things that happen are miracles, because you cannot explain the how or the why of them.
I can’t see what a true miracle can be because, after all, what is a miracle? A true miracle… Only the mind has the notion of miracles; because the mind decides, by its own logic, that given this and that, another thing can or cannot be. But this represents all the limitations of the mind. Because, from the point of view of the Lord, how can there be a miracle? Everything is Himself which He objectifies.
So here we come to the great problem of the way which is being followed, the eternal way, as Sri Aurobindo explains it in Savitri. Of course, one can conceive that what was objectified first was something which had an inclination for objectivisation. The first thing to recognise, which seems consistent with the principle of evolution, is that the objectivisation is progressive, it is not total for all eternity.… [Silence] It is very difficult to tell, because we cannot get out of our habit of conceiving that there is a definite quantity unfolding indefinitely and that 161there can only be a beginning if there is a definite quantity. We always have, at least in our way of speaking, the idea of a moment [laughing] when the Lord decides to objectify Himself. Like this, the explanation becomes easy: He objectifies Himself gradually, progressively, and this results in a progressive evolution. But that is only a manner of speaking; because there is no beginning, there is no end, and yet there is a progression. The sense of succession, the sense of evolution, the sense of progress only exists with the manifestation. It is only when one speaks of the earth that one can give an explanation that is both very rational and in accord with the facts, because the earth has a beginning, not in its soul but in its material reality.
It is also likely that a material universe has a beginning.
[Silence]
If you look at it this way, for a universe a miracle would be the sudden intrusion of something from another universe. And for the earth, this reduces the problem to something very understandable—a miracle is the sudden intrusion of something which did not belong to the earth: it produces a radical and immediate change by introducing a principle which did not belong to this physical world of earth.
But there again, it is said that at the very centre of each element everything exists in principle; so even that miracle is not possible.
One could say that the sense of miracle belongs only to a finite world, a finite consciousness, a finite conception. It is the sudden entry—the intrusion, the intervention, the penetration—without preparation, of something which did not exist in this physical world. So obviously, any manifestation of a will or a consciousness which belongs to a domain that is more infinite and more eternal than earth, is necessarily a miracle on earth. But if you leave the finite world, the understanding of the finite 162world, miracles do not exist. The Lord can play at miracles if it so amuses Him, but there are no miracles—He plays every possible game.
You can begin to understand Him only when you feel in this way, that He plays every possible game, and “possible” does not mean possible according to the human conception, but possible according to His own conception!
And there, there is no room for miracles—except that it looks like a miracle.
[Silence]
If, instead of a slow evolution, something belonging to the supramental world appeared suddenly, man, the mental being, could call that a miracle, because it would be the intervention of something which he does not consciously carry within himself and which intervenes in his conscious life. And in fact, if you consider this taste for miracles, which is very strong—much stronger in children and in hearts that have remained childlike than in highly mentalised individuals—it is a faith in the realisation of the aspiration for the marvellous, of something higher than anything one can expect from normal life.
Indeed, in education, both tendencies should be encouraged side by side: the tendency to thirst for the marvellous, for what seems unrealisable, for something which fills you with the feeling of divinity; while at the same time encouraging exact, correct, sincere observation in the perception of the world as it is, the suppression of all imagination, a constant control, a highly practical and meticulous sense for exact details. Both should go side by side. Usually, you kill the one with the idea that this is necessary in order to foster the other—this is completely wrong. Both can be simultaneous and there comes a time when one has enough knowledge to know that they are the two aspects of the same thing: insight, a higher discernment. But instead of a narrow, limited insight and discernment, the 163discernment becomes entirely sincere, correct, exact, but it is vast, it includes a whole domain that does not yet belong to the concrete manifestation.
From the point of view of education, this would be very important: to see the world as it is, exactly, unadorned, in the most down-to-earth and concrete manner; and to see the world as it can be, with the freest, highest vision, the one most full of hope and aspiration and marvellous certitude—as the two poles of discernment.
The most splendid, most marvellous, most powerful, most expressive, most total things we can imagine are nothing compared to what they can be; and at the same time our meticulous exactitude in the tiniest detail is never exact enough. And both must go together. When one knows this [downward gesture] and when one knows that [upward gesture], one is able to put the two together.
And this is the best possible use of the need for miracles. The need for miracles is a gesture of ignorance: “Oh, I would like things to be like this!” It is a gesture of ignorance and impotence. And those who say, “You live in a miracle”, know only the lower end—and even then they know it only imperfectly—and they have no contact with anything else.
This need for miracles must be changed into a conscious aspiration for something—which is already there, which exists—which will be manifested by the help of all these aspirations; all these aspirations are necessary or, if one looks at it in a truer way, they are an accompaniment—an agreeable accompaniment—in the eternal unfolding.
Of course, people with a very strict logic tell you, “Why pray? Why aspire? Why ask? The Lord does what He wants and He will do what He wants.” It is quite obvious, there is no need to say it, but this impulse: “O Lord, manifest!” gives a more intense vibration to His manifestation.
Otherwise, He would never have made the world as it is. There is a special power, a special delight, a special vibration 164in the intensity of the world’s aspiration to become once more what it is.
And that is why—partly, fragmentarily—there is an evolution.
An eternally perfect universe, eternally manifesting the eternal perfection, would lack the joy of progress.
6 March 1963
88—This world was built by Death that he might live. Wilt thou abolish death? Then life too will perish. Thou canst not abolish death, but thou mayst transform it into a greater living.
89—This world was built by Cruelty that she might love. Wilt thou abolish cruelty? Then love too will perish. Thou canst not abolish cruelty, but thou mayst transfigure it into its opposite, into a fierce Love and Delightfulness.
90—This world was built by Ignorance and Error that they might know. Wilt thou abolish ignorance and error? Then knowledge too will perish. Thou canst not abolish ignorance and error, but thou mayst transmute them into the utter and effulgent exceeding of reason.
91—If Life alone were and not death, there could be no immortality; if love were alone and not cruelty, joy would be only a tepid and ephemeral rapture; if reason were alone and not ignorance, our highest attainment would not exceed a limited rationality and worldly wisdom.
92—Death transformed becomes Life that is Immortality; Cruelty transfigured becomes Love that is intolerable 165ecstasy; Ignorance transmuted becomes Light that leaps beyond wisdom and knowledge.
It is the same idea, that is, opposition and contraries are a stimulus to progress. Because to say that without cruelty Love would be tepid… The principle of Love as it exists beyond the Manifested and the Non-Manifested has nothing to do with either tepidness or cruelty. Only, Sri Aurobindo’s idea would seem to be that opposites are the quickest and most effective means of shaping Matter so that it can intensify its manifestation.
As an experience, this is absolutely certain, in the sense that, first of all, when one comes into contact with eternal Love, the supreme Love, one immediately has—how to put it?—a perception, a sensation—it is not an understanding, it is something very concrete: even the most illumined material consciousness, however much it has been moulded and prepared, is incapable of manifesting That. The first thing one feels is this kind of incapacity. Then comes an experience: something which manifests a form of—one cannot call it exactly “cruelty”, because it is not cruelty as we know it—but within the totality of circumstances, a vibration appears and, with a certain intensity, refuses love as it is manifested here. It is precisely this: something in the material world which refuses the manifestation of love as it exists at present. I am not speaking of the ordinary world, I am speaking of the present consciousness at its highest. It is an experience, I am speaking of something that has happened. So the part of the consciousness which has been struck by this opposition makes a direct appeal to the origin of Love, with an intensity which it would not have without the experience of this refusal. Limits are broken and a flood pours down which could not have manifested before; and something is expressed which was not expressed before.
When one sees this, there is obviously a similar experience from the point of view of what we call life and death. It is this kind of constant “brooding” or presence of Death and the 166possibility of death, as it is said in Savitri: we have a constant companion throughout the journey from cradle to grave; we are constantly accompanied by this threat or presence of Death. Well, along with this, in the cells, there is a call for a Power of Eternity, with an intensity which would not be there except for this constant threat. Then one understands, one begins to feel quite concretely that all these things are only ways of intensifying the manifestation, of making it progress, of making it more perfect. And if the means are crude, it is because the manifestation itself is very crude. And as it becomes more perfect and fit to manifest that which is eternally progressive, the very crude means will give way to subtler ones and the world will progress without any need for such brutal oppositions. This is simply because the world is still in its infancy and human consciousness is still entirely in its infancy.
This is a very concrete experience.
It follows that when the earth no longer needs to die in order to progress, there will be no more death. When the earth no longer needs to suffer in order to progress, there will be no more suffering. And when the earth no longer needs to hate in order to love, there will be no more hatred.
[Silence]
This is the quickest and most effective means to bring creation out of its inertia and lead it towards its fulfilment.
[Long silence]
There is a certain aspect of creation—which may be a very modern one—it is the need to escape from disorder and confusion, from disharmony and confusion: a confusion, a disorder which takes every possible form, which becomes struggle, useless effort, wastage. It depends on the domain you are in, but in the material world, in action, it means useless complications, 167waste of energy and material, waste of time, incomprehension, misunderstanding, confusion, disorder. This is what used to be called crookedness in the Vedas—I do not know the equivalent of this word, it is something twisted, which instead of going straight to the mark makes sharp, unnecessary zigzags. This is one of the things that is most opposed to the harmony of a purely divine action which has a simplicity… that seems childlike. Direct—direct, instead of making absurd and completely useless circumvolutions. Well, it is obviously the same thing: disorder is a way of stimulating the need for the pure divine simplicity.
The body feels very strongly, very strongly that everything could be simple, so simple!
And so that the being—this kind of individual agglomerate—can be transformed, it needs precisely to become more simple, simple, simple. All these complications of Nature, which they are now beginning to understand and study, which are so intricate for the slightest thing—the smallest of our functions is the result of a system so complicated that it is almost unthinkable; certainly it would be impossible for human thought to plan and put together all these things—now science is discovering them, and one can see very clearly that if the functioning is to be divine, that is, if it is to escape this disorder and confusion, it must be simplified, simplified, simplified.
[Long silence]
That is to say, Nature, or rather Nature in her attempt at self-expression, was obliged to resort to an unbelievable and almost infinite complication in order to reproduce the primal Simplicity.
And we come back to the same thing. From this excess of complication arises the possibility of a simplicity which would not be empty but full—a full simplicity, a simplicity that contains everything; whereas without these complications, simplicity is empty.
Now they are making discoveries like that. In anatomy, for 168example, they are discovering surgical treatments which are unbelievably complicated! It is like their classification of the elements of Matter—what frightful complexity! And all this is for the purpose of… in an effort to express Unity, the one Simplicity—the divine state.
[Silence]
Perhaps it will go quickly.… But the question comes to this—an aspiration that is sufficient, intense and effective enough, to attract That which can transform complication into Simplicity, cruelty into Love, and so on.
And it is no use complaining and saying that it is a pity, because it is like that. Why is it like that?… Probably, when it is no longer like that, we shall know. We could put it another way: if we knew, it would no longer be like that.
So, to speculate: “It would have been better if it had not been like that, etc.”—all that is unpractical, it is no use at all, it is useless.
We must hurry up and do what is needed to put an end to it, that is all; it is the only practical thing.
For the body it is very interesting. But it is a mountain, a mountain of experiences that seem very small, but because of their multiplicity, they have their place.fnWhen this talk was first published, Mother remarked, “The scientists will deny it, they will say that I am talking nonsense; but it is because I do not use their terms, it is just a matter of vocabulary.”
15 May 1963
93—Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us how to bear and grow in rapture. She has three stages of her schooling, endurance first, next equality of soul, last ecstasy.
169As far as moral things are concerned, this is absolutely obvious, it is indisputable—all moral suffering moulds your character and leads you straight to ecstasy, when you know how to take it. But when it comes to the body…
It is true that doctors have said that if one can teach the body to bear pain, it becomes more and more resilient and less easily disrupted—this is a concrete result. In the case of people who know how to avoid getting completely upset as soon as they have a pain somewhere, who are able to bear it quietly, to keep their balance, it seems that the body’s capacity to bear the disorder without going to pieces increases. This is a great achievement. I have asked myself this question from the purely practical, external standpoint and it seems to be like this. Inwardly, I have been told this many times—told and shown by small experiences—that the body can bear much more than we think, if no fear or anxiety is added to the pain. If we eliminate the mental factor, the body, left to itself, has neither fear nor apprehension nor anxiety about what is going to happen—no anguish—and it can bear a great deal.
The second step is when the body has decided to bear it—you see, it takes the decision to bear it: immediately, the acuteness, what is acute in the pain disappears. I am speaking absolutely materially.
And if you are calm—here, another factor comes in, the need for inner calm—if you have the inner calm, then the pain changes into an almost pleasant sensation—not “pleasant” in the ordinary sense, but an almost comfortable feeling comes. Again, I am speaking purely physically, materially.
And the last stage, when the cells have faith in the divine Presence and in the sovereign divine Will, when they have this trust that all is for the good, then ecstasy comes—the cells open, like this, become luminous and ecstatic.
That makes four stages—only three are mentioned here.
The last one is probably not within everyone’s reach, but the first three are quite evident—I know it is like that. The 170only thing that used to worry me was that it was not a purely psychological experience and that there was some wear in the body by the fact of enduring suffering. But I have asked doctors and I was told that if the body is taught to bear pain when it is very young, its capacity to endure increases so much that it can really resist disease; that is, the disease does not follow its normal course, it is arrested. That is precious.
10 August 1963
94—All renunciation is for a greater joy yet ungrasped. Some renounce for the joy of duty done, some for the joy of peace, some for the joy of God and some for the joy of self-torture, but renounce rather as a passage to the freedom and untroubled rapture beyond.
I have rarely had this experience of renunciation—for there to be renunciation, one must be attached to things, and there was always this thirst, this need to go further, to go higher, to feel better, to do better, to have something better. And rather than having a feeling of renunciation one has the feeling that it is a good riddance—you get rid of something cumbersome that weighs you down and hinders your advance. That is what I was saying the other day: we are still everything we no longer want to be and He is everything we want to become—what we call “we” in our egoistic stupidity is precisely what we do not want to be any more, and we would be so happy to throw all that off, to get rid of all that, so as to be able to be what we want to be.
This is a very living experience.
The only process that I have known, and which has been repeated several times during my life, is the renunciation of an error: something you believe to be true—which probably was true for a time—on which you base part of your action, but which in fact was only an opinion. You thought that it was a 171true evaluation with all its logical consequences, and your action—part of your action—was based on that, and it all followed automatically; and suddenly, an experience, a circumstance or an intuition, warns you that your evaluation is not as true as it looked. Then there is a whole period of observation, of study—or sometimes it comes like a revelation, a massive demonstration—and not only the idea or the false knowledge, but all its consequences must be changed—perhaps a whole way of acting on some point. And at that moment there is a kind of sensation, something akin to the sensation of renunciation, which means that you must break up a whole set of things which had been built—sometimes it can be quite extensive, sometimes it is something very small, but the experience is the same: it is the movement of a force, a power that dissolves, and there is resistance from everything which has to be dissolved, from all the past habits; and it is this movement of dissolution, with its corresponding resistance, which is probably expressed in the ordinary human consciousness as a feeling of renunciation.
I saw this very recently—it is insignificant, these circumstances have no importance in themselves; they are interesting only in the context of the study. This is the only phenomenon that is familiar to me because it has been repeated several times in my life. As the being progresses, the power of dissolution increases, becomes more and more immediate and the resistance diminishes. But I have the memory of a period of maximum resistance—it was more than half a century ago—and it was nothing but that, it was always something outside myself—not outside my consciousness, but outside my will—something which resisted the will. I have never had the feeling of having to renounce anything, but I have had the feeling of having to apply pressure on things to dissolve them. Whereas now, more and more, the pressure is imperceptible, it is immediate; as soon as the force to dissolve a whole set of things manifests, there is no resistance, everything dissolves; on the contrary, there is 172hardly any feeling of liberation—there is something which is amused again and says: “Oh, again! How many times one limits oneself.…” How many times you think that you are advancing, continuously, smoothly, uninterruptedly, and yet how many times you set a little limit in front of yourself. It is not a big limit, for it is a very small thing in an immense whole, but it is a small limit to your action. And so when the Force acts to dissolve the limit, at first you feel liberated, you are glad; but now, it is not even that, it is a smile. Because it is not a feeling of liberation, it is simply like removing a stone from your path so that you can go on.
This idea of renunciation can only arise in a self-centred consciousness. Naturally, people—the ones I call altogether primitive—are attached to things: when they have something, they do not want to let it go! It seems so childish to me!… When they have to part with something, it hurts! Because they identify themselves with the things they have. But this is childishness. The true process behind all this is the amount of resistance in things that were formed on a certain basis of knowledge—which was a knowledge at a particular time and which is no longer so at another—a partial knowledge, not fleeting but impermanent. There is a whole set of things built upon this knowledge and they resist the force that says: “No! it is not true, [laughing] your basis is no longer true, let’s take it away!” And then, oh! it hurts—this is what people experience as renunciation.
This has been my problem for weeks.
I have come to this conclusion: in principle, it is the 173 consciousness and the union with the Divine that bring rapture—this is the principle—therefore, the consciousness and the union with the Divine, whether in the world as it is or in the construction of a future world, must be the same—in principle. That is what I repeat to myself all the time: “How is it that you do not have this rapture?”
I have it—when the whole consciousness is centralised in union; at any time, in the midst of anything, with this movement of concentration of the consciousness on union, the rapture comes. But I must say that it disappears when I am working.… It is a world—a very chaotic world of work, where I act on everything around me; and necessarily, I am obliged to receive what is around me, so as to be able to act on it. I have reached a state in which all that I receive, even the things that are considered most painful, leave me absolutely calm and indifferent—“indifferent”, not an inactive indifference: without any painful reaction of any kind, absolutely neutral [gesture turned towards the Eternal], with perfect equality. But in this equality there is a precise knowledge of what is to be done, of what is to be said, of what is to be written, of what is to be decided, in short, everything that action entails. All that happens in a state of perfect neutrality, with the sense of Power at the same time: the Power flows, the Power acts, and the neutrality remains—but there is no rapture. I do not have the enthusiasm, the delight, the fullness of action.
And I must say that this rapturous state of consciousness would be dangerous in the present condition of the world. Because it produces reactions that are almost absolute—I see that this state of rapture has a formidable power. But I insist on the word formidable, in the sense that it is intolerant or intolerable—intolerable rather—to everything that is unlike it. It is the same thing or almost—not quite the same, but almost—as the supreme divine Love; the vibration of this ecstasy or rapture is a small beginning of the vibration of divine Love, and that is absolutely—yes, there is no other word for it—intolerant, in 174the sense that it will not permit the presence of anything that is contrary to it.
So it would have frightful consequences for the ordinary consciousness. I see it clearly, because sometimes this Power comes—this Power comes and one has the impression that everything is going to explode. For it can tolerate nothing but union, it can tolerate nothing but the response that accepts, that receives and accepts. And it is not an arbitrary will, it is by the very fact of its existence which is All-Power, “All-Power” not in the sense in which we understand it, but really All-Power. That is to say that it exists entirely, totally, exclusively. It contains everything, but anything that is contrary to its vibration is compelled to change, since nothing can disappear. So this immediate, almost brutal, absolute change, in the world as it is, is a catastrophe.
This is the answer that I have received to my problem.
Because it was that, I was wondering, “Why? I who am…” At any instant all I have to do is this [gesture upwards] and it is… there is nothing left but the Lord, everything is That—but so absolutely that everything which is not That disappears! But at the moment the proportion is such [laughing], that too many things would have to disappear!
I have understood that.
17 and 24 August 1963
95—Only by perfect renunciation of desire or by perfect satisfaction of desire can the utter embrace of God be experienced, for in both ways the essential precondition is effected,—desire perishes.
It is impossible to satisfy desire perfectly—it is something impossible. And also to renounce desire. You renounce one desire and you have another. Therefore both are relatively impossible; what is possible is to enter into a state where there is no desire.
175[Long silence]
It is a pity that I cannot note down all these experiences that come, because these last few days and during a whole period, there has been a very clear perception of the true working which is the expression of the supreme Will translated spontaneously, naturally, automatically through the individual instrument; one might even say—for the mind is quiet, it keeps quiet—through the body; and the perception of the moment when this expression of the divine Will is clouded—distorted—by the introduction of desire, the special vibration of desire, which has a quality all its own and which has many apparent causes: it is not only the thirst for something, the need for something, or the attachment to something; the same vibration can be set in motion, for example, by the fact that the will which is expressed seems to be, or at least is mistaken for, the expression of the supreme Will; but there has been a confusion between the immediate action which was obviously the expression of the supreme Will and the result which should have followed—it is a mistake we very often make. We are in the habit of thinking that when we want something it should come to us, because the vision is too shortsighted—too shortsighted and too limited; instead of having an overall vision which would show us that this particular vibration was necessary to set off a certain number of other vibrations and that it is the totality of all that which will have an effect, which is not the immediate effect of the vibration emitted. I do not know if this is clear, but it is a constant experience.
As a matter of fact, during this period, I have studied and observed this phenomenon: how the vibration of desire is added to the vibration of Will emitted by the Supreme—in our little everyday actions. And with the vision from above, if we take care to maintain the consciousness of this vision from above, we can see how this vibration emitted was exactly the vibration emitted by the Supreme, but instead of obtaining the immediate result expected by the surface consciousness, it was meant to set off a 176whole series of vibrations and to achieve another, more distant and more complete result. I am not speaking of great things or of actions on a terrestrial scale, I am speaking of the very small things in life: for example, saying to someone,“Give me this”, and instead of giving it, that someone does not understand and gives something else. So if we do not take care to preserve an overall vision, a certain vibration may occur, for example a vibration of impatience or of dissatisfaction, together with the impression that the vibration from the Lord is not understood and not received. Well, this little added vibration of impatience or, in fact, of not understanding what is happening, this impression of a lack of receptivity or response, is of the same quality as desire—it cannot be called a desire, but it is the same kind of vibration—this is what comes to complicate things. If we have the complete, exact vision, we know that “Give me this” will produce something other than the immediate result and that this other thing will bring in something else which is exactly what should be. I do not know if I am making myself clear, it is rather complicated! But this gave me the key to the difference in quality between the vibration of Will and the vibration of desire, and at the same time the possibility of eliminating this vibration of desire by a wider and more total vision—wider, more total and far-seeing, that is to say, the vision of a greater whole.
I insist on this point, because this eliminates all moral factors. It eliminates this pejorative notion of desire. More and more, the vision is eliminating all notions of good and bad, right and wrong, inferior and superior, and all that. There is only what might almost be called a difference of vibratory quality—“quality” still gives the idea of superiority and inferiority; it is not quality, it is not intensity. I do not know the scientific term they use to distinguish one vibration from another, but that’s what it is.
And so what is noteworthy is that the vibration, what one might call the quality of the vibration that comes from the Lord, is constructive—it builds and it is peaceful and luminous; while 177the other vibration of desire, or any similar vibration, complicates, destroys, confuses and twists things—confuses and distorts them, twists them. And this takes away the light; it produces a greyness, which can be intensified by violent movements into very dark shadows. But even when there is no passion, when passion does not intervene, it is like that. The physical reality has become nothing but a field of vibrations that mingle and unfortunately also clash and conflict with one another; and the clash, the conflict is a climax of this kind of turmoil and disorder and confusion created by certain vibrations which are in fact vibrations of ignorance—because we do not know. They are vibrations of ignorance and they are too small, too narrow, too limited—too short. The problem is no longer perceived from a psychological point of view at all; there are only vibrations.
If we consider it from the psychological point of view… on the mental plane, it is very easy; on the vital plane it is not very difficult; on the physical plane it is a little heavier, for it takes the form of “needs”; but here too there has been a field of experience these last few days: the study of medical and scientific conceptions of the structure of the body, its needs, what is good or bad for it; and that, reduced to its essence, comes down to the same question of vibrations. It was rather interesting: there was an appearance—for all things as they are seen by the ordinary consciousness are pure appearances—there was an appearance of food-poisoning and it became the object of a special study in order to find out whether there was anything absolute in it or whether the poisoning was relative, that is, based on ignorance and a bad reaction, and on the absence of the true vibration. The conclusion was that it is a question of proportion between the amount, the sum of vibrations that belong to the Lord, and the vibrations that still belong to obscurity; and, depending on the proportion, it takes the form of something concrete and real or of something that can be eliminated, that is, which does not resist the influence of the vibration of Truth. And it was very interesting, for as soon as the consciousness was informed 178of the cause of the disturbance in the functioning of the body—the consciousness saw where it came from, what it was—immediately, the observation began with the idea, “Let us see what is happening.” First, put the body in a state of perfect rest with the certitude—which is always there—that nothing happens except by the will of the Lord, that the result is also the will of the Lord, and that therefore one should be completely quiet; so the body is completely quiet, untroubled, it is not restless, not vibrating, nothing—completely quiet. And then, to what extent are the effects inevitable? As a certain amount of matter containing an element unfavourable to the elements of the body and to the life of the body has been absorbed, what is the proportion of favourable and unfavourable elements, or of favourable and unfavourable vibrations? Then I saw very clearly that the proportion varies according to the number of body cells under the direct influence, which respond only to the supreme vibration, and the others which still belong to the ordinary way of vibrating. It was very clear, because one could see all the possibilities, from the ordinary mass which is completely upset by this intrusion and in which one has to fight with all the ordinary methods to get rid of the undesirable element, to the total response of the cells to the supreme Force, which means that the intrusion can have no effect. But this is still the dream of tomorrow—we are on the way. And the proportion has become quite favourable—I cannot say all-powerful, far from it—quite favourable, which means that the consequences of the disturbance did not last very long and the damage was, so to say, minimal.
But all the experiences at the moment, one after the other—all the physical experiences of the body—lead to the same conclusion: everything depends on the proportion of elements responding exclusively to the influence of the Supreme, the elements that are half and half, on the way to transformation, and the elements that are still in the old process of vibration of Matter. Their number seems to be diminishing; it seems to 179be diminishing greatly, but there are still enough of them to produce unpleasant effects or reactions—things that are not transformed, that still belong to ordinary life. But every problem—whether psychological or purely material or chemical—the whole problem comes down to this: they are nothing but vibrations. And there is the perception of this totality of vibrations and the perception of what one might call, very crudely and approximately, the difference between constructive and destructive vibrations. We could say—it is simply a way of putting it—that all vibrations that come from the One and express Oneness are constructive and that all the complications of the ordinary separative consciousness lead to destruction.
[Long silence]
It is always said that it is desire which creates difficulties, and indeed it is like that. Desire may simply be something added to the vibration of will. The Will—when it is the one Will, the supreme Will expressing itself—is direct, immediate, there are no possible obstacles; and so everything that delays, hinders, causes complication or even failure is necessarily an admixture of desire.
One can see it in everything. For example, take an external field of action, with the external world, external things—of course, to say that it is “external” is simply to put oneself in a false position—but, for example, from the higher consciousness, the Truth-consciousness, you tell someone, “Go”—I am giving one example among millions—“Go and see this person and tell him this in order to obtain that.” If this person is receptive, immobile within and surrendered, then he goes, he sees the person and tells him and the thing is done—without any complication whatever, like that. If this person has an active mental consciousness, if he does not have total faith, if he has all the mixture of everything brought in by ego and ignorance, 180he sees difficulties, he sees problems to be solved, he sees all the complications—and of course, all this happens. And so according to the proportion—everything is always a question of proportion—according to the proportion, it creates complications, it takes time, the thing is delayed or even worse, it is distorted, it does not happen exactly as it should, it is changed, diminished, distorted or in the end it is not done at all—there are many, many degrees, but all that belongs to the domain of complications—mental complications—and desire. Whereas the other way is immediate. There are countless examples of these cases—of all cases—and also of the “immediate case”. Then people tell you: “Oh, you have performed a miracle!”—no miracle has been performed: that is how it should always be. It is because the intermediary did not add himself to the action.
I do not know if this is clear, but anyway…
So this ranges from the smallest thing to an action on the terrestrial scale. There are examples, in terrestrial action, of things that have been done in this way—if there is a good intermediary. Nobody understood how it was done, why it was done—like that, very, very simply, everything turned out well. And in other cases, to get a visa or a permit one has to move mountains. So, from the smallest thing, the smallest physical indisposition to a worldwide action, it is all the same principle, everything comes to the same principle.
4 November 1963
96—Experience in thy soul the truth of the Scripture; afterwards, if thou wilt, reason and state thy experience intellectually and even then distrust thy statement; but distrust never thy experience.
This doesn’t require any explanation.
That is to say, it should be explained to children that the statement, whatever it may be, the Scriptures, whatever they 181may be, are always a diminution of the experience, they are always less than the experience.
There may be people who need to know this.
97—When thou affirmest thy soul-experience and deniest the different soul-experience of another, know that God is making a fool of thee. Dost thou not hear His self-delighted laughter behind thy soul’s curtains?
Oh, it’s delightful!
One can only smile and say, “Never doubt your experience, for your experience is the truth of your being, but do not imagine that it is a universal truth; and never on the basis of this truth deny the truth of others, because for each one, his experience is the truth of his being. And a total truth would only be the totality of all these individual truths… plus the experience of the Lord Himself!”
98—Revelation is the direct sight, the direct hearing or the inspired memory of Truth, dṛṣṭi, śruti, smṛti; it is the highest experience and always accessible to renewed experience. Not because God spoke it, but because the soul saw it, is the word of the Scriptures our supreme authority.
I assume that this is an answer to the Biblical belief in the “Commandments of God” received by Moses, supposedly uttered by the Lord Himself and heard by Moses—it is an indirect way of saying [Mother laughs] that this is not possible.
“Our supreme authority” “because the soul saw it”—but it can only be a supreme authority for the soul that saw it, not for every soul. For the soul that had this experience and saw, it is the supreme authority, but not for the others.
This was one of the things which used to make me think when I was a small child: these ten “Commandments”, which 182are besides extraordinarily commonplace. Love thy father and thy mother.… Do not kill.… It is revoltingly commonplace. And Moses went up Mount Sinai to hear that!
Now, I do not know whether Sri Aurobindo was thinking of the Indian Scriptures.… There were also Chinese Scriptures.…
[Silence]
More and more my experience is that revelation—it does come—revelation may be universally applicable, but it is always personal in form, always personal.
It is as if one had an angle of vision of the Truth. It is necessarily, necessarily an angle, from the very moment it is put into words.
You have a wordless, thoughtless experience of a kind of vibration which gives you a feeling of absolute truth and then, if you remain very still, without seeking to know anything, after some time it is as if the vibration were passing through a filter and it is translated as a kind of idea. Then this idea—it is still rather hazy, that is, very general—if you continue to keep very still, attentive and silent, this idea passes through another filter, and then a kind of condensation occurs, like drops, and it turns into words.
But then, when you have had the experience very sincerely—that is, when you are not fooling yourself—it is necessarily only one point, one way of saying the thing, that’s all. And it cannot be more than that. Besides, it is very easy to observe that when you are in the habit of using a particular language, it comes in that language; for me it always comes either in English or in French, it does not come in Chinese or in Japanese! The words are inevitably English or French; and sometimes there is a Sanskrit word—but that is because, physically, I learnt Sanskrit. I have occasionally heard—not physically—Sanskrit pronounced by another being; but it does not crystallise, it remains nebulous; and when I come back to an entirely material 183consciousness, I remember a vague sound, not a precise word. Therefore, it is always an individual angle from the very moment it is formulated.
You must have a kind of very austere sincerity. You are seized with enthusiasm, because the experience brings an extraordinary power: the Power is there—it is there, before the words, and it diminishes with the words—but the Power is there and with this Power you feel very universal, you have the feeling: “It is a universal revelation”—yes, it is a universal revelation, but when you put it into words, it is no longer universal; then it is relevant only for minds that are built to understand this way of speaking. The Force is behind, but you have to go beyond the words.
[Silence]
Things of this sort come to me more and more often and I jot them down on a piece of paper. It is always the same process, always. First of all, a kind of explosion, an explosion of truth-power—it is like a great, white fireworks display [Mother smiles], much more than a fireworks display! And it spins round and round [gesture above the head], it churns and churns; then there is the impression of an idea—but the idea is lower, it is like a covering; the idea contains its own sensation, it also brings a sensation—the sensation was there before, but without the idea, and so the sensation could not be defined. There is only one thing, it is always an explosion of luminous Power. And then, afterwards, if you look at it and remain very quiet—the head, especially, should keep quiet—everything becomes silent [motionless, upward gesture], then suddenly someone speaks inside the head—someone speaks. It is this explosion speaking. Then I take a pencil and paper and I write. But between what speaks and what writes there is still a little space to be crossed, so that when it is written down something up there is not satisfied. So I remain quiet a little longer—“No, not that word, this one”184—sometimes it takes two days to become quite final. But those who are satisfied with the power of the experience make short work of this, and send out into the world sensational revelations that are distortions of the Truth.
You must be very steady, very quiet, very critical—especially very quiet, silent, silent, silent, without trying to seize hold of the experience—“Oh! What is it, what is it?”—that spoils everything. But watch—watch very closely. In the words there is something left, something that remains of the original vibration—so little! But there is something, something that makes you smile, that is pleasant, like a sparkling wine, and here [Mother indicates a word or a passage in an imaginary note], here it is dull. Then you look with your knowledge of the language, or with your sense of word-rhythm: “Look, there’s a pebble.” You must remove the pebble; and then you wait and suddenly it comes, plop! it falls into place: the right word. If you are patient, after a day or two, it becomes absolutely accurate.
5 February 1964
99—The word of Scripture is infallible; it is in the interpretation the heart and reason put upon the Scripture that error has her portion.
I am not quite sure that this is not ironical.… To people who say “The Scripture is infallible”, he answers: “Yes, yes, of course the Scriptures are infallible, but beware of your own understanding!”
But here is the word of truth:
100—Shun all lowness, narrowness and shallowness in religious thought and experience. Be wider than the widest horizons, be loftier than highest Kanchanjungha, be profounder than the deepest oceans.
5 February 1964
185101—In God’s sight there is no near or distant, no present, past or future. These things are only a convenient perspective for His world-picture.
102—To the senses it is always true that the sun moves round the earth; this is false to the reason. To the reason it is always true that the earth moves round the sun; this is false to the supreme vision. Neither earth moves nor sun; there is only a change in the relation of sun-consciousness and earth-consciousness.
[Long silence]
Impossible, I can’t say anything.
Yes, naturally.
Well, yes, there it is!
This is precisely what one cannot say! When you have the vision and the consciousness of the Order of Truth, of what is direct, the direct expression of the Truth, you immediately have an impression of something inexpressible, because all words belong to the other domain; all images, all comparisons, all expressions belong to the other domain.
186This is precisely the great difficulty I had—it was on the 29th of February. During the whole time that I lived in this consciousness of the direct manifestation of the Truth, I tried to formulate what I was feeling, what I was seeing—it was impossible. There were no words. And immediately, simply the formulation would cause an instantaneous fall back into the other consciousness.
On that occasion, the memory of this aphorism about the sun and the earth came back to me… even to say a “change of consciousness”—a change of consciousness is also a movement.
I don’t think one can say anything. I feel incapable of saying anything, because all the things we say are uninteresting approximations.
Yes, everything—the whole world is different! Everything is different. And the experience has convinced me of one thing, which I still feel continually, that both states—of Truth and Falsehood—are simultaneous, concomitant, and that only… yes, what he calls a “change of consciousness”, that is to say that one is either in this consciousness or in that consciousness, but one does not move for all that.
We are obliged to use words that move, because for us everything moves; but this change of consciousness is not a movement—it is not a movement. So then how can we speak about it or describe it?…
Even if we say, “one state taking the place of another”, with “taking the place of” we immediately introduce movement.… All our words are like that, what can we say?…
Yesterday again, the experience was absolutely concrete and powerful, that there is no need to move oneself or to move anything whatever for this Truth-Consciousness to replace the 187consciousness of deformation or distortion. That is to say, the capacity to live and be this true—essential and true—vibration seems to have the power to substitute this vibration for the vibration of falsehood and distortion, to such an extent that… for example, the natural result of distortion or of the vibration of distortion, should be an accident or a catastrophe; but if, inside these vibrations, there is a consciousness which has the power to become conscious of the vibration of Truth and therefore to manifest the vibration of Truth, it can—and must—annul the other, which would be translated in the external phenomenon by an intervention that would avert the catastrophe.
It is a growing impression that the True is the only way to change the world, that all the other processes of slow transformation are always at a tangent—one draws nearer and nearer but one never arrives—and that the last step must be this: the substitution of the true vibration.
We do have partial proofs. But since they are partial, they are not conclusive, because for the ordinary vision and understanding explanations can always be found: one can say that the accident, for example, was “intended” and “fated” to be forestalled, and that it was not forestalled by this intervention at all, but by the “determinism” that had decided it. And how to prove it? How to prove even to oneself that it is not so? It is impossible.
As soon as you express it, you enter into the mind, and as soon as you enter the mind, there is this kind of logic, which is frightful because it is all-powerful: if everything already exists, co-existing from all eternity, how can one thing be changed into another?… How can anything “change”?
You are told—Sri Aurobindo has just said it himself—that for the consciousness of the Lord there is no past, no time, no movement, nothing—everything is. To translate this, we say “from all eternity”, which is nonsense, but anyway, everything is. So everything is [Mother folds her arms], and that is all there is to it, there is nothing to be done. This conception, or rather this way of speaking—for it is only a way of speaking—cancels 188all sense of progress, it cancels evolution, it cancels… You are told that it is part of the determinism that you should strive for progress—yes, all that is empty talk.
And note that this way of speaking is only a minute of experience, it is not the whole experience. There is a moment when one feels like that, but it is not total, it is partial. It is only one way of feeling, it is not everything. There is something much deeper and much more inexpressible than that in the eternal consciousness—much more. This is only the first bewilderment one feels when one leaves the ordinary consciousness, but that is not everything. It is not everything. When the memory of this aphorism came back to me recently, I had the impression that it was merely a little glimpse one suddenly has, and a feeling of opposition between the two states, but that is not everything, it is not everything. There is something else.
There is something else which is altogether different from what we understand, but which is translated by what we understand.
And this is what cannot be said. It cannot be said because it is inexpressible, inexpressible.
This amounts to a feeling that everything which in our ordinary consciousness becomes false, untrue, distorted, crooked, is all essentially true for the Truth-Consciousness. But true in what way? That is precisely something which cannot be put into words, because words belong to Falsehood.
[Silence]
Let us be clear.… I am afraid that what we call “Matter” is in fact only the false appearance of the world.
189There is something corresponding, but…
This aphorism would lead to an absolute subjectivity and only this absolute subjectivity would be true—well, it is not like that. For that is Pralaya, Nirvana. But Nirvana is not the only thing, there is an objectivity which is real, which is not false—but how to put it!… It is something I have felt several times—several times, not only in a flash—the reality of… how to express it? One is always betrayed by one’s own words.… In the perfect sense of Oneness and in the consciousness of Oneness, there is room for objectiveness, objectivity—the one does not destroy the other, not at all. One can have a feeling of differentiation: not that it is not oneself, but it is a different vision. I have told you, everything one can say is nothing, it is nonsense, because words are meant to express the unreal world, but… Yes, perhaps this is what Sri Aurobindo calls the sense of multiplicity in unity, it may correspond a little; just as one feels the inner multiplicity of one’s being, something like that… I no longer have the feeling of a separate self, not at all, not at all, even in the body, but that does not prevent me from having a certain sense of objective relation—yes, look—this is the same thing as his “relation of consciousness” between earth and sun, which changes [Mother laughs]. It is true that this is perhaps the best way of saying it! It is a relation of consciousness. It is not at all a relation of self and “others”—not at all, that is completely cancelled—but it might be like a relation of consciousness between the different parts of one’s being. And obviously, that gives objectivity to the different parts.
[Long silence]
To come back to the example, which is very easy to understand, of the accident that is forestalled, one can very well imagine that the intervention of the Truth-Consciousness was decided “from all eternity” and that there is no new element, 190but nevertheless, it was this intervention which stopped the accident—which gives an exact picture of the power of this true consciousness over the other one. And if you project your own way of being onto the Supreme, you can imagine that it amuses Him to make all kinds of experiments, to see how things play themselves out. That is another matter. Nevertheless there is an All-Consciousness that knows all things from all eternity—all this in words that are absolutely inadequate. But nevertheless, when you look at the process, it was this intervention which was able to forestall the accident: the substitution of a false consciousness by a true one arrested the process of the false consciousness.
It seems to me that this happens quite often—much more often than one might think. For example, each time an illness is cured, each time an accident is avoided, each time a catastrophe, even a terrestrial catastrophe, is averted, in all these things, it is always an intervention of the vibration of harmony in the vibration of disorder that causes the disorder to cease.
So the people, the faithful, who always say, “By the grace of God, this has happened,” are not so wrong.
I am simply observing a fact, that this vibration of order and harmony intervenes—the causes of its intervention have nothing to do with it, it is merely a scientific observation—and I have experienced this quite a number of times.
Yes.
That’s it, yes, exactly. Exactly.
And from this point of view, I have even seen… The ordinary idea that this phenomenon must necessarily occur first in the 191body where the Consciousness is expressed more constantly, seems absolutely useless and subordinate; on the contrary, it occurs everywhere at the same time, wherever it can do so most easily and completely, and it is not necessarily this agglomerate of cells [Mother points to her own body] that is most prepared for this operation. Therefore it may remain as it is in its appearance for a very long time, even if its understanding and receptivity are exceptional. I mean that the awareness, the conscious perception of this body is infinitely superior to the awareness of all the others with which it is in contact, except at those moments—the moments—when other bodies, as if by Grace, have this perception; whereas for this body, it is a natural and constant state. It is the effective result of the fact that this Truth-Consciousness is more constantly concentrated on this group of cells than on any other—more directly. But the substitution of one vibration for the other—in circumstances, in action, in objects—occurs at the point where it can have the most striking and effectual results.
It is something I have felt very, very clearly and which one cannot feel so long as the physical ego is there, because the physical ego has the sense of its own importance and that disappears entirely with the physical ego. And when it disappears one has the precise perception that the intervention or the manifestation of the true vibration does not depend on egos or individualities—human or national individualities or even those of Nature: animals, plants, etc. It depends on a certain play of the cells and Matter in which some agglomerates are particularly favourable to the transformation—not “transformation”, but substitution, to be precise: the substitution of the vibration of Truth for the vibration of Falsehood. And this phenomenon can be quite independent of any groupings or individualities—it may be one piece here, one piece there, one thing here, one thing there—and it always corresponds to a certain quality of vibration that brings about an expansion—a receptive expansion. Then the phenomenon can take place.
192Unfortunately, as I said at the beginning, all words belong to the world of appearances.
[Silence]
And this has been my experience all this time, with a vision and a conviction—the conviction of experience: the two vibrations are like that [gesture indicating superimposition and infiltration], all the time. All the time, all the time.
Perhaps the feeling of wonder comes when the amount of infiltration is great enough to become perceptible. But I have the impression—and a very acute impression—that this phenomenon is taking place all the time, all the time, everywhere [gesture indicating dots of infiltration], in a minute, infinitesimal way; and in certain circumstances, certain conditions which are visible, visible to that vision—it is a kind of luminous expansion, I cannot explain—there, the mass of infiltration is great enough to give the impression of a miracle. But otherwise it is something that occurs all the time, all the time, ceaselessly, in the world [same gesture of dots], like an infinitesimal quantity of Falsehood being replaced by Light, Falsehood being replaced by Light… constantly.
And this vibration—which I feel and see—gives an impression of fire. This is what the Vedic Rishis must have translated as the “Flame”—in the human consciousness, in man, in Matter they always spoke of a Flame. It is in fact a vibration which has the intensity of a higher fire.
Several times, when the work was very concentrated or condensed, the body even felt that it was the equivalent of a fever.
Two or three nights ago, something like that happened; there was this descent of Force, a descent of this Truth-Power with a special intensity.… Well, that is what is happening—happening everywhere, all the time. So, if it happens in an agglomerate that is large enough, it appears to be a miracle—but it is the miracle of the whole earth.
193One must hold firm, because it has consequences, it brings a sensation of Power, and very few people can feel it, experience it, without their balance being more or less disturbed, because they do not have a sufficient basis of peace, of vast and very, very quiet peace. Many times I have said: There is only one answer, one single answer: one must be quiet, quiet, and even more quiet, more and more quiet, and not trying to find a solution with the head, because it cannot. One must only be quiet—quiet, quiet, immovably quiet. Calm and peace, calm and peace—that is the only answer.
I do not say that it is the cure, but it is the only answer: to endure in calm and peace, to endure in calm and peace.…
Then something will happen.
25 March 1964
103—Vivekananda, exalting Sannyasa,fnRenunciation of the life and works of the world. has said that in all Indian history there is only one Janaka.fnAncient king of Mithila, famous for having attained spiritual knowledge while leading the life of the world. Not so, for Janaka is not the name of a single individual, but a dynasty of self-ruling kings and the triumph-cry of an ideal.
104—In all the lakhs of ochre-clad Sannyasins,fnMonks who have renounced the life and works of the world. how many are perfect? It is the few attainments and the many approximations that justify an ideal.
105—There have been hundreds of perfect Sannyasins, because Sannyasa has been widely preached and numerously practised; let it be the same with the ideal freedom and we shall have hundreds of Janakas.
194106—Sannyasa has a formal garb and outer tokens; therefore men think they can easily recognise it; but the freedom of a Janaka does not proclaim itself and it wears the garb of the world; to its presence even NaradafnA famous Devarshi or divine seer. was blinded.
107—Hard is it to be in the world, free, yet living the life of ordinary men; but because it is hard, therefore it must be attempted and accomplished.
It seems so obvious!
To be free from all attachment does not mean running away from all occasion for attachment. All these people who assert their asceticism, not only run away but warn others not to try!
This seems so obvious to me. When you need to run away from a thing in order not to experience it, it means that you are not above it, you are still on the same level.
Anything that suppresses, diminishes or lessens cannot bring freedom. Freedom has to be experienced in the whole of life and in all sensations.
As a matter of fact I have made a whole series of studies on the subject, on the purely physical plane.… In order to be above all possible error, we tend to eliminate any occasion for error. For example, if you do not want to say any useless words, you stop speaking; people who take a vow of silence imagine that this is control of speech—it is not true! It is only eliminating the occasion for speech and therefore for saying useless things. It is the same thing with food: eating only what is necessary. In the transitional state we have reached, we no longer want to lead this entirely animal life based on material 195exchange and food; but it would be foolish to believe that we have reached a state where the body can subsist entirely without food—nevertheless there is already a great difference, since they are trying to find the essential nutrients in things in order to lessen the volume. But the natural tendency is to fast—it is a mistake!
For fear of being mistaken in our actions, we stop doing anything at all; for fear of being mistaken in our speech, we stop speaking; for fear of eating for the pleasure of eating, we do not eat at all—this is not freedom, it is simply reducing the manifestation to a minimum; and the natural conclusion is Nirvana. But if the Lord wanted only Nirvana, nothing but Nirvana would exist! It is obvious that He conceives of the co-existence of all opposites, and that for Him this must be the beginning of a totality. So obviously, if one feels meant for that, one can choose only one of His manifestations, that is to say, the absence of manifestation. But it is still a limitation. And this is not the only way to find Him, far from it!
It is a very common tendency which probably originates from an ancient suggestion or perhaps from some lack, some incapacity—reduce, reduce, reduce one’s needs, reduce one’s activities, reduce one’s words, reduce one’s food, reduce one’s active life—and all that becomes so narrow. In one’s aspiration not to make any more mistakes, one eliminates any occasion for making them. It is not a cure.
But the other way is much, much more difficult.
[Silence]
No, the solution is to act only under the divine impulsion, to speak only under the divine impulsion, to eat only under the divine impulsion. That is the difficult thing, because naturally, you immediately confuse the divine impulsion with your personal impulses.
I suppose this was the idea of all the apostles of renunciation: 196to eliminate everything coming from outside or from below so that if something from above should manifest one would be in a condition to receive it. But from the collective point of view, this process could take thousands of years. From the individual point of view, it is possible; but then one must keep intact the aspiration to receive the true impulsion—not the aspiration for “complete liberation”, but the aspiration for active identification with the Supreme, that is to say, to will only what He wills, to do only what He wants: to exist by and in Him alone. So one can try the method of renunciation, but this is for one who wants to cut himself off from others. And in that case, can there be any integrality? It seems impossible to me.
To proclaim publicly what one wants to do is a considerable help. It may give rise to objections, scorn, conflict, but this is largely compensated for by public “expectation”, so to say, by what other people expect from you. This was certainly the reason for those robes: to let people know. Of course, that may bring you the scorn, the bad will of some people, but then there are all those who feel they must not interfere or meddle with this, that it is not their concern.
I do not know why, but it always seemed to me like showing off—it may not be and in some cases it is not, but all the same it is a way of saying to people, “Look, this is what I am.” And as I say, it may help, but it has its drawbacks.
It is another childishness.
All these things are means, stages, steps, but… true freedom is to be free of everything—including means.
[Silence]
It is a restriction, a constriction, whereas the True Thing is an opening, a widening, an identification with the whole.
When you reduce, reduce, reduce yourself, you do not have any feeling of losing yourself, it takes away your fear of losing yourself—you become something solid and compact. But if you 197choose the method of widening—the greatest possible widening—you must not be afraid of losing yourself.
It is much more difficult.
Oh, you must know what to take and what to leave!
That is the other extreme.… Certainly, monasteries, retreats, escape into the forests or caves are necessary to counterbalance modern hyper-activity; and yet there is less of all that now than there was one or two thousand years ago. But to me this seems to have been a lack of understanding—it did not last.
Of course, it is this excessive activity which makes an excessive immobility necessary.
How can one avoid falling into one kind of excess or the other?
My child, that is why the Ashram was created! That was the idea. Because, in France, I was always asking myself: How can one find the time to find oneself? How can one even find the time to understand how to become free? So then I thought: a place where material needs will be sufficiently provided for, so that if one truly wants to become free, one can do so. And the 198Ashram was founded on this idea, not on any other—a place where people would have enough to live on so as to have time to think of the True Thing.
[Mother smiles] Human nature is such that laziness has taken the place of aspiration—not for everyone, but anyway in quite a general way—and licence or libertinism has taken the place of freedom—which would tend to prove that the human race has to pass through a period of rough handling before it is ready to pull itself away more sincerely from its slavery to activity.
Indeed, the first movement is this: “Oh! To find the place where one can concentrate, find oneself, truly live without being preoccupied with material things.” That is the first aspiration. It was even on this basis, at any rate in the beginning, that disciples were chosen—but it does not last! Things become easy and so one lets oneself go. There are no moral restraints and so one acts foolishly.
But one cannot even say that there was a mistake in the selection—one would be tempted to believe it, but it is not true; because the selection was made according to a very precise and clear inner indication.… It is probably the difficulty of keeping the inner attitude unmixed. This is exactly what Sri Aurobindo wanted, what he was trying for. He said: “If I could find one hundred people, that would be enough.” But it did not stay one hundred for long, and I must say that even when it was a hundred, it was already mixed.
Many came, attracted by the True Thing, but… one lets oneself go. That is, it is impossible to hold firm in one’s true position.
Yes, of course!
199Yes, that’s it! That is to say, man is still so crude that he needs extremes. That is what Sri Aurobindo said: For love to be true, hatred was necessary; true love could be born only under the pressure of hatred.fnSee Aphorisms 88 to 92. That’s it. Well, one must accept things as they are and try to go further. That is all.
That is probably why there are so many difficulties—difficulties accumulate here: difficulties of character, health and circumstances. It is because the consciousness awakens under the stress of difficulties. If everything is easy and peaceful, one falls asleep.
That is also how Sri Aurobindo explained the necessity of war. In peacetime, one becomes slack.
It is a pity.
I cannot say that I find it very pretty, but it seems to be like that.
This is just what Sri Aurobindo said in The Hour of God: If you have the Force and the Knowledge and misuse the moment, woe to you.
It is not revenge, it is not punishment, not at all, but you draw upon yourself a necessity, the necessity for a violent impulsion—to react to something violent.
[Silence]
This is an experience I am having more and more: for the contact with this true divine Love to be able to manifest, that is, to express itself freely, it demands an extraordinary strength in beings and things, which does not yet exist. Otherwise everything falls apart.
There are lots of very convincing details, but of course, because they are “details” or very personal things, one cannot 200speak of them; but on the evidence of repeated experiences, I have to say this: when this Power of pure Love—which is so wonderful, which is beyond all expression—as soon as it begins to manifest abundantly, freely, it is as if quantities of things crumbled down immediately—they cannot stand. They cannot stand, they are dissolved. Then… then everything stops. And this stopping, which one might think is a disgrace, is just the opposite! It is an infinite Grace.
Simply to perceive, a little concretely and tangibly, the difference between the vibration in which one lives normally and almost continually, and that vibration—simply to observe this infirmity, which I call sickening—it really makes you feel sick—that is enough to stop everything.
Only yesterday, this morning, there are long moments when this Power manifests; then suddenly, there is a kind of wisdom, an immeasurable wisdom which causes everything to subside in perfect tranquillity: what must be shall be, it will take the time that is needed. And then everything is all right. In this way, everything is all right immediately. But the splendour fades.
One has only to be patient.
Sri Aurobindo also has written this: Aspire intensely, but without impatience.… The difference between intensity and impatience is very subtle—it is all a difference in vibration. It is subtle, but it makes all the difference.
Intensely, but without impatience. That’s it. One must be in that state.
And for a very long time, a very long time, one must be satisfied with inner results, that is, results in one’s personal and individual reactions, one’s inner contact with the rest of the world—one must not expect or be premature in wanting things to materialise. Because our hastiness usually delays things.
If it is like that, it is like that.
We—I mean men—live harassed lives. It is a kind of half-awareness of the shortness of their lives; they do not think of it, but they feel it half-consciously. And so they are always 201wanting—quick, quick, quick—to rush from one thing to another, to do one thing quickly and move on to the next one, instead of letting each thing live in its own eternity. They are always wanting: forward, forward, forward.… And the work is spoilt.
That is why some people have preached: the only moment that matters is the present moment. In practice it is not true, but from the psychological point of view it ought to be true. That is to say, to live to the utmost of one’s capacities at every minute, without planning or wanting, waiting or preparing for the next. Because you are always hurrying, hurrying, hurrying.… And nothing you do is good. You are in a state of inner tension which is completely false—completely false.
All those who have tried to be wise have always said it—the Chinese preached it, the Indians preached it—to live in the awareness of Eternity. In Europe also they said that one should contemplate the sky and the stars and identify oneself with their infinitude—all things that widen you and give you peace.
These are means, but they are indispensable.
And I have observed this in the cells of the body; they always seem to be in a hurry to do what they have to do, lest they have no time to do it. So they do nothing properly. Muddled people—some people turn everything upside down, their movements are jerky and confused—have this to a high degree, this kind of haste—quick, quick, quick.… Yesterday, someone was complaining of rheumatic pains and he was saying, “Oh, it is such a waste of time. I do things so slowly!” I said [Mother smiles], “So what!” He didn’t like it. You see, for someone to complain when he is in pain means that he is soft, that is all; but to say, “I am wasting so much time, I do things so slowly!” It gave a very clear picture of the haste in which men live. You go hurtling through life… to go where?… You end with a crash!
What is the use of that?
202[Silence]
In reality, the moral of all these aphorisms is that it is much more important to be than to seem to be—one must live and not pretend to live—and that it is much more important to realise something entirely, sincerely, perfectly than to let others know that you are realising it!
It is the same thing again: when you are compelled to say what you are doing, you spoil half your action.
And yet, at the same time, this helps you to take your bearings, to find out exactly where you are.
That was the wisdom of the Buddha who spoke of “the Middle Way”: neither too much of this nor too much of that, neither falling into this nor falling into that—a little of everything and a balanced way… but pure. Purity and sincerity are the same thing.
16 September 1964
108—When he watched the actions of Janaka, even Narada the divine sage thought him a luxurious worldling and libertine. Unless thou canst see the soul, how shalt thou say that a man is free or bound?
This raises all sorts of questions. For example, how is it that Narada could not see the soul?
For me, it is very simple. Narada was a demi-god, he belonged to the overmind world and he was able to materialise himself, but these beings have no psychic. The gods do not have within them the divine spark, which is the core of the psychic, because only on earth—I am not even speaking of the material universe—only on earth did this descent of divine Love take place, which was the origin of the divine Presence in the core of Matter. And naturally, since they have no psychic being, they do not know the psychic being. Some of these beings have even 203wanted to take a physical body so as to have the experience of the psychic being—but not many of them.
As a rule, they did it only partially, through an “emanation”, not a total descent. For example, Vivekananda is said to have been an incarnation—a Vibhūti—of Shiva; but Shiva himself has clearly expressed his will to come down on earth only with the supramental world. When the earth is ready for the supramental life, he will come. And almost all these beings will manifest—they are waiting for that moment, they do not want any of the present struggle and the obscurity.
Certainly Narada was one of those who came here.… In fact, it was for fun! He liked to play with circumstances. But he had no knowledge of the psychic being and that must have prevented him from recognising the psychic being where it existed.
But all these things cannot be explained; they are personal ideas and experiences; this knowledge is not objective enough to be taught. One can say nothing about a phenomenon which depends on one’s personal experience and which has a value only for the person who has the experience.
What Sri Aurobindo said is based on the traditional learning of India and he spoke of what agreed with his own experience.
Yes, to be in relation with the soul, that is, the psychic being, one must have a psychic being oneself, and only men—men who belong to the evolution, who are sons of the terrestrial creation—possess a psychic being.
None of these gods has a psychic being. It is only by coming down and uniting with the psychic being of a man that they can have one, but they have none themselves.
12 January 1965
204109—All things seem hard to man that are above his attained level and they are hard to his unaided effort; but they become at once easy and simple when God in man takes up the contract.
This is perfect.
As it happens, two or three days ago I wrote something in reply to a question and I said something like this: Sri Aurobindo is the Lord, but only a part of the Lord, not the Lord in His totality, because the Lord is all—all that is manifested and all that is not manifested. Then I added: There is nothing that is not the Lord, nothing—there is nothing that is not the Lord, but few indeed are those who are conscious of the Lord. And it is this unconsciousness of the creation which constitutes its Falsehood.
All at once it was so obvious: “There it is! There it is!” How did Falsehood come? But that’s it, it is the unconsciousness of the creation that constitutes the Falsehood of the creation. And as soon as the creation once more becomes conscious of being the Lord, Falsehood will cease.
And it’s that, isn’t it? Everything is difficult, laborious, hard, painful because everything is done outside the consciousness of the Lord. But when He takes possession of His domain once more—or rather when we allow Him to take possession of His domain once more—and when things are done in His consciousness, with His consciousness, everything will become not only easy, but wonderful, glorious—and in an inexpressible delight.
It came like something self-evident. We say, “What is it? What do we call Falsehood? Why is the creation false?” It is not an illusion in the sense of not existing: it really exists, but… it is not conscious of what it is! Not only unconscious of its origin, but unconscious of its essence, of its truth—it is not conscious of its truth. And that is why it lives in Falsehood.
205This aphorism is magnificent. There is nothing to say, it says everything.
3 March 1965
110—To see the composition of the sun or the lines of Mars is doubtless a great achievement; but when thou hast the instrument that can show thee a man’s soul as thou seest a picture, then thou wilt smile at the wonders of physical Science as the playthings of babies.
This is the continuation of what we were saying before about those who want to “see”. Ramakrishna is supposed to have said to Vivekananda, “You can see the Lord just as you see me and hear His voice just as you hear mine.” Some people understood this as an announcement that the Lord was on earth in flesh and blood. I said [laughing]: “No, it is not that! What he meant is that if you enter the true consciousness, you can hear Him—I say, hear much more clearly than you hear physically and see much more clearly than you see physically.”—“Oh! But…”—Immediately they open their eyes wide, it becomes something unreal!
The “wonders” are all right, that is their business. But it is their overweening self-assurance that makes me smile. They imagine that they know. They imagine that they have the key, that is what makes one smile. They imagine that with everything they have learnt they are the masters of Nature—that is childishness. Something will always escape them so long as they are not in touch with the creative Force and the creative Will.
It is an experiment you can easily make. A scientist can explain all visible phenomena, he can even use physical forces and 206make them do what he wants—and they have achieved staggering results from the material point of view—but if you just ask them this question, this simple question, “What is death?”—in fact they know nothing about it. They can describe the phenomenon as it happens materially, but if they are sincere, they are obliged to say that it explains nothing.
There always comes a time when it no longer explains anything. Because to know… to know is to have power.
[Silence]
Ultimately, what is most accessible to materialistic thought, to scientific thought, is the fact that they cannot foresee. They can foresee many things, but the unfolding of terrestrial events is beyond their prevision. I think that this is the only thing they can admit—there is a problematical element, a field of unpredictability which eludes all their calculations.
I have never talked with a typical scientist who had the most up-to-date knowledge, so I am not quite sure, I do not know how far they admit the unpredictable or the incalculable.
What Sri Aurobindo means, I think, is that when one is in communion with the soul and has the knowledge of the soul, that knowledge is so much more wonderful than material knowledge that there is almost a smile of disdain. I do not think he means that the knowledge of the soul teaches you things about material life that one cannot learn through science.
The only point—I do not know whether science has reached it—is the unpredictability of the future. But perhaps they say it is because they have not yet reached perfection in their instruments and methods. For example, perhaps they think that when man first appeared on earth, if they had had the instruments which they have now, they would have been able to foresee the transformation of the animal into man or the appearance of man as a consequence of “something” in the animal—[Mother smiles]. I don’t know about their most modern claims. In that 207case, they ought to be able to measure or perceive the difference in the atmosphere now, after the intrusion of something which was not there before, because that still belongs to the material domain.fnWhen the disciple asked Mother whether this “something” was in fact the supramental force, she answered: “I would rather not give it a name, because people will make a dogma out of it. That is what happened when what is called ‘the first supramental manifestation’ occurred in 1956. I tried my best to prevent it from being made into a dogma. But if I say, ‘On such a date, such a thing happened’, it will be written in big letters and if anyone says anything else he will be told, ‘You are a heretic. ’ So I do not want that. But it is indisputable that the atmosphere has changed, there is something new in the atmosphere—we can call it the ‘descent of the supramental truth’, because for us these words have a meaning, but I do not want to make a declaration out of it, because I do not want that to be the classical or ‘true’ way of describing the event. That is why I leave my phrase vague, purposely.” But I do not think this is what Sri Aurobindo meant; I think he meant that the world of the soul and the inner realities are so much more wonderful than physical realities, that all physical “wonders” make you smile—it is more like that.
It has that power and exercises it constantly, but the human consciousness is not aware of it; and the big difference is that it is becoming aware. But it is becoming aware of something that is always there, and which others deny because they cannot see it.
For example, I have had the opportunity to study this. For me, circumstances, characters, all events and all beings move according to certain “laws”, so to say, which are not rigid, but which I can perceive and which enable me to see: this will lead to that and that will lead there, and since this person is like that, this will happen to him. It is more and more precise. Because of this, I could, if necessary, make predictions. But this relation of 208cause and effect in that domain is quite obvious for me and it is corroborated by the facts; for them—those who do not have this vision and consciousness of the soul, as Sri Aurobindo says—circumstances unfold according to other superficial laws, which they consider as the natural consequences of things, completely superficial laws that do not stand up to deep analysis. But they do not have the inner capacity, so it does not worry them, it seems obvious to them.
I mean that this inner knowledge does not have the power to convince them. So that when in connection with any particular event I see: “Oh, but it is quite, quite obvious—for me—I have seen the Force of the Lord at work here, I have seen such and such a thing happen and of course that is what is going to occur”—for me, it is quite obvious, but I do not say what I know, because it does not correspond to anything in their experience; to them it would sound like rambling or pretension. That is to say, when you do not have the experience yourself, another person’s experience is not convincing, it cannot convince you.
It is not so much a power of acting on Matter—that is happening constantly; but, unless hypnotic methods are used, which are worthless, which lead nowhere—it is a power to open the understanding [gesture of piercing through the top of the head]; that is what is so difficult.… A thing one has not experienced does not exist.
Even if some kind of miracle were to happen in front of them, they would have a material explanation for it; for them it would not be a miracle in the sense of an intervention of a force or power other than the material forces and powers. They would have their material explanation. For them it would not be convincing.
You can only understand if you yourself have touched this domain in your experience.
And one can see, one can see clearly: there is a possibility of understanding only insofar as something has awakened. That is the support, the basis.
209That is exactly what I mean. The transformation can take place up to a certain point without one even being aware of it.
They say that there is a great difference: when man came, the animal had no way of perceiving it. Well, I say it is exactly the same thing: in spite of everything man has realised, man has no way of perceiving it—certain things may occur and he will only know about it much later, when “something” within him has developed enough for him to perceive it.
Even scientific development carried to its extreme, to the point where one really feels that there is almost no difference, where they arrive at this unity of substance, for example, where it seems that there is only an almost indiscernible or imperceptible transition between one state and the other—the material and the spiritual—well, no, it is not like that. To perceive this kind of unity, one must already carry within oneself the experience of the other thing; otherwise one cannot perceive it.
And precisely because they have acquired the capacity to explain, they explain external phenomena to themselves in such a way that they remain in their denial of the reality of inner phenomena—they say that these are, as it were, extensions of what they have studied.
Only, because of his very constitution, because there hardly exists a human being who hasn’t at least a reflection, or a shadow, or a beginning of a relation with his subtle being, his inner being, his soul—because of that there is always a flaw in their denial. But they consider that to be a weakness—it is their only strength.
[Silence]
It is really when one has the experience—the experience and 210knowledge and identity with the higher forces—that one can see the relativity of all external knowledge; but until then, no, one cannot, one denies the other realities.
I think this is what Sri Aurobindo meant: only when the other consciousness has been developed will the scientist smile and say, “Yes, it was all very well, but…”
In reality, one cannot lead to the other—except by an act of grace; if inwardly, there is an absolute sincerity which enables the scientist to see, to sense, to perceive the point at which it eludes him, then that can lead him to the other state of consciousness, but not by his own procedures. Something must abdicate and accept the new methods, the new perceptions, the new vibration, the new state of soul.
So, it is an individual matter. It is not a question of class or category—the question is whether the scientist is ready to be… something else.
[Silence]
One can only state one thing: everything you know, however beautiful, is nothing compared to what you can know if you are able to use the other methods.
[Silence]
This has been the whole object of my work recently: how to touch this refusal to know? It has been there for a long time. It is the continuation of what Sri Aurobindo said in one of his letters: he says that India has done much more for spiritual life with her methods than Europe has done with all her doubts and questionings. That’s exactly it. It is a kind of refusal—the refusal to accept a particular method of knowledge which is not the purely material one, and the denial of experience, of the reality of experience. How can one convince them of that?… And then, there is the method of Kali which is to give a sound thrashing. But 211according to me that means a lot of damage without much result.
This is another big problem.
It seems that the only method which can overcome all resistances is the method of Love. But then the adverse forces have perverted love in such a way that many very sincere people, sincere seekers, have steeled themselves, so to say, against this method, because of its distortion. That is the difficulty. That is why it is taking time. However…
29 May 1965
111—Knowledge is a child with its achievements; for when it has found out something, it runs about the streets whooping and shouting; Wisdom conceals hers for a long time in a thoughtful and mighty silence.
112—Science talks and behaves as if it had conquered all knowledge. Wisdom, as she walks, hears her solitary tread echoing on the margin of immeasurable Oceans.
Silence… Oh! It is better to practise it than to talk about it.
It is an experience I had here, long ago: the difference between wanting to spread and make use of what one has learnt, immediately, and the contact with higher knowledge, where one remains as quiet as one can so that it can have a transforming effect. I have had the living experience of this—half a day of living experience—but now that seems old to me, old, far behind.
This is what people used to seek in the past when they wanted to 212escape from life. They would go into a trance, they would leave their body quite still and they would go within and they were perfectly happy. And with the Sannyasis who had themselves buried alive it was like that. They said, “Now, I have finished my work”—their language was very impressive—“I have finished, I am entering into Samadhi” and they had themselves buried alive. They went into a room or something, and then it was closed and that was the end of it. And that is what happened: they went into a trance, and after some time, naturally, their body was dissolved and they were in peace.
Powerful, yes.
Not an eternity—Eternity.
No, because it is not manifested, it is outside the manifestation. But Sri Aurobindo wants us to bring it down here. That is the difficulty. And one must accept infirmity and even the appearance of imbecility, everything, and not one out of fifty million has the courage for that.
There are millions of ways of fleeing. There is only one way to remain: it is truly to have courage and endurance, to accept every appearance of infirmity, helplessness, incomprehension, even an apparent denial of the Truth. But if one does not accept that, it will never change. Those who want to remain great, luminous, strong, powerful and so on and so forth, well, let them stay up there, they cannot do anything for the earth.
213And this incomprehension is a very small thing—a very small thing because the consciousness is such that it is not affected in the least—but it is a total and all-embracing incomprehension! That is to say, one is insulted and held in contempt and all that, just because of what one is doing; for, according to them—all the “great minds” of the earth—one has forsaken one’s divinity. They do not put it like that, they say: “What? You claim to have a divine consciousness, and then…” And one meets it in everybody, in all circumstances. From time to time, someone, for a moment, has a flash, but it is quite exceptional, whereas, “Well then, show your power”—this is everywhere.
That’s it: “Show your power, change the world. And to begin with, do what I want. I mean, the first and most important thing is to do what I want—show your power!” That is what they say constantly.
25 September 1965
113—Hatred is the sign of a secret attraction that is eager to flee from itself and furious to deny its own existence. That too is God’s play in His creature.
114—Selfishness is the only sin, meanness the only vice, hatred the only criminality. All else can easily be turned into good, but these are obstinate resisters of deity.
This corresponds to a kind of vibration—the vibration received from people who hate. It is a vibration that is fundamentally the same, so to say, as the vibration of love. In its very depths there is the same sensation. Although on the surface it is the opposite, it is supported by the same vibration. And one could 214say that one is the slave of what one hates just as much as of what one loves, perhaps even more so. It is something that grips you, that haunts you, and which you cherish; a sensation you cherish, for underneath its violence there is a warmth of attraction which is just as great as the warmth you feel for what you love. And it seems that this distortion in the appearance only exists in the activity of the manifestation, that is, entirely on the surface.
One is obsessed by what one hates even more than by what one loves. And the obsession comes from this inner vibration.
All these “feelings”—what to call them?—have a mode of vibration, with something very essential at the core, and covering layers, as it were. And the most central vibration is the same, and as it expands to express itself, it becomes distorted. With love, it is quite obvious; it becomes, outwardly, in the vast majority of cases, something whose nature is quite different from the inner vibration, because it is something that withdraws into itself, shrivels up and wants to draw things towards itself in an egoistic movement of possession. You want to be loved. You say, “I love that person,” but at the same time there is what you want; the feeling is lived as, “I want to be loved.” And so this distortion is almost as great as the distortion of hatred which consists in wanting to destroy what you love in order not to be bound by it. Because you cannot obtain what you want from the object of your love, you want to destroy it in order to become free; in the other case, you shrivel up almost in an inner rage, because you cannot obtain, you cannot absorb what you love. And truly speaking [laughing], from the standpoint of the deeper truth, there is not much difference!
It is only when the central vibration remains pure and expresses itself in its initial purity, which is an unfolding—what to call it?… it is something that radiates, a vibration that spreads out in splendour; and it is a blossoming, yes, a radiant blossoming—then it remains true. And materially, this is translated as self-giving, self-forgetfulness, generosity of soul. And that is the 215only true movement. But what is usually called “love” is as far removed from the central vibration of true Love as hatred; only, one withdraws, shrivels up and hardens, and the other strikes. This is what makes all the difference.
And it is not seen with ideas, it is seen with vibrations. It is very interesting.
In fact I have had to study this a great deal recently. I have had the opportunity to see these vibrations. The external results may be deplorable, from the practical point of view they may be dreadful; that is to say, this kind of vibration encourages the urge to harm, to destroy; but from the standpoint of the deeper truth, this distortion is not much greater than the other, it is only of a more aggressive nature—and even then…
If one pursues this experience further and deeper, if one concentrates on this vibration, one realises that it is the initial vibration of creation, the vibration which has been altered, distorted in all that exists. And then there is a kind of all-embracing warmth—one cannot call it exactly a “sweetness”, but it is a kind of strong sweetness—an all-embracing warmth in which there is as much smile as sadness—much more smile than sadness.…
This does not justify the distortion, but it is above all a reaction to the choice that the human mentality—especially the human morality—has made between one kind of distortion and another. There is a whole series of distortions that have been labelled “bad” and there is a whole series of distortions towards which people are full of indulgence, almost compliments. And yet from the essential point of view these distortions are not much better than the others—it is a matter of choice.
In fact, one should first perceive the central vibration and then appreciate its unique and wonderful quality so much that one would automatically and spontaneously avoid all distortions, whatever they may be, the virtuous as well as the vicious.
We always come back to the same thing, there is only one 216solution: to attain the truth of things and cling to it—this essential truth, the truth of essential Love—and cling to it.
25 December 1965
115—The world is a long recurring decimal with Brahman for its integer. The period seems to begin and end, but the fraction is eternal; it will never have an end and never had any real beginning.
116—The beginning and end of things is a conventional term of our experience; in their true existence these terms have no reality, there is no end and no beginning.
Only last week there was a whole development of this experience.
In fact, it is the same thing for worlds as for individuals, for universes as for worlds. Only the duration is different—an individual is small, a world is a little bigger, and a universe is a little bigger still! But what has a beginning has an end.
We have to use words but the Thing escapes. What we know as “the eternal Principle”, “the Supreme”, “God”, has neither beginning nor end—we are obliged to say “it is”, but it is not like that, because it is beyond Non-Manifestation and Manifestation; it is something which we are unable to understand and perceive in the Manifestation—and that is what has neither beginning nor end. But constantly and eternally, That is manifested in something that begins and ends. Only there are two ways of “ending”, one which appears to be a destruction, an annihilation, and another which is a transformation; and it would seem that as the Manifestation becomes more perfect, 217the necessity of destruction diminishes until a time comes when it will disappear and be replaced by a process of progressive transformation. But this is a very human and external way of putting it.
I am fully aware of the inadequacy of words, but through the words you must catch hold of the Thing.… The difficulty for human thought and still more for expression, is that words always carry a sense of beginning.
[Silence]
I have had a perception of this manifestation—a “pulsating” manifestation, one might say, which expands and contracts, expands and contracts.… And there comes a time when there is such an expansion, such a fluidity, plasticity, capacity for change that there is no longer any need for it to be reabsorbed so that it can take a new form; and there will be a progressive transformation. I used to know an occultist who said that this is the seventh universal creation, that there have already been six pralayasfnReabsorption of a world. and that this is the seventh creation, but that this one will be able to transform itself without being reabsorbed—which obviously has no importance whatsoever, for when one has the eternal consciousness it does not matter whether it is like this or like that. Only in the limited human consciousness is there this kind of ambition or need for something that has no end, because, within, there is what might be called the “memory of eternity” and this memory of eternity aspires for the manifestation to share in this eternity. But if this sense of eternity is active and present, we do not grieve; we do not grieve when we throw away a spoiled garment—we may be attached to it, but even so we do not grieve! It is the same thing: if a universe disappears, it means that it has fully fulfilled its function, it has come to the end of its possibilities and must be replaced by another one.
218I have followed the whole curve. When you are very small in consciousness and development, you feel a great need that the earth should not disappear, that it should continue perpetually—it can go on transforming itself, but it should always be the earth that goes on. A little later, when you are a little more mature, you give it much less importance. And when you are in constant communion with the sense of eternity, it becomes merely a question of choice; it is no longer a need, because it is something that does not affect the active consciousness. A few days ago—I do not remember when, but very recently—I lived this Consciousness for a whole morning and I saw, in the curve of the being’s development, that this kind of need, which seems to be deep-seated, for the life of the earth to be prolonged—for the life of the earth to be prolonged indefinitely—this need is objectified, so to say, it is no longer so deep-seated; it is like looking at a performance and judging whether it should be like this or like that. It was an interesting change of viewpoint.
It is like an artist, but an artist giving shape to himself, making one trial, two trials, three trials, as many as he needs, and then achieving something complete enough in itself and receptive enough to be able to adapt to new manifestations, to the needs of these new manifestations, so that it would not be necessary to draw everything back in, to mix it all up and bring it all out again. But it is nothing more than this, and as I say, a question of choice. After all, the manifestation is made for the delight of objectivisation—the delight or interest or, well… And once what has taken shape is plastic enough, receptive enough, flexible enough and vast enough to be capable of being constantly moulded by the new forces that are manifesting, there is no longer any need to unmake everything in order to remake it.
With the curve also came an adage, “What has a beginning must have an end”—this seems to be one of those human mental constructions that are not necessarily true. But subjectively, what is interesting is that the problem gradually becomes less acute as 219one views it from higher up, or from a more central point, to be more exact.
It seems that it is the same… not “principle”, because it is not a principle—the same law for the individual as for worlds and universes.
[Long silence]
As soon as one tries to express it [Mother makes a gesture of reversal], everything becomes warped.… I was looking at this experience of the relation with the Consciousness, the All; this relation of the human being with the All; of the earth—the consciousness of the earth—with the All; of the consciousness of the manifested universe with the All; and of the consciousness that presides over the universe—over all the universes—with the All; and this inexpressible phenomenon that each point of consciousness—a point that does not occupy any space—each point of consciousness is capable of all experiences.… It is very difficult to express.
One could say that only limits make differences—differences in time, differences in space, differences in size, differences in power. It is only the limits. And as soon as the consciousness goes outside its limits at any point in the manifestation, whatever the dimension of this manifestation—yes, the dimension of this manifestation has absolutely no importance—at any point in the manifestation, if one goes outside the limits, it is the Consciousness.
From this standpoint one could say that it is the acceptance of limits that has made the manifestation possible. The possibility of manifestation came with the acceptance of the sense of limits.… It is impossible to express. Always, as soon as one begins to speak, one has the impression of something which does this [same gesture of reversal], a kind of tipping over, and it is finished, the essential thing has gone. Then the metaphysical sense comes along and says, “One could put it like 220this, one could put it like that.…” To use words: every point contains the Consciousness of Infinity and Eternity—these are words, nothing but words. But the possibility of this experience is there. It is like stepping back out of space.… It might be amusing to say that even stone, even… oh, water certainly, fire certainly, has the power of Consciousness—the original—all the words that come are stupid—essential, primordial—all that means nothing—eternal, infinite Consciousness.… All this is meaningless, it gives me the impression of dust thrown on glass to prevent it from being transparent!… Finally, in conclusion, after having relived this experience—these last few days I have had it repeatedly, it reigned supreme, in spite of everything, work, activities, it ruled over everything—any attachment to any formula, even the ones that have stirred people through the ages, seems childish to me. And now it’s only a matter of choice: you can choose whether it is like this or like that or like that; you can say this or this or that—amuse yourselves, my children… if it amuses you.
But it is certain—this is an observation for general use—it is certain that the human mind, in order to have the urge to act, needs to build a dwelling-place—more or less large, more or less complete, more or less flexible—but it needs a dwelling-place. Only [laughing] it is not that! That distorts everything!
And what is strange, what is strange, is that outwardly one goes on living automatically according to certain ways of life, which no longer even have the virtue of seeming necessary to you, which no longer even have the force of habit, and which are accepted and lived almost automatically, with a sense—a kind of feeling or sensation, but it is neither feeling nor sensation, it is a kind of very subtle perception—that Something, so immense that it is undefinable, wants it. I say “wants” it or I say “chooses” it, but it is “wills” it; it is a Will that does not function like the human will, but which wills it—which wills it or sees it or decides it. And in each thing there is this luminous, golden, imperative vibration… which 221is necessarily all-powerful. And it provides as a background the perfect well-being of certitude, which, a little lower down in the consciousness, expresses itself by a smile of benevolent amusement.
It is certainly a very elegant way of saying the same thing I have just said!
This is another experience of these last few days. It came to me with an absolute certitude—although it is very difficult to express—that this so-called “error” of the material world as it is, was indispensable; that is to say, the material mode or way of perceiving, of becoming aware of things, was gained through the “error” of this creation and would not have existed without it, and it is not something that will vanish into non-existence when we gain the true consciousness—it is something that is added in a special way—which was perceived, lived at that moment in the essential Consciousness.
It was like a justification of the creation that has made possible a certain mode of perception—which might be described by the words “precision”, “exactness” in objectivisation—which could not have existed without it. Because when this 222Consciousness—the perfect Consciousness, the true Consciousness, the Consciousness—was there, present and lived to the exclusion of any other, there was something like a mode of vibration, so to say, a mode of vibration with objective precision and exactness, which could not have existed without this material form of creation.… You see, there was always this great “Why?”—“Why is it like this?” Why is there all this, which brought about everything that the human consciousness interprets as suffering, misery and helplessness and everything, all the horrors of ordinary consciousness—why? Why is it? And so this was the answer: in the true Consciousness there is a mode of vibration, of precision and exactness and clarity in objectivisation, which could not have existed without that, which would not have had any opportunity to manifest. That is certain. That is the answer—the all-powerful answer to the “why”.
It is obvious—obvious—that what we experience as progress, as a progressive manifestation, is not simply a law of the material manifestation as we know it, but the very principle of the eternal Manifestation. To come down to the level of terrestrial thought, one might say that there is no manifestation without progress. But what we call progress, what is “progress” to our consciousness, up there it is… it can be anything, a necessity, whatever you like—there is a kind of absolute that we do not understand, an absolute of being: it is like that because it is like that, that is all. But for our consciousness it is more and more, better and better—and these words are stupid—it is more and more perfect, better and better perceived. That is the very principle of manifestation.
One experience came very fleetingly, but precisely enough to allow one to say, very clumsily, that—I was about to say the “flavour” of the Non-Manifest—the Non-Manifest has a special flavour because of the Manifest.
All this is just words, but that is all we have. Perhaps one day we shall have words or a language which can say these things 223properly; it is possible, but it will be always a translation.
There is a level here [pointing to the chest] where something plays with words, with images, with phrases, like this [shimmering, undulating gesture], that makes pretty pictures; it has a power of bringing you into contact with the Thing, which may be greater—at least as great, but perhaps greater—than here [pointing to the forehead], than the metaphysical expression—“metaphysical” is a manner of speaking. Images, that is to say, poetry. Here there is an almost more direct way of access to that inexpressible vibration. I see Sri Aurobindo’s expression in its poetic form, it has a charm and a simplicity—a simplicity and a sweetness and a penetrating charm—which brings you into direct contact much more intimately than all the things of the head.
Yesterday or the day before, throughout the day, from morning till night, something was saying, “I am—I am or I have the consciousness of the dead on earth.” I am translating it into words, but it was as if I was being told, “This is what the consciousness of a dead person is like, relative to the earth and physical things… I am a dead person living on earth.” According to the position of the consciousness—for the consciousness is always changing its position—according to the position of the consciousness, it was, “This is how dead people are, relative to the earth”; then, “I am absolutely like a dead person relative to 224the earth”; then, “I am living as a dead person lives in the consciousness of the earth”; then, “I am exactly like a dead person living on earth…” and so on. I went on behaving, speaking, acting as usual. But it has been like this for a long time. For a long time, for more than two years, I have been seeing the world like this [upward gesture from one level to another] and now I see it like this [downward gesture]. I do not know how to explain this because there is nothing mentalised about it, and non-mentalised sensations have something hazy about them which is hard to define. But the words and the thought were a certain distance away [gesture around the head], like something that watches and evaluates, that is to say, which says what it sees—something that is all around. And today, two or three times, it was extremely strong—I mean that this state dominated the whole consciousness—a kind of impression or sensation or perception—but it is none of these: I am a dead person living on earth.
How to explain that?
And so, for example, with regard to sight, there is no objective precision [Mother makes a gesture of not seeing with the eyes]. I see through and by the consciousness. As regards hearing, I hear in a very different way; there is a kind of “discrimination”—it is not “discernment”—something in the perception which chooses, something which decides—decides, but not automatically—what is heard and what is not heard, what is perceived and what is not perceived. It already exists with sight but it is even stronger with hearing: for some things one can only hear a continuous hum and others are crystal-clear; others are vague, scarcely audible. With sight it is the same thing: everything is behind a luminous mist, as it were—very luminous, but still a mist, that is to say, there is no precision—and then, suddenly, there is something absolutely precise and clear, an extraordinarily precise vision of detail. Usually, the vision is the expression of the consciousness in things. That is to say, everything seems 225more and more subjective, less and less objective.… And they are not visions that impose themselves on the sight or sounds that impose themselves on the hearing; there is a kind of movement of consciousness which makes some things perceptible and others a kind of very vague background.
There is nothing personal—nothing personal. Of course there is a feeling of choice and decision, but there is no feeling of personal choice and decision. Besides, the “personal” becomes little more than the need to introduce this [Mother touches her hands]. For example, eating is very queer, very queer.… It is as if someone were looking on at a body—which is not even something very precise and very definite, but a kind of conglomeration that holds together—and were looking on… at something that is happening! No, it is really a queer state. Today, it was very strong, it dominated the whole consciousness. And there are even moments when one has the feeling that the slightest thing would make you lose the contact [gesture of disconnection, as if the link with the body were broken] and it is only when one keeps very still and very indifferent—indifferent—that it can continue.
These experiences are always preceded by a kind of very intimate and very inward closeness to the Supreme Presence, with a kind of suggestion: “Are you ready for anything?” Naturally I reply, “Anything.” And the Presence becomes so marvellously intense that there is a kind of thirst in the whole being: that it should be like that constantly. Only That exists, only That has any reason to exist. And in the midst of it comes the suggestion: “Are you ready for anything?”
I am speaking of the body, not of the inner beings, but of the body.
And the body always says yes. It does this [gesture of surrender]: no choice, no preference, not even aspiration, a total, 226total surrender. And then things like this come to me; all day yesterday, it was: “A dead person living on earth.” With the perception—not yet very marked, but quite clear—of the very great difference between this way of living and that of other people—all of them. It is not yet clear-cut or distinct or very precise, but it is very clear. It is very clear, very perceptible. It is another way of living.
It can only be a transition. It is a transitional state.
From the point of view of consciousness, it is a tremendous gain! Because every bondage, every attachment to outer things, all that is finished, it has fallen away completely—fallen away completely: an absolute freedom. That is to say, only That—the Supreme Master—is master. From this point of view, it can only be a gain. It is such a radical realisation.… This seems to be an absolute of freedom, something that is considered to be impossible to realise while leading an ordinary life on earth.
This corresponds to the experience of absolute freedom one has in the higher parts of the being when one is no longer at all dependent on the body. But what is remarkable—I insist strongly on this—is that the consciousness of the body has these experiences and it is a body which is still visibly here!
Obviously, there is nothing left of what gives “confidence in life” to human beings. Apparently there is no longer any support from the outer world, there is nothing but… the supreme Will. To translate this into plain words, well, the body has the feeling that it lives only because the supreme Lord wants it to live, otherwise it could not live.
But that does not abolish it!
That is a purely human and superficial perception. I don’t at all feel that I have lost anything, on the contrary! I feel it is a much higher state than the one I had before.
What the Lord wants is done—that is all; that is the beginning and the end of it.
If He told me… Whatever He wants the body to do, it can do it; it no longer depends on physical laws.
Beyond all question.
Oh! Perfectly. There are moments when the sight is more precise than it has ever been. But it is fleeting, it comes and goes; because, probably, it is only like an assurance of what is to come. But for example, the perception of the inner reality of people—not what they think they are or what they pretend to be or what they seem to be: all that disappears—but the perception of their inner reality is infinitely more precise than before. I see a photograph, for example; it is no longer a matter of seeing 228“through” something: I see almost nothing but what the person is. The “through” diminishes to such an extent that sometimes it does not exist at all.
Naturally, if a human will wanted to act on this body, if a human will said, “Mother must do this or Mother must do that, or she should be able to do this, she should be able to do that…” it would be completely disappointed; it would say, “She is no longer good for anything”, because the body would not obey it any more.… And human beings constantly exert their will on one another, or the human being himself receives suggestions and manifests them as his own will, without noticing that all that is the outer Falsehood.
[Silence]
There is a kind of certainty in the body that if even for a few seconds I were to lose contact—“I” means the body—with the Supreme, it would instantly die. Only the Supreme keeps it alive. That’s how it is. So, naturally, for the ignorant and stupid consciousness of human beings this is a pitiful condition—to me it is the true condition! Because for them, instinctively, spontaneously, in an absolute way, so to say, the sign of perfection is the power of life, ordinary life.… Well, that no longer exists at all—it has completely gone.
Yes, many times, several times, the body has asked the question, “Why do I not feel Thy Power and Thy Force in me?” And the reply has always been a smiling one—one puts it into words, but it is without words—the reply is always: “Patience, patience, for that to happen you must be ready.”
4 and 9 March 1966
117—“Neither is it that I was not before nor thou nor these kings nor that all we shall not be hereafter.” Not only Brahman, but beings and things in Brahman are eternal; 229their creation and destruction is a play of hide-and-seek with our outward consciousness.
118—The love of solitude is a sign of the disposition towards knowledge; but knowledge itself is only achieved when we have a settled perception of solitude in the crowd, in the battle and in the mart.
119—If when thou art doing great actions and moving giant results, thou canst perceive that thou art doing nothing, then know that God has removed His seal from thy eyelids.
120—If when thou sittest alone, still and voiceless on the mountain-top, thou canst perceive the revolutions thou art conducting, then hast thou the divine vision and art freed from appearances.
121—The love of inaction is folly and the scorn of inaction is folly; there is no inaction. The stone lying inert upon the sands which is kicked away in an idle moment, has been producing its effect upon the hemispheres.
This is the experience I have had these last few days, yesterday or the day before. The feeling of an irresistible Power governing everything: the world, things, people, everything, without needing to move materially, and that this excessive material activity is only like the foam that forms when water flows very fast—the foam on the surface; but that the Force runs on underneath like an all-powerful stream.
There is nothing else to say.
One always comes back to that: to know is all right, to speak is good, to do is all very well, but to be is the only thing which has any power.
230You see, people are restless, because things do not move quickly; so I had this vision of the formation, of the divine creation in the making, under the surface, all-powerful, irresistible, and in spite of everything, of all this outer turmoil.
A brain.
Each time I have been conscious of the Power, the experience has been similar. The Will from above is translated into a vibration which certainly takes on some vital force but which acts in a subtle physical domain. One perceives a certain quality of vibration which is difficult to describe, but which gives the impression of something coagulated, not fragmented, something which seems to be denser than air, but which is extremely homogeneous, with a golden luminosity, with a tremendous driving power, and which expresses a certain will—which is not of the same nature as human will, which has the nature of vision rather than of thought; it is like a vision that imposes itself in order to be realised—in a domain that is very close to material Matter, but invisible, except to the inner sight. And that vibration exerts a pressure on people, things, circumstances, to mould them according to its vision. And it is irresistible. Even people who think the opposite, who want the opposite, do what is wanted without wanting to; even the 231things that by their very nature are opposed to it are turned around.
For national events, relations among nations, world circumstances, it
acts like that, constantly, constantly, as a tremendous
Power. And so if one is oneself in a state of union with
the divine Will, without any intervention of thought, or any
conception or idea, one can follow it, one sees and
knows.fnIt is interesting to note that shortly
before this conversation, Mother received the following
question: “Is the American presence and intervention
in Vietnam justifiable?” She replied: “From what
point of view are you asking this question?
“If it is from the political point of
view—politics are sunk in falsehood and I have nothing
to do with them.
“If it is from the moral point of view—morality is
a shield which ordinary men flourish to protect themselves
from the Truth.
“If it is from the spiritual point of view—the
divine Will alone is justifiable and That is what men
travesty and distort in all their
actions.”
The resistances of the inertia that is in every consciousness and in Matter mean that this Action, instead of being direct and perfectly harmonious, becomes confused, full of contradictions, clashes and conflicts; instead of everything resolving itself “normally”, so to say, smoothly—as it should be—all this inertia that resists and opposes, gives it a tangled movement in which things collide and there is disorder and destruction, which become necessary only because of the resistance, but which were not indispensable, which might not have existed—which truly speaking should not have been—because this Will, this Power is a Power of perfect harmony where each thing is in its place, and it organises things wonderfully. It comes as an absolutely luminous and perfect organisation, which one can see when one has the vision; but when it comes down and presses on Matter, everything begins to seethe and resist. Therefore, to attempt to impute the disorders and confusions and destructions to the divine Action, to the divine Power, is another human foolishness. It is the inertia—not to mention the bad will—which causes the catastrophe. It is not that the catastrophe was intended, nor even foreseen, it is caused by the resistance.
232And then, there is added the vision of the action of Grace, which comes to moderate the results wherever possible, that is to say, wherever it is accepted. And this explains why aspiration, faith, complete trust on the part of the earthly human element, have a harmonising power, because they allow the Grace to come and set right the consequences of this blind resistance.
This is a clear vision—clear, clear, even in the details.
One could, if one wanted to, make prophecies by saying what has been seen. But there is a kind of super-compassion which prevents this prophecy, because the Word of Truth has a power of manifestation and to express the result of the resistance would make that state concrete and diminish the action of the Grace. That is why even when one sees, one cannot speak, one must not speak.
But Sri Aurobindo certainly meant that it is this Power, this Force which does everything—which does everything. When one sees it or is one with it, one knows at the same time, one knows that That is really the only thing that acts and creates; everything else is the result of the domain or the world or the material or the substance in which it acts—the result of the resistance, but not the Action. And to unite with That means to unite with the Action; to unite with what is below means to unite with the resistance.
And so because it wriggles and tosses and turns, wants and thinks and makes plans… it imagines that it is doing something—it is resisting.
Later, a little later, I shall be able to give examples for very small things, showing how the Force acts and what interferes and mixes with it, or is moved by this Force and distorts its movement, and the result, that is to say, the physical appearance as we see it. Even the example of a very small thing with absolutely no importance for the world, gives a clear idea of the way in which everything happens and is distorted here.
And this applies to everything, everything, all the time, all the time. And so, when one is doing the yoga of the cells, one 233notices the same thing: there is the Force that acts, and then [Mother laughs] what the body does with this Action!…
[Silence]
Immediately there comes the how and why. But that belongs to the domain of mental curiosity, because the important thing is to stop the resistance. That is the important thing, to stop the resistance so that the universe can become what it should be: the expression of a harmonious, luminous, wonderful power, of an unparalleled beauty. Afterwards, when the resistance has stopped, if out of curiosity we want to know why it happened… it won’t matter any more. But now, one cannot find the remedy by seeking the reason why, but by taking the true attitude. That is the only thing that matters.
To stop the resistance by a total surrender, a total self-giving in every cell, if one can do that.
They begin to feel the intense delight of existing only by the Lord, for the Lord, in the Lord.
When this is established everywhere, all will be well.
6 July 1966
122—If thou wouldst not be the fool of Opinion, first see wherein thy thought is true, then study wherein its opposite and contradiction is true; last, discover the cause of these differences and the key of God’s harmony.
123—An opinion is neither true nor false, but only serviceable for life or unserviceable; for it is a creation of Time and with time it loses its effect and value. Rise thou above opinion and seek wisdom everlasting.
124—Use opinion for life, but let her not bind thy soul in her fetters.
234[After a silence]
I was trying to find out in what way opinions are serviceable.… Sri Aurobindo says that they are “serviceable” or “unserviceable”—in what way can an opinion be serviceable?
No, this is precisely what I deplore; people act according to their opinion, and that is worthless. I am constantly receiving letters from people who want or do not want to do something and tell me: “This is my opinion, this is true, that is not true”, and always, more than ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is wrong, it is nonsense.
One feels very clearly—in fact, it is visible—that the opposite opinion has just as much value, that it is simply a question of attitude, nothing more. And naturally the ego’s preferences are always involved: you like it better like that and so you have the opinion that it is like that.
It would be better to have some wisdom rather than an opinion, that is, to consider all the possibilities, all the aspects of the question and then try to be as unegoistic as possible and to see, for example, in the case of an action, which one can be of service to the greatest number of people or is the least destructive, the most constructive. Anyway, even from a standpoint that is not spiritual, but merely utilitarian and unselfish, it is better to act according to wisdom than according to one’s opinion.
I think it is to consider all the aspects of the problem, to lay them before your consciousness as disinterestedly as possible and to see which one is the best—if this is possible—or which one is the least harmful if there are unpleasant consequences.
Ah, that’s just it, to intervene you must be sure that you are right; you must be sure that your vision of things is superior, preferable or truer than the vision of the other person or people. Then it is always wiser not to intervene—people intervene without rhyme or reason, simply because they are in the habit of giving their opinion to others.
Even when you have the vision of the true thing, it is very rarely wise to intervene. It only becomes indispensable when someone wants to do something which will necessarily lead to a catastrophe. Even then, intervention [smiling] is not always very effective.
In fact, intervention is justified only when you are absolutely sure that you have the vision of truth. Not only that, but also a clear vision of the consequences. To intervene in someone else’s actions, one must be a prophet—a prophet. And a prophet with total goodness and compassion. One must even have the vision of the consequences that the intervention will have in the destiny of the other person. People are always giving each other advice: “Do this, don’t do that.” I see it: they have no idea how much confusion they create, how they increase confusion and disorder. And sometimes they impair the normal development of the individual.
236I consider that opinions are always dangerous and most often absolutely worthless.
You should not meddle with other people’s affairs, unless first of all you are infinitely wiser than they are—of course, one always thinks that one is wiser!—but I mean in an objective way and not according to your own opinion; unless you see further and better and are yourself above all passions, desires and blind reactions. You must be above all these things yourself to have the right to intervene in someone else’s life—even when he asks you to do so. And when he does not, it is simply meddling with something which is not your business.
[Mother goes into a long contemplation, and then continues.]
I have just seen a curious image! It looked like a very steep mountain slope and someone—like the symbol of Man—was climbing. A being… It’s strange, I have seen this several times: beings without clothes who are not naked! I mean, they have a kind of robe of light. But it does not look like a radiating light or anything of that kind. It is like an atmosphere, or rather the aura, the aura made visible. And this transparence does not conceal the form and at the same time the form is not naked.… And then from the sky—there was a vast sky stretching from top to bottom, like a painting, a very clear, very luminous, very pure sky—there were countless… hundreds of birdlike things flying towards him and he was beckoning them to him. The picture was mainly pale blue, white; from time to time there was something a little darker like a wing-tip or the top of a crest, but that was incidental. And they kept coming in hundreds and he summoned them together with a gesture, then he sent them down to earth—he was standing on a steep slope—he sent them down, into the valley. And there, they became… [Mother laughs] they were opinions! They became opinions! There were dark ones, light ones, brown ones, blue ones.…
237They were like birds flying down towards earth, like that. But it was a picture—and yet it was not a picture, because it was moving. It was very amusing.
And he said: “Look, that is how opinions are formed”.… They came from the sky, a vast sky—vast and luminous and clear, neither blue nor white nor pink nor… it was luminous, simply luminous; and from this sky, it was… I said they came in hundreds, but they came in thousands, and he was there, he received them, and then he gestured with his hands and sent them down to earth, and… they became opinions! I think I began to laugh, it amused me.
It is strange.
They were all going down, going down—one could not see the bottom—they were going down.
So then it may be that opinions come from a sky of light! [Mother laughs]
In truth, images are much more expressive than words.
14 September 1966