AGENDA 1963

April 1963


06. April 1963 – Not my body, THE BODY

I am conscious of the body, but it isn't the consciousness of this body (Mother touches her body): it's the consciousness of THE Body – it may be anyone's body. I am conscious, for instance, of vibrations of disorder (most often they come in the form of suggestions of disorder) in order to see whether they are accepted and have an effect. Let's take the example of a suggestion of hemorrhage, or some such suggestion (I mention hemorrhage because it will soon come into the picture). Under the higher Influence, the body consciousness rejects it. Then begins the battle (all this takes place all the way down in the cells, in the material consciousness) between what we could call the "will for hemorrhage," for example, and the reaction of the body's cells. But it's very like a real battle, a real confrontation. And all of a sudden, there's something like a general issuing a command and saying, "What's this!"... You understand, that general is conscious of the higher forces, the higher realities and the divine intervention in Matter; and after trying to use the will, this reaction, that feeling of peace and so on, suddenly he is SEIZED by a very strong determination and issues a command – in no time the effect begins to make itself felt, and little by little everything returns to order.

All this takes place in the material consciousness. Physically, the body has all the sensations – but not the hemorrhage, you understand. But it does have the sensations, that is, the effects: all the sensory effects. It goes on for a while and then follows a whole curve. All right. Once the battle is over, I take a look and wonder (I observe the whole thing, I see my body, which has been fairly shaken, mind you), I say to myself, "What in the world is all this?" But just for a second, then I forget about it.

A few days afterwards, I receive a letter from someone very close, who has an ardent faith and really holds on to me with almost perfect faith, exceptional. In the letter: the whole story, the attack, the hemorrhage, how suddenly the being is SEIZED, the consciousness is SEIZED with an irresistible will, and hears words – the very words that were uttered HERE. The result: saved (he was dying), saved, cured.

Just enough time for the letter to reach me.

I remembered my episode... and began to understand that my body is everywhere!!

You see, it's not a question of just these cells here: it's a question of cells in, well, quite a lot of people, hundreds, maybe thousands – all that clings anywhere and in any way to the higher Consciousness. And since my mind is silent (I deliberately keep the mind absolutely still, trying not to react to all that constantly comes to it from "outside," or trying to react almost subconsciously), nothing is there to think, "Oh, it's this one's body, it's that one's body" – it's THE Body! That's what is so difficult for people to understand. It is THE body – this (Mother touches her body) is not my body any more than other bodies (a bit more, in the sense that it is more directly the object of the concentration of the Force). So everything, all the sensations, the movements of consciousness, the battles, all of it is everywhere. And suddenly, with this little affair, oh, I understood a fantastic number of things – and also the difficulty, mon petit!... The difficulty... because really, after this experience, the body was not ill but very tired. But then it is seized with such things all the time! All the time, all the time, all the time, you know, they spring up, brrm! pounce on it, brrm! from this side, that side, every which way. So I have to keep still (gesture of stopping, silent, in the midst of other activities), and then I start waging the battle.

(silence)

Which means the body has got its own difficulties (no aggregate of cells is free from difficulties in the present conditions of life), and I think that its capacity to keep still (to an extent) is its only safeguard... but that doesn't reduce the difficulties at all, since the contact doesn't even depend on the physical presence! But then what tremendous, prodigious power has to be EMBODIED in the physical cells to withstand all that!...

But there too, a shift is taking place (what I told you once: those abrupt experiences that do not settle in but are first contacts). After the lesson was drawn from this story, suddenly something arose in the body consciousness – which isn't ONE body's consciousness but a general body consciousness – an aspiration, something so pure, so sweet... so sweet... something like an entreaty that Truth and Light may at last be manifested here, in this. Not "here in this" (Mother touches her own body): it was everywhere.

Then there was a contact – there was a contact – and a pale blue Light, very sweet, very bright, and an Assurance.

It lasted only a second, but it was like a new chapter suddenly opening up.

Mon petit, you are the only person to whom I can say all this – there is not one, not one! Not one able to simply understand. Which makes things more difficult, because I am constantly weighed down by the stupidity of people's thoughts (stupidity in the sense of incomprehension), the thoughts of all those around me, who think I am ("I," what they call "I," you know, "me"), who think I am ill and... I can't tell them a thing! If I hadn't spoken to you today, it would be gone. I would never have said anything. Well, that's the way it is.

So looking at it from an ordinary viewpoint, it's so... fantastic, it means such a... colossal work. Of course, it's the Lord who does it, but will this hold out? (Mother touches her body) I can't say.

If He wants, certainly He will find a way for it to hold out. But the thing is rather new....

(silence)

My only method is a kind of shield of mental silence (in the ordinary mind), so that all the people's thoughts do not come and pester me all the time, without letup. But they creep underneath! With some people, the moment they enter the room, I feel exhausted, because of their attitude. It doesn't work through thought at all: it's a special vibration in my body.

With others, on the contrary, it's fine.

And I don't try to observe or study or understand – God knows! There is no need to understand: it's self-evident.

Only one thing is always present: to keep intact and POWERFULLY conscious the sense of the divine Presence – that's all. That's the single concern of the cells.

From time to time (Mother laughs), they hold... a kind of little conference among themselves, they seem to tell each other, "No one can interfere with That!" It makes them happy: "All their thoughts are powerless in front of That!"

20. April 1963 – The danger of leaving the body

D. was telling me just now that he is advised to meditate with his eyes open (I know, it keeps you active somewhere), and he said that if by mischance he closes his eyes, he can't move any more! He is conscious but completely paralyzed: he can't get up, can't move, can't even turn his head!

It's dangerous.

So I advised him to be sure to keep his eyes open: it maintains a certain activity. When you close your eyes, you plunge into trance (you are perfectly conscious, but you go into trance and the body is absolutely stilled). That's what Théon had taught me: you free the body consciousness and train it in such a way that it can act on its own, so that while you are deep in trance, you can get up, write, speak, do anything – you are outside the body, there's just a link left. But it's a whole training. It's not too easy, but still it can be done.

In my case, I found out I had that capacity because it made me prone to fainting – not too often, but off and on it happened. When I was a child and didn't know a thing, I fainted a couple of times; the fainting, as it happened, wasn't unconscious – it was conscious – and after a bit of practice (not the practice of fainting!), of occult practice, when I fainted I would see myself. Even before that, I had seen myself but without knowing what it all meant, I couldn't make head or tail of it. But I would see myself. And afterwards, whenever I would faint, the first thing I did was to see my body lying down in a ridiculous position. So I would rush back into it vigorously, and it would be all over.

Of course, I was probably born with some abilities! (laughter)

The only thing I've done since I started meditating with you is a broadening, because at the beginning, it was a bit limited. It's extremely difficult to have this white peace together with breadth. Sri Aurobindo said to me (when I told him about all those experiences), he always said to me that to have this FULL silence – concrete, white, pure, absolutely pure – TOGETHER WITH IMMENSITY... there are not many who can have it. But I must say that I have broadened your silence a lot, quite a lot. Now I no longer feel hemmed in – I don't like to feel hemmed in! I no longer feel like that: it's a spreading out.

It's good. kilo, don't complain of what you have, some people work many LIVES to get that.

The other extreme is an innate ability to go out of one's body, a spontaneous ability to go out of one's body. To have a trance as you understand it, concrete, absolutely material, one must be able to go out, come back in, go out, come back in [at will]. But as people generally take great pains to go out, they don't know how to get back in any more! So they find themselves in ridiculous situations.

I had two experiences of that kind. The first was at Tlemcen and the second in Japan.... There was an epidemic of influenza, an influenza that came from the war (the 1914 war), and was generally fatal. People would get pneumonia after three days, and plop! finished. In Japan they never have epidemics (it's a country where epidemics are unknown), so they were caught unawares; it was an ideal breeding ground, absolutely unprepared – incredible: people died by the thousands every day, it was incredible! Everybody lived in terror, they didn't dare to go out without masks over their mouths. Then somebody whom I won't name asked me (in a brusque tone), "What Is this?" I answered him, "Better not think about it." "Why not?" he said, "It's very interesting! We must find out, at least you are able to find out whatever this is." Silly me, I was just about to go out; I had to visit a girl who lived at the other end of Tokyo (Tokyo is the largest city in the world, it takes a long time to go from one end to the other), and I wasn't so well-off I could go about in a car: I took the tram.... What an atmosphere! An atmosphere of panic in the city! You see, we lived in a house surrounded by a big park, secluded, but the atmosphere in the city was horrible. And the question, "What Is this?" naturally came to put me in contact – I came back home with the illness. I was sure to catch it, it had to happen! (laughing) I came home with it.

Like a bang on the head – I was completely dazed. They called a doctor. There were no medicines left in the city – there weren't enough medicines for people, but as we were considered important people (!) the doctor brought two tablets. I told him (laughing), "Doctor, I never take any medicines." "What!" he said. "It's so hard to get them!" "That's just the point," I replied, "they're very good for others!" Then, then... suddenly (I was in bed, of course, with a first-rate fever), suddenly I felt seized by trance – the real trance, the kind that pushes you out of your body – and I knew. I knew: "It's the end; if I can't resist it, it's the end." So I looked. I looked and I saw it was a being whose head had been half blown off by a bomb and who didn't know he was dead, so he was hooking on to anybody he could to suck life. And each of those beings (I saw one over me, doing his "business"!) was one of the countless dead. Each had a sort of atmosphere – a very widespread atmosphere – of human decomposition, utterly pestilential, and that's what gave the illness. If it was merely that, you recovered, but if it was one of those beings with half a head or half a body, a being who had been killed so brutally that he didn't know he was dead and was trying to get hold of a body in order to continue his life (the atmosphere made thousands of people catch the illness every day, it was swarming, an infection), well, with such beings, you died. Within three days it was over – even before, within a day, sometimes. So once I saw and knew, I collected all the occult energy, all the occult power, and... (Mother bangs down her fist, as if to force her way into her body) I found myself back in my bed, awake, and it was over. Not only was it over, but I stayed very quiet and began to work in the atmosphere.... From that moment on, mon petit, there were no new cases! It was so extraordinary that it appeared in the Japanese papers. They didn't know how it happened, but from that day on, from that night on, not a single fresh case. And people recovered little by little.

I told the story to our Japanese friend in whose house we were living, I told him, "Well, that's what this illness is – a remnant of the war; and here's the way it happens.... And that being was repaid for his attempt!" Naturally, the fact that I repelled his influence by turning around and fighting... [dissolved the formation]. But what power it takes to do that! Extraordinary.

He told the story to some friends, who in turn told it to some friends, so in the end the story became known. There was even a sort of collective thanks from the city for my intervention.... But the whole thing stemmed from that: "What Is this illness? You're able to find out, aren't you?" (Laughter) Go and catch it!

But that feeling of being absolutely paralyzed, a prey to something – absolutely paralyzed, you can't... You are no longer in your body, you understand, you can't act on it any more. And a sense of liberation when you are able to turn around.

I had a tremendous fever, which naturally dropped little by little – after a few days I was completely cured; even immediately, I was almost cured.