AGENDA 1966

May 1966


07. May 1966 – No Pretension

...Oh, it's better not to have any pretension, you know. There's nothing more silly than... I see people who pontificate and prophesy, oh! No, no, no. It's better to BE the thing without knowing it than to pretend to be it.

That's why I heartily detest publicity.

14. May 1966 – Everything is becoming strange

This eye [the left] sees extremely clearly — extremely clearly — almost more clearly than before, but in the entire corner here, in the very corner, there is a sort of little fog, very, very small like a needle point — no, a pinhead. So that I can't read with it. With this one [the right] I can read, there's nothing, but it's dimmed: there isn't half the clarity of the other. But the left is fantastically clear B.G. Very well. So I am accustomed to reading with a magnifying glass [with the right eye], and it has become that way; but when I look at a photograph with a magnifying glass, the photo starts having three dimensions (gesture as if the photo were surging forward), so that I see the person not in colors but alive, the picture is alive

With the left eye, oh, it has extraordinary precision, but I can't read because... (and still I could read, it's an idea, just an impression), there is a sort of very, very small cloud in the corner, here. There's nothing (laughing), I have no cataract B.G. There was a time when it was fairly widespread in that corner, and I showed it (long ago, two years ago), I showed it to the doctor, who told me it was inside: it's not on the surface of the eye, it's inside. He told me, "It won't go " — in six months it was gone, completely gone. It came back just a little — it has come back, but it will go!

But these are queer things, as if someone were having fun doing experiments with my eyes.

I see in a strange way — very strange.

And the magnifying glass is beginning to be useless.

(silence)

But everything, absolutely everything is becoming strange. As if there were two, three, four realities (superimposed gesture) or appearances, I don't know (but they are rather realities), one behind another or one within another, like that, and in the space of a few minutes it changes (gesture as if one reality were surging forward to overtake and replace another), as though one world were just there, inside, and emerged all of a sudden. When I have peace and quiet, there is a slight... not a movement, I don't know what it is: it might rather feel like pulsations, and depending on the case, there are different experiences. For instance, customary things take a usual amount of time when nothing abnormal happens, and then you have an exact sense of the time they take. So then, I am "given" the following experience, of the same thing done in the same way, accomplished a first time in its normal duration, and another time, when I am in another state, that is, when the consciousness seems to be placed elsewhere, the thing seems to be done in a second! — Exactly the same thing: habitual gestures, things you do absolutely every day, quite ordinary things. Then, another time (and it's not that I try to have it, I don't try at all: I am PUT in that state), another time I am put in another state (to me, it doesn't make much difference, they are like very small differences in the concentration), and in that state, the same thing, oh, takes a long, long time, an endless time to get done! Just to fold a towel, for instance (I am not the one who does it), someone folds a towel or someone puts a bottle away, wholly material and absolutely simple things devoid of any psychological value; someone folds a towel that's on the floor (I am giving that example): there is a normal time, which I perceive internally after a study; it's the normal time, when everything is normal, that is, usual; then, I am in a certain concentration and... without my even having the time to notice it, it's done! I am in another state of concentration, with absolutely minimal differences as far as the concentration is concerned, and it's endless! You feel it takes half an hour to get done.

If it occurred just once, you'd say, "Never mind," but it takes place with persistence and regularity, as when someone is trying to teach you something. A sort of insistence and regular repetition as if someone wanted to teach me something.

Also, I spend a part of my nights in a certain state of consciousness (generally, more often than not, almost every night it's with Sri Aurobindo). But it's not "just like that," it's not by chance or as if out of habit, that's not it: it's a teaching, and things are presented in one way or another as if to make me understand something. But (laughing) I am extremely stupid! Because the mind doesn't work, so I don't understand anything — I just note the fact. I note and note and note, but I don't draw any conclusions, so I am shown the thing yet again. And it follows, yes, it follows a sort of curve of experience. In fact, I might say it's a repeated demonstration given to someone stupid like me to show me the difference in consciousness between being in this body and being without a body.

It seems to me to be that.

But then, down to the last details and with persistence — you know, like when you have to teach something to an animal or to a very small child (!), that's how it is, by repetition.

The other day, for example, the day before yesterday (not last night, but the night before), I was with Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Aurobindo had taken on the appearance of the photograph of him in which he is young, with long hair: that full-face photograph in which he has a fair complexion and very dark hair. He was like that — he WAS like that, it wasn't a picture: he WAS like that. And we were looking at certain things, talking about certain things (we don't talk much, but anyway), looking at some things — when I suddenly see his face all tormented like this (gesture as if the face had shrunk). He usually always has a very calm and very smiling, quiet face; but all of a sudden, it was quite tormented, and then he abruptly sat back on that sort of seat, a sort of couch. So I looked at him, and he told me, "Oh, how they are distorting things. Look at this fellow, how they are distorting things." Almost immediately afterwards, it was time and I woke up, I got up. And I said to myself, "I thought one wasn't tormented in that state!" Then I heard today that A., who was here and left to be a political activist there [in Bengal], is speaking in Sri Aurobindo's name! And he issues political declarations. That's what I had seen. It wasn't that Sri Aurobindo was annoyed: the image of his face was the image of what the others were doing! (Mother laughs)... How can I explain it? It's very strange, you know. It was the image of what those people did with his teaching, it wasn't the expression of his own feeling. You know, what goes on here, what we describe, is so blunt, devoid of fineness, crude, like a rough-hewn statue: it's rough, crude, exaggerated; and it's distorted by the sense of separation given by the ego. While there, I don't know how to explain, there, all is one, there is one single thing taking on all sorts of forms like that (Mother turns her two hands together, one wrapped inside the other) in order to express something, but not with one center that feels and another center that sees and another center that understands; it's not like that, it's... (same gesture), it's all ONE substance with inexpressible suppleness, which adapts itself to all the movements of all that happens, which expresses all that happens, without separation. So then, it leaves me in a state that goes on for hours in the morning, in which I am in this world here, yet without being in it. Because... I don't feel things the way the world feels them. It's a very strange phenomenon.

Yesterday, I remained like that the whole morning, in a very strange state, and the state seemed to want me to remember, to have the memory, and it left me only when I said (I "said," I don't know, I didn't say it to anyone, I just said) that I would tell you about it today. Then I was allowed to resume contact with everyday life.

There is something like the influence of a mentor, someone who knows, or a consciousness that knows and teaches me things; yet I don't see anyone, I don't feel anyone, but that's how it is. It's very, very strange.

14. May 1966 – Savitri B10C4: Debate of Love and Death

And sciences omnipotent in vain

By which men learn of what the suns are made,

Transform all forms to serve their outward needs,

Ride through the sky and sail beneath the sea,

But learn not what they are or why they came....

(X.IV.644)

It's really charming!

I like this:

Ride through the sky and sail beneath the sea,

But learn not what they are or why they came

He's a monument of pessimism.

But it's true, that's the trouble, it's true! Only, something is missing: what she is going to say.

But she doesn't shut him up.... It's difficult.

The other day I had an extraordinary experience, in which all the pessimistic arguments, all the negations and denials came from all sides, represented by everybody. And then, those who believed in the presence of a God or something — something more powerful than they and ruling the world — were in a fury, a dreadful revolt: "But I want none of him! But he spoils all our life, he..." It was a dreadful revolt, from every side, a truckload of abuse for the Divine with such force of asuric reaction from every side. So I sat there (as if Mother sat in the middle of the mêlée), watching: "What can be done?..." You know, it was impossible to answer, impossible, there wasn't one argument, not one idea, not one theory, not one belief, nothing, nothing whatsoever that could answer it. For the space of a second, the impression was: it's hopeless. Then, all of a sudden... all of a sudden... It's indescribable (gesture of absolute abandon). There was that violence of revolt against things as they are, and, mixed with it, there was: "Let this world disappear, let nothing remain, let it not exist!" All that, which at bottom is a revolt, all that nihilist revolt: let nothing remain, let everything cease to exist. It reached a height of tension, and just at the height of tension, when you felt there was no solution, suddenly... surrender. But something stronger than surrender — it wasn't abdication, it wasn't self-giving, it wasn't acceptance, it was... something much more radical, and at the same time much sweeter. I can't say what it was. It had the joy and flavor of giving, but with such a sense of plenitude!... Like a dazzling flash, you know, suddenly like that: the very essence of surrender, the True Thing.

It was... it was so powerful and marvelous, such sublime joy that the body started quivering for a second. Afterwards it was gone.

And after that, after that experience, all of it, all the revolt, all the negation, all of it was as if swept away.

If one could keep that, that experience, keep it constantly — it's there, it's always there; it's there, of course, but I have to stop in order to feel it. I have to stop — stop speaking, moving, acting — in order to feel it in its plenitude. But if it were here, ACTIVE... it would be All-Powerfulness. It means becoming "That" instantaneously.

There were two days recently (since I saw you last time), two days... especially Thursday, the day the peacock was there.... The peacock crowed victory the whole day (I saw it in the evening, it came and saw me on the terrace, it was so sweet!).... Two very, very difficult days. After that, a sort of solidly established feeling that nothing is impossible — nothing is impossible (Mother points to Matter). What thought has long known, what the heart has long known, what the whole inner being has long known, now the body too knows: nothing, nothing whatever is impossible, everything is possible. Here inside, here inside, in this (Mother strikes her body), everything is possible.

All the impossibilities created by material life have disappeared.

One must have the strength — the strength to carry it in oneself always.

18. May 1966 – The region of harmonious forms; LSD

I find it very restful to enter the region of elegant form, harmonious form, it's very restful.

This material mind — which is organizing itself, which has learned to fall silent, learned to pray — has a sort of spontaneous need or spontaneous thirst for beauty, for a beautiful form. I see this at night, because its need expresses itself in a setting and with events — encounters and events — and the setting is always extremely vast and very beautiful, very harmonious. And the people who move about do so harmoniously, too. And in the morning when I come out of that, I see the progress, the direction of the development; well, it has a sort of spontaneous need for a beautiful form.

Just now, while listening to you, it relaxed all at once, it rested in a satisfaction: "Ah, at last...." And it isn't at all mental: it's... (how can I explain?) the harmony of form.

Music does it an enormous lot of good — but not classical music, not a music that follows mental rules. Something that expresses an inner rhythm, the harmony of an inner rhythm.... One rarely comes across a music like that.

And it's the same thing with words. The sound of words is immediately restful.

Soon afterwards:

Have you heard of the drugs?... Have you seen pictures?... I saw pictures.... People are hurled utterly defenseless into the lowest vital, and, according to their nature, either it's horrifying or they find it marvelous. For instance, the fabric covering a cushion or a seat is suddenly filled with marvelous beauty. So it lasts for two hours, three hours like that. Naturally, they are quite mad while it lasts. And the trouble is that people call it "spiritual experiences," and there's nobody to tell them that it has nothing to do with spiritual experiences.

There is an Italian here, whom I saw the other day with his wife (his wife is nice; he has long hair and a mystic air... "mystic" is a way of speaking: mysticism for a theater stage). I didn't find them very interesting, but they intend to stay here for three or four months. And today, he has written me a letter in French. And in that letter there are many things; first he says he had an experience here — and those people are terrible, as soon as they have the slightest experience, they're scared! So naturally, everything stops. But that's beside the point. Then, in that connection, he says he took that drug and he describes the effect (Mother shows Satprem a passage of the letter):

"The second time, with a normal dose of LSD (lysergic acid), as I rose in that luminous situation, I had terrible visions, the walls of my room came alive with thousands of malignant and desperate faces that persecuted me till night...."

There.

And it goes on. Then he says he had an experience here, and he's scared.

But anyway, it has given me one more proof.... I saw pictures in Life (there were photos): you feel you've stepped into an insane asylum. But he had the experience, which proves that his vital... Of course, it's the images recorded in the subconscient (images of thoughts, images of sensations, images of feelings recorded in the subconscient), which become objective: they rise to the surface and become objective. So it gives the exact picture of what's inside you!

If, for instance, you have a sensation or thought that someone is nasty or ridiculous or doesn't love you, anyway, opinions of that sort, it generally surfaces in dreams; but there [with drugs], you aren't asleep, yet you have the dream! They come and play the game of what you thought of them: what you thought of them comes upon you in their form. So it's an indication: for those who see smiling, pleasant, beautiful things, it means that the inner, vital condition is good enough, but with those who see terrifying or malicious things, or things like that, it means the vital isn't pretty.

You can know it only if you go into the vital FULLY CONSCIOUS: conscious of your own vital and conscious in the vital world as you are conscious in the physical world. You go there consciously. Then it isn't a dream, it doesn't have the character of a dream: it has the character of an activity, an experience, and that's very different.

Ninety percent subjective. Regularly, for more than a year, every night at the same time and in the same way, I entered the vital to do a special work there. It wasn't the result of my own will: I was destined to do it. It was something I had to do. So then, the entry into the vital, for instance, is often described: there are passages where beings are stationed to stop you from entering (all those things are much talked about in all books of occultism). Well, I know from experience (not a passing one: an experience I learned repeatedly) that that opposition or ill will is ninety percent psychological, in the sense that if you don't anticipate it or don't fear it, or if there is nothing in you that's afraid of the unknown and none of those movements of apprehension and so on, it's like a shadow in a picture, or a projected image: it has no concrete reality.

I did have one or two real battles in the vital, yes, while going to rescue someone who had gone astray. And both times I got blows, and in the morning when I woke up, there was a mark (Mother points to her right eye). Well, I know that in both cases, there was in me, not a fear (I never had any fear there), but... it was because I expected it. The idea that "it may well happen" and my expecting it caused the blow to come. I knew that in a definite way. And if I had been in what I might call my "normal state" of inner certitude, it couldn't have touched me, it couldn't. And I had that apprehension because Madame Théon had lost an eye in a battle in the vital and had told me so; so (laughing) it gave me the idea that it was possible, since it had happened to her!... But when I am in my state (I can't even say that, it's not "personal": it's a way of being), when you have the true way of being, when you are a little conscious and have the true way of being, it CANNOT touch you.

It's like the experience of coming across an enemy and trying to hit him, and then none of the blows hit and whatever you do has no effect — it's always subjective. I've had all the proof, absolutely all the proof.

There ARE worlds, there ARE beings, there ARE powers, they have their own existence, but what I mean is that the form their relationships with the human consciousness take depends on that human consciousness.

It's the same with the gods, mon petit, the same thing! The relationship with all those beings of the Overmind, with all those gods, the form those relationships take depends on the human consciousness. You can be... The scriptures say, "Man is cattle for the gods" — but that's if man ACCEPTS the role of cattle. There is in the essence of human nature a sovereignty over all those things which is spontaneous and natural, when it's not warped by a certain number of ideas and a certain amount of so-called knowledge.

We could say that man is the all-powerful master of all the states of being of his nature, but that he has forgotten to be so.

His natural state is to be all-powerful — he has forgotten to be so.

In that state of oblivion, everything becomes "concrete," yes, in the sense that you may have a mark on the eye (it can be expressed by that), but that's because... because you allowed it to happen.

It's the same thing with gods: they can rule your life and torment you quite a lot (they can also help you a lot), but their power IN RELATION TO YOU, in relation to the human being, is the power you give them.

That's something I have learned little by little for several years. But now, I am sure of it.

Naturally, in the evolutionary curve, it was necessary for man to forget his all-powerfulness, because it had quite simply puffed him up with conceit and vanity, and so it was completely distorted and he had to be given the sense that lots of things were stronger and more powerful than he. But essentially, it's not true. It's a necessity in the curve of progress, that's all.

Man is a potential god. He thought he was a realized god. He needed to learn that he was nothing but a puny little worm crawling on the earth, and so life planed and filed him down in every way till he... "understood" isn't the word, but anyway, felt to some extent. But as soon as he assumes the true position, he knows he is a potential god. Only, he must become it, that is, he must overcome all that isn't it.

This relationship with the gods is extremely interesting. As long as man is dazzled, in admiration before the power, beauty, realizations of those divine beings, he is their slave. But when they are, to him, ways of being of the Supreme and nothing more, and when he himself is another way of being of the Supreme, which he must become, then the relationship is different and he is no longer their slave — he is NOT their slave.

If we take the word "objectivity" in the sense of "real, independent existence" — real, independent self-existence — there is only the Supreme.

22. May 1966 – Vital Force

It's because all the vital force is used to keep the body's balance in the phase of transformation. That's what I have called "the change of government," it's the phase of transformation. And during that change, well, all the vital force is there just to keep your balance so you don't topple over. Because it's difficult.

One must remain very calm and do what is indispensable, nothing more.

In ordinary life, when one doesn't know, with people who don't know, there is a tremendous wastage of vital forces, for no reason. Well, we no longer have the right to do that because all that vital force is there, as I said, concentrated to keep the body's balance.

It's a very, very widespread state in all those who... not who do the yoga, but for whom the yoga is done. And it's done... (how can I put it?) almost without their knowledge — all that puts them in a fit state to do it is, first, aspiration, and then, trust. Those are the two things: the faith, the trust that the divine Consciousness is at work, and then the aspiration for transformation. That's all that's needed. And the work is done. But that work implies, in fact, not a loss of equilibrium but a change of equilibrium. A change of balance. And in order to go from one equilibrium to the other, well, one must stay very calm.

But the difficulty you are referring to is something I have every minute.

People who don't know (there are many of them, almost all of them don't know) feel they are ill. But it's not an illness: it's a change of balance, which takes on all kinds of forms depending on each one's character and nature. So when you don't pay attention and there is a loss of balance, something happens which results in what doctors call "an illness," but if I had the time to have fun and ask them questions, they would be forced to tell me that each case is different — each case: there aren't two identical cases. They say, "Yes, it looks like this or it looks like that or it looks like this." And it's nothing but the transition from the old millennial equilibrium to a new equilibrium which isn't yet established, and in the transition between the two, well... one must be careful, that's all. And cling very, very firmly to the higher Harmony.

25. May 1966 – The Supreme plays with Himself

But when you have the positive experience of the sole and exclusive existence of the Supreme and that everything is just the play of the Supreme with Himself, instead of its being something disquieting or unpleasant or unsettling, it's on the contrary a sort of total security.

The only reality is the Supreme. And all this is a game He plays with Himself. I find this much more comforting than the other way around.

And to begin with, this is the only certitude that it can become something marvelous, otherwise...

That, too, depends on the stand one takes. A complete identification with the play as play, as a self-existent and independent thing, is probably necessary, first in order to play the game as one should play it. But at one point one does in fact reach that detachment, such a complete disgust for the whole falsehood of existence that it becomes intolerable unless one sees it as the inner play of the Lord in Himself, for Himself.

And then, one feels that absolute and perfect freedom thanks to which the most marvelous possibilities become realizable, all the most sublime things that can be imagined are realizable.

(Mother goes into contemplation, then opens "Savitri":)

And earth [shall] grow unexpectedly divine

(I.IV.55)

It's a consolation....

(silence)

You'll see, there comes a point when you can tolerate yourself and life only if you take the attitude that the Lord is everything. See, that Lord, how many things He possesses: He plays with all that — He plays, He plays at... changing the positions. And then, when you see it, that whole, you feel the limitless marvel, and that whatever the object of the most marvelous aspiration, it's all quite possible and will even be surpassed. Then you are consoled. Otherwise, this existence... is inconsolable. But that way, it becomes charming. One day, I will tell you.

When you have the sense of the unreality of life — the unreality of life — compared with a reality that's certainly found beyond, but at the same time WITHIN life, then... ah, yes, THAT is true at last — THAT is true at last and deserves to be true. That is the realization of all possible splendors, all possible marvels, all, yes, all possible felicities, all possible beauties — that, yes, otherwise...

Do you understand?

That's the point I have reached.

So then, I feel as if I still have one foot here, one foot there, which isn't a very pleasant situation because... because you would like there to remain nothing but That.

The present way of being is a past that really should no longer exist. While the other way, ah, at last! At last!... That's why there is a world.

And everything remains just as concrete and just as real — it doesn't become misty. It's just as concrete, just as real, but... it becomes divine, because... because it IS the Divine. It's the Divine playing.

28. May 1966 – Between two chasms

I am practically unable to eat any longer, I force myself, otherwise all I would do is drink. And it's not caused by the stomach, it's not that, it's... (same gesture of churning).

I don't feel tired, but I've had for a long time and increasingly (the last few days it has become very acute) the impression of walking forward, moving on (gesture in a precarious balance), and that the slightest false step would hurl me into the chasm. I seem to be on a ridge between two chasms.

And that's something going on in the body's cells. There's nothing moral to it, nothing even to do with sensation.

One is compelled to constant vigilance. The slightest slackening, you know, is... catastrophic.