May 1967

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03. May 1967 – Full support to the harmony

I told you, didn't I, that since the 24th there is a CONSTANT insistence, every minute, to give full support to the Harmony and not to allow disorder, disharmony and confusion to manifest — from the physical, vital and mental points of view. Like that, like someone pounding something, since the 24th (I told you the other day about the Force that came; it's been like that since then). And yesterday or the day before, Pavitra, while sorting out those letters, came across something I had written to someone in English:

"Yes, the good-will hidden in all things reveals itself everywhere to that one who carries goodwill in his consciousness.

"This is a constructive way of feeling leading straight to the future."

I found this very interesting (it was written years ago, in any case more than a year ago, and Pavitra told me he hadn't even found it in a letter: it was there among the files). And it was as if to tell me, "See, you were already speaking like this before." Because the "goodwill" is the Harmony (psychological, of course), it's the will for everything to go well psychologically. I found this rather interesting.

And it's good it came back; it's a form quite within everyone's grasp, which they can understand — you aren't asked extraordinary things: you are asked goodwill. When I found this again, I smiled and found it amusing, I said, "Well, I could have written the same thing about cheerfulness! I could have said, 'Be cheerful and you will see cheerfulness everywhere.'" — One can say many things (Mother rotates her hand slowly as if to present various facets), it always makes me think of a kaleidoscope with colour arrangements to express something else which... shrinks, becomes diminished, generalized and finally within everyone's grasp. But there is something: like a FORMIDABLE conflict taking place over the earth at this moment, with this wonderful divine Grace always helping, always striving for the best and exerting a pressure, "Come now, be cheerful, come now, have goodwill, come now, have, yes, have that inner Harmony of contentment, of hope, of faith. Do not accept the vibrations of... decomposition — the vibrations that diminish, degrade and lead towards destruction."

It's everywhere, everywhere like that (gesture of pressure on the earth).

So naturally, the "wise men" Sri Aurobindo speaks of ask, "What does 4.5.67 mean? What's going to happen on 4.5.67? Why..." It comes from every side into the atmosphere. So yesterday I said to someone, someone with great faith and with a certain authority over a large number of people (they ask him all these stupid questions; he didn't tell me but said it mentally, so that I received it mentally), when I saw him in the afternoon I said to him, "Oh, so you have been asked all these questions; well, here is what you are going to answer to them very seriously(!):

4 means Manifestation

5 means Power

6 means New Creation

7 means Realization."

Now, let them do whatever they like with that!

It's to keep them quiet.

And indeed, he told me this morning (I replied, "You need not tell me, I know!"), he said to me, "Oh, as for me, I'd rather wait and see." I answered, "That's the true attitude, it's better to wait and see."

In any case... I don't know — I don't know anything and don't want to know anything, I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if nothing happened, but... Because for me, it has ALREADY happened. I told you, it came on the 24th, I had all kinds of experiences (you too told me!), but never this one: the material personality, the body — absolutely dissolved. There only existed... the Supreme Consciousness. And that, I must say, has remained. It has remained in the sense that... I can no longer eat, I can hardly rest anymore, I see literally hundreds of people and things and papers and... This poor body could say, "Phew!" — but not at all. And if the tension in others at any given time happens to cause a slight loss of balance, the body spontaneously says like this: "Oh, but You, You are there" — and it's all over. It's all over immediately. So this is something.

We will see.

(silence)

With this 4.5.67, there are quite amusing things. The people who have the attitude of "righter of wrongs" (there are people like that) who choose their own example of a wrong they have suffered which must be righted; and who say, "This will be the Mother's symbol." Another would like cameras to be sensitive enough to photograph the "presence" invisible to the human eye. That also comes, they are things that come in the atmosphere (of Mother). Another (several others, it seems) thinks that on that day the Indian new year will begin. Others... everyone thus imagines something, and it comes into the atmosphere. It's amusing.

And I always think of that passage in Savitri in which he says, "God shall grow up..." Grow up in Matter, of course (and you SEE the Divinity grow up in Matter, and Matter being made more and more capable of manifesting the Divinity), and he says, "... while the wise men talk and sleep." It's exactly that. And it's charming.

(silence)

Sri Aurobindo told me that one of the first results would be that governments would come under the supramental influence (not that we would govern! but that governments would be influenced). And lately I have seen three ministers and five members of parliament! And I have received an offering from the Prime Minister [Indira Gandhi]. So it's going well! It's quite amusing.... Some expressly come from Delhi just for a day, to see me and go back. So one hopes — one hopes — that they will grow a bit wiser(!)

(Then Mother starts filing a series of notes scribbled here and there. She stops at this one:)

"Auroville is the shelter built for all those who want to hasten towards a future of knowledge, peace and unity."

We have a small place called "Promesse," where there will be six or eight rooms, an office which will be Auroville's first administrative office, and also a guest house with a few rooms, five or six rooms for visitors. It's quite a small place, with a pretty garden and trees, on the Madras road. It's on Auroville's outer border. And so it's being built. There will be a lotus pond in the middle and a sort of big bowl, made of marble, I think, on which this text will be engraved (in French) to let people passing by know what Auroville is.

You know, sometimes there's a very small gap (we have many layers of consciousness that interpenetrate like that), if there is just a gap, a lacuna, a void between the two, it is enough to not know. That's what Théon explained to me: "All your states of being are there in the fourth dimension, one inside the other; what you lack is a very small level." It's nothing, you know, in your consciousness you don't notice it, but in its construction something is undeveloped, and so what's on the other side can't come through; it's lost between this and that. It's lost. So I asked him, "What can be done?" He told me, "You must develop it." And I did the experiment (he told me and I did it). And indeed I had a "nervous sub-degree" (he used to call the "vital" the "nervous"), a nervous sub-degree that wasn't developed, not sufficiently conscious. And for a year, day after day after day, a concentration to develop it, applying the consciousness, applying the consciousness... — absolutely no result. For at least — at least — six months continuously, a concentration every day; I kept an hour for that — absolutely no result.

Only, I didn't doubt. I simply thought, "How very stupid of me, I don't know how to do it..." I was living in Paris; come summer, I left on holidays. I went to some friends' who had a property by the sea. There was a small wood, large meadows, it was pretty. And after lunch, I go and lie down on the grass... and all of a sudden, everything — from the air, the earth, the water, from everywhere — everything came. Everything, but everything I wanted to have came like that. Suddenly. Like that, effortlessly. The result of six months of work.

So there is only one solution. To me, there is a solution: it's the sudden contact with a HIGHER light in the Supermind. Sri Aurobindo said (that's obvious, it's always like that) that there are several layers (it's not quite like "layers", but never mind), several layers of supramental light. The first (the one that has manifested), that one you immediately transformed into conceptions, ideas and words. That is, something a large number of intellectuals are praying and imploring to have — you had it spontaneously, let's say. So the first contact, the dazzling contact of the Light, that you haven't had. But when a HIGHER light comes, you will have it.

06. May 1967 – The Force at work

"The Divinity mentioned by Sri Aurobindo...

It was Sri Aurobindo speaking to me, but he said it like that!

"The Divinity mentioned by Sri Aurobindo is NOT A PERSON...

He insisted a lot on this.

"...is not a person, but a condition to be shared and lived by all those who prepare themselves for it."

So I was walking (I always walk a half-hour in the morning, repeating the mantra), and he went on and on and on repeating it, this way, that way, until this form was arrived at. Then, when I had noted it on paper, it was over.

Afterwards, he told me to put it into French like this:

"La Divinité dont parle Sri Aurobindo n'est pas une personne, mais un état auquel participeront tous ceux qui se sont préparés à le recevoir."

It's like that all the time: the Force at work, the Force at work, the Force at work... all the time like that, constantly, nothing but the Force at work. That's what I told you the other day (the two vibrations), it's like that. But all the time, all the time. At the balcony, constantly, constantly: the Force at work, the Force at work... That only remains.

And as there is a large crowd, it means a lot of work.

But at the balcony (and even before, in the morning when that ball of lightning came), there was a very special concentration on you. But that, I don't know, it's for you to say. If you felt something, so much the better!

And a constant insistence on Harmony, Harmony, Harmony.... An harmonious balance: an harmonious balance of nations, an harmonious balance of people, an harmonious balance of inner faculties, an harmonious balance... like that.

And then, resistances are clearly expressed as a disharmony.

Something extremely smiling, harmonious, smiling, harmonious....

There was a rather interesting phenomenon (it was yesterday or the day before), amusing little details: now the last member of the government of India has been converted, so to speak. All the members of government (the central government — I don't mean the whole country, but of the centre), all the members of the central government are... (what should I say?) I could almost say "apprentice disciples of Sri Aurobindo," with a great goodwill to serve.

And everywhere, everywhere in the world, the signs of a CONSCIOUS goodwill awakening.

That's what Sri Aurobindo once said to me. What he saw was that the supramental Force would have sufficient influence on the various governments of the earth, of the nations, to allow hope for a harmony.

For instance, what Sri Aurobindo says — that purity which consists in receiving ONLY the Influence of the Divine, so that all other influences cannot touch... For example, a certain number of people have been paid to destroy me. I know it. And I see it. Well, it can't do anything, but it does give a little work — it SHOULDN'T give any work. Now and then I am obliged to put up the shield of white Light to stop them from coming through. That shouldn't be necessary, it should be automatic. And it comes from the fact that there are still loads of cells with old habits — old imprints, old habits.

That must change.

They weep a little ("weep," well...), they lament a little; they are very conscious of their infirmity and they pray a lot, but... they still have the sensation that they would need some tranquillity and a certain amount of time for the supreme Harmony to be able to penetrate everywhere — which is silly, but... So they feel they are, not exactly in contradiction but somewhat constrained or weighed down by the multitude — the immensity — of the material work. You understand, this [body] can hardly eat anymore, doesn't have time to rest anymore, even at night now there's much work — I had resolved to remain quiet at night, but there's work and it has to be done — so the result of it all is that ... (gesture of friction). They [the cells] are silly, they still feel, "Oh, if I could stay very quiet, then I would change." They need a slap. That's all.

There's still some friction.

And the body is conscious enough to be convinced that it has no right to demand the change (I mean a certain change) in the Whole so as to enable its own change. Because, that it knows very well: "Then what use am I? If I am like the others, I am useless — I MUST have the capacity to emerge into the Light, whatever the people or difficulties around me." It knows that, it's under no illusions. But still, there is a little friction.

"About physical suffering, Mother says:

"There are three different layers or levels of consciousness that are the origin of that suffering. They are as if juxtaposed, superimposed, but don't intermingle. You pass from one to the other in alternation, without fixed order.

It's not quite like that. It has become so rigid! Never mind, read on.

"One is a repulsion, a fear that sometimes borders on terror. The second is a perverse, unavowed attraction. The third, a sense of inevitability, of 'can't be helped,' of total helplessness.

"Almost everyone allows himself to be thus ensnared, so there is one remedy — only one — to cure all those diseases (doctors are something else altogether, they are another ill, which doesn't really cure).

"This remedy — it's good for all earth life — is to attain and open up to the consciousness of Harmony — not mental or vital harmony, but the 'essential' harmony, the 'principle' of harmony.

"It's always the same remedy. It's wonderfully effective if one can apply it, but that is difficult because the human consciousness is very unstable, in constant change. That change is what gives man the sense of life and movement. It's absolutely stupid, but that's how it is!

"So, if one can make one's consciousness stable and bring those juxtaposed layers into contact with the consciousness of harmony, there are seemingly miraculous results. For instance, S. came back this morning, ten years younger; as you know, he was half-dead....

"...They had wired me that he was dying. So I concentrated (gesture) like that... to make contact little by little with this force of harmony, this principle of harmony.... And now he tells me that he feels quite fine, quite a new man.

"That's what I did...."

He even told me (I saw him), he even told me the vision that was at the origin of his cure. And it was really interesting. He said he saw it, as it were, almost with open eyes: everything was dark (it was in the night), the room was dark, he felt absolutely depressed, and — it was a heart attack — had no more interest in anything, no more interest in life, and felt as if he was letting himself "slip into death," just like that. Then, suddenly, he thought of me. And — he says his eyes were open — the whole room was dark, except for a sort of oval of light just in front of him. A quite dazzling oval of light, which remained. So he looked (he wasn't asleep), he looked to see what could be causing that light (he is sufficiently materialistic), but then, nothing — he realized there was nothing. Then he started watching that light, and he saw, rising from the bottom (he didn't know from where, couldn't see from where) like a flame — two small flames — of a very, very pale light, very bright. He found it interesting, and continued to watch. And all of a sudden, he saw in the light the shape of what he calls... I think it's Mahasaraswati (I forget which, but I think it's Mahasaraswati: "perfection in work"), that he saw there, staying there. And at the same time he felt in himself, oh, a great desire to serve, to work well, to consecrate his life to the divine work, all that. And the next morning, when the doctors came they said, "Oh, everything is changed!"

Interesting.

And it coincided with the moment when I was doing my concentration here. (I had got the telegram from a young boy he adopted and is very fond of: he had sent a telegram to let me know that the doctors had all but condemned him.) Then he had that experience — it's a transcription, of course, according to his conception. But it's interesting.

But above all, I don't want anyone to know what I am saying here: everyone must be left to his own conception. As for him, he is convinced it's Mahasaraswati who gave him back his life (all the same, he has much devotion for me, but that doesn't matter...). I don't want it known. I didn't say anything to him, I smiled at him — yes, I told him, "You are receptive." And when he expressed his gratitude, I said, "We needed you to do some work." Like that, quite simply.

But I found that interesting, because... It's generally like this: the Force is there, working, and if something comes (a call from someone, a prayer or something), all this (gesture to the forehead) generally remains absolutely still, immobile, letting only the Force pass through, and all I sometimes do is simply (gesture of offering or presenting something upward): "Lord, here is this task, it's for You." That's all, and I leave it. But in this case, I was sitting at my table (the telegram had just come), and I concentrated and quite deliberately and consciously I put him in contact with the Force. Because there was a whole world of suggestions, he expected the end: "This time it's the end." So because of that, I concentrated and put a formation.

"It reminded me of Théon who said that the world had been put forth and reabsorbed six times; in other words, that there had been six creations and six pralayas. And that now we were in the seventh creation, the last. The world would find a new, higher equilibrium, not static but progressive, which means there would be unending progress in equilibrium and harmony, without pralaya."

(April 24, 1967)

That I already told you several times.

But I don't want the story of S. to be published; I don't want to seem to be boasting of having saved his life, you understand! It might have quite unfortunate consequences for himself.... I only told Pavitra because I was still under the impact of the experience, I had just seen the man: when he walked in I hardly recognized him! That is, he struck me as a thoroughly new man. And, interestingly, he felt it, he said, "Oh, but it's as if the old man had died, I am a new man." That is to say, I found in him the energy he used to have twenty or thirty years ago.

10. May 1967 – The memory of sounds and eyes

(Satprem reads Mother an old Playground talk of May 23, 1956, in which Mother suddenly asks various questions about the pronunciation of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.)

(After a silence) Listen, I'll give you an example. Some two years ago, I had a vision about U.'s son. She had brought him to me (he was almost one) and I had just seen him there (in the music room). He struck me as someone I knew very well, but I didn't know who. Then, that same day in the afternoon, I had a vision. A vision of ancient Egypt, that is I was someone, the high priestess or I don't know who. (Because you don't say to yourself, "I am so and so"! The identification is total, there is no objectivity, so I don't know.) I was inside a wonderful monument, immense, so high! But it was completely bare: there was nothing, except for one place where there were magnificent paintings. That's where I recognized the paintings of ancient Egypt. I was coming out of my apartments and entering a sort of great hall: there was a kind of gutter to collect water (on the ground) running round the walls. And I saw the child (who was half-naked) playing in it. I was very shocked, I said, "What! This is disgusting!" (But the feelings, ideas and so on were all expressed in French in my consciousness.) The tutor came, I had him sent for. I scolded him. I heard sounds — well, I don't know what I said, I don't remember those sounds. I heard the sounds I uttered, I knew what they meant, but the expression was in French, and I didn't retain a memory of the sounds. I spoke to him, telling him, "What! You let this child play in that?" And he answered me (I woke up with his answer), saying (I didn't hear the first words, but to my thought it was), "Such is the will of Amenhotep." I heard "Amenhotep," I remembered it. So I knew the child was Amenhotep.

Therefore, I know I spoke; I spoke in a language, but I don't remember more. I remembered "Amenhotep" because I know the word Amenhotep in my active consciousness. But otherwise, the other sounds didn't stay. I don't have the memory of the sounds.

And I know I was his mother; at that moment I knew who I was, because I know that Amenhotep is so and so's son (and also I looked it up in history books). Otherwise there's no connection: a blank.

I always admire those mediums (they generally are very simple people) who have the exact memory of the sound and can tell you, "This and that is what I said." That way we could have a phonetic notation. If I remembered the sounds I uttered we would have the notation, but I don't.

I remember these questions: I suddenly thought, "How interesting it would be to hear that language!" And then, being curious, "How did they rediscover the pronunciation? How?" Besides, all the names of ancient history we were taught when we were very small have been changed now. They said they had rediscovered the sounds, or rather they claimed they did. But I don't know.

It's the same thing with ancient Babylon: I have extremely precise and perfectly objective memories, but when I speak I don't remember the sounds I utter, there is only the mental transcription.

I don't have the memory of the sounds.

That's what, the awareness that I don't have the memory of sounds. Some people have the memory of sounds, but I don't. So I'd be interested to know how it was. Otherwise I was always able (when I found something from the past doubtful or interesting or incomplete), I always found a way to recall it into the consciousness. But the sounds don't come. They come as a state of consciousness that's translated mentally, and it's translated mentally into words I know. So that's quite uninteresting.

Even now, even when I used to play music, the memory of sounds was vague and incomplete. I had the memory of the sounds I heard at the "origins of music" (gesture above), and when the material music reproduced something of those sounds, I would recognize them; but there isn't the precision, the accuracy that would enable me to reproduce exactly the sound with the voice or an instrument. It's not there, it's lacking. Whereas the memory of the eyes was... it was astounding. When I had seen a thing ONCE, that was enough, I would never forget it.

Several other times, in visions ("visions," I mean memories: relived memories), I spoke the language of that time, I spoke it and heard myself speak, but the sound didn't stay. The MEANING of what I said stayed, but not the sound.

A pity.

(Mother goes into a meditation)

After the meditation, Mother tells what she has seen:

It was the symbol of the road opening wide, easy — not "easy": it's dangerous in itself, but quite easy, one travelled on it easily. It was like riding in a car (but these are images), and it went with dizzying speed, as if it was a power — a power nothing could stop.

17. May 1967 – Human dynamo

An Italian professor did some research in Mexico. He says: "Human cells can generate enough electrical energy to electrocute another human being standing eighteen feet away. Dr. Ruggiero feels that his experiments in human cells may result in the cure of paralysis and he says that an electrical energy screen generated by human cells could be used to stop bullets. Electrical energy could make a 'human dynamo' capable not only of inflicting death, but of literally walking on air. By connecting cables to the human frame, human cells could produce energy and light sufficient to fill the power needs of an average home or small manufacturing unit. In experiments in his Mexico City laboratory, Dr. Ruggiero has produced a current from a goat enough to light up a series of 40 watt bulbs and to activate an electric door bell..."

But it's been known for a long time that cats, the skin of cats, is full of electricity. It was used in the past to cure rheumatism.

He says this electricity could be used to reactivate dead or paralyzed or cancerous cells.... And he concludes, "The human body is virtually a living dry cell. The era of human electric energy is close at hand."

It's the same thing as magnetic force. It's all the same Force! Basically it seems to be the expression of the Power, mixed according to the states (gesture in levels): the mental, the vital, or the purely material form where it would become electricity. (Dr. Ruggiero further notes: "All my experiments of the past few years have given me the conviction that cells never atrophy and that, as accumulators of energy, they can be used to recharge cells of the same type which become inactivated through sickness. My theory is that the atrophied cells are those whose energy has been discharged. They can be reactivated simply by recharging them with other cells of the patient, and function normally as before.")

I think that's what it is.

At the time when I had gatherings in Paris and followed Théon's system (he didn't call them meditations but "repose": "having repose together"), during our gatherings a kind of vibration of light would flow from my fingers (it was visible to the naked eye), and it was like electricity. But that was a concentrated vital force. It was visible as a vibration of light flowing from my fingers.

It must be the same thing.

In fact, it is all the same, it's only different aspects of the same thing (same gesture in levels).

I remember, the first time I gave X (a Tantric) a flower, my fingers touched his and he almost jumped; then, when he went out, he said to someone that there was a kind of vibration or ... (I forget his words) a current, I don't know, which went through his whole body, like an electric current. He simply touched my fingers when I gave him the flower.

To me, this is all the same thing, only it's their material notation of the Fact. That's all. To their intelligence it becomes much more real and concrete, but it's the same thing.

The Lord as electric vibration! (Mother laughs)

20. May 1967 – Sri Aurobindo, a marvel of patience

There is increasingly a sort of pressure of the Consciousness to awaken all that's semiconscious, subconscious, and to reach the Inconscient; it's like something going down (gesture like a drill) with a pressure. And as it goes down, as the pressure increases, there is a sort of... (what can I call it?) a review or overall vision of the whole state of consciousness of the being and beings (gesture around). And the result is the perception of such imbecility!... When you live, while you live something (you don't even know what you live while you live it), you feel you are in a light, that you receive a direction, that you follow that direction, that, well, that a light of consciousness is acting; and when there is that pressure of THE Consciousness (like that, from above; we could call it the "truth-consciousness" or anything — THE consciousness), then all you have done, all you have thought, all you have felt, all you have seen, all those things which appeared to be conscious... it all becomes so idiotic that you really need a faith very... (how should I put it?), not only a very complete faith, but a very complete surrender in order not to be crushed under the weight of that imbecility.

All morning I reviewed all kinds of movements of consciousness (not a recollection in thought or sensation or vision, but a recollection in the consciousness) of whole periods of life, especially life with Sri Aurobindo, because at the time, I felt I was relying on the divine Consciousness and acting under its pressure (already); so it's interesting that it should now look like an abyss of imbecility. And then, you wonder what Sri Aurobindo — he who was conscious — what he must have felt? How he must have seen all that around him, all those people bustling and acting and moving around him... (Mother takes her head in her hands). You say to yourself that if he had the consciousness which is here now (he surely had it! He had that consciousness), well, it was a marvel of patience. That's my conclusion.

You see, an undeniable goodwill, a will to do the right thing (Mother is speaking about herself), an attitude that seemed as good as possible, and already the sense of a surrender and an effort to express not at all personal movements, but the guiding Will — all that, that whole attitude (which at the time seemed quite good), seen with today's consciousness!... (Mother takes her head in her hands) So it's easy to think that...

Sri Aurobindo surely had that consciousness, surely since he spoke about it — he had it, and he saw us living like that around him... what patience! What a marvel of patience.

The goodwill was obvious, but there's above all a sense of imbecility, something so blind in the perception.

(silence)

With every new descent, there was a period in which things were seen from a certain standpoint: there was the standpoint of feelings, the standpoint of thoughts, and so on — a CERTAIN standpoint. But this time round, it's the standpoint of consciousness, and then... (swarming gesture).

And certainly, between the state of consciousness now trying to manifest and the higher state of consciousness that will manifest after some time, there will again be the same difference.

These experiences always start from the small circle of the individual as being the best known and most easily observable point, then they begin to spread out, finally extending all over the earth. It's been like that each time. But then, the sense, the perception of the difference between what is and what's trying to be is so huge... It's only because the surrender is there (and has always been there! It wasn't denied at that time, far from it! It was there), that alone helps to go through.

The perception of that immense Wisdom, you know, total, carrying everything — in every detail, with all the conscious details — carrying everything towards the future perfection (a growing perfection, always a future perfection): that's what saves you from being crushed, otherwise... otherwise the contrast is a bit crushing.

These experiences always come after a great call in the cells, which feel their infirmity, their incapacity, their state which we might almost call a state of ignominy in comparison with the splendour we aspire to; the perception of the contradiction between what these cells are and what they aspire to be in order to be an expression of the Divine... It's always following that that these experiences come as if to say, to show the road that has been travelled. But at this rate, between the road travelled and what remains to be travelled... it will take a great deal of time yet.

(silence)

We must be very patient.

24. May 1967 – What is the Divine?

"The Divine is an absolute of perfection, eternal source of all that exists, whom we grow progressively conscious of, while being Him from all eternity."

Once, Amrita told me too that for him it was something simply unthinkable. So I answered him, "No! That way doesn't help. Just think that the Divine is everything (to the fullest possible extent, of course), everything we want to become in our highest, most enlightened aspiration. All that we want to become — that's the Divine." He was so happy! He told me, "Oh, that way it becomes easy!"

But when you look at it — when you emerge from mental activity and look at the experience you have, you wonder, "How to say it? How to explain it?"... The nearest, most accessible, is this: into that "something" we aspire to become, we instinctively, spontaneously put everything we want to exist, all the most marvellous things we can imagine, all the objects of an intense (and ignorant) aspiration, all of that. And with all that, you draw near "something" and ... In fact, you don't get the contact through thought; you get the contact through something IDENTICAL in the being, which is awakened by the intensity of the aspiration. So, as soon as you have got for yourself, be it for one second, this contact — this fusion — there's no more need to explain: it's something that imposes itself in an absolute way, and that is outside and beyond all explanation.

But to get there, everyone puts into it all that makes it easier to lead him there.

And when you have the experience, at the time of this fusion, this junction, to the consciousness it's obvious that the identical alone can know the identical, and that consequently it's proof that That is there (Mother points to the heart centre). It's a proof that That is there. And through the effort of aspiration, It awakens.

When I was given the question, it was just as if that person were saying to me, "Yes, yes, that's all very fine, but after all, what IS the Divine!" So I read his letter, and there was that total silence, of everything, and a sort of SINGLE gaze — a single gaze encompassing everything — which wanted to see... I remained like that, looking, until the words came. Then I wrote: "Here is ONE answer" — there could be a hundred... which would be just as good.

And at the same time, when there was that look at the "something" which had to be defined, there was a great silence everywhere and a great aspiration (gesture like a rising flame), and all the forms that that aspiration has taken. It was very interesting.... The history of the aspiration of the earth... towards the marvellous Unknown we want to become.

And each one — each one who was destined to effect the junction — believes in his simplicity that the bridge he has walked is the only one. The result: religions, philosophies, dogmas, creeds — battle.

Seen as a whole, it's very interesting, very charming, with a Smile that looks on. Oh, that Smile... looking on. That Smile seems to be saying, "How complicated you make it! When it could be so simple."

To put it in a literary way, we could say, "So much complication for something so simple: to be oneself."

(silence)

And what do you think the Divine is?

I've never asked myself that question. Because, spontaneously, as soon as there was a need to know, there was an answer. And not an answer with words that can be argued, an answer... like that, a something: a vibration that's something almost constant now.

Naturally, men create difficulties (I think they must love them, because...), for everything, the SLIGHTEST thing, there's always a world of difficulties. So you spend your time saying, "Quiet, quiet, quiet — be quiet." Even the body lives in difficulties (it too seems to love them!), but all of a sudden the cells chant their OM... spontaneously. Then there is a sort of childlike joy in all those cells, which say (Mother says in a tone of wonder), "Oh, really, we can do that? We are allowed to do that?" It's touching.

And the result is immediate: that great, peaceful, all-powerful Vibration.

As for me, if I weren't under the constant pressure of all the wills around me, I would say, "But why do you want to know what the Divine is? What does it matter to you! — Just become the Divine!" But they don't know how to take a joke.

"I want to know what the Divine is."

"But no! It's perfectly useless."

"Oh!"

They answer with a shocked look, "Oh, it's not interesting?!"

"You don't need to know what the Divine is: you must BECOME it."

For them, I mean the vast intellectual majority, they cannot conceive of doing or being something without knowing what it is.

We could also say this, if we enjoyed a joke: "It is when you don't know it, that you are the most Divine."

26. May 1967 – Great Tension of War

Right now there is a great tension. They have all taken positions as if to start war. It is the blind passion that men put into their international relations.

At the base of it all there is fear, general distrust, and what they believe to be their "interests" (money, business) — a combination of these three things. When these three lowest passions of humanity are brought into play, that is what I call "the abyss."

26. May 1967 – Fear is insincerity

When someone has decided to consecrate his life to the seeking for the Divine, if he is sincere, that is to say, if the resolution is sincere and carried out sincerely, there is absolutely nothing to fear, because all that happens or will happen to him will lead him by the shortest way to this realisation.

That is the response of the Grace. People believe that the Grace will make everything in their life easy for them. It is not true.

The Grace works for the realisation of your aspiration and everything is arranged to gain the most prompt, the quickest realisation — so there is nothing to fear.

Fear comes from insincerity. If you want a comfortable life, agreeable circumstances, etc., and you put conditions and restrictions, then you can fear.

But it has no business in the sadhana!

30. May 1967 – The truth about supporting Muslims

Oh, that's because the natural tendency here is against the Muslims, so those who think they are superior say one should be above one's dislikes: "Let's be with them." (Mother laughs) There's the logic of it.

A time may come when we'll have to tell Sri Aurobindo's vision and how the world has evolved since he spoke about it (that would be very interesting). For that we'd have to find again everything he said on the different subjects.... From the religious point of view, I have been thinking about it for a long time. Those are the two things that can't be touched without instantly arousing human passions, and there, people's vision is quite narrow, limited, so that they no longer understand anything. Politics and religion, it would be better to wait a little. In ten years, perhaps.... It could be, things are going fast. In ten years, maybe we'll be able to see and say a little something. In any case, it's better to put this letter aside. (Laughing) It's not the time to fling stones at them!