January 1971

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01. January 1971 – Mother’s New Year Message

Blessed are those who take a leap towards the Future (The Mother)

03. January 1971 – Life is only the Union with the Divine

Well, I always say the same thing: a life consecrated to union with the Divine is the only life worth living….

A life consecrated to the Divine is the only life worth living.

11. January 1971 – Physical Vision

Physical vision requires a much more continuous concentration. The physical vision serves to stabilize. It gives continuity to things. The same with hearing. So when neither of them are there, you become conscious of the thing directly, which gives you the true knowledge of it. That is probably how the Supermind will work.

My physical vision and hearing have been pushed into the background to be replaced by identity through consciousness — for the growth of consciousness.

The way of relating to things, of knowing, is through an identification of the consciousness with the thing or person. Instead of having the usual sense of separateness, you have a constant sense of union. There are quite interesting experiences. People call me and think about me. That comes into my field of consciousness. And after some time I am told, “So and so has come,” or “Something has happened to so and so,” and I say, “I know.” I wasn’t told anything at the time it happened, but I was conscious of it as if it were happening to a part of me.

16. January 1971 – Mother’s Leg

One of my legs went dead for a long time — it's just starting to come back to life — it was paralyzed. This leg (the left). So naturally everything was difficult.... I had an intestinal ulcer, but that didn't last long. It was more serious but it didn't last. An intestinal ulcer. But what ties me down is this leg that became paralyzed. (Mother touches her left leg.) The lower part of it, from the knee to the heel. So naturally you become an imbecile!

What was remarkable (I want to tell you this right away) is that the consciousness established there (gesture above her head) has grown stronger and stronger and clearer and clearer. And it’s CONSTANT. I worked — I went on working — not only for India but for the world, and in touch (“consulted,” you understand), actively.

As for the transformation, I don’t know… What I had explained about the “replacement of the consciousness” (the transfer) went on methodically, methodically, absolutely methodically and continuously, but with… some apparent impairment, or at least the capacities of my body were greatly diminished for a certain time. But there is a curious phenomenon concerning sight and hearing: from time to time they’re clear, as clear as can be, and at other times they’re completely blurred. And it has very, very clearly another origin — another origin of influence. But I think it will take months before I can understand it. In any case, the general consciousness (gesture above her head), what could be called the universal consciousness (or at least terrestrial), hasn’t budged for one minute — not one single minute. It has stayed there all the time. Only, you’re a complete imbecile; you know how it is when you can’t do anything: you’re helpless, you can’t even go from your chair to the bed, you can’t do anything — one leg isn’t there. Even now I can’t walk unaided, I need someone to hold me up.

It is coming back little by little. There was a time when it was total: it was cold as ice. There was no circulation. Something had blocked the circulation. Now it’s better, it’s coming back to life.

But it was not an innocent paralysis! For at least three weeks — at least — for three weeks there was a continuous pain, night and day, 24 hours out of 24, without any letup, none whatsoever: it was as if everything were being torn out of me… You know, I don’t usually complain, but I was almost forced to cry out loud all the time. So, of course, there was no question of seeing anyone. Now it’s over. The pain is quite bearable and the body has resumed a somewhat normal existence.

Not only was it the leg, but the lower part of the leg (Mother points to her feet). This one (Mother touches her right leg) was on the verge of being paralyzed also, but the day it happened, I concentrated with a vengeance, I walked for a long, long time to keep it from being paralyzed. I managed to keep it from being paralyzed; only this one (left one) was stricken.

16. January 1971 – Consciousness of the Physical Being

Basically, all that time was used to develop the consciousness of the physical being. It really seems as if this physical being (Mother touches her body) had been prepared for another consciousness, because for certain things… its reactions are entirely different, its attitude is different. I went through a period of total indifference in which the world represented… meant nothing. And then little by little a kind of new perception grew out of it.

But the whole body has changed drastically. For example, with respect to food, I have absolutely no appetite — none whatsoever. For a time, I even felt disgusted, a kind of disgust for food — it was very difficult because they wanted to force me to eat just the same. To me eating seemed like something… miserable, you know, without any meaning, exactly as if I had never eaten in my life. Out of sheer effort I managed to go on taking what is considered indispensable (laughing) to keep the body alive!

It nearly became serious when an ulcer erupted in the intestines. An ulcer erupted, and then naturally there was no question of eating…. But I have noticed how those things, the so-called catastrophes or calamities or mishaps or difficulties or… how they all come JUST at the right moment to help you — JUST when it’s needed to help you…. You see, everything in the physical nature that still belonged to the old world and its habit and ways of doing and being and acting, all that couldn’t be (handled is the word), it couldn’t be handled in any other way than this: by illness.

The doctors were quite concerned about the intestinal ulcer. If it had perforated, it would have been very, very serious — the ordinary recourse is an operation, so…. The doctors were quite concerned. But they didn’t show anything, I didn’t know about it — I found out about the ulcer only when it was healed (I mean when it was in the process of healing).

I hear what’s necessary for me to hear, even if it’s a very faint sound, but all the sounds of conversation, all the things that make a lot of noise, I don’t hear at all!… Something is changed. Only it’s old — it’s old, I mean, it has an old habit pattern. Although fortunately I was never a creature of habit… Yes (smiling), you could say: it’s as if something quite tough was in the process of changing! So it lacks suppleness, ease. But the change is there — the change is definite. I have changed VERY MUCH, even in character, in comprehension, in the vision of things — very, very much. There’s been a whole rearrangement.

For an entire period I was absolutely inaccessible because I was in constant pain, so I was just useless — it was absolutely continuous. You could say I was just a cry all the time. It lasted a long time. It lasted several weeks (I didn’t keep track). Then, gradually, it alternated with moments of peace when the pain in the leg subsided. And for the last two or three days, it seems to be recovering… You know, it was such a… it was the whole problem of the world — a world that was nothing but pain and suffering, and a great question mark: why?

I tried every possible remedy: changing pain into pleasure, suppressing the capacity to feel, thinking about something else… I tried all the “tricks” — not a single one worked. There is something in the physical world as it is which is not… (how can I put it?) which still is not open to the Divine Vibration. And that “something” is what causes absolutely all the trouble… The Divine Consciousness is not perceived. And so there are lots of imaginary things (but very real to the sensation) that exist, while that, the only thing that’s true, is not perceived. But it’s better now. It’s better.

It’s really interesting. I think something has been achieved from a general standpoint (Mother makes a grinding gesture); it wasn’t just the difficulty of one body or one person: I think something was achieved in terms of preparing Matter to receive in the right way, correctly — it’s as if it had been received incorrectly before, and it has learned to receive in the true way.

27. January 1971 – America’s aspiration

I personally have the feeling there is a close and invisible connection between America‘s aspiration, as it is now, and the book. I have the feeling that’s where the center of transformation will be. The European countries are old.

Old, that’s right.

They’ve lost the enthusiasm that makes you act without thinking about consequences. They’re constantly weighing the consequences of everything they do. In America there’s an aspiration. That’s where the push will be, that’s where (pointing to the manuscript)… the bomb must go off! (laughter)

27. January 1971 – Letters on Yoga

"It is the old methods of yoga that demand silence and solitude."

"The yoga of tomorrow is to find the Divine in work and in contact with the world."

(Then a quotation from Sri Aurobindo that Mother wants to include in the next "Bulletin.")

"The power that works in this yoga is of a thorough-going character and tolerates in the end nothing great or small that is an obstacle to the Truth and its realisation." (Sri Aurobindo – Letters on Yoga, XXIII. 803)

30. January 1971 – Propaganda and Publicity

“I don’t believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom — and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their chest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere — or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy or silence. It is what has happened to the ‘religions’ and is the reason of their failure.” (October 2, 1934 – On Himself, XXVI. 375)

That passage should be typed and put up in Auroville. It is INDISPENSABLE. They all have a false idea about propaganda and publicity. It should be typed in big letters; at the top, “Sri Aurobindo said,” then put the quotation, and send it to Auroville.