July 1971

03. July 1971 – Demonstration of the Existence of the Divine

You know, it's as if the two extremes — a marvelous state and a general decomposition — were here like this (gesture of being inextricably intertwined). Everything, but everything is falling apart: people you count on give way, it seems there's a general dishonesty spreading, people getting sick all the time... As difficulties go, there have NEVER been so many, never, and compounded: big difficulties with ruinous ones. But at the same time, for... a flash (it comes for a few minutes, then it goes away), there is a... marvelous state (the body feels it), unimaginable, you know, like the extreme opposite. As if it wanted to take over — but the other fights back fiercely. And so, all circumstances are like that, all the people are like that, from the government on down to the people here. And then that marvelous state: it comes into my body for a few minutes, then it goes away.

It’s so… horrible, you know — just everyone, all the people you count on, everything, all, all is falling to pieces; so much so that the consciousness wonders: “But what is this hell, this is no life!” And then, at another moment — but for a few minutes only — there’s such a marvelous state that it’s unimaginable. There you are. That’s what I’ve been living since… night and day without letup.

This morning for a few minutes it was absolutely marvelous, but the rest of the time it’s infernal. There you are, you see, that’s life for you. Everything, all, all seems to be falling apart, the people you count on give way, but at the same time, all of a sudden… It’s 90 percent like that, but the 10 percent is so marvelous that it’s unimaginable. That’s how things are.

And all the ideas of personal will or of a certain attitude to take are… Night and day, ceaselessly, whatever the difficulties, my body simply says, “My God, let Your Will be done.” The body’s attitude is steadfast: it is completely like this (hands open in offering). And the sense of its own powerlessness… no: for as much as the sense of self is left (it’s not much, not much is left), but the little that is left is so powerless, so impotent, so ignorant… ignorant! Frightfully ignorant of everything. It’s something… One wonders why, what’s the reason for this (Mother touches her body). And then… (gesture of a marvelous flash). That’s how it is.

And the other side doesn’t create any problems. It’s… as if you were absolutely sick, a total mess, and all of a sudden you’re marvelously well, strong. And it comes very naturally, without any fuss. It remains there, and then pfft!

You see, it’s got to the point that eating is becoming a problem, sleeping is becoming a problem, speaking is becoming a problem — everything is a problem — but then at the same time… it gets done, one doesn’t know how: things fall into place, and one eats, one rests…. For instance, I am lying down, I am so uncomfortable that I think, “It’s impossible, I can’t stay here,” and then all of a sudden, poff! nothing anymore: a marvelous repose. And there is no more body, no more problem, nothing. And then without knowing the why or the how, suddenly the difficulties are back. And it’s like that, all of life is like that.

So people come and tell me, “I have this problem, that problem…” “Look,” I tell them (exasperated tone), “no wonder the whole world is like that!” It can perish for all I care… it would be a relief. There you are. But then… (gesture of a marvelous flash). Three minutes of splendor for twelve hours of misery. That’s the ratio. And for a body that truly, sincerely… thinks only of the Divine, wants only the Divine. But it is utterly conscious of its incapacity.

You know, it’s like a live demonstration of the existence of the Divine and what the Divine existence is — an absolute existence and what it is — and then what it has become.

The world is “like that,” but it isn’t true! It is NOT like that — it’s like that for our consciousness… For a while this morning, I wondered, “What is it like in the consciousness of wild animals?…” And I saw that the consciousness capable of seeing the whole doesn’t exist for animals, they don’t have it — they live from day to day and minute to minute whatever happens to them. That’s all. I understand that, I saw, it’s the… (gesture to the forehead indicating that the mind spoils everything).

In short, it’s becoming very, very critical: how far the world is from what it should be. Usually people say there’s a mixture of good and bad things; but all that is childish — the good things aren’t any better than the bad ones. That’s not IT. The Divine is something else.

Mother: For me, the Divine has become as concrete — more concrete and more compelling — than… Only, we are not capable of feeling Him: one minute, a few minutes all of a sudden, and then, prrt!

10. July 1971 – The World has to change

The experience in the body is very interesting. All so-called moral, intellectual, psychological suffering, in other words, the suffering of the consciousness that is not purely material, seems childish to the body. Yesterday, it had… (what shall I say? I don’t know how to explain it). It doesn’t feel things in relation to itself, it feels things… (silence) IN others, but with a general consciousness, not a personal one; and it has such a horror of physical suffering, that is to say illnesses, accidents, that it wondered why, why the world exists like that. It then understood why some people don’t want to have a body anymore (that always seemed absurd before), it understood why. It was such an intense experience! It had an aspiration, something like a prayer, but it’s not a prayer: “May the world change! May the world change. It HAS to change — or else disappear.” The idea of disappearing had not come before, it seemed… it used to think that the world was moving towards a harmonious perfection; but, you see, it’s long — the length of time is terrible! There was an aspiration of incredible intensity for the transformation. Everything looks so dreadful because… because the transformation must, MUST take place. That anyone can be satisfied with a world like this is impossible — it’s impossible to a physical consciousness that is conscious of the Divine. It’s impossible, it absolutely has to change. And that was so vivid… I was gripped by it all night and all day, even while seeing people, with such an intensity: it must change, it must change…

The being, the inner consciousness can say and be conscious that that suffering is unreal, but the physical consciousness can’t — it can’t, it HAS to change. It’s not a matter of merging with a consciousness, leaving this physical consciousness to disappear: it has to change, it has to change… I can’t put it into words, I can’t say it.

It is so very conscious that in all the worlds, even the vital world, everything depends on the attitude, and if you are in contact with the Divine, everything is fine, there’s no problem, but this (Mother touches her body), this physical suffering — cancer and all those things — it’s so concrete: It HAS to change, it has to change. It can’t be considered something one must “see in a different way.” It actually must change.

Let me say it in a very down-to-earth way: for example, take a supramental being having the supramental consciousness, if his body gets cancer, it will remain cancer, you follow?… He may not feel anything, but only if he detaches himself from his body; whereas, for the transformation to be genuine, the body ALSO has to attain a harmony above — above all illnesses and accidents.

It is the only part. The other parts of the being can be transformed, can transform their consciousness while remaining what they are — but the physical body needs to change.

You know, I always felt, always: if something isn’t right, it means that this something isn’t really turned to the Divine. And if everything is turned to the Divine, and obeys only the Divine, things will inevitably be harmonious. That was my conviction. But yesterday the experience came differently.

Probably it’s a necessary experience.

And the body has strange experiences: for a few minutes all of a sudden, it feels that the solidity of matter is an illusion and that it may… Here, I’ll give you a very practical example: something inside, an inflammation somewhere, for instance; well, as long as I am in the ordinary physical consciousness, it’s there, it’s concrete and it hurts, but there is a consciousness in which it no longer exists — physically. If you know (what shall I say?)… to put it simply: to approach the Divine in the right way, to enter into contact with the Divine in the right way, in the right manner — it starts up again afterwards as before.

17. July 1971 – People’s Behaviour

In a way, it was like a demonstration — like a stage play, you know, showing how people behave with the Divine. It was really comical! You may get angry and say, “How shameful!” — but it was comical. It was laughable: everything is the Divine’s fault! That’s how people are commonly: it’s the Divine who ill-uses them, the Divine who does not spare them, the Divine who arranges circumstances wrongly…. That’s how it is. They’re all like that.

And it’s a kind of half-conscious malice: you do this, they just do that (slight twist), they twist it a little, and everything becomes distorted; you say one thing, they add a word or take one out and it’s all distorted. Even what is written they read in their own way. It’s stunning.

17. July 1971 – The World in its Self-conceit

Somewhere Sri Aurobindo wrote that when you touched the Divine Consciousness, it suddenly gave you the sense of… how laughable the world is in its self-conceit — men’s self-conceit. But even (I’ve had contact with animals), even in animals it begins. Vanity, vanity, vanity, vanity…

You know, almost everywhere deception and attempts at deception are taken for goodwill. As for those who don’t seek to deceive anybody but only deceive themselves, they are already exceptional beings.

These aren’t discoveries, they are things I used to see; but you see them only occasionally, by way of exception, in one instance or another, whereas there I had the vision of the whole world, of the entire earth, of all human effort, of all peoples, all… we live in a deception. It’s frightful!

21. July 1971 – The Human Consciousness distorts everything

The body is more and more conscious, but not at all mentally — like… like things actually lived. I don’t know how to say it. It’s hard to explain… It’s sensing or having the… (I don’t know how to explain exactly what it is) how, in the manifestation, the human consciousness distorts the Divine Action (gesture of direct flow). It’s our constitution which is so pitiable. We reduce, distort, diminish EVERYTHING — everything. We know things (Knowledge is there all around us, in us), but we are so complicated that we distort it. Everyone is that way… So then, this is a kind of very accurate sensation of everything that is organized by the inner Divine from within, and at the same time how it gets distorted as it surfaces (words are silly, and yet that’s the closest I can come). It’s our silly way of saying something that is… so simple and so marvelous!… But we are so perverted that we always choose what is distorted.

I don’t know, even my words distort the thing, but it’s… it’s something I feel is so simple, so luminous, so pure — so absolute. And then, we make of it what we can see around us: a complicated and almost incomprehensible life.

I am sure that it’s the passage from this life to that Life. When we are completely on that side, oh, we’ll stop speculating, wanting to “explain,” wanting to deduce, conclude, arrange — all that will be over… If we knew how… to be — simply to BE, to be. But for us, I have noticed, if we don’t speak, if we don’t think, if we don’t decide, we feel we are outside life… And besides it’s not always the same kind of silence. It isn’t the silence of unexpressed words, it’s the silence of… an active contemplation. The silence of an active contemplation. That’s it.

It’s certainly the preparation for a new mode of life. So the other one has to yield its place.

I see (as through a veil or as if it were very far away) a Power, an EXTRAORDINARY Power! But we are such imbeciles we don’t even accept it. I know, I’ve had some experiences these past few days… I have this vision in which the psychic consciousness sees that through this instrument, through this (but this — Mother pinches the skin of her hands — has nothing to do with it except being the link between things as they are and the things that are to be), well, through this, A GREAT NUMBER of miracles are being done; and they are so extraordinary (lately) that it occurred to no one that they were miracles!… One simply doesn’t know. It’s not a miracle as we conceive of it — an extraordinary miracle… But then… they don’t have any means of understanding.

(silence)

Therefore the body is no longer this, but is not yet “that.” It is like this (gesture of swinging between the two), and that’s why… this is not a cold, it’s… Sometimes I am completely cured, everything, but everything works well, a minute later, everything breaks down. It’s not a cold you “cure.” Taking a medicine does not make any difference, while if you go into the true consciousness, everything is over. But it is incapable of staying there. It’s not so much the contact with people, it’s that it is incapable of staying there, that’s what it is. It can’t blame anyone else.

We could say: nothing knows — anywhere or anybody; but there are those who aspire (how shall I put it?), who have the will, the inclination, the aspiration, the need to know — to know and to be — and then all those who don’t care… who go along or just live their little-big life — whether it’s a head of state or a street cleaner makes no difference. It’s the same thing, the vibrations are the same. I don’t know how to explain it. I am saying it awkwardly.

24. July 1971 – Constant Invocation

I tell you, we are no longer here, we are not yet there… So it seems stupid. The body is more and more conscious, and it is conscious of the old habits that pull backwards but it is also conscious of the new possibilities that are there, that try to… There’s only one movement to make, a movement of adherence, and… everything would be all right — MARVELOUSLY all right. The old thing is like an old wall being torn down. That’s it. So it’s quite a ridiculous situation.

The body feels it’s no longer here: this holds no reality for it anymore, but it’s not yet THERE. So it’s like this (oscillating gesture between the two). It aspires. It has learned to invoke the Divine all the time, all the time, all the time, whatever it is doing, whether there are people present, whether it’s speaking or not; whatever it does, there is a constant invocation. That way, it’s all right. But… it’s not positive yet. (Mother coughs) And this cold seems to go away and then it comes back. It’s not an ordinary cold.

But as soon as I go into deep silence, then, for somebody who’s receptive, it can be very helpful. As soon as I go into deep silence, the Presence becomes concrete, evident. Then it’s helpful. But as soon as I speak, I am… (gesture of crumbling away).

31. July 1971 – Spreading Madness

They have distorted the meaning of things I have said… I am constantly receiving letters from people — it seems to be a widespread malady. People come into your home and say, “Your hour has come.” They came into the house of someone who knows us and said, “Your hour has come, give us your pistol.” So he said, “All right, let me get my pistol and I’ll give it to you.” He opened a drawer and some cartridges fell out, so one of the hoodlums bent down to pick the cartridges up. And that man shot him with his revolver. So all the others ran away. But mostly it ends the other way — with a murder. It happened in his house. And in America if you walk down the street, they shoot at you. Everywhere. It’s a spreading madness. Or else they stab you with a knife — for no reason whatsoever, nobody knows why. And some of them say, “I am God-inspired…”

You know, it’s like a universal outburst of falsehood. It’s frightening. They take the teachings and twist them — they use them as a justification.