December 1971

Index

01. December 1971 – Nature‘s Transformation

You see, I am witnessing nature’s transformation. When I have nothing to do and I sit very quiet, it’s very clear. I see three things: the nature being transformed, or rather the new nature, what we can call the supramental way of seeing things (it’s getting clearer and clearer; the memory of the old nature remains but is fading more and more, to such a point that sometimes it’s almost incredible, it seems fantastic to have been like that). Then there’s the physical deterioration that comes with age: for example, the physical inability to do what I used to do, the body getting old. But the aging is PURELY physical, I mean, I sit here all day long and have trouble moving about, things like that, but from the standpoint of perception, consciousness, there’s no diminution. On the contrary, it’s getting clearer and clearer and more and more precise. But, for instance, I have trouble speaking (Mother touches her chest, she is out of breath), it’s hard for me to speak; I can’t speak easily, it’s hard. Things like that. That makes three things.

But when I am very quiet (at night, for instance), the new consciousness becomes clearer and clearer, but words cannot easily express it because… it’s a kind of… (how shall I say?) it’s almost as if a new mind were being formed (but not a mental one). And so speech, words… are a poor means, while the direct communication is getting more and more precise and strong. That’s why I can’t speak. It’s purely physical. But the foundation of the physical poise, I mean the physical health, is changing, that is, it’s being shifted: what used to be the condition of good health is practically gone; it is gradually replaced by another condition, but which isn’t there yet; so everything is in… (gesture of instability), everything is no longer this, is not yet that. That’s how it is. It’s inexpressible. That’s why I can’t express myself.

Interestingly enough, I notice it in my way of understanding things. For instance, what Sri Aurobindo wrote is VERY different… It’s a little as if, before, you used to see through a screen and, now, the screen is being lifted — it’s not completely gone yet, but it’s not completely there either.

But, as you see, speaking makes me short of breath — without reason, simply because… because it’s not natural anymore.

And then, the way of perceiving time and space is becoming very different. It’s completely changing. The notion of time and space, objectivity and subjectivity — whether things are concrete or not — all that seems to have been… devices for preparing the consciousness for a new way of being.

The functioning of the consciousness is beginning to be different. But I can’t explain it.

And then, for sight, for instance, sometimes I see more clearly with my eyes closed than with them open, and the vision is the SAME, physical, purely physical vision; but a physical that seems… more complete, I don’t know what words to use. For instance, when I write; sometimes with my eyes closed I see what I write or see the same thing, but I see it… (what shall I say?… I could be wordy, but I don’t like that). You know, it’s as if what you see were more complete, yet it’s the same thing, but containing more than the purely physical vision.

I write birthday cards, and Sri Aurobindo… I was about to say I have the feeling that Sri Aurobindo makes me write, but it’s not like that, it’s much better than that!… But when I start to write, for example, I close my eyes, and I see better what I am writing. Champaklal asks me to sign the cards, and he tells me that I sometimes write 3 or 4 cards in a row with my eyes completely closed, then my handwriting is much straighter and much more where the writing should be.

But there’s no personal will involved, no personal effort, it’s… it’s spontaneous. So…

And then, there is a kind of “something” that has been formed in the body to replace the mind, which is gone. This “something” has its mental ways of saying things, but it’s very imperfect. For it, mental perceptions seem so thin, like a husk, the husk of something — so dry, with no real life behind them.

But the main trouble is in speaking (Mother touches her chest). I don’t know, I have the same trouble eating. I don’t think it’s the result of age because I feel strong: I feel strength, it’s not that I am tired, I don’t at all feel tired — it’s… a change. But then my age gives it a semblance of reason. Well (laughing) I don’t know if it was these last few days (yesterday or the day before), all of a sudden I understood, as if Sri Aurobindo made me understand that it has come at this advanced age to give the semblance of reason, in order to… to assure me the utmost peace possible in my relations with people.

I can’t explain it.

Things are essentially what they are supposed to be, but the problem is this human consciousness, which is so… (what’s the word?), so thin: it lacks something, which prevents us from seeing things as they really are, or feeling them as they really are.

As for hearing, I’ve noticed one thing: for instance, someone may tell me something in a very loud voice, making a lot of noise — I understand NOTHING; while other times, a noise that others don’t hear I hear very clearly… I need a certain CONSCIOUS atmosphere in order to hear, and that atmosphere is not perceived by most people.

04. December 1971 – Mother’s Message

„Sri Aurobindo est venu annoncer au monde un glorieux avenir et a ouvert la porte sur son accomplissement.”

“Sri Aurobindo came to announce to the world a glorious future and opened the door to its realization.”

(A little later, Mother listens to various letters of Sri Aurobindo, then a letter she herself wrote in English during World War II about the attitude of the disciples toward Hitler and the Allies, May 25, 1941)

“The world situation is critical today. India’s fate too is hanging in the balance. There was a time when India was absolutely secure, there was no danger whatever of her being victim to Asuric aggression. But things have changed. People and forces in India have acted in such a way as to invite Asuric influences upon her: these have worked insidiously and undermined the security that was there.”

“If India is in danger, Pondicherry cannot be expected to remain outside the danger zone. It will share the fate of the rest of the country. The protection I can give is not unconditional. It is idle to hope that in spite of anything and everything, the protection will be there over all. My protection is there if conditions are fulfilled. It goes without saying that any sympathy or support for the Nazis (or for any ally of theirs) automatically cuts across the circle of protection. Apart from this obvious and external factor, there are more fundamental psychological conditions which demand fulfillment. The Divine can give protection only to those who are whole-heartedly faithful to the Divine, who live truly in the spirit of sadhana and keep their consciousness and preoccupation fixed upon the Divine and the service of the Divine. Desire, for example, insistence on one’s likes and conveniences, all movements of hypocrisy and insincerity and falsehood, are great obstacles standing in the way of the Divine’s protection. If you seek to impose your will upon the Divine, it is as if you were calling for a bomb to fall upon you. I do not say that things are bound to happen in this way; but they are very likely to happen, if people do not become conscious and strictly vigilant and act in the true spirit of a spiritual seeker. If the psychological atmosphere remains the same as that of the outside world, there can be no wall of security against the dark Forces that are working out in it the ordeal of danger, suffering and destruction entering here.” (The Mother)

04. December 1971 – Everything is the Result of the Divine

Oh, more and more I live in a… it’s more than a conviction — it’s a positive certitude that things are the result of the Divine.

Even when you fall flat on your face — it’s the best thing that could have happened to you.

Even when you make a mistake… You see, there are several types of mistake. I don’t know how to explain it… I’ve also seen that this very impression of making a mistake, or being the victim of an accident, or any of that is necessary — the impression is necessary in you so that everything turns out exactly as it should. Except those who have (what’s the word?) the destiny or role of seeing the Truth and living the Truth, which they do in any case… I don’t know how to explain it.

I could say that my physical capacity has been greatly diminished by age, but I see why that’s so, why it had to wait for this advanced age.

Yes, exactly, because we MUST fight. And if we did not have that illusion, we would become passive — passive and languid. You know, there’s something in the consciousness now that smiles at everything — I am well aware of it — although I see that physically it is not supposed to be like that yet.

We’re still in the period of struggle.

Now, the body has the conviction that only death can stop its transformation. So it’s impossible. Only some kind of violent death, an “accident” (well…) could stop the transformation, otherwise the work is being done regularly, regularly (gesture of irresistible advance). It’s like that, the body is convinced of it now, that only violence could stop it — but then if that happens, it’s certainly because it had to happen, you see, for some reason… which it has no desire to know, it doesn’t care a button. But otherwise, as long as it’s here, it knows that the work will go on and on and on… in spite of everything. That’s it.

08. December 1971 – Message

Our human consciousness has windows opening on the Infinite. But generally men keep the windows tightly closed. We must open them wide and let the Infinite penetrate us freely to transform us.

Two conditions are required to open the windows.

1) Ardent aspiration.

2) Progressive abolition of the ego.

The divine help is assured to those who set to work sincerely.

The work being done is constant. And I see now that the body seems to be used as a… (what?) a connecting point (gesture like a channel going through Mother), like that. But without its even knowing it. Because the action is very vast, you see — very vast and complex — and the consciousness is not aware of all the details: it only feels the Force working, that’s all. And that’s constant, day and night, nonstop.

My nights. I don’t have the impression of sleeping, but time goes by without my noticing it, like that, simply feeling the Forces going through… But I don’t know what they do — I know they’re going through [Mother] and are focused here or there. But I have no curiosity; just the impressions of being very quiet so the process can go on unhindered — so that nothing creates an obstacle to the passing of the forces at work.

And hour after hour, hour after hour, day after day it’s like that. With the impression that the time goes by unnoticed. Not long, not…

13. December 1971 – Communicating with the Psychic

Communications from the psychic do not come in a mental form. They are not ideas or reasonings. They have their own character quite distinct from the mind, something like a feeling with a self-contained meaning and influence.

By its very nature, the psychic is calm, quiet and luminous, understanding and generous, wide and progressive, it is forever striving for understanding and progress.

The mind describes and explains.

The psychic sees and understands.

15. December 1971 – Only the Divine knows

“Difficult periods come on earth to compel men to overcome their small personal egoism and to turn exclusively to the Divine for help and light. The wisdom of men is ignorant. Only the Divine knows.”

It came imperiously.

What wants Peace and Harmony was in me and…

I was feeling a sort of pressure, and that came. It came imperatively — plain, imperative. Without that, men would never have progressed — they would never progress.

18. December 1971 – Pakistan and America

It won’t be done that way. I’ve seen how. It won’t be done through a battle: the different parts of Pakistan will demand separation. There are five of them. And by separating, they’ll join India — to form a sort of confederation. That’s how it will be done.

I saw it, I don’t remember what day (recently), all of a sudden, for several hours there was a contact with the Divine Power and Vision — it was… it was magnificent, things became extraordinary; then, immediately the next day, all the news changed. Really extraordinary. What actually took place isn’t what I saw, for it was seen years ahead… But that doesn’t matter, it’s all right.

So, the things in the offing are a federation of all the states of India, and another one in the offing is the conversion of the United States. A federation of the states of India along the lines of The Ideal of Human Unity, as conceived and explained by Sri Aurobindo. And the conversion of the United States is in the same idea, just according to Sri Aurobindo’s revelation. But that will take time.

18. Dec 1971 – Divine Impulsion & Physical Mind & Psychic & Trust

To be very attentive; rather than being passive and inert, to be very attentive and alert. And then, to feel when the Impulsion to do something comes, and to do it. I have put that into practice these last few days, and that’s the solution. You see, the difficulty lies in having action WITHOUT the personal limitations — they are inextricably bound up in our consciousness, and the passivity you speak of is there to separate the two; but once you have… I don’t know, the perception or sensation of the state in which you are completely open to the Divine Impulsion, then you can allow action to take place again. And that is the solution.

Also I heard something Sri Aurobindo wrote, where he says that in order for the Supermind to manifest on earth, the physical mind has to receive and manifest it. And the physical mind, I mean the bodily mind, mine, is precisely the only one I have left now. And so it came to me very clearly that that is why that one alone was left. And it is being converted very rapidly and interestingly. The physical mind is developing under the supramental influence. And it’s just what Sri Aurobindo wrote, that it was indispensable so the Supermind could manifest on earth in a permanent way.

Sri Aurobindo said that if the physical mind is transformed, the body’s transformation will follow quite NATURALLY. We’ll see.

I don’t know, because for me everything was simply taken away — the mind is completely gone. If you like, in appearance I had become an idiot, I didn’t know anything. And it’s the physical mind that developed, slowly, slowly.

In my case, I don’t know, the work was done for me — I did nothing. That’s how it was done, very radically. It could be done because I was VERY conscious of my psychic (the psychic being which was formed through all the lives), I was very conscious of it, and it remained; it remained and enabled me to deal with people without its making any difference, thanks to that psychic presence. That’s why there were very few apparent changes. So I can speak only of what I know, and I’ll say this: the psychic has to remain very much in command of the whole being — the whole bodily being — guiding the life, then the mind has time to be transformed. Mine was simply sent away.

You see, the transformation of the bodily mind was indispensable because that’s the only one I had left, you follow?… Very few people would accept that. (Laughing) In my case, it was done without asking my opinion! The work was very easy.

You see, what’s taking root permanently, as it were, is this: the nonentity of the person — the absolute nonentity and incapacity. And then you’re… you’re fine; you’re quite naturally like a child, you say to the Divine, “Do everything for me” (there’s nothing left, so you can’t do anything!), then everything goes well immediately — immediately.

You see, the body has given itself entirely. It even said to the Divine, “I beg You to make me want my dissolution if I must die,” so that EVEN THERE I won’t offer any resistance, should it be necessary for this body to die — to want my dissolution. That’s its attitude, it was like this (gesture of open hands). But instead, there came a sort of… (I could put it into words, but it wasn’t words): “If you accept suffering and discomfort, transformation is better than dissolution.” And so when it feels uncomfortable, it accepts.

It’s not like that; what I say is [inadequate]. It’s not really like that, but it’s hard to explain. It’s really a new attitude and a new sensation, I can’t express it.

And for each one obviously it must be different… For me it was very radical — I didn’t have any choice, you understand: it was like that, and that’s that.

But we truly have to… What made things easy is that the psychic consciousness was completely in the forefront and ruling the life, so it just went on quietly without being concerned with the rest.

It’s like sight and hearing, I’ve noticed that it’s not a physical deterioration: it’s simply that I understand and hear people only when they think clearly what they say. And I see only what is… what expresses the inner life, otherwise things are… hazy or veiled. It’s not that my eyes don’t see, it’s “something,” it’s something else — everything is new.

It was what Sri Aurobindo told me when I asked to leave (we both knew one of us had to go); I immediately said to him, “I will go.” And he said no, he told me, “Your body is much more capable than mine of bearing the work of transformation.” Sri Aurobindo told me that. And so it accepted, but…

It’s true, the body has to be VERY good-willed — it so happens that mine is; and it’s not a mental goodwill, of course, it’s really a bodily goodwill. It accepts, it accepts all the drawbacks… But the attitude is important, not the consequences (I am convinced that the drawbacks are not indispensable), it’s the attitude that is important. It has to be like this (gesture of open hands), you see. Truly I have noticed that in most cases, surrender to the Divine does not mean trust in the Divine — because when you surrender to the Divine, you say, “Even if You make me suffer, I surrender,” but that’s an absolute lack of trust! That’s really amusing, surrender DOES NOT IMPLY trust; trust is something else, it’s… a kind of knowledge — an unshakable knowledge, which nothing can disturb — it’s WE who change into difficulties, suffering, misery what is… perfect peace in the Divine Consciousness. It’s we who create that little “transformation.”

But it’s really the consciousness that must change — and even the consciousness OF THE CELLS, you understand?… That, that’s a radical change.

And there are no words to express it, because it didn’t exist on earth — it was latent, but it wasn’t manifested.

If you like, I could say that at each minute you feel you can either live eternally or die (gesture of a slight tilt from one side to the other). Every minute is like that. And the difference [between the two] is so slight that you can’t say: Do this and you’ll be on this side, do that and you’ll be on the other — not possible. It’s a way of being almost beyond description.

22. December 1971 – Physical Mind

I heard (yesterday, I think, or the day before) a letter of Sri Aurobindo’s in which he said that for the Supermind to be fixed here (he had noticed that the Supermind came into him and withdrew, came back and withdrew — it wasn’t stable), so he said: to become stable, it has to enter and settle in the physical mind. And that’s just the work being done in me for months now: the mind has been removed, and the physical mind is taking its place, and for some time I had noticed that it was… (I told you that it was seeing everything in a different way, that its relationship with things was different), I have been noticing these past few days that the physical mind, the mind that is in the body, was becoming vast, its visions were comprehensive, and its whole way of seeing was absolutely different (Mother extends her arms in an immense, quiet gesture). I saw, that’s it: the Supermind is working there. And I spend extraordinary hours.

What is left is just the things that resist — you feel (I told you this) that it’s as if every minute (and it’s getting more and more pronounced), every minute: do you want life, do you want death; do you want life, do you want death?… That’s how it is. And life is union with the Supreme. And consciousness, a COMPLETELY new consciousness is coming. That’s how it is, like this (Mother makes a gesture of swinging from one side to the other). But yesterday or the day before, I don’t know, all of a sudden the body said, “No! I am through — I want life, I don’t want anything else.” And since then I’ve felt better.

Oh, it would take volumes to narrate what is happening. It’s… remarkably interesting, and ENTIRELY new. Entirely new.

Because of physical death, the subconscient is defeatist. You see, the subconscient feels that whatever the progress, whatever the effort, it will always end with that, because up until now, it has always ended like that. So then the work now being done is to try to bring faith and the certainty of the transformation into the subconscient. And that… is a struggle at each second.

25. December 1971 – Pay Attention to the Divine

More and more I am convinced that we have a way of receiving things and reacting to them that CREATES difficulties — I am more and more convinced of it. Because, for example, I have rather unpleasant physical and material experiences about food. You know that for a very long time now I have completely stopped being hungry (I eat only to be reasonable, because “one must” eat, otherwise…), and I have some small difficulty in swallowing, or breathing (ridiculous things), but everything changes depending on whether you pay attention to them or not, depending on an attitude like this (gesture of being focused on oneself) in which you watch yourself living, or an attitude in which you’re (vast gesture) in things, in movement, in life; and a third attitude in which you pay attention only to the Divine. If you succeed in being like that all the time, there are no difficulties — and yet things are the same. That’s the experience: the thing in itself is as it is, but it is our reaction to it that differs. The experience is more and more conclusive. You see, there are three categories: our attitude with respect to things, the things in themselves (those two always give you trouble), and there is a third category in which everything, but everything is in regard to the Divine, in the Consciousness of the Divine — all is marvelous, all is easy! And I am speaking of material things, of the material, physical life (for psychological things, we’ve known it for long), I mean material things like little discomforts of the body, or reactions, feeling pain or not, circumstances going wrong, not being able to swallow your dinner — the most banal things you don’t pay attention to when you’re young and strong and in good health (you don’t pay any attention to them, and it’s like that for everyone), but when you live in the consciousness of your body and what happens to it and its ways of receiving things that come and so on — oh, it’s misery! When you live in the consciousness of others, of what they want, what they need, their relationship with you — it’s misery! But if you live in the Divine Presence and it’s the Divine who does everything, sees everything, is everything… it’s Peace — it’s Peace, time has no duration, everything is easy and… Not that you feel joy or feel… it’s not so… it’s the Divine who is there. And it’s the ONLY solution. That’s where the world is going: the Consciousness of the Divine — the Divine who does, the Divine who is, the Divine… So then, the same IDENTICAL circumstance (I am not speaking of different circumstances), the same IDENTICAL circumstance (it’s my experience these last few days, so concrete, you know, so concrete); day before yesterday I was sick as a dog, and yesterday circumstances were the same, my body was in the same state, all was the same and yet… all was peaceful.

I am thoroughly convinced of that.

If only I didn’t have so much trouble speaking… That explains everything. It explains everything, all, all.

The world is the same — it is seen and felt in a totally opposite way.

Everything is a phenomenon of consciousness — everything. Only, it is not a matter of this consciousness, or that one, or that other one, that’s not it: it’s our way, the human way of being conscious versus the divine way of being conscious. That’s all. That’s the whole question. And I am thoroughly convinced.

It’s like death, you see. The phenomenon is transitional, but seems to us to have existed forever (it’s forever for us because our consciousness is like this — Mother draws a little square in the air), but when you have that divine consciousness, oh!… things become almost instantaneous, you understand. I can’t explain it.

There IS movement, there IS progression, there IS what is translated for us by time, that exists, it’s something… something in the consciousness… It’s hard to express… It’s like an object and its projection. A little like that. All things ARE, but for us, we see them projected on a screen, as it were: one comes after another. It’s a little like that.

And its effect on us, the sensation it produces in us depends exclusively on the position of our consciousness. There is the consciousness of being in oneself or being in the whole (being in the whole is already a bit better than being egoistically oneself, and it has its advantages and disadvantages, but it’s not the truth), the Truth is… the Divine as totality — totality in time and totality in space. And that consciousness, the body CAN have, because this body had it (momentarily, for a few moments), and while it has it, everything is so… you see, it’s not joy, it’s not pleasure, it’s not happiness, nothing of all that… a sort of blissful peace… and luminous… and creative. Magnificent. Only, it comes and goes, comes and goes… And when you go out of it, you have the impression of falling into a horrible pit — our ordinary consciousness (I mean the ordinary human consciousness) is a horrible pit. But we also know why it had to be momentarily that way, for it was necessary in order to go from this to that: everything that happens is necessary for the full development of the goal of creation. You could say (we could word-paint): the goal of creation is for the creature to become conscious as the Creator. There you are.

It’s word-painting, but it’s in that direction.

This creation’s goal is that Consciousness of the Infinite, the Eternal, which is omnipotent — Infinite, Eternal, Omnipotent (which our religions have called God: for us, with respect to life, it’s the Divine) — Infinite and Eternal, All-Powerful… outside of time: each individual particle possessing that Consciousness; each individual particle containing that same Consciousness.

Division created the world, and it is in division that the Eternal manifests.

25. December 1971 – Death is a Distortion of Consciousness

I have the impression that I am on the way to discovering… the illusion that must be destroyed so that physical life can be uninterrupted — discovering that death comes from a… a distortion of consciousness. That’s it.

It’s this close, you know (Mother makes a gesture as if she were about to grasp the secret).

And as I told you, sometimes I feel that the great number of years makes the work somewhat more difficult, but taken on the whole, it is a GREAT help — I understood that were I young, I could never have done what I am doing. And when I am in the true consciousness, the moment I am in the true consciousness, the number of years is nothing! — The body feels so young, so full of… something else than young (for it, young is immature and ignorant, it’s not that), it’s… you’re in communion with “something”… which changes according to the need.

Our language (or our consciousness) is… inadequate. Later I’ll be able to say.

Something IS HAPPENING — that’s all I can say. (Mother laughs)

29. December 1971 – Message

We are at a decisive hour in the history of the earth. The earth is preparing for the advent of the supramental being, and because of this the old way of living loses its value. One must launch oneself consciously on the path of the future in spite of the new exigencies. The pettinesses tolerable at one time are no more so; one must widen oneself to receive that which shall be born.

29. December 1971 – I am Nothing without the Divine

The fastest way for me was… (how shall I put it?) the growing sense of my own nonentity — nonexistence. To feel I could do nothing, knew nothing, wanted nothing; but then the WHOLE being filled with… it’s not even an aspiration now, it’s like this (gesture of surrender, hands open), an inescapable fact: “Without the Divine, nothing, nothing — I am nothing, I understand nothing, I can do nothing. Without the Divine, nothing.” To be like this (same gesture, hands open). And then… a Peace… a luminous Peace… and so powerful! And when I am quiet (I saw it again very interestingly, because before when I gave a meditation to X, there was still an effort, an effort to meditate, an effort to…), while this time… (Mother sharply lowers her hands), it was compelling. A compelling Presence — compelling. Extraordinary… In fact I wondered what the meditation would be like, if it was going to be like before — not at all, it’s like this (Mother sharply lowers her hands).

But first there must be an absolute sincerity, that is, a CONVICTION: I am nothing, nothing — I can do nothing, I know nothing, I have absolutely NOTHING… (Mother raises an index finger) except the Divine. Then it’s all right.

As I told you, it’s so strong that at times I can’t even eat; whereas when it’s like this, when the consciousness becomes like this (gesture of surrender, hands open), I finish my dinner without even knowing I am eating… It’s inexpressible. But wonderful.

Only, there is no place for fear — if you’re afraid, it becomes dreadful.

Fortunately my body is not afraid.