AGENDA 1951-1960

Mother‘s Agenda 1958


01. January 1958 – New Year's Message

O Nature, Material Mother, thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate

and there is no limit to the splendor of this collaboration.

There is nothing to explain. It is an experience, something that took place, and when it took place, I noted it down; and it so happens that it occurred just as I remembered that I had to write something for the new year (which at that time was the following year, that is, the year beginning today). When I remembered that I had to write something – not because of that, but simultaneously – this experience came, and when I noted it down, I realized that it was... the message for this year!

(Mother reads the notation of her experience)

During one of our classes (October 30, 1957), I spoke of the limitless abundance of Nature, this tireless Creatrice who takes the multitude of forms, mixes them together, separates them again and reforms them, again undoes them, again destroys them, in order to move on to ever new combinations. As I said, it is a huge cauldron. Things get churned up in it and somehow something emerges; if it’s defective, it is thrown back in and something else is taken out... One form, two forms or a hundred forms make no difference to her, there are thousands upon thousands of forms – and one year, a hundred years, a thousand years, millions of years, what difference does it make? Eternity lies before her! She quite obviously enjoys herself and is in no hurry. If you speak to her of pressing on or of rushing through some part of her work or other, her reply is always the same: ‘But what for? Why? Aren’t you enjoying it?’

The evening I told you these things, I totally identified myself with Nature and I entered into her play. And this movement of identification brought forth a response, a new kind of intimacy between Nature and myself, a long movement of drawing ever nearer which culminated in an experience that came on November 8.

Nature suddenly understood. She understood that this newborn Consciousness does not seek to reject her, but wants to embrace her entirely. She understood that this new spirituality does not stand apart from life, does not timorously recoil before the awesome richness of her movement, but on the contrary wants to integrate all her facets. She understood that the supramental consciousness is not there to diminish her but to make her complete.

Then, from the supreme Reality came this command: ‘Awaken, O Nature, to the joy of collaboration.’ And suddenly, all Nature rushed forth in an immense bounding of joy, saying, ‘I accept! I will collaborate!’ And at the same time, there came a calm, an absolute tranquillity, to allow this receptacle, this body, to receive and contain without breaking and without losing anything of the Joy of Nature that was rushing forth in a movement of grateful recognition like an overwhelming flood. She accepted, she saw – with all eternity before her – that this supramental consciousness would fulfill her more perfectly and impart a still greater force to her movement and more richness, more possibilities to her play.

And suddenly, as if resounding from every corner of the earth, I heard these great notes which are sometimes heard in the subtle physical – rather like those of Beethoven’s Concerto in D – which come at moments of great progress, as though fifty orchestras were bursting forth all at once without a single discordant note, to sound the joy of this new communion of Nature and Spirit, the meeting of old friends who, after a long separation, find each other once more.

Then came these words: ‘O Nature, Material Mother, thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate, and there is no limit to the splendor of this collaboration.’

And the radiant felicity of this splendor was perceived in a perfect peace. Such was the birth of this year’s message.

(Then Mother comments)

I have one thing to add: we must not misinterpret the meaning of this experience and imagine that henceforth everything will take place without difficulties or always in accordance with our personal desires. It is not at this level. It does not mean that when we do not want it to rain, it will not rain! Or when we want some event to take place in the world, it will immediately take place, or that all difficulties will be abolished and everything will be like a fairy tale. It is not like that. It is something more profound. Nature has accepted into her play of forces the newly manifested Force and has included it in her movements. But as always, the movements of Nature take place on a scale infinitely surpassing the human scale and invisible to the ordinary human consciousness. It is more of an inner, psychological possibility that has been born in the world than a spectacular change in earthly events.

I mention this because you might be tempted to believe that fairy tales are going to be realized upon earth. The time has not yet come.

(silence)

We must have a great deal of patience and a very wide and very complex vision to understand how things work.

(silence)

The miracles that are taking place are not what could be called literary miracles, for they do not take place as in storybooks. They are visible only to a very profound vision of things – very profound, very comprehensive, very vast.

(silence)

You first have to be able to follow the methods and the means of the Grace to recognize its action. You first have to be able to remain unblinded by appearances to see the deeper truth of things.

Undated 1958 – Message

1) The Divine alone is true – all the rest is falsehood.

2) The Divine alone is real – all the rest is illusion.

3) The Divine alone is life – all the rest belongs to the kingdom of death.

4) The Divine alone is light – all the rest is semi-obscurity.

5) The Divine alone is love – all the rest is selfish sentimentality.

And yet the Divine is everywhere, in the ignorant man as well as in the sage.

And yet the Divine is everywhere, in the sinner as well as in the saint.

22. January 1958 – Meaning of Joy and Felicity

It is an error to confuse Joy and Felicity. They are two very different things. Not only are their vibrations different, but their colors are different. The color of Felicity is blue, a clear silvery blue (the blue of the Ashram flag), very luminous and transparent. And it has a passive and fresh quality that refreshes and rejuvenates.

Whereas Joy is a golden rose color, a pale gold with a tinge of red, a very pale red. It is active, warm, fortifying, intensifying. The first is sweetness, the second is tenderness.

And Bliss – what I spontaneously call Bliss – is the synthesis of both. It is found in the very heights of the supramental consciousness, in a diamond light, an uncolored, sparkling light containing all the colors. Joy and Felicity form two sides of a triangle that has Bliss at its apex.

Bliss contains coolness and warmth, passivity and activity, repose and action, sweetness and tenderness, all at the same time. Divine tenderness ... is something very different from sweetness – it is a paroxysm of joy, a vibration so strong that the body feels it will burst, so it is forced to widen.

The diamond light of Bliss has the power to melt all hostile forces. Nothing can resist it. No consciousness, no being, no hostile will can draw near it without immediately being dissolved, for it is the Divine light in its pure creative power.

Undated 1958 – Attack of the Hostile Forces

When the hostile forces want to attack those around me but do not succeed in making them overtly hostile to Sri Aurobindo’s work or in making them turn against me personally, they always use the same tactic, with the same argument: ‘You may have all the inner realizations you want,’ they say, ‘the most beautiful experiences possible inside your four Ashram walls, but as far as the outer world is concerned, your life is wasted, lost. There is an abyss you will never bridge between your inner experience and a concrete realization in the world.’

This is the number one argument of the hostile forces. I know it well – for millions of years I have been hearing them say the same thing over and over again, and each time I unmask them. It is a lie, it is THE LIE. All that seeks to establish a divorce between the Earth and the Spirit, all that separates the inner experience from the divine realization in the world is good for their purpose. But just the opposite is true! It is the inner realization that is the key to the outer realization. How can you possibly know the true thing you have to realize in the world as long as you do not possess the truth of your being?

03. February 1958 – Experience of the Supramental Ship

(The following experience was later read out to the Wednesday class on 19.02.58)

Between the beings of the supramental world and men, there exists approximately the same gap as between men and animals. Sometime ago, I had the experience of identification with animal life, and it is a fact that animals do not understand us; their consciousness is so constituted that we elude them almost entirely. And yet I have known domestic animals – cats and dogs, but especially cats – who made an almost yogic effort of consciousness to understand us. But generally, when they watch us living and acting, they don’t understand, they don’t SEE US as we are and they suffer because of us. We are a constant enigma to them. Only a very tiny part of their consciousness is linked to us. And it is the same for us when we try to look at the supramental world. Only when the link of consciousness has been built shall we see it – and even then, only that part of our being which has undergone the transformation will be capable of seeing it as it is – otherwise the two worlds would remain as separate as the animal world and the human world.

The experience I had on February 3 proves this. Before, I had had an individual, subjective contact with the supramental world, whereas on February 3, I went strolling there in a concrete way – as concretely as I used to go strolling in Paris in times past – in a world that EXISTS IN ITSELF, beyond all subjectivity.

It is like a bridge being built between the two worlds.

This is the experience as I dictated it immediately thereafter:

The supramental world exists in a permanent way, and I am there permanently in a supramental body. I had proof of this today when my earthly consciousness went there and consciously remained there between two and three o’clock in the afternoon: I now know that for the two worlds to join in a constant and conscious relationship what is missing is an intermediate zone between the existing physical world and the supramental world as it exists. This zone has yet to be built, both in the individual consciousness and in the objective world, and it is being built. When formerly I used to speak of the new world that is being created, I was speaking of this intermediate zone. And similarly, when I am on ‘this’ side – that is, in the realm of the physical consciousness – and I see the supramental power, the supramental light and substance constantly permeating matter, I am seeing and participating in the construction of this zone.

I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that – the light was like that, the people were like that – everything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.

This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, that part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After awhile, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and that my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here – and in my consciousness, I protested: ‘No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see who’s there!’ I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest... It went on like that until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.

The nature of objects on this ship was not that which we know upon earth; for example, the clothes were not made of cloth, and this thing that resembled cloth was not manufactured – it was a part of the body, made of the same substance that took on different forms. It had a kind of plasticity. When a change had to be made, it was done not by artificial and outer means but by an inner working, by a working of the consciousness that gave the substance its form or appearance. Life created its own forms. There was ONE SINGLE substance in all things; it changed the nature of its vibration according to the needs or uses.

Those who were sent back for more training were not of a uniform color; their bodies seemed to have patches of a grayish opacity, a substance resembling the earth substance. They were dull, as though they had not been wholly permeated by the light or wholly transformed. They were not like this all over, but in places.

The tall beings on the shore were not of the same color, at least they did not have this orange tint; they were paler, more transparent. Except for a part of their bodies, only the outline of their forms could be seen. They were very tall, they did not seem to have a skeletal structure, and they could take on any form according to their needs. Only from their waists to their feet did they have a permanent density, which was not felt in the rest of their body. Their color was much more pallid and contained very little red, it verged rather on gold or even white. The parts of whitish light were translucid; they were not absolutely transparent, but less dense, more subtle than the orange substance.

Just as I was called back, when I was saying, ‘Not yet... ,’ I had a quick glimpse of myself, of my form in the supramental world. I was a mixture of what these tall beings were and the beings aboard the ship. The top part of myself, especially my head, was a mere silhouette of a whitish color with an orange fringe. The more it approached the feet, the more the color resembled that of the people on the ship, or in other words, orange; the more it went up towards the top, the more translucid and white it was, and the red faded. The head was only a silhouette with a brilliant sun at its center; from it issued rays of light which were the action of the will.

As for the people I saw aboard ship, I recognized them all. Some were here in the Ashram, some came from elsewhere, but I knew them as well. I saw everyone, but as I realized that I would not remember everyone when I came back, I decided not to give any names. Besides, it is unnecessary. Three or four faces were very clearly visible, and when I saw them, I understood the feeling that I have had here, on earth, while looking into their eyes: there was such an extraordinary joy... On the whole, the people were young; there were very few children, and their ages were around fourteen or fifteen, but certainly not below ten or twelve (I did not stay long enough to see all the details). There were no very old people, with the exception of a few. Most of the people who had gone ashore were of a middle age – again, except for a few. Several times before this experience, certain individual cases had already been examined at a place where people capable of being supramentalized are examined; I had then had a few surprises which I had noted – I even told some people. But those whom I disembarked today I saw very distinctly. They were of a middle age, neither young children nor elderly people, with only a few rare exceptions, and this quite corresponded to what I expected. I decided not to say anything, not to give any names. As I did not stay until the end, it would be impossible for me to draw an exact picture, for it was neither absolutely clear nor complete. I do not want to say things to some and not say them to others.

What I can say is that the criterion or the judgment was based EXCLUSIVELY on the substance constituting the people – whether they belonged completely to the supramental world or not, whether they were made of this very special substance. The criterion adopted was neither moral nor psychological. It is likely that their bodily substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at that time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different.

When I came back, along with the memory of the experience, I knew that the supramental world was permanent, that my presence there is permanent, and that only a missing link is needed to allow the consciousness and the substance to connect – and it is this link that is being built. At that time, my impression (an impression which remained rather long, almost the whole day) was of an extreme relativity – no, not exactly that, but an impression that the relationship between this world and the other completely changes the criterion by which things are to be evaluated or judged. This criterion had nothing mental about it, and it gave the strange inner feeling that so many things we consider good or bad are not really so. It was very clear that everything depended upon the capacity of things and upon their ability to express the supramental world or be in relationship with it. It was so completely different, at times even so opposite to our ordinary way of looking at things! I recall one little thing that we usually consider bad... actually how funny it was to see that it is something excellent! And other things that we consider important were really quite unimportant there! Whether it was like this or like that made no difference. What is very obvious is that our appreciation of what is divine or not divine is incorrect. I even laughed at certain things... Our usual feeling about what is anti-divine seems artificial, based upon something untrue, unliving (besides, what we call life here appeared lifeless in comparison with that world); in any event, this feeling should be based upon our relationship between the two worlds and according to whether things make this relationship easier or more difficult. This would thus completely change our evaluation of what brings us nearer to the Divine or what takes us away from Him. With people, too, I saw that what helps them or prevents them from becoming supramental is very different from what our ordinary moral notions imagine. I felt just how... ridiculous we are.

(Then Mother speaks to the children)

There is a continuation to all this, which is like the result in my consciousness of the experience of February 3, but it seems premature to read it now. It will appear in the April issue [of the Bulletin], as a sequel to this.

But one thing – and I wish to stress this point to you – which now seems to me to be the most essential difference between our world and the supramental world (and it is only after having gone there consciously, with the consciousness that ordinarily works here, that this difference appeared to me in what might be called its enormity): everything here, except for what happens within and at a very deep level, seemed absolutely artificial to me. Not one of the values of ordinary physical life is based upon truth. Just as we have to buy cloth, sew it together, then put it on our backs in order to dress ourselves, likewise we have to take things from outside and then put them inside our bodies in order to feed ourselves. For everything, our life is artificial.

A true, sincere, spontaneous life, as in the supramental world, is a springing forth of things through the fact of conscious will, a power over substance that shapes this substance according to what we decide it should be. And he who has this power and this knowledge can obtain whatever he wants, whereas he who does not has no artificial means of getting what he desires.

In ordinary life, EVERYTHING is artificial. Depending upon the chance of your birth or circumstances, you have a more or less high position or a more or less comfortable life, not because it is the spontaneous, natural and sincere expression of your way of being and of your inner need, but because the fortuity of life’s circumstances has placed you in contact with these things. An absolutely worthless man may be in a very high position, and a man who might have marvelous capacities of creation and organization may find himself toiling in a quite limited and inferior position, whereas he would be a wholly useful individual if the world were sincere.

It is this artificiality, this insincerity, this complete lack of truth that appeared so shocking to me that... one wonders how, in a world as false as this one, we can arrive at any truthful evaluation of things.

But instead of feeling grieved, morose, rebellious, discontent, I had rather the feeling of what I spoke of at the end: of such a ridiculous absurdity that for several days I was seized with an uncontrollable laughter whenever I saw things and people! Such a tremendous laughter, so absolutely inexplicable (except to me), because of the ridiculousness of these situations.

When I invited you on a voyage into the unknown, a voyage of adventure, I did not know just how true were my words! And I can promise those who are ready to embark upon this adventure that they will make some very astonishing discoveries.

February 1958 – Continuation of Mother's previous experience

(A few days after the experience of February 3, Mother had other experiences that seemed a continuation of it)

Everyone carries with him, in his atmosphere, what Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘Censors’; in a way, they are the permanent delegates of the hostile forces. Their role is to criticize mercilessly each act, each thought, the least movement of the consciousness, and to place you before the most hidden motives of your behavior, to expose the least lower vibration accompanying your apparently purest or highest thoughts or acts.

It is not here a question of morality. These gentlemen are not moralizing agents, although they know very well how to make use of morality! And when they are dealing with a scrupulous conscience, they can harass it pitilessly, whisper to it at every minute, ‘You should not have done this, you should not have done that, you should have done such and such, said such and such; now you have ruined everything, you have made an irreparable mistake, just see how everything is irremediably lost now because of the mistake you made.’ They can even possess the consciousness of some people: you chase the thought away and vrrm! – two minutes later, back it comes! You chase it away again, but there it is still hammering away at you.

Each time I meet these gentlemen, I give them a hearty welcome, for they force you to be absolutely sincere, they unearth the subtlest hypocrisy and at each moment place you before your most secret vibrations. And they are intelligent, with an intelligence infinitely surpassing our own! They know everything, they know how to set your least thought against you, your least argument or action, with a really wonderful subtlety. Nothing escapes them. But what gives a hostile shading to these beings is that, first and foremost, they are defeatists. They always present you with the darkest side of the picture and if necessary distort your own intentions. They are truly instruments of sincerity. Yet they always overlook one thing, deliberately, something they reject and cast far behind, as if it didn’t exist – the divine Grace. They overlook prayer, this spontaneous prayer that suddenly surges up from the depths of your being like an intense call and makes the Grace descend and changes the course of things.

And each time that you have made some progress or passed to a higher level, they put you back in the presence of all the actions of your past and in a few months, a few days or a few minutes make you pass all the tests again, at a higher level. And it does not help to brush aside the thought, saying, ‘Oh, I know!’ and throw a little cloak over it so as not to see. You have to face and conquer, keep your consciousness filled with light, be unwavering, uncomplaining, without a single vibration in the cells of the body, and then the attack dissolves.

The other day, too, in your supramental experience, you said that moral values had lost all their meaning.

But our conceptions of Good and Evil are so ridiculous! Our ideas of what is near to the Divine or far from the Divine are so absurd! The experience of the other day [February 3] was quite a revelation to me, and I came out of it utterly changed. I suddenly understood a great many things from the past – certain actions parts of my life that had remained inexplicable – in truth, the shortest path from one point to another is not the straight line we imagine!

And the whole time this experience lasted, one hour (an hour of THAT time is long!), I was in an extraordinarily mirthful, almost inebriated state ... The difference between the two consciousnesses is such that when you are in one, the other seems unreal like a dream. When I came back, I was at first struck by the futility of life here; our petty conceptions seem so comical, so laughable... We say that certain people are mad, but their madness is perhaps a great wisdom from the supramental point of view, and their behavior is perhaps very near the truth of things – I am not speaking of the obscure insane who have had some brain disorder, but of many other incomprehensible mad people, the luminous mad: they have wanted to leap across the border too quickly, and the rest did not follow.

When one looks at the world of men from the supramental consciousness, the dominant characteristic is a feeling of oddity, of artificiality – a world that is absurd because it is artificial. This world is false because its material appearance does not at all express the profound truth of things. There is as if a discrepancy between the appearance and what lies within. Thus, a man with a divine power deep within him may, on the outer plane, find himself in the situation of a slave. It’s preposterous! Whereas in the supramental world, the will acts directly upon the substance, and the substance is obedient to this will. When you want to clothe yourself, the substance you are living in immediately assumes the form of clothing to cover you. When you want to move from one place to another, your will is sufficient to carry you without your needing any kind of vehicle or artificial means. Thus, for example, the ship in my experience had no need of any mechanism whatsoever in order to move; it was the will that shaped the substance according to its needs. When it was necessary to disembark, the wharf formed by itself. When I wanted the groups to go ashore, those who had to do so automatically knew it, without my having to say a word, and they came in the right order. Everything took place in silence, there was no need to speak to be understood; but aboard the ship, the silence itself did not give this artificial impression it gives here. Here, when we want silence, we have to keep our mouths shut: silence is the opposite of noise. There, the silence was vibrant, living, active and comprehensive, comprehensible.

The absurdity here consists of all the artificial means that have to be used. Any imbecile has more power if he has more means by which to acquire the necessary artifice. Whereas in the supramental world, the more one is conscious and in contact with the truth of things, the more authority has the will over the substance. The authority is a true authority. If you want clothes, you have to have the power to make them, a real power. If you do not have this power, well then, you remain naked. There are no artificial means to compensate for this lack of power. Here, not once in a million times is authority the expression of something true. Everything is colossally stupid.

When I came back down (‘came back down’ is a manner of speaking, for it is neither high nor low, nor within nor without, it is... somewhere), it took me a while to readjust. I even recall having said to someone, ‘Now we are going to regress into our usual stupidity.’ But I understood a lot of things, and I came back from there with a decisive force. Now I know that our way of seeing things here, our petty moral values, have nothing to do with the values of the supramental world.

Undated 1958 – The subtle World is more real!

For me, the subtle physical is far more real than this distorted world, but to see it you have to be conscious there, whereas people want to get effects which give them the impression of the marvelous and the miraculous and they want the subtle physical to become visible in the material world IN SPITE OF the falsehood. What makes the great difference for the ordinary physical consciousness is this: it wants to come into contact with that in spite of the falsehood, whereas the universal law is, get out of the falsehood and that will become true for you.

For me, this subtle world is far more real than the material world – much truer, much more tangible, concrete, real – but for others in this material world to believe in the subtle worlds, either they must have some beginning of experience, or else they must agree to have confidence and say, ‘All right, they say it’s like that, therefore it must be like that.’ Otherwise, to be convinced they want the truth to manifest in a world of falsehood in spite of the falsehood. Their attitude is like this: ‘We are willing to admit that it is possible, that it is real, but as long as it has not manifested here, we do not quite believe in it.’

Are you referring to the supramental world?

It applies to everything: every true thing in the world, including all the fairy tale miracles. Things that appear miraculous to the physical consciousness happen in an altogether different way, but to it they are indeed miraculous since they don’t depend on any physical processes. As I have said, to travel from one place to another there is no need for any means of transport, to feed ourselves it is not necessary to put external things into the body, to dress ourselves we have no need to put on clothes, etc...

The play of forces is the spontaneous expression of Truth and of the true Will, the true vision.

The question remains: for those who have seen and to whom things have happened in this way (like the little child, for example, who was playing with fairies), is it that they enter into this consciousness and then remember when they leave it, or is it that this state really manifests here? For me, this is still a question.

As this experience often happens to people with a simple heart and mind, quite possibly they don’t realize that for a while they have lived in another consciousness and in another world and then have come back to an ordinary condition where they remember the other thing. For them, they do not see the difference.

15. February 1958 – The power of the Supramental World

Last night, I had the vision of what this supramental world could become if men were not sufficiently prepared. The confusion existing at present upon earth is nothing in comparison to what could take place. Imagine that every powerful will has the power to transform matter as it likes! If the sense of collective oneness did not grow in proportion to the development of power, the resulting conflict would be yet more acute and chaotic than our material conflicts.

25. February 1958 – On suffering

These surface things are not dramatic. More and more, they seem to me like soap bubbles, especially since February 3.

Some people come to see me in utter despair, in tears, in what they call terrible moral suffering; when I see them like that I slightly shift the needle in that part of my consciousness containing all of you, and when they leave, they are completely relieved. It is just like a compass needle – I slightly shift the needle in my consciousness, and it’s over. Naturally, through habit, it returns later on. But these are mere soap bubbles.

I too have known suffering, but there was always a part of me that knew how to hold itself back and remain aloof.

The only thing in the world that still appears intolerable to me now is all physical deterioration, physical suffering, the ugliness the powerlessness to express this capacity of beauty inherent in every being. But this, too, will be conquered one day. Here, too the power will come one day to shift the needle a little. Only, one has to climb higher in consciousness: the deeper into matter you want to descend, the higher must you ascend in consciousness.

It will take time. Sri Aurobindo was surely right when he spoke of a few centuries.

February 1958 – Understanding Christian symbolism

Yesterday morning, while reading a letter from A.H., I understood the Christian symbolism. It could be that some people understand... Anyway, I suddenly understood... It is extremely metaphysical. I followed the idea from a metaphysical point of view, along the lines of what we were saying yesterday: this ‘error’ committed that allowed the world to become what it is. But at the

extreme limit, there always remains the question, ‘How is it possible?’ I was no longer seeing this with the mind.

I came to the conclusion that from a practical standpoint, the solution is that the part of humanity expressing this Error in its life and its consciousness should... or to put it another way, that part of humanity, of the human consciousness, capable of uniting with the Supermind and of liberating itself, will be completely transformed. This humanity is moving towards a future reality not yet expressed in its outer form. Whereas the part of humanity nearer to the simplicity of the animal or of Nature will be reabsorbed by Nature and entirely reassimilated. The possibility of a mental consciousness that allows for perversion – that makes mental perversion such an excruciating thing – will be abolished. It will disappear. These things will no longer be.

In the vision, I went much deeper into this thought. I saw all the stages, but I no longer see them now. I can no longer explain – there was suddenly a vision that understood the idea of atonement and redemption. It was not formulated in words. Also, the idea that only an act of faith in a divine intervention could... was the means of salvation. This was the idea of salvation. I understood Christ and faith in Christ. I understood it, and it did not apply uniquely to Christianity or to original sin. I understood what original sin and redemption through faith in Christ meant.

01. May 1958 – The Master of the Yoga

These days I am having every possible experience in the body, one after the other. Yesterday and this morning... oh, this morning!

I saw there (center of the heart) the Master of the Yoga; he was no different from me, but nevertheless I saw him, and he even seemed slightly imbued with color. Well, he does everything, he decides everything, he organizes everything with an almost mathematical precision and in the smallest details – everything.

To do the divine Will – I have been doing the sadhana for a long time, and I can say that not a day has passed that I have not done the Divine’s Will. But I didn’t know what it was! I was living in all the inner realms, from the subtle physical to the highest regions, yet I didn’t know what it was ... I always had to listen, to refer things, to pay attention. Now, no more – bliss! There are no more problems, and everything is done in such harmony! Even if I had to leave my body, I would be in bliss! And it would happen in the best possible way.

Only now am I beginning to understand what Sri Aurobindo has written in The Synthesis of Yoga! And the human mind, the physical mind, appears so stupid, so stupid!

10. May 1958 – An Apprentice in Supermanhood

This morning, I suddenly looked at my body (usually, I don’t look at it – I am inside it, working), I looked at my body and said to myself, ‘Let’s see, what would a witness say about this body?’ – the witness Sri Aurobindo speaks of in The Synthesis of Yoga. Nothing very remarkable. So I formulated it like this (Mother reads a written note):

‘This body has neither the uncontested authority of a god nor the imperturbable calm of the sage.’

So, what then?

‘It is as yet only an apprentice in supermanhood.’ That is all it is trying to be.

I saw and understood very well that by concentrating, I could have given it the attitude of the absolute authority of the eternal Mother. When Sri Aurobindo told me, ‘You are She,’ at the same time he bestowed upon my body this attitude of absolute authority. But as I had the inner vision of this truth, I concerned myself very little with the imperfections of the physical body – I didn’t bother about that, I only used it as an instrument. Sri Aurobindo did the sadhana for this body, which had only to remain constantly open to his action.

Afterwards, when he left and I had to do the Yoga myself, to be able to take his physical place, I could have adopted the attitude of the sage, which is what I did since I was in an unparalleled state of calm when he left. As he left his body and entered into mine, he told me, ‘You will continue, you will go right to the end of the work.’ It was then that I imposed a calm upon this body – the calm of total detachment. And I could have remained like that.

But in a way, absolute calm implies withdrawal from action, so a choice had to be made between one or the other. I said to myself, ‘I am neither exclusively this nor exclusively that.’ And actually, to do Sri Aurobindo’s work is to realize the Supramental on earth. So I began that work and, as a matter of fact, this was the only thing I asked of my body. I told it, ‘Now you shall set right everything which is out of order and gradually realize this intermediate supermanhood between man and the supramental being or, in other words, what I call the superman.’

And this is what I have been doing for the last eight years, and even much more during the past two years, since 1956. Now it is the work of each day, each minute.

That’s where I am. I have renounced the uncontested authority of a god, I have renounced the unshakable calm of the sage... in order to become the superman. I have concentrated everything upon that.

We shall see.

I am learning to work. I am only an apprentice, simply an apprentice – I am learning the trade!

***

(Soon afterwards)

In a considerable number of people, it is their body, the physical body, that obstinately resists.

The difficulty is greater for Westerners than for Indians. It’s as though their substance were steeped in falsehood. It also happens with Indians, of course, but generally the falsehood is much more in the vital than in the physical – because after all, the physical has been utilized by bodies belonging to enlightened beings. The European substance seems steeped in rebellion; in the Indian substance this rebelliousness is subdued by an influence of surrender. The other day, someone was telling me about some Europeans with whom he corresponds, and I said, ‘But tell them to read, to learn, to follow The Synthesis of Yoga! – it leads you straight to the path.’ Whereupon he replied, ‘Oh, but they say it’s full of talk on surrender, surrender, always surrender...’ and they want none of it.

They want none of it! Even if the mind accepts, the body and the vital refuse.

And when the body refuses, it refuses with the stubbornness of a stone.

Is it not due to the body’s unconsciousness?

No. From the minute it is conscious, it is conscious of its own falsehood! It is conscious of this law, of that law, of this third law that fourth law, this tenth law – everything is a ‘law.’ ‘We are subject to physical laws: this will produce such and such a result if you do that, this will happen, etc.’ Oh! It reeks! I know it well. I know it very well. These laws reek of falsehood. In the body, we have no faith in the divine Grace, none, none, none, none! Those who have not undergone a tapasya as I have, say, ‘Yes, all these inner moral things, feelings, psychology, all that is very good; we want the Divine and we are ready to... But all the same, material facts are material facts, they have their concrete reality, after all an illness is an illness, food is food, and everything you do has a consequence, and when you are...’ – bah, bah, bah, bah, bah!

We must understand that this isn’t true – it isn’t true, it’s a falsehood, all this is sheer falsehood. It is NOT TRUE, it is not true!

If only we would accept the Supreme inside our bodies, if we had the experience I had a few days ago: the supreme Knowledge in action along with the complete abolition of all consequences, past and future. Each second has its own eternity and its own law, which is a law of absolute truth.

When I had this experience, I understood that only a month ago I was still uttering mountain-sized imbecilities. And I laughed to the point of almost approving those who say, ‘But all the same, the Supreme does not decide the number of sugar cubes you put in your coffee! That would be to project your own way of being onto the Supreme.’ But this is an Himalayan imbecility! It is a stupidity, the mind’s pretentious stupidity projecting itself onto the divine life and imagining that the divine life conforms to its own projection.

The Supreme does not decide: He knows. The Supreme does not want: He sees. And it is so for each thousandth of a second, eternally. That’s all. And it is the only true condition.

I know that the experience I had the other day is new and that I was the first person on earth to have it. But it is the only thing that is true. All the rest...

I began my sadhana at birth, without knowing that I was doing it. I have continued it throughout my whole life, which means for almost eighty years (even though for perhaps the first three or four years of my life it was only something stirring about in unconsciousness). But I began a deliberate, conscious sadhana at about the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, upon prepared ground. I am now more than eighty years old: I have thought of nothing but that, I have wanted nothing but that, I had no other interest in life, and not for a single minute have I ever forgotten that it was THAT that I wanted. There were not periods of remembering and forgetting: it was continuous, unceasing, day and night, from the age of twenty-four – and I had this experience for the first time about a week ago! So, I say that people who are in a hurry, people who are impatient, are arrogant fools.

...It is a hard path. I try to make it as comfortable as possible, but nevertheless, it is a hard path. And it is obvious that it cannot be otherwise. You are beaten and battered until you understand. Until you are in that state in which all bodies are your body. But at that point, you begin to laugh! You were upset by this, hurt by that, you suffered from this or that – but now, how laughable it all seems! And not only the head, but the body too finds it laughable!

(silence)

...but it is so deeply rooted: all the reactions of the body-consciousness are like that, with a kind of shrinking at the idea of allowing a higher power to intervene.

(silence)

From the positive point of view, I am convinced that we agree upon the result to be obtained, that is, an integral and unreserved consecration – in love, knowledge and action – to the Supreme AND TO HIS WORK. I say to the Supreme and to his work because consecration to the Supreme alone is not enough. Now we are here for the supramental realization, this is what is expected of us, but to reach it, our consecration to it must be total, unreserved absolutely integral. I believe you have understood this – in other words, that you have the will to realize it.

From the negative point of view – I mean the difficulties to be overcome – one of the most serious obstacles is that the ignorant and falsifying outer consciousness, the ordinary consciousness legitimizes all the so-called physical laws, causes, effects and consequences, all that science has discovered physically and materially. All this is an unquestionable reality to the consciousness, a reality that remains independent and absolute even in the face of the eternal divine Reality.

And it is so automatic that it is unconscious.

When it is a question of movements like anger, desire, etc., you recognize that they are wrong and must disappear, but when material laws are in question – laws of the body, for example, its needs, its health, its nourishment, all those things – they have such a solid, compact, established and concrete reality that it appears absolutely unquestionable.

Well, to be able to cure that, which of all the obstacles is the greatest (I mean the habit of putting spiritual life on one side and material life on the other, of acknowledging the right of material laws to exist), one must make a resolution never to legitimize any of these movements, at any cost.

To be able to see the problem as it is, it is absolutely indispensable, as a first step, to get out of the mental consciousness, even out of a mental transcription (in the highest mind) of the supramental vision and truth. A thing cannot be seen as it is, in its truth, except in the supramental consciousness, and if you try to explain, it immediately begins to escape you because you are obliged to give it a mental formulation.

As for me, I saw the thing only at the time of this experience, and as a result of this experience. But it is impossible to formulate even the experience itself, and as soon as I endeavored to formulate it and the more I was able to formulate it, the more the thing faded, escaped.

Consequently, if you do not remember having had the experience, you are left in the same condition as before, but with the difference that now you know, you can know, that these material laws do not correspond to the truth – that’s all. They do not at all correspond to the truth, so consequently, if you want to be faithful to your aspiration, you must in no way legitimize all that. Rather, you must say that it is an infirmity from which we are suffering for the moment, for an intermediate period – it is an infirmity and an ignorance – for it really is an ignorance (this is not just a word): it is ignorance, it is not the thing as it is, even in regard to our present material bodies. Therefore, we will not legitimize anything. What we say is this – it is an infirmity which has to be endured for the time being, until we get out of it, but we do NOT ACKNOWLEDGE all this as a concrete reality. It does NOT have a concrete reality, it has a false reality – what we call concrete reality is a false reality.

And the proof – I have the proof because I experienced it myself – is that from the minute you are in the other consciousness, the true consciousness, all these things which appear so real, so concrete, change INSTANTLY. There are a number of things, certain material conditions of my body – material – that changed instantly. It did not last long enough for everything to change, but some things changed and never returned, they remained changed. In other words, if that consciousness were kept constantly, it would be a perpetual miracle (what we would call a miracle from our ordinary point of view), a fantastic and perpetual miracle! But from the supramental point of view, it would not be a miracle at all, it would be the most normal of things.

Therefore, if we do not want to oppose the supramental action by an obscure, inert and obstinate resistance, we have to admit once and for all that none of these things should be legitimized.

11. May 1958 – Feeling of a Miracle

One of the things that most gives me the feeling of the miraculous is when these obscure throngs – really tamasic beings, in fact, with children crying, people coughing – when all that is gathered there, and then suddenly... silence. Each time that happens, I have truly the feeling of a miracle! I immediately say, ‘Oh, Lord! Your Grace is infinite!’

***

Something quite curious took place during a recent meditation. I no longer recall when exactly, but it was at a time when there were many visitors, for the courtyard was full. After perhaps no more than a few minutes, I suddenly heard a distinct voice, coming from my right, say ‘OM,’ like that. And then a second time, ‘OM.’ What an impact it had upon me! I felt an emotion here (gesture towards the heart) as I have not felt for years and years and years. And all, all, all was filled with light, with force – it was absolutely marvelous. It was an invocation, and during the whole meditation the Presence was resplendent.

I said to myself, ‘Who could have done that?’ I was not sure if only I had heard it, so I asked. The reply was, ‘But it was the ship leaving!’ There was actually a ship which had left during the night – that is in support of those who said it was a ship. But for me, it was SOMEONE because I felt someone there and I thought, Oh! If someone, in the ardor of his soul, said that in this ... what I could call an atheistic silence. Because people here are so afraid of following tradition, of being the slaves of the old things, that they cast out anything closely or remotely resembling religion.

It was very strange, because my first reaction was one of bewilderment: how is it that someone ... I was really bewildered for a fraction, not even the fraction of a second. And then...

In any event, if it wasn’t a man, if it was a ship, then the ship said it! Because it was THAT – it was that, it was nothing other than an invocation. And the result was fantastic!

People immediately thought, ‘Oh, it’s the ship!’ Well, even if it was a ship, it was the ship that said OM!

And then I wondered, ‘If we were to repeat the mantra we heard the other day (Om Namo Bhagavateh... ) during the half-hour meditation, what would happen?’

What would happen?

And these things act upon my body. It is strange, but it coagulates something: all the cellular life becomes one solid, compact mass, in a tremendous concentration – with a single vibration. Instead of all the usual vibrations of the body, there is now only one single vibration. It becomes as hard as a diamond, a single massive concentration, as if all the cells of the body had...

I became stiff from it. When the forest scene was over, I was so stiff that I was like that (gesture): one single mass.

30. May 1958 – On Hostile Forces

I have noticed that in at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it is an excuse people give to themselves. I have seen that practically, in the case of almost all the people who write to me saying, ‘I am being violently attacked by hostile forces,’ it’s an excuse they are giving. It means that certain things in their nature do not want to yield, so they put all the blame on the hostile forces.

As a matter of fact, my tendency is more and more towards something in which the role of these hostile forces will be reduced to that of an examiner – which means that they are there to test the sincerity of your spiritual quest. These elements have a reality in their action and for the work – this is their great reality – but when you go beyond a certain region, it all grows dim to such a degree that it is no longer so well defined, so distinct. In the occult world, or rather if you look at the world from the occult point of view, these hostile forces are very real, their action is very real, quite concrete, and their attitude towards the divine realization is positively hostile; but as soon as you go beyond this region and enter into the spiritual world where there is no longer anything but the Divine in all things, and where there is nothing undivine, then these ‘hostile forces’ become part of the total play and can no longer be called ‘hostile forces’: it is only an attitude that they have adopted – or more precisely, it is only an attitude adopted by the Divine in his play.

This again belongs to the dualities that Sri Aurobindo speaks of in The Synthesis of Yoga, these dualities that are being reabsorbed. I don’t know if he spoke of this particular one; I don’t think so, but it’s the same thing. It’s again a certain way of seeing. He has written of the Personal-Impersonal duality, Ishwara-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti... but there is still one more: Divine and anti-divine.

06. June 1958 – The first Experience of 1910

It’s all the same thing, but the word realization can be reserved for something that is durable, that does not wear off. Because everything on earth fades away – everything fades away, nothing remains. In this sense, there has never been any realization, for everything fades away. Nothing is ever permanent. And I know for myself: I am doing the sadhana at a gallop, as it were; never are two experiences identical nor do they recur in the same way. As soon as something is established, the next thing begins immediately. It may appear to fade away, but it doesn’t fade away; rather, it is the basis upon which the next thing is built.

***

This morning while I was on the balcony, I had an interesting experience: the experience of man’s effort, in all its forms and through all the ages, to approach the Divine. And I seemed to be growing wider and wider so that all the forms and all the ways of approaching the Divine attempted by man would be contained in the present Work.

It was represented by a kind of image in which I was as vast as the Universe, and each way of approaching the Divine was like a tiny image containing the characteristic form of this approach. And my impression was this: Why do people always limit, limit themselves? Narrow, narrow, narrow! They understand only when it is narrow.

Take all! Take all within you. And then you will begin to understand – you will begin.

***

It was in 1910 that I had this sort of reversal of consciousness about which I spoke the other evening – that is, the first contact with the higher Divine – and it completely changed my life.

From that moment on, I was conscious that all one does is the expression of the indwelling Divine Will. But it is the Divine Will AT THE VERY CENTER of oneself, although for a while there remained an activity in the physical mind. But this was stilled two or three days after I saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914, and it never started up again. Silence settled. And the consciousness was established above the head.

In the first experience [of 1910], the consciousness was established in the psychic depths of the being, and from that poise issued the feeling of no longer doing anything but what the Divine wanted – it was the consciousness that the divine Will was all-powerful and that there was no longer any personal will, although there was still some mental activity and everything had to be made silent. In 1914, it was silenced, and the consciousness was established above the head. Here (the heart) and here (above the head), the connection is constant.

Does one exclude the other?

They exist simultaneously; it’s the same thing. When you start becoming truly conscious, you realize that it depends upon the kinds of activities you have to do. When you do a certain kind of work, it is in the heart that the Force gathers to radiate outwards, and when you do another kind of work, it is above the head that the Force concentrates to radiate outwards, but the two are not separate: the center of activity is here or there depending upon what you have to do.

As for the latest experience,64 I can’t say for sure that no one has ever had it, because someone like Ramakrishna, individuals like that, could have had it. But I am not sure, for when I had this experience (not of the divine Presence, which I had already felt in the cells for a long time, but the experience that the Divine ALONE is acting in the body, that He has BECOME the body, yet all the while retaining his character of divine omniscience and omnipotence) well, the whole time it remained actively like that, it was absolutely impossible to have the LEAST disorder in the body, and not only in the body, but IN ALL THE SURROUNDING MATTER. It was as if every object obeyed without even needing to decide to obey: it was automatic. There was a divine harmony in EVERYTHING (it took place in my bathroom upstairs, certainly to demonstrate that it exists in the most trivial things), in everything, constantly. So if that is established in a permanent way, there CAN NO LONGER be illness it is impossible. There can no longer be accidents, there can no longer be illness, there can no longer be disorders, and everything should harmonize (probably in a progressive way) just as that was harmonized: all the objects in the bathroom were full of a joyful enthusiasm – everything obeyed, everything!

As it was the first experience, it started to fade slightly when I began having contact with people; but I really had the feeling that it was a first experience, new upon earth. For I have experienced an absolute identity of the will with the divine Will ever since 1910, it has never left me. It isn’t that, it’s SOMETHING ELSE. It is MATTER BECOMING THE DIVINE. And it really came with the feeling that this thing was happening for the first time upon earth. It is difficult to say for sure, but Ramakrishna died of cancer, and now that I have had the experience, I know in an ABSOLUTE way that this is impossible. If he had decided to go because the Divine wanted him to go, it would have been an orderly departure, in total harmony and with a total will, whereas this illness is a means of disorder.

Is this experience of May 1 related to the Supramental Manifestation of 1956? Is it a supramental experience?

It is the result of the descent of the supramental substance into Matter. Only this substance – what it has put into physical Matter – could have made it possible. It is a new ferment. From the material standpoint, it removes from physical Matter its tamas, the heaviness of its unconsciousness, and from the psychological standpoint, its ignorance and its falsehood. Matter is subtilized. But it has surely come only as a first experience to show how it will be.

It is truly a state of absolute omniscience and omnipotence in the body which changes all the vibrations around it.

It is likely that the greatest resistance will be in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. So-called inert matter is much more easily responsive, much more – it does not resist. And I am convinced that among plants, for example, or among animals, the response will be much quicker than among men. It will be more difficult to act upon a very organized mind; beings who live in an entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness are as hard as stone! It resists. According to my experience, what is unconscious will certainly follow more easily. It was a delight to see the water from the tap, the mouthwash in the bottle, the glass, the sponge – it all had such an air of joy and consent! There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego.

The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. Very primitive, very simple beings, little children will respond first, because they don’t have an organized ego. But these big people! People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them.

Unless they go beyond all this and have enough spiritual knowledge to be able to make the ego surrender... in which case the realization will naturally be much greater – it will be more difficult to accomplish, but the result will be far more complete.

When you had this experience of February 3, 1958 [the supramental ship], the vision of your usual consciousness, which is nevertheless a Truth Consciousness, no longer seemed true to you at all. Did you see things you had never before seen, or did you see things in another way?

Yes, one enters into another world.

This consciousness here is true in relation to this world as it is, but the other... is something else entirely. An adjustment is needed for the two to touch, otherwise one jumps from one to the other. And that serves no purpose. A progressive passage has to be built between the two. This means that a whole number of rungs of consciousness are missing. This consciousness here must consciously connect with that consciousness there, which means a multitude of stairs passing from one to the other. Then we will be able to rise up progressively, and the whole will arise.

Its action will be somewhat similar to what is described in the Last Judgment, which is an entirely symbolic expression of something that makes us discern between what belongs to the world of falsehood which is destined to disappear and what belongs to this same world of ignorance and inertia but is transformable. One will go to one side and the other to the other side. All that is transformable will be permeated more and more with this new substance and this new consciousness to such an extent that it will rise towards it and serve as a link between the two but all that belongs incorrigibly to falsehood and ignorance will disappear. This was also prophesied in the Gita: among what we call the hostile or anti-divine forces, those capable of being transformed will be uplifted and go off towards the new consciousness, whereas all that is irrevocably in darkness or belongs to an evil will shall be destroyed and vanish from the Universe. And a whole part of humanity that has responded to these forces rather too... zealously will certainly vanish with them. And this is what was expressed in this concept of the Last Judgment.

June 1958 – Humanity has reached enormous state of tension

(At the time of publishing the following conversation of March 19, 1958, in the Ashram ‘Bulletin,’ Mother added certain commentaries that have a direct bearing upon the preceding conversation about the Last Judgment, and She incorporated an entire passage from the conversation of the end of February 1958 on the same subject.)

One thing seems clear: humanity has reached such a generalized state of tension – tension in effort, tension in action, tension even in daily life – with such an excessive hyperactivity, such an overall restlessness, that the species as a whole seems to have reached a point where it must either burst through the resistance and surge forth into a new consciousness, or else sink back into an abysm of obscurity and inertia.

This tension is so total and so generalized that obviously something must break. It cannot go on like this. Yet all this is a sure sign that a new principle of force, consciousness and power has been infused into matter and by its very pressure has produced this acute state. Outwardly, we might expect to see the old habitual means used by Nature whenever she wants to bring about an upheaval; but here there is a new phenomenon, which is evidently visible only in a select few, although even these few are widespread enough – this phenomenon is not localized in one point or one place in the world, for the signs are to be found in every country all over the earth: the will to find a new, a higher, an ascending solution, an effort to surge forth into a vaster, more encompassing perfection.

Certain ideas of a more general, more extensive, more collective nature, as it were, are being worked out and are at work in the world. And the two go together: a greater and more total possibility of destruction and an inventiveness that unrestrainedly increases the possibility of catastrophe, a catastrophe that would be much more massive than it has ever been; and at the same time, the birth, or rather the manifestation, of much higher and more comprehensive ideas and wills which, when heard, will bring a vaster, more extensive, more complete and more perfect solution than before.

This struggle, this conflict between the constructive forces of an ascending evolution, of an increasingly perfect and divine realization, and the more and more destructive forces – powerfully destructive, forces of an uncontrollable madness – is becoming more obvious, unmistakably visible, and it is a kind of race or battle as to which will be first to reach its goal. All the hostile, anti-divine forces, these forces of the vital world, seem to have descended upon earth and are using it as their field of action; and at the same time, a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended upon earth to bring a new life to it. This renders the battle more bitter, violent and visible, but apparently more decisive, too, which is why we may hope to arrive at an early solution.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when man’s spiritual aspiration was turned towards a silent, inactive peace, detached from all the things of this world, an evasion of life to avoid the struggle, precisely, to rise above the battle, to be liberated from effort. It was a spiritual peace where, along with the cessation of tension, struggle and effort, suffering in all its forms also ceased, and this was considered the true and unique expression of the spiritual and divine life. This is what was considered divine grace, divine succor, divine intervention. And even now, in this age of anguish, tension and hypertension, this sovereign peace is of all help the best received, the most welcome, the relief asked and hoped for. For many, it is still the true sign of divine intervention, of divine grace.

In fact, no matter what you wish to realize, you must begin by establishing this perfect and immutable peace – it is the necessary basis for any work; but unless you are thinking of an exclusive or personal and egoistic liberation, you cannot stop there. There is yet another aspect to the divine grace, the aspect of progress that will be victorious over all obstacles, the aspect that will propel humanity into a new realization, open the doors unto a new world, enable not only a select few to benefit from the divine realization, but through their influence, their example and their power, bring a new and better condition to the rest of humanity.

It opens vistas of realization into the future and already foreseen possibilities through which an entire section of humanity, which is consciously or unconsciously open to the new forces, will be lifted up, as it were, towards a higher, more harmonious, more perfect life ... and even if individual transformations are not permissible nor possible in all cases, at least there will be a kind of uplifting of the whole, a harmonization of everything, enabling a new order, a new harmony to be established and the anguish of disorder and the present strife to disappear and be replaced by an order that will allow for the harmonious working of the whole.

There will be other consequences that by opposite means will tend to eradicate the perversion and ugliness created in life due to the intervention of the mind, a whole range of deformations that have aggravated suffering, misery, moral poverty, a whole zone of sordid and repugnant miseries that makes an entire portion of human life so hideous. That must disappear. That is what in many respects makes humanity infinitely inferior to animal life, with its simplicity and its natural spontaneity, and which in spite of everything is harmonious. Suffering among animals is never as miserable and sordid as it is in a whole section of humanity perverted by a mentality exclusively turned towards egoistic needs.

One must rise above, surge forth into the Light and the Harmony, or sink back down into the simplicity of a wholesome, unperverted animal life.

(After a moment of silence, Mother adds)

But those who cannot be lifted up, who refuse to progress, will automatically lose the use of the mental consciousness and fall back into an infra-human stage.

I’ll tell you of an experience I had which will help you better understand. It was a short while after the supramental experience of February 3, and I was still in that state where things of the physical world seemed so remote, so absurd. A group of visitors asked permission to greet me, and they came one evening to the playground. They were rich people – that is, they had more money than they needed to live. Among them was a woman in a saree. She was very fat, and her saree was so arranged as to hide her body. When she bent over to receive my blessings, a corner of her saree fell open, uncovering part of her body, a bare belly. An enormous belly. It came as a shock to me... There are obese people who are not at all repugnant, but there I suddenly saw the perversion, the rottenness that this abdomen concealed. It was like an enormous abscess expressing greed, vice, depravity of taste, sordid desire that seeks satisfaction as no animal would, grossly, and above all, perversely. I saw the perversion of a depraved mind placed at the service of the basest appetites. Then, in a flash, something leapt forth from me, a prayer, like a Veda: ‘O Lord, it is this that must vanish!’

One can well understand that physical misery or the unequal distribution of the world’s wealth could be remedied. One can think of economic and social solutions that could remedy all that, but this particular misery, this mental misery, this vital perversion – it is this that cannot change, that does NOT WANT to change. And those who belong to this kind of humanity are condemned in advance to disintegration.

The meaning of original sin is precisely this: the perversion that began with the mind.

That part of humanity, of the human consciousness, which is able to unite with the Supermind and liberate itself will be completely transformed. It is moving towards its future reality as yet unexpressed in the outer form; the part very close to the simplicity of the animal, close to Nature, will be reabsorbed by Nature and thoroughly reassimilated. But that corrupted part of the human consciousness, which through its wrong use of the mind allows this perversion, will be abolished.

That kind of humanity belongs to an unfruitful attempt – and will be eliminated, like so many other abortive species which have vanished in the course of universal history.

Certain prophets in the past had this apocalyptic vision, but as usual things became mixed, and along with their vision of the apocalypse they did not have the vision of the supramental world that will come to uplift the consenting part of humanity and transform this physical world. However, to give hope to those born into this perverted part of the human consciousness, redemption through faith was taught: those who have faith in the sacrifice of the Divine in Matter will automatically be saved, in another world – faith alone, without understanding, without intelligence. They never saw the supramental world, nor did they see that the great Sacrifice of the Divine in Matter is that of an involution which will lead to the total revelation of the Divine in Matter itself.

June 1958 – Written Note

We are preparing upon earth the connecting-point, that point of communication and junction between the mental and terrestrial human consciousness and the supramental and superhuman Consciousness. It is a whole intermediate world that is being worked out, a new creation manifesting and materializing.

In order to be realized here upon earth, this creation must utilize the already existing material means and powers, but in a new way, adapted to the new needs. One of the most essential powers is the financial power.

22. June 1958 – Written Note

Do not ask questions about the details of the material existence of this body: they are in themselves of no interest and must not attract attention.

Throughout all this life, knowingly or unknowingly, I have been what the Lord wanted me to be, I have done what the Lord wanted me to do. That alone matters.

02. July 1958 – God is everything and everywhere!

Something I have never said completely. On the one hand, there is the attitude of those in yesterday evening’s film68 : God is everything, God is everywhere, God is in he who smites you (as Sri Aurobindo wrote – ‘God made me good with a blow, shall I tell Him: O Mighty One, I forgive you your harm and cruelty but do not do it again!’), an attitude which, if extended to its ultimate conclusion, accepts the world as it is: the world is the perfect expression of the divine Will. On the other hand, there is the attitude of progress and transformation. But for that, you must recognize that there are things in the world which are not as they should be.

In The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo says that this idea of good and bad, of pure and impure, is a notion needed for action; but the purists, such as Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and others, do not agree. They do not agree that it is indispensable for action. They simply say: your acceptance of action as a necessary thing is contrary to your perception of the Divine in all things.

How can the two be reconciled?

I recall that once I tried to speak of this, but no one followed me, no one understood, so I did not insist. I left it open and never pursued it further, for they could not decipher anything or find any meaning in what I was saying. But now I could give a very simple answer: Let the Supreme do the work. It is He who has to progress, not you!

Ramdas does not at all consider that the world as it is, is good.

No, but I know all these people, I know them thoroughly! I know Chaitanya, Ramakrishna and Ramdas thoroughly. They are utterly familiar to me. It doesn’t bother them. These are people who live with a certain feeling, who have an entirely concrete experience and live in this experience, but they don’t care at all if their formation – they have not even crystallized it, they leave it like that, vague – contains things that are mutually contradictory, because, in appearance, they reconcile them. They do not raise any questions, they do not have the need for an absolutely clear vision; their feeling is absolutely clear, and that’s enough for them. Ramakrishna was like that; he said the most contradictory things without being bothered in the least, and they are all exactly and equally true.

But this crystal clear vision Sri Aurobindo had, where everything is in its place, where contradictions no longer exist – they never soared to that height. This was the thing, this really crystalline, perfect supramental vision, even from the standpoint of understanding and knowledge. They never went that far.

(Soon afterwards)

Each element, let us say each individual element (even though it is not exactly like that), is in its place according to whether the Grace acts on the individual or on the collectivity.

When the Grace acts on the collectivity, each thing, each element, each principle, is put in its place as the result of a karmic logic in the universal movement. This is what gives us the impression of disorder and confusion as we see it.

When the Grace acts on the individual, it gives to each the maximum position according to what he is and what he has realized.

And then, there is a super-grace, as it were, which works in a few exceptional cases, which places you not according to what you are but according to what you are to become, which means that the universal cosmic position is ahead of the individual’s progress.

And it is then that you should keep silent and fall on your knees.

05. July 1958 – An absolute receptive Passivity

It was towards the end of the Darshan and I was repeating within me, ‘Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord...’ But wordlessly. It came like that (gesture) and went far, far, far, far! It is all here (motion around the head). And that (Mother points to her chin) is determination (but there should have been a little more light on the chin!), the realizing will.

That’s it: the capacity to be an ABSOLUTELY receptive passivity – like that – in TOTAL silence and surrender, and at the same time here, there, an IRREDUCIBLE, OMNIPOTENT will with a total power to effectuate, shattering all resistances. Both simultaneously without one inhibiting the other, in the same joy – that is the GREAT secret! The harmonization of opposites, in joy and plenitude, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, for all problems: that is the great secret.

06. July 1958 – Is Money under Nature's control?

This morning I asked myself the question, ‘is money truly under Nature’s control?’ I shall have to see... Because for me personally, she always gives everything in abundance.

When I was young, I was as poor as a turkey, as poor as could be! As an artist, I sometimes had to go out in society (as artists are forced to do). I had lacquered boots that were cracked... and I painted them so it wouldn’t show! This is to tell you the state I was in – poor as a turkey. So one day, in a shop window, I saw a very pretty petticoat much in fashion then, with lace, ribbons, etc. (It was the fashion in those days to have long skirts which trailed on the floor, and I didn’t have a petticoat which could go with such things – I didn’t care, it didn’t matter to me in the least, but since Nature had told me I would always have everything I needed, I wanted to make an experiment.) So I said, ‘Well, I would very much like to have a petticoat to go with those skirts.’ I got five of them! They came from every direction!

And it is always like that. I never ask for anything, but if by chance I say to myself, ‘Hmm, wouldn’t it be nice to have that,’ mountains of them pour in! So last year, I made an experiment, I told Nature, ‘Listen, my little one, you say that you will collaborate, you told me I would never lack anything. Well then, to put it on a level of feelings, it would really be fun, it would give me joy (in the style of Krishna’s joy), to have A LOT of money to do everything I feel like doing. It’s not that I want to increase things for myself, no; you give me more than I need. But to have some fun, to be able to give freely, to do things freely, to spend freely – I am asking you to give me a crore of rupees for my birthday!

She didn’t do a thing! Nothing, absolutely nothing: a complete refusal. Did she refuse or was she unable to? It may be that... I always saw that money was under the control of an asuric force. (I am speaking of currency, ‘cash’; I don’t want to do business. When I try to do business, it generally succeeds very well, but I don’t mean that. I am speaking of cash.) I never asked her that question.

You see, this is how it happened: there’s this Ganesh... We had a meditation (this was more than thirty years ago) in the room where ‘Prosperity’ is now distributed. There were eight or ten of us, I believe. We used to make sentences with flowers; I arranged the flowers, and each one made a sentence with the different flowers I had put there. And one day when the subject of prosperity or wealth came up, I thought (they always say that Ganesh is the god of money, of fortune, of the world’s wealth), I thought, ‘Isn’t this whole story of the god with an elephant trunk merely a lot of human imagination?’ Thereupon, we meditated. And who should I see walk in and park himself in front of me but a living being, absolutely alive and luminous, with a trunk that long... and smiling! So then, in my meditation, I said, ‘Ah! So it’s true that you exist!’ – ‘Of course I exist! And you may ask me for whatever you wish, from a monetary standpoint, of course, and I will give it to you!’

So I asked. And for about ten years, it poured in, like this (gesture of torrents). It was incredible. I would ask, and at the next Darshan, or a month or several days later, depending, there it was.

Then the war and all the difficulties came, bringing a tremendous increase of people and expenditure (the war cost a fortune – anything at all cost ten times more than before), and suddenly, finished, nothing more. Not exactly nothing, but a thin little trickle. And when I asked, it didn’t come. So one day, I put the question to Ganesh through his image (! ), I asked him, ‘What about your promise?’ – ‘I can’t do it, it’s too much for me; my means are too limited!’ – ‘Ah!’ I said to myself (laughing), ‘What bad luck!’ And I no longer counted on him.

Once someone even asked Santa Claus! A young Muslim girl who had a special liking for ‘Father Christmas’ – I don’t know why, as it was not part of her religion! Without saying a word to me, she called on Santa Claus and told him, ‘Mother doesn’t believe in you; you should give Her a gift to prove to Her that you exist. You can give it to Her for Christmas.’ And it happened!... She was quite proud.

But it only happened like that once. And as for Ganesh, that was the end of it. So then I asked Nature. It took her a long time to accept to collaborate. But as for the money, I shall have to ask her about it; because for me personally, it is still going on. I think, ‘Hmm, wouldn’t it be nice to have a wristwatch like that.’ And I get twenty of them! I say to myself, ‘Well, if I had that...’ and I get thirty of them! Things come in from every side, without my even uttering a word – I don’t even ask, they just come.

The first time I came here and spoke with Sri Aurobindo about what was needed for the Work, he told me (he also wrote it to me) that for the secure achievement of the Work we would need three powers: one was the power over health, the second was the power over government, and the third was the power over money.

Health naturally depends upon the sadhana; but even that is not so sure: there are other factors. As for the second, the power over government, Sri Aurobindo looked at it, studied it, considered it very carefully, and finally he told me, ‘There is only one way to have that power: it is TO BE the government. One can influence individuals, one can transmit the will to them, but their hands are tied. In a government, there is no one individual, nor even several who is all-powerful and who can decide things. One must be the government oneself and give it the desired orientation.’

For the last, for money, he told me, ‘I still don’t know exactly what it depends on.’ Then one day I entered into trance with this idea in mind, and after a certain journey I came to a place like a subterranean grotto (which means that it is in the subconscient, or perhaps even in the inconscient) which was the source, the place and the power over money. I was about to enter into this grotto (a kind of inner cave) when I saw, coiled and upright, an immense serpent, like an all black python, formidable, as big as a seven-story house, who said, ‘You cannot pass!’ – ‘Why not? Let me pass!’ – ‘Myself, I would let you pass, but if I did, “they” would immediately destroy me.’ – ‘Who, then, is this “they”?’ – ‘They are the asuric’ powers who rule over money. They have put me here to guard the entrance, precisely so that you may not enter.’ – ‘And what is it that would give one the power to enter?’ Then he told me something like this: ‘I heard (that is, he himself had no special knowledge, but it was something he had heard from his masters, those who ruled over him), I heard that he who will have a total power over the human sexual impulses (not merely in himself, but a universal power – that is, a power enabling him to control this everywhere, among all men) will have the right to enter.’ In other words, these forces would not be able to prevent him from entering.

A personal realization is very easy, it is nothing at all; a personal realization is one thing, but the power to control it among all men – that is, to control or master such movements at will, everywhere – is quite another. I don’t believe that this... condition has been fulfilled. If what the serpent said is true and if this is really what will vanquish these hostile forces that rule over money, well then, it has not been fulfilled.

It has been fulfilled to a certain extent – but it’s negligible. It is conditional, limited: in one case, it works; in another, it doesn’t. It is quite problematic. And naturally, where terrestrial things are involved (I don’t say universal, but in any case terrestrial), when it is something involving the earth, it must be complete; there cannot be any approximations.

Therefore, it’s an affair between the asuras and the human species. To transform itself is the only solution left to the human species – in other words, to tear from the asuric forces the power of ruling over the human species.

You see, the human species is a part of Nature, but as Sri Aurobindo has explained, from the moment mind expressed itself in man, it put him into a relationship with Nature very different from the relationship all the lower species have with her. All the lower species right up to man are completely under the rule of Nature; she makes them do whatever she wants, and they can do nothing without her consent. Whereas man begins to act and to live as an equal; not as an equal in terms of power, but from the standpoint of consciousness (he is beginning to do so since he has the capacity to study and to find out Nature’s secrets). He is not superior to her, far from it, but he is on an equal footing. And so he has acquired – this is a fact – he has acquired a certain power of independence that he immediately used to put himself under the influence of the hostile forces, which are not terrestrial but extra-terrestrial.

I am speaking of terrestrial Nature. Through their mental power, men had the choice and the freedom to make pacts with these extraterrestrial vital forces. There is a whole vital world that has nothing to do with the earth, it is entirely independent or prior to earth’s existence, it is self-existent – well, they have brought that down here! They have made... what we see! And such being the case... This is what terrestrial Nature told me: ‘It is beyond my control.’

So considering all that, Sri Aurobindo came to the conclusion that only the supramental power... (Mother brings down her hands) as he said, will be able to rule over everything. And when that happens, it will be all over – including Nature. For a long time, Nature rebelled (I have written about it often). She used to say, ‘Why are you in such a hurry? It will be done one day.’ But then last year, there was that extraordinary experience. And it was because of that experience that I told her, ‘Well, now that we agree, give me some proof; I am asking you for some proof – do it for me.’ She didn’t budge, absolutely nothing.

Perhaps it is a kind of... it can hardly be called an intuition, but a kind of divination of this idea that made people speak of ‘selling one’s soul to the devil for money,’ of money being an evil force, which produces this shrinking on the part of all those who want to lead a spiritual life – but as for that, they shrink from everything, not only from money!

Perhaps it would not be necessary to have this power over all men, but in any event, it should be great enough to act upon the mass. It is likely that once a certain movement has been mastered to some degree, what the mass does or doesn’t do (this whole human mass that has barely, barely emerged into even the mental consciousness) will become quite irrelevant. You see, the mass is still under the great rule of Nature. I am referring to mental humanity, predominantly mental, which developed the mind but misused it and immediately set out on the wrong path – first thing.

There is nothing to say since the first thing done by the divine forces which emanated for the Creation was to take the wrong path!

That is the origin, the seed of this marvelous spirit of independence – the negation of surrender, in other words. Man said, ‘I have the power to think; I will do with it what I want, and no one has the right to intervene. I am free, I am an independent being, IN-DE-PEN-DENT! So that’s how things stand: we are all independent beings!

But yesterday, in fact, I was looking (with all these mantras and these prayers and this whole vibration that has descended into the atmosphere, creating a state of constant calling in the atmosphere), and I remembered the old movements and how everything now has changed! I was also thinking of the old disciplines, one of which is to say, ‘I am That.’ People were told to sit in meditation and repeat, ‘I am That,’ to reach an identification. And it all seemed to me so obsolete, so childish, but at the same time a part of the whole. I looked, and it seemed so absurd to sit in meditation and say, ‘I am That’! ‘I,’ what is this ‘I’ who is That; what is this ‘I,’ where is it?... I was trying to find it, and I saw a tiny, microscopic point (to see it would almost require some gigantic instrument), a tiny, obscure point in an immensity of Light, and that little point was the body. At the same time – it was absolutely simultaneous – I saw the Presence of the Supreme as a very, very, very, VERY immense Being, within which was ‘I’ in an attitude of... (‘I’ was only a sensation, you see), an attitude... (gesture of surrender) like this. There were no limits, yet at the same time, one felt the joy of being permeated, enveloped and of being able to widen, widen, widen indefinitely – to widen the whole being, from the highest consciousness to the most material consciousness. And then, at the same time, to look at this body and to see every cell, every atom vibrating with a divine, radiant Presence with all its Consciousness, all its Power, all its Will, all its Love – all, all, really – and a joy! An extraordinary joy. And one did not disturb the other, nothing was contradictory and everything was felt at the same time. That was when I said, ‘But truly! This body had to have the training it has had for more than seventy years to be able to bear all that without starting to cry out or dance or leap up or whatever it might be!’ No, it was calm (it was exultant, but it was very calm), and it remained in control of its movements and its words. In spite of the fact that it was really living in another world, it could apparently act normal due to this strenuous training in self-control by the REASON – by the reason – over the whole being, which has tamed it and given it such a great cohesive power that I can BE in the experience, I can LIVE this experience, and at the same time respond with the most amiable of smiles to the most idiotic questions!

And then, it always ends in the same way, by a canticle to the action of the grace: ‘O, Lord! You are truly marvelous! All the experiences I have needed to pass through You have given to me, all the things I needed to do to make this body ready You have made me do, and always with the feeling that it was You who was making me do it’ – and with the universal disapproval of all the right-minded humanity!

06. July 1958 – Sense of Beauty is needed for this Yoga

To do this Yoga, one must have at least some sense of beauty. Without it, one lacks one of the most important aspects of the physical world.

There is a beauty of the soul, a dignity of the soul – it is a thing to which I am very sensitive, a thing that moves me and arouses great respect in me, always.

A beauty of the soul?

Yes, it shows through in the face; this kind of dignity, beauty, harmony of an integral realization. When the soul shows through in the physical, it imparts this dignity, this beauty, this majesty, the majesty that comes from being the Tabernacle. Thus, even things that have no particular beauty assume a sense of eternal beauty, of THE eternal beauty.

In this way, I have seen faces change from one extreme to the other in a flash. Someone who had this kind of beauty, harmony, this sense of divine dignity in the body, and suddenly the perception of the obstacle or the difficulty comes, then the sense of wrong, of unworthiness – there is a sudden distortion in the appearance, a kind of decomposition of the features! And yet it is the same face. It takes place in a flash, it’s frightful. This kind of hideousness of torment, of degradation (it is exactly what has been expressed in religions as the ‘torment of sin’), it changes your face unrecognizably! Even features that are beautiful in themselves become frightful – and they are the same features, the same person.

Thus I saw how horrible is the sense of sin, how much it belongs to the world of falsehood.

19. July 1958 – Earthly Paradise

A peach should ripen on the tree; it’s a fruit that should be picked when the sun is upon it. Just as the sun falls on it, you come along, pluck it and bite into it. Then it is absolute paradise.

There are two such fruits – peaches and golden green plums. It is the same for both. You must take them warm from the tree, bite into them, and you are filled with the taste of paradise.

Every fruit should be eaten in a special way.

At heart, this is the symbol of the earthly Paradise and the tree of Knowledge: by biting into the fruit of Knowledge, one loses the spontaneity of movement and begins objectivizing, learning, questioning. So as soon as they ate of this fruit, they were full of sin.

I say that every fruit should be eaten in its own way. The being who lives according to his own nature, his own truth, must spontaneously find the right way of using things. When you live according to the truth of your being, you don’t need to learn things: you do them spontaneously, according to the inner law. When you sincerely follow your nature, spontaneously and sincerely, you are divine. As soon as you think or look at yourself acting or start questioning, you are full of sin.

It is man’s mental consciousness that has filled all Nature with the idea of sin and all the misery it brings. Animals are not at all unhappy in the way we are. Not at all, not at all, except – as Sri Aurobindo says – those that are corrupted. Those that are corrupted are those that live with men. Dogs have the sense of sin and guilt, for their whole aspiration is to resemble man. Man is the god. Hence there is dissimulation, hypocrisy: dogs lie. But men admire that. They say, ‘Oh! How intelligent they are!’

They have lost their divinity.

Truly, the human species is at a point in the spiral which is not very pretty.

But isn’t a dog more conscious, more evolved than a tiger, or higher in the spiral – that is, nearer the Divine?

It’s not a question of being conscious. There is no doubt that man is more evolved than the tiger, but the tiger is more divine than man. One shouldn’t confuse things. These are two entirely different things.

The Divine is everywhere, in everything. We should never forget it – not for a second should we forget it. He is everywhere, in everything; and in an unconscious but spontaneous, therefore sincere, way, all that exists below the mental manifestation is divine, without mixture; in other words, it exists spontaneously and in harmony with its nature. It is man with his mind who has introduced the idea of guilt. Naturally, he is much more conscious! There’s no question about it, it’s a fact, although what we call consciousness (what ‘we’ call it, that is, what man calls consciousness) is the power to objectify and mentalize things. It is not the true consciousness, but it’s what men call consciousness. So according to the human mode, it is obvious that man is much more conscious than the animal, but the human brings in sin and perversion which do not exist outside of this state we call ‘conscious’ – which in fact is not conscious but merely consists in mentalizing things and in having the ability to objectify them.

It is an ascending curve, but a curve that swerves away from the Divine. So naturally, one has to climb much higher to find a higher Divine, since it is a conscious Divine, whereas the others are divine spontaneously and instinctively, without being conscious of it. All our moral notions of good and evil, all of that, are what we have thrown over the creation with our distorted and perverted consciousness. It is we who have invented it.

We are the distorting intermediary between the purity of the animal and the divine purity of the gods.

21. July 1958 – Humans like to waste energy

Human beings don’t know how to keep energy. When something happens – an accident or an illness, for example – and they ask for help, a double or a triple dose of energy is sent. If they happen to be receptive, they receive it. This energy is given for two reasons: to restore order out of the disorder caused by the accident or illness, and to impart a transformative force to repair or change the source of the illness or accident.

But instead of using the energy in this way, they immediately throw it out. They start stirring about, reacting, working, speaking... They feel full of energy and they throw it all out! They can’t keep anything. So naturally, since the energy was not sent to be wasted like that but for an inner use, they feel absolutely flat, run down. And it is universal. They don’t know, they do not know how to make this movement – to turn within, to use the energy (not to keep it, it doesn’t keep), to use it to repair the damage done to the body and to go deeply within to find the reason for this accident or illness, and there to change it by an aspiration, an inner transformation. Instead of that, right away they start speaking, stirring about, reacting, doing this or that!

In fact, the immense majority of human beings feel they are living only when they waste their energy. Otherwise, it does not seem to them to be life.

Not to waste energy means to utilize it towards the ends for which it was given. If energy is given for the transformation, for the sublimation of the being, it must be used for that; if energy is given to restore something that has been disrupted in the body, it must be used for that.

Naturally, if a special work is given to someone along with the energy to do this work, it’s very good as long as it is being used towards the end for which it was given.

But as soon as a man feels energetic, he immediately rushes into action. Or else, those who don’t have the sense of doing something useful start gossiping. And still worse, those who have no control over themselves become intolerant and start arguing! If someone contradicts their will, they feel full of energy and they mistake that for a ‘godlike wrath’!

23. July 1958 – Is the Universe an error of God?

In the final analysis, seeing the world such as it is and seems meant to be irremediably, human intellect has decided that this universe must be an error of God and that the manifestation or creation is certainly the result of a desire, the desire to manifest, know oneself, enjoy oneself. So the only thing to do is to put an end to this error as soon as possible by refusing to cling to desire and its fatal consequences.

But the Supreme Lord answers that the comedy is not entirely played out, and He adds: ‘Wait for the last act; undoubtedly you will change your mind.’

July (?) 1958 – Don't speak about experiences!

Why, by what mechanism, do mental formulations dissipate an experience and make it lose the major part of its power of action on the consciousness?

Suppose, for example, you want to undo a wrong movement and, as the result of a grace, the Force is sent for this purpose and begins acting upon the consciousness. Then if you pull it towards you, as it were, to try to formulate it, naturally you deconcentrate it, disperse and dissipate it.

But that’s not all; the simple fact of speaking to another person automatically opens you to all that can come from that person. An exchange always takes place. His curiosity, his obscurity, his good or sometimes even his bad will interfere, modify, distort.

Whereas if you wish to speak of your experience to your guru and he consents to listen to you, it means that he ADDS his force, his knowledge, his experience to the working of the Force and he helps its effectuation.

But the damage caused by the formulation still exists?

Yes, but he repairs it.

07. August 1958 – The difficulty of Mother's Work

It is very difficult to manage both at the same time: the transformation of the body and taking care of people. But what can I do? I told Sri Aurobindo I would do the work, and I am doing it – I cannot just abandon everything.

When I think of the time the hatha yogis devote to the work on the body – they do nothing but that; they do nothing but that all the time, until they have attained a certain point. This is in fact the reason why Sri Aurobindo wanted none of it: he found that it took a lot of time for a rather meager result.

***

Day and night, I am investigating all that has to be transformed... I can assure you that there is plenty of work!

Last night, I had many dreams (not really dreams, but...); I used to find them very interesting because they gave me certain indications, all kinds of things, but when I saw it all now, I said to myself, ‘Good Lord! What a waste of time! Instead, I could be living in a supramental consciousness and seeing things.’ So during the night, I made a resolution to change all this too. My nights have to change. I am already changing my days; now my nights have to change. But then all this subconscious in Matter, all this, it all has to change! There’s no choice, it has to be seen to.

Once you set to this work, it is such a formidable task! But what can I do?

08. August 1958 – Problems in the cells

It’s remarkable that things you have understood in your consciousness... reappear as problems to be solved in the cells of the body.

In the cells, both things are there. The body is convinced of the divine Presence everywhere, that all is the Divine – it lives in that; and at the same time, it shrinks from certain contacts! I saw that this morning, both things at once, and I said, ‘Lord, I know nothing at all!’

There (gesture above the head), everything has been resolved, I could write books on how to resolve this or that, how the synthesis is made, etc., but here (the body)... I live this synthesis stumblingly. The two coexist, but it is still not THAT (gesture, hands clasped together, pointing upwards).

(silence)

What problems come up! If there were a plague or cholera, for example, would the supramental Force in the cells, the supramental realization, be able to restore order out of the disorder that allows the epidemic to be? I don’t mean on an individual level – individually, if you are in a certain consciousness, you can remain untouched – I am not speaking of that, I am speaking impersonally, as it were.

We know nothing. We believe we know, but as soon as it is a question of that (the body), we know nothing. As soon as we are in the subtle physical, we know everything, we live in bliss – but here, we know nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing.

09. August 1958 – Human Love and the Gods

If human love came forth unalloyed, it would be all-powerful. Unfortunately, in human love, there is as much SELF love as love for the beloved; it is not a love that makes you forget yourself.

Evidently the gods of the Puranas are a good deal worse than human beings, as we saw in that film the other day (and that story was absolutely true). The gods of the Overmind are infinitely more egocentric – the only thing that counts for them is their power, the extent of their power. Man has in addition a psychic being, so consequently he has true love and compassion – wherein lies his superiority over the gods. It was very, very clearly expressed in this film, and it’s very true.

The gods are faultless, for they live according to their own nature, spontaneously and without constraint; it is their godly way. But if one looks at it from a higher point of view, if one has a higher vision, a vision of the whole, they have fewer qualities than man. In this film, it was proved that through their capacity for love and self-giving, men can have as much power as the gods, and even more – when they are not egoists, when they can overcome their egoism.

Certainly man is nearer the Supreme than the gods. Provided he fulfills the necessary conditions, he can be nearer – he isn’t so automatically, but he can be, he has the power, the potentiality to be.

16. September 1958 – Mother's Mantras

I would very much like to have a ‘true mantra.’

I have a whole stock of mantras; they have all come spontaneously, never from the head. They sprang forth spontaneously, as the Veda is said to have sprung forth.

I don’t know when it began – a very long time ago, before I came here, although some of them came while I was here. But in my case, they were always very short. For example, when Sri Aurobindo was here in his body, at any moment, in any difficulty, for anything, it always came like this: ‘My Lord!’ – simply and spontaneously – ‘My Lord!’ And instantly, the contact was established. But since He left, it has stopped. I can no longer say it, for it would be like saying ‘My Lord, My Lord!’ to myself.

I had a mantra in French before coming to Pondicherry.

It was Dieu de bonté et de miséricorde... [God of kindness and mercy], but what it means is usually not understood – it is an entire program, a universal program. I have been repeating this mantra since the beginning of the century; it was the mantra of ascension, of realization. At present, it no longer comes in the same way, it comes rather as a memory. But it was deliberate, you see; I always said Dieu de bonté et de miséricorde, because even then I understood that everything is the Divine and the Divine is in all things and that it is only we who make a distinction between what is or what is not the Divine.

My experience is that, individually, we are in relationship with that aspect of the Divine which is not necessarily the most in conformity with our natures, but which is the most essential for our development or the most necessary for our action. For me, it was always a question of action because, personally, individually, each aspiration for personal development had its own form, its own spontaneous expression, so I did not use any formula. But as soon as there was the least little difficulty in action, it sprang forth. Only long afterwards did I notice that it was formulated in a certain way – I would utter it without even knowing what the words were. But it came like this: Dieu de bonté et de miséricorde. It was as if I wanted to eliminate from action all aspects that were not this one. And it lasted for... I don’t know, more than twenty or twenty-five years of my life. It came spontaneously.

Just recently one day, the contact became entirely physical, the whole body was in great exaltation, and I noticed that other lines were spontaneously being added to this Dieu de bonté et de miséricorde, and I noted them down. It was a springing forth of states of consciousness – not words.

Seigneur, Dieu de bonté et de miséricorde

Seigneur, Dieu d’unité souveraine

Seigneur, Dieu de beaute et d’harmonie

Seigneur, Dieu de puissance et de réalisation

Seigneur, Dieu d’amour et de compassion

Seigneur, Dieu du silence et de la contemplation

Seigneur, Dieu de lumière et de connaissance

Seigneur, Dieu de vie et d’immortalité

Seigneur, Dieu de jeunesse et de progrès

Seigneur, Dieu d’abondance et de plénitude

Seigneur, Dieu de force et de santé.

Lord, God of kindness and mercy

Lord, God of sovereign oneness

Lord, God of beauty and harmony

Lord, God of power and realization

Lord, God of love and compassion

Lord, God of silence and contemplation

Lord, God of light and knowledge

Lord, God of life and immortality

Lord, God of youth and progress

Lord, God of abundance and plenitude

Lord, God of strength and health.

The words came afterwards, as if they had been superimposed upon the states of consciousness, grafted onto them. Some of the associations seem unexpected, but they were the exact expression of the states of consciousness in their order of unfolding. They came one after another, as if the contact was trying to become more complete. And the last was like a triumph. As soon as I finished writing (in writing, all this becomes rather flat), the impetus within was still alive and it gave me the sense of an all-conquering Truth. And the last mantra sprang forth:

Seigneur, Dieu de la Vérité victorieuse!

Lord, God of victorious Truth!

Like a triumph. But I didn’t write that one down because I did not want to spoil my impression.

Of course, these things should not be published. We can file them in this Agenda of the Supramental Manifestation for later on. Later on, when the Victory is won, we shall say, ‘If you want to see the curve... ’

But what is going to come now? I constantly hear the Sanskrit mantra:

OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH

It is there, all around me; it takes hold of all the cells and at once they spring forth in an ascension.

And Narada’s mantra, too:

Narayana, Narayana...

(it is actually a Command which means: now you shall do as I wish), but it doesn’t come from the heart.

What will it be?

It will simply spring forth in a flash, all of a sudden, and it will be very powerful. Only power can do something. Love vanishes like water running through sand: people remain beatific... and nothing moves! No, power is needed – like Shiva, stirring, churning...

When I have this mantra, instead of saying hello, good-bye, I shall say that. When I say hello, good-bye, it means ‘Hello: the Presence is here, the Light is here.’ ‘Good-bye: I am not going away, I am staying here.’

But when I have this mantra, I believe something will happen.

(silence)

For the moment, of all the formulas or mantras, the one that acts most directly on this body, that seizes all the cells and immediately does this (vibrating motion) is the Sanskrit mantra: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.

As soon as I sit for meditation, as soon as I have a quiet minute to concentrate, it always begins with this mantra, and there is a response in the body, in the cells of the body: they all start vibrating.

This is how it happened: Y had just returned, and he brought back a trunk full of things which he then proceeded to show me, and his excitement made tight, tight little waves in the atmosphere, making my head ache; it made... anyway, it was unpleasant. When I left, just after that had happened, I sat down and went like this (gesture of sweeping out) to make it stop, and immediately the mantra began.

It rose up from here (Mother indicates the solar plexus), like this: Om Namo Bhagavateh OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH. It was formidable. For the entire quarter of an hour that the meditation lasted, everything was filled with Light! In the deeper tones it was of golden bronze (at the throat level it was almost red) and in the higher tones it was a kind of opaline white light: OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH.

The other day (I was in my bathroom upstairs), it came; it took hold of the entire body. It rose up in the same way, and all the cells were trembling. And with such a power! So I stopped everything, all movement, and I let the thing grow. The vibration went on expanding, ever widening, as the sound itself was expanding, expanding, and all the cells of the body were seized with an intensity of aspiration... as if the entire body were swelling – it became overwhelming. I felt that it would all burst.

I understood those who withdraw from everything to live that totally.

And it has such a transformative power! I felt that if it continued, something would happen, something like a change in the equilibrium of the body’s cells.

Unfortunately, I was unable to continue, because... I don’t have the time; it was just before the balcony darshan and I was going to be late. Something told me, ‘That is for people who have nothing to do.’ Then I said, ‘I belong to my work,’ and I slowly withdrew. I put on the brakes, and the action was cut short. But what remains is that whenever I repeat this mantra... everything starts vibrating.

So each one must find something that acts on himself, individually. I am only speaking of the action on the physical plane, because mentally, vitally, in all the inner parts of the being, the aspiration is always, always spontaneous. I am referring only to the physical plane.

The physical seems to be more open to something that is repetitious – for example, the music we play on Sundays, which has three series of combined mantras. The first is that of Chandi, addressed to the universal Mother:

Ya devi sarvabhuteshu matrirupena sansthita

Ya devi sarvabhuteshu shaktirupena sansthita

Ya devi sarvabhuteshu shantirupena sansthita

Namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namo namah

The second is addressed to Sri Aurobindo (and I believe they have put my name at the end). It incorporates the mantra I was speaking of:

Om namo namah shrimirambikayai

Om namo bhagavateh shriaravindaya

Om namo namah shrimirambikayai.

And the third is addressed to Sri Aurobindo: ‘Thou art my refuge.’

Shriaravindah sharanam mama.

Each time this music is played, it produces exactly the same effect upon the body. It is strange, as if all the cells were dilating, with a feeling that the body is growing larger... It becomes all dilated, as if swollen with light – with force, a lot of force. And this music seems to form spirals, like luminous ribbons of incense smoke, white (not transparent, literally white) and they rise up and up. I always see the same thing; it begins in the form of a vase, then swells like an amphora and converges higher up to blossom forth like a flower.

So for these mantras, everything depends upon what you want to do with them. I am in favor of a short mantra, especially if you want to make both numerous and spontaneous repetitions – one or two words, three at most. Because you must be able to use them in all cases, when an accident is about to happen, for example. It has to spring up without thinking, without calling: it should issue forth from the being spontaneously, like a reflex, exactly like a reflex. Then the mantra has its full force.

For me, on the days when I have no special preoccupations or difficulties (days I could call normal, when I am normal), everything I do, all the movements of this body, all, all the words I utter, all the gestures I make, are accompanied and upheld by or lined, as it were, with this mantra:

OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH... OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH...

all, all the time, all the time, all the time.

That is the normal state. It creates an atmosphere of an intensity almost more material than the subtle physical; it’s like... almost like the phosphorescent radiations from a medium. And it has a great action, a very great action: it can prevent an accident. And it accompanies you all the time, all the time.

But it is up to you to know what you want to do with it.

To sustain the aspiration – to remember. We so easily lapse into forgetfulness. To create a kind of automatism.

You have no mantras that have come to you, that give you a more living feeling?... Are their mantras long?

Yes, they are long. And he has not given me any mantra of the Mother, so... They exist, but he has not given me any... I don’t know, they don’t have much effect on me. It is something very mental.

That’s why it should spring forth from you.

(silence)

This one, this mantra, OM NAMO BHAGAVATEH, came to me after some time, for I felt... well, I saw that I needed to have a mantra of my own, that is, a mantra consonant with what this body has to do in the world. And it was just then that it came. It was truly an answer to a need that had made itself felt. So if you feel the need – not there, not in your head, but here (Mother points to the center of her heart), it will come. One day, either you will hear the words, or they will spring forth from your heart... And when that happens, you must hold onto it.

04. October 1958 – The Divine Person beyond the impersonal

Before, I always had the negative experience of the disappearance of the ego, of the oneness of Creation, where everything implying separation disappeared – an experience that, personally, I would call negative. Last Wednesday, while I was speaking (and that’s why at the end I could no longer find my words), I seemed suddenly to have left this negative phenomenon and entered into the positive experience: the experience of BEING the Supreme Lord, the experience that nothing exists but the Supreme Lord – all is the Supreme Lord, there is nothing else. And at that moment, the feeling of this infinite power that has no limit, that nothing can limit, was so overwhelming that all the functions of the body, of this mental machine that summons up words, all this was... I could no longer speak French. Perhaps the words could have come to me in English – probably, because it was easier for Sri Aurobindo to express himself in English, and that’s how it must have happened: it was the part embodied in Sri Aurobindo (the part of the Supreme that was embodied in Sri Aurobindo for its manifestation) that had the experience. This is what joined back with the Origin and caused the experience – I was well aware of it. And that is probably why its transcription through English words would have been easier than through French words (for at these moments, such activities are purely mechanical, rather like automatic machines). And naturally the experience left something behind. It left the sense of a power that can no longer be ‘qualified,’ really. And it was there yesterday evening.

The difficulty – it’s not even a difficulty, it’s just a kind of precaution that is taken (automatically, in fact) in order to... For example, the volume of Force that was to be expressed in the voice was too great for the speech organ. So I had to be a little attentive – that is, there had to be a kind of filtering in the outermost expression, otherwise the voice would have cracked. But this isn’t done through the will and reason, it’s automatic. Yet I feel that... the capacity of Matter to contain and express is increasing with phenomenal speed. But it’s progressive, it can’t be done instantly. There have often been people whose outer form broke because the Force was too strong; well, I clearly see that it is being dosed out. After all, this is exclusively the concern of the Supreme Lord, I don’t bother about it – it’s not my concern and I don’t bother about it – He makes the necessary adjustments. Thus it comes progressively, little by little, so that no fundamental disequilibrium occurs. It gives the impression that one’s head is swelling so tremendously it will burst! But then if there is a moment of stillness, it adapts; gradually, it adapts.

Only, one must be careful to keep the ‘sense of the Unmanifest’ sufficiently present so that the various things – the elements, the cells and all that – have time to adapt. The sense of the Unmanifest, or in other words, to step back into the Unmanifest. This is what all those who have had experiences have done, they always believed that there was no possibility of adaptation, so they left their bodies and went off.

04. October 1958 – About Money

Money belongs to the one who spends it; that is an absolute law. You may pile up money, but it doesn’t belong to you until you spend it. Then you have the merit, the glory, the joy, the pleasure of spending it!

Money is meant to circulate. What should remain constant is the progressive movement of an increase in the earth’s production – an ever-expanding progressive movement to increase the earth’s production and improve existence on earth. It is the material improvement of terrestrial life and the growth of the earth’s production that must go on expanding, enlarging, and not this silly paper or this inert metal that is amassed and lifeless.

Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness. This is its true use. What I call an improvement in consciousness, a progress in consciousness, is everything that education in all its forms can provide – not as it’s generally understood, but as we understand it here: education in art, education in... from the education of the body, from the most material progress, to the spiritual education and progress through yoga; the whole spectrum, everything that leads humanity towards its future realization. Money should serve to augment that and to augment the material base for the earth’s progress, the best use of what the earth can give – its intelligent utilization, not the utilization that wastes and loses energies. The use that allows energies to be replenished.

In the universe there is an inexhaustible source of energy that asks only to be replenished; if you know how to go about it, it is replenished. Instead of draining life and the energies of our earth and making of it something parched and inert, we must know the practical exercise for replenishing the energy constantly. And these are not just words; I know how it’s to be done, and science is in the process of thoroughly finding out – it has found out most admirably. But instead of using it to satisfy human passions, instead of using what science has found so that men may destroy each other more effectively than they are presently doing, it must be used to enrich the earth: to enrich the earth, to make the earth richer and richer, more active, generous, productive and to make all life grow towards its maximum efficiency. This is the true use of money. And if it’s not used like that, it’s a vice – a ‘short circuit’ and a vice.

But how many people know how to use it in this way? Very few, which is why they have to be taught. What I call ‘teach’ is to show, to give the example. We want to be the example of true living in the world. It’s a challenge I am placing before the whole financial world: I am telling them that they are in the process of withering and ruining the earth with their idiotic system; and with even less than they are now spending for useless things – merely for inflating something that has no inherent life, that should be only an instrument at the service of life, that has no reality in itself, that is only a means and not an end (they make an end of something that is only a means) – well then, instead of making of it an end, they should make it the means. With what they have at their disposal they could... oh, transform the earth so quickly! Transform it, put it into contact, truly into contact, with the supramental forces that would make life bountiful and, indeed, constantly renewed – instead of becoming withered, stagnant, shrivelled up: a future moon. A dead moon.

We are told that in a few millions or billions of years, the earth will become some kind of moon. The movement should be the opposite: the earth should become more and more a resplendent sun, but a sun of life. Not a sun that burns, but a sun that illumines – a radiant glory.

06. October 1958 – All kinds of contacts with people

When I am not in my body, I have all kinds of contacts with people, contacts of different types. And it’s not a thing decided in advance, it is not willed, it is not even thought out; it is simply... observed.

Certain relationships are entirely within me, entirely. It is not a relationship between individuals, but a relationship between states of being – which means that with the same individual there may be many different relationships. If it were a single whole... but I am still not sure if there is a single person with whom the relationship is global.

So there are parts which are entirely within me, entirely – there is no difference; they are myself. There are other parts with which I am conscious of an exchange – a very familiar, very intimate exchange. And there are parts outside of me with which I still have relationships, not exactly as with strangers but merely as acquaintances; it is still necessary to observe their reactions in order to do the correct thing. And the ratio between these different parts is naturally different depending upon the different individuals.

***

(The disciple complains of his difficulties)

Difficulties are sent to us exclusively to make the realization more perfect.

Each time we try to realize something and we encounter a resistance or an obstacle, or even a failure – what appears to be a failure – we should know, we should NEVER forget, that it is exclusively, absolutely, to make the realization more perfect.

So this habit of cringing, of being discouraged or even feeling ill at ease or abusing oneself, saying, ‘There, I’ve done it again...’ All this is absolute foolishness.

Rather, simply say, ‘We do not know how to do things as they should be done, well then, let them be done for us and come what may!’ If we could only see how everything that looks like a difficulty, an error, a failure or an obstacle is simply there to help us make the realization more perfect.

Once we know this, everything becomes easy.

10. October 1958 – Our place in the universal manifestation

(The disciple asks to know what he must do and what his place is in the universal manifestation)

In all religious and especially occult initiations, the ritual of the different ceremonies is prescribed in every detail; all the words pronounced, all the gestures made have their importance, and the least infraction of the rule, the least fault committed can have fatal consequences. It is the same in material life – if one had the initiation into the true way of living, one could transform physical existence.

If we consider the body as the tabernacle of the Lord, then medical science, for example, becomes the initiatory ritual of the service of the temple, and doctors of all kinds are the officiating priests in the different rituals of worship. Thus, medicine is really a priesthood and should be treated as such.

The same can be said of physical culture and of all the sciences that are concerned with the body and its workings. If the material universe is considered as the outer sheath and the manifestation of the Supreme, then it can generally be said that all the physical sciences are the rituals of worship.

We always come back to the same thing: the absolute necessity for perfect sincerity, perfect honesty and a sense of the dignity of all we do so that we may do it as it should be done.

If we could truly, perfectly know all the details of the ceremony of life, the worship of the Lord in physical life, it would be wonderful – to know, and no longer to err, never again to err. To perform the ceremony as perfectly as an initiation.

To know life utterly... Oh, there is a very interesting thing in this regard! And it’s strange, but this particular knowledge reminds me of one of my Sutras (which I read out, but no one understood or understood only vaguely, ‘like that’):

‘It is the Supreme Lord who has ineluctably decreed the place you occupy in the universal concert, but whatever be this place, you have equally the same right as all others to ascend the supreme summits right to the supramental realization.’

There is one’s position in the universal hierarchy, which is something ineluctable – it is the eternal law – and there is the development in the manifestation, which is an education; it is progressive and done from within the being. What is remarkable is that to become a perfect being, this position – whatever it is, decreed since all eternity, a part of the eternal Truth – must manifest with the greatest possible perfection as a result of evolutionary growth. It is the junction, the union of the two, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization, that will make the total and perfect being, and the manifestation as the Lord has willed it since the beginning of all eternity (which has no beginning at all!).

And for the cycle to be complete, one cannot stop on the way at any plane, not even the highest spiritual plane nor the plane closest to matter (like the occult plane in the vital, for example). One must descend right into matter, and this perfection in manifestation must be a material perfection, or otherwise the cycle is not complete – which explains why those who want to flee in order to realize the divine Will are in error. What must be done is exactly the opposite! The two must be combined in a perfect way. This is why all the honest sciences, the sciences that are practiced sincerely, honestly, exclusively with a will to know, are difficult paths – yet such sure paths for the total realization.

It brings up very interesting things. (What I am going to say now is very personal and consequently cannot be used, but it may be kept anyway:)

There are two parallel things that, from the eternal and supreme point of view, are of identical importance, in that both are equally essential for the realization to be a true realization.

On the one hand, there is what Sri Aurobindo – who, as the Avatar, represented the supreme Consciousness and Will on earth – declared me to be, that is, the supreme universal Mother; and on the other hand, there is what I am realizing in my body through the integral sadhana. I could be the supreme Mother and not do any sadhana, and as a matter of fact, as long as Sri Aurobindo was in his body, it was he who did the sadhana, and I received the effects. These effects were automatically established in the outer being, but he was the one doing it, not I – I was merely the bridge between his sadhana and the world. Only when he left his body was I forced to take up the sadhana myself; not only did I have to do what I was doing before – being a bridge between his sadhana and the world – but I had to carry on the sadhana myself. When he left, he turned over to me the responsibility for what he himself had been doing in his body, and I had to do it. So there are both these things. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other (I don’t mean successively in time, but... it depends on the moment), and they are trying to combine in a total and perfect realization: the eternal, ineffable and immutable Consciousness of the Executrice of the Supreme, and the consciousness of the Sadhak of the integral Yoga who strives in an ascending effort towards an ever increasing progression.

To this has been added a growing initiation into the supramental realization which is (I understand it well now) the perfect union of what comes from above and what comes from below, or in other words, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization.

Then – and this becomes rather amusing like life’s play... Depending upon each one’s nature and position and bias, and because human beings are very limited, very partial and incapable of a global vision, there are those who believe, who have faith, or to whom the eternal Mother is revealed through Grace, who have this kind of relationship with the eternal Mother – and there are those who themselves are plunged in sadhana, who have the consciousness of a developed sadhak, and thereby have the same relationship with me as one has with what they generally call a ‘realized soul.’ Such persons consider me the prototype of the Guru teaching a new way, but the others don’t have this relationship of sadhak to Guru (I am taking the two extremes, but of course there are all the possibilities in between), they are only in contact with the eternal Mother and, in the simplicity of their hearts, they expect Her to do everything for them. If they were perfect in this attitude, the eternal Mother would do everything for them – as a matter of fact, She does do everything, but as they aren’t perfect, they cannot receive it totally. But the two paths are very different, the two kinds of relationships are very different; and as we all live according to the law of external things, in a material body, there is a kind of annoyance, an almost irritated misunderstanding, between those who follow this path (not consciously and intentionally, but spontaneously), who have this relationship of the child to the Mother, and those who have this other relationship of the sadhak to the Guru. So it creates a whole play, with an infinite diversity of shades.

But all this is still in suspense, on the way to realization, moving forward progressively; therefore, unless we are able to see the outcome, we can’t understand a thing. We get confused. Only when we see the outcome, the final realization, only when we have TOUCHED there, will everything be understood – then it will be as clear and as simple as can be. But meanwhile, my relationships with different people are very funny, utterly amusing!

Those who have what I would call the more ‘outer’ relationship compared to the other (although it is not really so) – the relationship of yoga, of sadhana – consider the others superstitious; and the others, who have faith OR perception, or the Grace to have understood what Sri Aurobindo meant (perhaps even before knowing what he said, but in any event, after he said it), discard the others as ignorant unbelievers! And there are all the gradations in between, so it really becomes quite funny!

It opens up extraordinary horizons; once you have understood this, you have the key – you have the key to many, many things: the different positions of each of the different saints, the different realizations and... it resolves all the incoherencies of the various manifestations on earth.

For example, this question of Power – THE Power – over Matter. Those who perceive me as the eternal, universal Mother and Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar are surprised that our power is not absolute. They are surprised that we have not merely to say, ‘Let it be thus’ for it to be ‘thus.’ This is because, in the integral realization, the union of the two is essential: a union of the power that proceeds from the eternal position and the power that proceeds from the sadhana through evolutionary growth. Similarly, how is it that those who have reached even the summits of yogic knowledge (I was thinking of Swami) need to resort to beings like gods or demigods to be able to realize things? – Because they have indeed united with certain higher forces and entities, but it was not decreed since the beginning of time that they were this particular being. They were not born as this or that, but through evolution they united with a latent possibility in themselves. Each one carries the Eternal within himself, but one can join Him only when one has realized the complete union of the latent Eternal with the eternal Eternal.

And... this explains everything, absolutely everything: how it works, how it functions in the world. I was saying to myself, ‘But I have no powers, I have no powers!’ Several days ago, I said, ‘But after all, I KNOW WHO is there, I know, yet how is it that...? There, up to there (the level of the head), it is all-powerful, nothing can resist – but here... it is ineffective.’ So those who have faith, even an ignorant but real faith (it can be ignorant but nevertheless it is real), say, ‘What! How can you have no powers?’... Because the sadhana is not yet over.

The Lord will possess his universe only when the universe will have consciously become the Lord.

17. October 1958 – Continuation of the first seven Sutras

(Mother brings with her the continuation of the first seven Sutras written by Her, probably in 1957.97)

They are in two groups.

The first group ends with a helping hand to those who have made the wrong choice (!):

7) But even in the event you have not made the irrevocable decision at the outset, should you have the good fortune to live during one of these unimaginable hours of universal history when the Grace is present, embodied upon earth, It will offer you, at certain exceptional moments, the renewed possibility of making a final choice that will lead you straight to the goal.

That was the message of hope.

And then it continues (Mother reads):

8) All division in the being is an insincerity.

9) The greatest insincerity is to carve an abyss between one’s body and the truth of one’s being.

10) When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature immediately fills it with all the hostile suggestions, of which the most deadly is fear and the most pernicious, doubt.

I wrote that before reading Sri Aurobindo’s aphorism on ‘the sentinels of Nature.’ I found it very interesting and I said to myself, ‘Well! That’s exactly what came to me!’

There is still one more (but it is not the last):

11) Allow nothing, nowhere, to deny the truth of your being: that is sincerity.

25. October 1958 – Concerning the disciple’s tantric guru

When X does his puja, I clearly see the particular form of the Mother he is invoking – I see her descending.

Each one is in touch with the universal expression of an aspect or a will or a mode of the Supreme, and if one aspires for this, it is this that comes, with an extraordinary plasticity. And when that happens, I even become the Witness (not the witness in the way of the Purusha: a witness far more... infinite and eternal than the Purusha). I see what responds, why it responds, how it responds. This is how I know what people want (not here below, nor even in their highest aspiration). I see it even when the people themselves are no longer conscious – or rather, not yet conscious (for me, it’s ‘no longer,’ but anyway...), when they are not yet conscious of this identification somewhere. Even then I see it.

It’s interesting.

They do pujas to all these forces or divinities, but it is not... it is not the highest Truth. What Sri Aurobindo called the true ‘surrender,’ the surrender to the Supreme, is a truth higher than that of relying solely upon oneself.

And that is what always brings in complications, conflicts. I was surprised that the atmosphere [of the Ashram] is filled with conflict when he is here – but that is the reason.

Why aren’t people conscious of this identification while having it in a part of their being?

Between the outer consciousness and the deepest consciousness there are truly holes – which are ‘missing links’ between states of being and which have to be built, but they don’t know how to do it. So their first reaction when they go within is panic! They feel they are falling into night, into nothingness, into non-being!

I had a Danish friend, an artist, to whom this happened. He wanted me to teach him how to go out of his body. He had interesting dreams so he thought it might be worthwhile to go there consciously. I helped him to ‘go out’ – but it was frightful! ... When he dreamed, a part of his mind indeed remained conscious, active, and a kind of link remained between this active part and his outer being, so he remembered some of his dreams, but it was only a very partial phenomenon. To go out of your body means that you must gradually pass through ALL the states of being, if you are to do it systematically. But already in the subtle physical it was almost non-individualized, and as soon as he went a bit further, there was no longer anything! It was unformed, nonexistent.

So they sit down (they are told to interiorize, to go within themselves), and they panic! – Naturally they feel that they... that they are disappearing: there is nothing! There is no consciousness!

04. November 1958 – Gods of the Puranas; Théon & Questions

(Concerning; the Agenda of August 9, 1958, on the gods of the Puranas)

The gods of the Puranas are merciless gods who respect only power and have nothing of the true love, charity or profound goodness that the Divine has put into the human consciousness – and which compensate psychically for all the outer defects. They themselves have nothing of this, they have no psychic. The Puranic gods have no psychic, so they act according to their power. They are restrained only when their power is not all-powerful, that’s all.

But what does Anusuya represent?

She is a portrait of the ideal woman according to the Hindu conception, the woman who worships her husband as a god, which means that she sees the Supreme in her husband. And so this woman was much more powerful than all the gods of the Puranas precisely because she had this psychic capacity for total self-giving; and her faith in the Supreme’s presence in her husband gave her a much greater power than that of all the gods.

The story narrated in the film went like this: Narada, as usual, was having fun. (Narada is a demigod with a divine position – that is, he can communicate with man and with the gods as he pleases, and he serves as an intermediary, but then he likes to have fun!) So he was quarrelling with one of the goddesses, I no longer recall which one, and he told her... (Ah, yes! The quarrel was with Saraswati.) Saraswati was telling him that knowledge is much greater than love (much greater in that it is much more powerful than love), and he replied to her, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! (Mother laughs) Love is much more powerful than knowledge.’ So she challenged him, saying, ‘Well then, prove it to me.’ – ‘I shall prove it to you,’ he replied. And the whole story starts there. He began creating a whole imbroglio on earth just to prove his point.

It was only a film story, but anyway, the goddesses, the three wives of the Trimurti – that is, the consort of Brahma, the consort of Vishnu and the consort of Shiva – joined forces (!) and tried all kinds of things to foil Narada. I no longer recall the details of the story... Oh yes, the story begins like this: one of the three – I believe it was Shiva’s consort, Parvati (she was the worst one, by the way!) – was doing her puja. Shiva was in meditation, and she began doing her puja in front of him; she was using an oil lamp for the puja, and the lamp fell down and burned her foot. She cried out because she had burned her foot. So Shiva at once came out of his meditation and said to her, ‘What is it, Devi?’ (laughter) She answered, ‘I burned my foot!’ Then Narada said, ‘Aren’t you ashamed of what you have done? – to make Shiva come out of his meditation simply because you have a little burn on your foot, which cannot even hurt you since you are immortal!’ She became furious and snapped at him, ‘Show me that it can be otherwise!’ Narada replied, ‘I am going to show you what it is to really love one’s husband – you don’t know anything about it!’

Then comes the story of Anusuya and her husband (who is truly a husband... a very good man, but well, not a god, after all!), who was sleeping with his head resting upon Anusuya’s knees. They had finished their puja (both of them were worshippers of Shiva), and after their puja he was resting, sleeping, with his head on Anusuya’s knees. Meanwhile, the gods had descended upon earth, particularly this Parvati, and they saw Anusuya like that. Then Parvati exclaimed, ‘This is a good occasion!’ Not very far away a cooking fire was burning. With her power, she sent the fire rolling down onto Anusuya’s feet – which startled her because it hurt. It began to burn; not one cry, not one movement, nothing ... because she didn’t want to awaken her husband. But she began invoking Shiva (Shiva was there). And because she invoked Shiva (it is lovely in the story), because she invoked Shiva, Shiva’s foot began burning! (Mother laughs) Then Narada showed Shiva to Parvati: ‘Look what you are doing; you are burning your husband’s foot!’ So Parvati made the opposite gesture and the fire was put out.

That’s how it went.

Lovely.

Oh, the story was very lovely all along. There was one thing after another, one thing after another, and always the power of Anusuya was greater than the power of the gods. I liked that story very much.

It ended in a... (Oh, the story was very long; it lasted three hours!) But really, it was lovely throughout.

Lovely in the way it showed that the sincerity of love is much more powerful than anything else.

If I were to narrate the whole thing to you, there would be no end to it, but anyway, you get the idea.

***

(Shortly afterwards, the disciple again brings up the topic of August 9, where Mother had said that the gods are ‘a good deal worse than human beings’)

It should be said that we are speaking of the Puranic gods, because the Christians, for example, do not understand what this can mean. They have an entirely different conception of the gods. It could apply to the old Greek mythology, though.

No, not uniquely. It could apply in many other eases. Even if the Christians don’t understand, there are many others who will!

Those who have read a little and who know something other than their little rut will understand.

There is something similar between the Puranic gods and the gods of Greek or Egyptian mythology. The gods of Egyptian mythology are terrible beings... They cut off people’s heads, tear their enemies to pieces!...

The Greeks were not always tender either!

In Europe and in the modern Western world, it is thought that all these gods – the Greek gods and the ‘pagan’ gods, as they are called – are human fancies, that they are not real beings. To understand, one must know that they are real beings. That is the difference. For Westerners, they are only a figment of the human imagination and don’t correspond to anything real in the universe. But that is a gross mistake.

To understand the workings of universal life, and even those of terrestrial life, one must know that in their own realms these are all living beings, each with his own independent reality. They would exist even if men did not exist! Most of these gods existed before man.

They are beings who belong to the progressive creation of the universe and who have themselves presided over its formation from the most etheric or subtle regions to the most material regions. They are a descent of the divine creative Spirit that came to repair the mischief... in short, to repair what the Asuras had done. The first makers created disorder and darkness, an unconsciousness, and then it is said that there was a second ‘lineage’ of makers to repair that evil, and the gods gradually descended through realities that were ever more – one can’t say dense because it isn’t really dense, nor can one even say material, since matter as we know it does not exist on these planes – through more and more concrete substances.

All these zones, these planes of reality, received different names and were classified in different ways according to the occult schools, according to the different traditions, but there is an essential similarity, and if we go back far enough into the various traditions, hardly anything but words differ, depending upon the country and the language. The descriptions are quite similar. Moreover, those who climb back up the ladder – or in other words, a human being who, through his occult knowledge, goes out of one of his ‘bodies’ (they are called sheaths in English) and enters into a more subtle body – in order to ACT in a more subtle body – and so forth, twelve times (you make each body come out from a more material body, leaving the more material body in its corresponding zone, and then go off through successive exteriorizations), what they have seen, what they have discovered and seen through their ascension – whether they are occultists from the Occident or occultists from the Orient – is for the most part analogous in description. They have put different words on it, but the experience is very analogous.

There is the whole Chaldean tradition, and there is also the Vedic tradition, and there was very certainly a tradition anterior to both that split into two branches. Well, all these occult experiences have been the same. Only the description differs depending upon the country and the language. The story of creation is not told from a metaphysical or psychological point of view, but from an objective point of view, and this story is as real as our stories of historical periods. Of course, it’s not the only way of seeing, but it is just as legitimate a way as the others, and in any event, it recognizes the concrete reality of all these divine beings. Even now, the experiences of Western occultists and those of Eastern occultists exhibit great similarities. The only difference is in the way they are expressed, but the manipulation of the forces is the same.

I learned all this through Théon. Probably, he was... I don’t know if he was Russian or Polish (a Russian or Polish Jew), he never said who he really was or where he was born, nor his age nor anything.

He had assumed two names: one was an Arab name he had adopted when he took refuge in Algeria (I don’t know for what reason). After having worked with Blavatsky and having founded an occult society in Egypt, he went to Algeria, and there he first called himself ‘Aia Aziz’ (a word of Arabic origin meaning ‘the beloved’). Then, when he began setting up his Cosmic Review and his ‘cosmic group,’ he called himself Max Théon, meaning the supreme God (!), the greatest God! And no one knew him by any other name than these two – Aia Aziz or Max Théon.

He had an English wife.

He said he had received initiation in India (he knew a little Sanskrit and the Rig-Veda thoroughly), and then he formulated a tradition which he called the ‘cosmic tradition’ and which he claimed to have received – I don’t know how – from a tradition anterior to that of the Cabala and the Vedas. But there were many things (Madame Théon was the clairvoyant one, and she received visions; oh, she was wonderful!), many things that I myself had seen and known before knowing them which were then substantiated.

So personally, I am convinced that there was indeed a tradition anterior to both these traditions containing a knowledge very close to an integral knowledge. Certainly, there is a similarity in the experiences. When I came here and told Sri Aurobindo certain things I knew from the occult standpoint, he always said that it conformed to the Vedic tradition. And as for certain occult practices, he told me that they were entirely tantric – and I knew nothing at that time, absolutely nothing, neither the Vedas nor the Tantras.

So very probably there was a tradition anterior to both. I have recollections (for me, these are always things I have LIVED), very clear, very distinct recollections of a time that was certainly VERY anterior to the Vedic times and to the Cabala, to the Chaldean tradition.

But now, there is only a very small number of people in the West who know that it isn’t merely subjective or imaginative (the result of a more or less unbridled imagination), and that it corresponds to a universal truth.

All these regions, all these realms are filled with beings who exist separately in their own realms, and if you are awake and conscious on a given plane – for example, if while going out of a more material body you awaken on some higher plane – you can have the same relationship with the things and people of that plane as with the things and people of the material world. In other words, there exists an entirely objective relationship that has nothing to do with your own idea of things. Naturally, the resemblance becomes greater and greater as you draw nearer the physical world, the material world, and there is even a moment when one region can act directly upon the other. In any case, in what Sri Aurobindo calls the ‘kingdoms of the overmind,’ you find a concrete reality entirely independent of your personal experience; whenever you come back to it, you again find the same things, with some differences that may have occurred DURING YOUR ABSENCE. And your relationships with the beings there are identical to those you have with physical beings, except that they are more flexible, more supple and more direct (for example, there is a capacity to change the outer form, the visible form, according to your inner state), but you can make an appointment with someone, come to the meeting and again find the same being, with only certain differences that may have occurred during your absence – but it is absolutely concrete, with absolutely concrete results.

However, you must have at least a little experience of these things to understand them. Otherwise, if you are convinced that all this is just human fancy or mental formations, if you believe that these gods have such and such a form because men have imagined them to be like that, or that they have such and such defects or qualities because men have envisioned it that way – as with all those who say God is created in the image of man and exists only in human thought – all such people won’t understand, it will seem absolutely ridiculous to them, a kind of madness. You must live a little, touch the subject a little to know how concrete it is.

Naturally, children know a great deal – if they have not been spoiled. There are many children who return to the same place night after night and continue living a life they have begun there.

When these faculties are not spoiled with age, they can be preserved within one. There was a time when I was especially interested in dreams, and I could return exactly to the same place and continue some work I had begun there, visit something, for example, or see to something, some work of organization or some discovery or exploration; you go to a certain place, just as you go somewhere in life, then you rest a while, then you go back and begin again – you take up your work just where you left it, and you continue. You also notice that there are things entirely independent of you, certain variations which were not at all created by you and which occurred automatically during your absence.

But then, you must LIVE these experiences yourself; you yourself must see, you must live them with enough sincerity to see (by being sincere and spontaneous) that they are independent of any mental formations. Because one can take the opposite line and make an intensive study of the way mental formations act upon events – which is very interesting. But that’s another field. And this study makes you very careful, very prudent, because you start noticing to what extent you can delude yourself. Therefore, both one and the other, the mental formation and the occult reality, must be studied to see what the ESSENTIAL difference is between them. The one exists in itself, entirely independent of what we think about it, and the other...

That was a grace. I was given every experience without knowing ANYTHING of what it was all about – my mind was absolutely ... blank. There was no active correspondence in the formative mind. I only knew about what had happened or the laws governing these happenings AFTERWARDS, when I was curious and inquired to find out what it related to. Then I found out. But otherwise, I didn’t know. So that was the clear proof that these things existed entirely outside of my imagination or thought.

It doesn’t happen very frequently in this world. And that’s why these experiences, which otherwise seem quite natural, quite obvious, appear to be... extravagant fancies to people who know nothing.

But if you transposed this to France, to the West, unless you frequent occult circles, people would look at you with... And behind your back, they would say, ‘That person is cracked!’

***

(Later, the disciple asks Mother for some clarification on the “essential difference” between the occult reality and mental formations)

Once you have worked in this field, you realize that when you have studied a subject, when you have mentally understood something, it gives a special tonality to the experience. The experience may be quite spontaneous and sincere, but the simple fact of having known this subject and of having studied it gives a particular tonality; on the other hand, if you have learned nothing of the subject, if you know nothing at all, well, when the experience comes, the notation of it is entirely spontaneous and sincere. It can be more or less adequate, but it is not the result of a former mental formation.

What happened in my life is that I never studied or knew things until AFTER having the experience – only BECAUSE OF the experience and because I wanted to understand it would I study things related to it.

It was the same thing for visions of past lives. I knew NOTHING when I would have the experience, not even the possibility of past lives, and only after having had the experience would I study the question and, for example, even verify certain historical facts that had occurred in my vision but about which I had no prior knowledge.

***

(Then the disciple asks for details on going out of each successive body into the next, more subtle one)

There are subtle bodies and subtle worlds that correspond to these bodies; it is what the psychological method calls ‘states of consciousness,’ but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult process consists in becoming aware of these various inner states of being, or subtle bodies, and of mastering them sufficiently to be able to make one come out of the other, successively. For there is a whole hierarchy of increasing subtleties – or decreasing, depending upon the direction – and the occult process consists in making a more subtle body come out from a denser body, and so forth, right to the most ethereal regions. You go out through successive exteriorizations into more and more subtle bodies or worlds. Each time it is rather like passing into another dimension. In fact, the fourth dimension of the physicists is only the scientific transcription of an occult knowledge.

To give another comparison, it could be said that the physical body is at the center – it is the most material and the most condensed, as well as the smallest – and the more subtle inner bodies increasingly overlap the limits of this central physical body; they pass through it and extend further and further out, like water evaporating from a porous vase which creates a kind of steam all around it. And the more subtle it is, the more its extension tends to fuse with that of the universe: you finally become universal. It is an entirely concrete process that makes the invisible worlds an objective experience and even allows you to act in those worlds.

Undated 1958 – Exteriorization

When you are exteriorized during sleep and conscious in the vital world, you can live a vital life as conscious as the physical life. I have known people who had this capacity and who were so intensely interested in their experiences in the vital world that they returned only with regret to their bodies. If you are conscious and master of yourself in the vital world and if you possess a certain power there, the circumstances are marvelous, infinitely more varied and more beautiful than in the physical world.

Suppose, for example, that you are very tired and need to rest. If you know how to exteriorize yourself and consciously enter into the vital world, you will find there a region like a miraculous virgin forest with all the splendors of a rich and harmonious vegetation, magnificent mirrors of water and an atmosphere so filled with this living, vibrant vitality of the plants!

There is such a life there, such a beauty, so much richness and plenitude that you awaken full of force and with an absolutely wonderful feeling of energy, even if you remain there but a minute.

And it is so objective, so concrete! I have taken people there, without telling them what it was all about, and they were able to describe the place exactly as I myself would.

There are regions like that – not very many, but some.

On the other hand, there are many unpleasant places in the vital world where it is better not to go. Those who can easily learn to go out of their bodies should do so with a great deal of caution. I could never teach this to many people, for were they to do it alone, it would mean abandoning them, sometimes without protection, to experiences that can be extremely harmful.

The vital world is a world of extremes. If, for example, you eat a bunch of grapes in the vital world, you feel so nourished that you can remain without hunger for thirty-six hours. But you can also run into things and enter places that will wrest all the energy from you in a minute and at times leave you ill or even disabled.

I knew an absolutely exceptional woman from the occult point of view who had just such an accident in the vital world. While trying to wrest someone she valued from the beings of the vital world, she received such a blow to one eye that she lost it.

Without going that far, it may happen that you meet with accidents in the vital world that leave their trace for hours after awakening.

08. November 1958 – The Mighty Spring at the bottom of Inconscience

I found my message for the 1st of January... It was quite unforeseen. Yesterday morning, I thought, ‘All the same, I have to find my message, but what?’ I was absolutely... like that, neutral, nothing. Then yesterday evening at the class (of Friday, November 7) I noticed that these children who had had a whole week to prepare their questions on the text had not found a single one! A terrible lethargy! A total lack of interest. And when I had finished speaking, I thought to myself, ‘But what IS there in these people who are interested in nothing but their personal little affairs?’ So I began descending into their mental atmosphere, in search of the little light, of that which responds... And it literally pulled me downwards as into a hole, but in such a material way; my hand, which was on the arm of the chair, began slipping down, my other hand went like this (to the ground), my head, too! I thought it was going to touch my knees!

And I had the impression... It was not an impression – I saw it. I was descending into a crevasse between two steep rocks, rocks that appeared to be made of something harder than basalt, BLACK, but metallic at the same time, with such sharp edges – it seemed that a mere touch would lacerate you. It appeared endless and bottomless, and it kept getting narrower, narrower and narrower, narrower and narrower, like a funnel, so narrow that there was almost no more room – not even for the consciousness – to pass through. And the bottom was invisible, a black hole. And it went down, down, down, like that, without air, without light, except for a sort of glimmer that enabled me to make out the rock edges. They seemed to be cut so steeply, so sharply... Finally, when my head began touching my knees, I asked myself, ‘But what is there at the bottom of this... this hole?’

And as soon as I had uttered, ‘What is there at the bottom of this hole?’ I seemed to touch a spring that was in the very depths – a spring I didn’t see but that acted instantly with a tremendous power – and it cast me up forthwith, hurled me out of this crevasse into... (arms extended, motionless) a formless, limitless vast which was infinitely comfortable – not exactly warm, but it gave a feeling of ease and of an intimate warmth.

And it was all-powerful, with an infinite richness. It did not have... no, it didn’t have any kind of form, and it had no limits (naturally, as I was identified with it I knew there was neither limit nor form). It was as if (because it was not visible), as if this vast were made of countless, imperceptible points – points that occupied no place in space (there was no sense of space), that were of a deep warm gold – but this is only a feeling, a transcription. And all this was absolutely LIVING, living with a power that seemed infinite. And yet motionless.

It lasted for quite some time, for the rest of the meditation.

It seemed to contain a whole wealth of possibilities, and all this that was formless had the power to become form.

At the time, I wondered what it meant. Later, of course, I found out, and finally this morning, I said to myself, ‘Ah, so that’s it! It came to give me my message for the new year!’ Then I transcribed the experience – it can’t be described, of course, for it was indescribable; it was a psychological phenomenon and the form it took was only a way of describing the psychological state to oneself. Here is what I wrote down, obviously in a mental way, and I am thinking of using it as my message.

There was a hesitation in the expression, so I brought the paper and I want us to decide upon the final text together.

I have not described anything. I have only stated a fact (Mother reads):

‘At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, generator of all creation.’

And it is again one more proof. The experience was absolutely... the English word genuine says it.

Genuine and spontaneous?

Yes, it was not a willed experience, for I had not decided I would do this. It did not correspond to an inner attitude. In a meditation, one can decide, ‘I will meditate on this or on that or on something else – I will do this or that.’ For meditations, I usually have a kind of inner (or higher) perception of what has to be done, and I do it. But it was not that way. I had decided: nothing, to decide nothing, to be ‘like that’ (gesture of turning upwards).

And then it happened.

Suddenly, while I was speaking (it was while I was speaking), I felt, ‘Well really, can anything be done with such material?’ Then, quite naturally, when I stopped speaking, oh! – I felt that I was being pulled! Then I understood. Because I had asked myself the question, ‘But what is HAPPENING in there behind all those forms?...’ I can’t say that I was annoyed, but I said to myself, ‘Well really, this has to be shaken up a bit!’ And just as I had finished, something pulled me – it pulled me out of my body, I was literally pulled out of my body.

And then, down into this hole... I still see what I saw then, this crevasse between two rocks. The sky was not visible, but on the rock summits I saw... something like the reflection of a glimmer – a glimmer – coming from ‘something’ beyond, which (laughing) must have been the sky! But it was invisible. And as I descended, as if I were sliding down the face of this crevasse, I saw the rock edges; and they were really black rocks, as if cut with a chisel, cuts so fresh that they glistened, with edges as sharp as knives. There was one here, one there, another there, everywhere, all around. And I was being pulled, pulled, pulled, I went down and down and down – there was no end to it, and it was becoming more and more compressing. It went down and down...

And so, physically, the body followed. My body has been taught to express the inner experience to a certain extent. In the body there is the body-force or the body-form or the body-spirit (according to the different schools, it bears a different name), and this is what leaves the body last when one dies, usually taking a period of seven days to leave. With special training, it can acquire a conscious life – independent and conscious – to such a degree that not only in a state of trance (in trance, it frequently happens that one can speak and move if one is slightly trained or educated), but even in a cataleptic state it can produce sounds and even make the body move. Thus, through training, the body begins to have somnambulistic capacities – not an ordinary somnambulism, but it can live an autonomous life. This is what took place, yesterday evening it was like that – I had gone out of my body, but my body was participating. And then I was pulled downwards: my hand, which had been on the arm of the chair, slipped down, then the other hand, then my head was almost touching my knees! (The consciousness was elsewhere, I saw it from outside – it was not that I didn’t know what I was doing, I saw it from outside.) So I said, ‘In any case, this has to stop somewhere because if it continues, my head (laughing) is going to be on the ground!’ And I thought, ‘But what is there at the bottom of this hole?...’

Scarcely had these words been formulated when there I was, at the bottom of the hole! And it was absolutely as if a tremendous, almighty spring were there, and then... (Mother hits the table) vrrrm! I was cast out of the abyss into a vastness. My body immediately sat straight up, head on high, following the movement. If someone had been watching, this is what he would have seen: in a single bound, vrrrm! Straight up, to the maximum, my head on high.

And I followed all this without objectifying it in the least; I was not aware of what it was nor of what was happening, nor of any explanation at all, nothing: it was ‘like that.’ I was living it, that’s all. The experience was absolutely spontaneous. And after this rather... painful descent, phew! – there was a kind of super-comfort. I can’t explain it otherwise, an ease, but an ease... to the utmost. A perfect immobility in a sense of eternity – but with an extraordinary INTENSITY of movement and life! An inner intensity, unmanifested; it was within, self-contained. And motionless (had there been an outside, it would have been motionless in relation to that) and it was in a... life so immeasurable that it can only be expressed metaphorically as infinite. And with an intensity, a POWER, a force... and a peace – the peace of eternity. A silence, a calm. A POWER capable of... of EVERYTHING. Everything.

And I was not imagining nor objectifying it; I was living it with ease – with a great ease. And it lasted until the end of the meditation. When it gradually began fading, I stopped the meditation and left.

Later, after I returned (to the Ashram), I wondered, ‘What was that? What does it signify?’ Then I understood.

That’s all.

Now I am going to write it down clearly. Hand me a piece of paper.

(Mother begins recopying her message)

‘At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid...’ Because generally, the inconscience gives the impression, precisely, of something amorphous, inert, formless, drab and gray (when formerly I entered the zones of the inconscient, that was the first thing I encountered). But this was an inconscience... it was hard, rigid, COAGULATED, as if coagulated to resist: all effort slides off it, doesn’t touch it, cannot penetrate it. So I am putting,’... most hard and rigid and narrow’ (the idea of something that compresses, compresses, compresses you) ‘and stifling’ – yes, stifling is the word.

‘… I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless vast, generator of all creation.’ It was... yes, I have the feeling that it was not the ordinary creation, the primordial creation, but the SUPRAMENTAL creation, for it bore no similarity to the experience of returning to the Supreme, the origin of everything. I had utterly the feeling of being cast into the origin of the supramental creation – something that is already (how can it be expressed?) objectified from the Supreme, with the explicit goal of the supramental creation.

That was my feeling.

I don’t think I am mistaken, for there was such a superabundant feeling of power, of warmth, of gold... It was not fluid, it was like a powdering. And each of these things (they cannot be called specks or fragments, nor even points, unless you understand it in the mathematical sense, a point that occupies no space) was something equivalent to a mathematical point, but like living gold, a powdering of warm gold. I cannot say it was sparkling, I cannot say it was dark, nor was it made of light, either: a multitude of tiny points of gold, nothing but that. They seemed to be touching my eyes, my face... and with such an inherent power and warmth – it was a splendor! And then, at the same time, the feeling of a plenitude, the PEACE of omnipotence... It was rich, it was full. It was movement at its ultimate, infinitely swifter than all one can imagine, and at the same time it was absolute peace, perfect tranquillity.

(Mother resumes her message)

I do not want to put the word... Unless, instead of putting generator of all creation,’ I put ‘of the new creation...’ Oh, but then it becomes absolutely overwhelming! It is THAT, in fact. It is that. But is it time to say so? I don’t know... Generator of the new creation...

11. November 1958 – Mother's description of the almighty spring

(Mother arrives with a new change in her message for January 1, 1959: instead of ‘an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, generator of the new world,’ Mother puts ‘a formless, limitless Vast vibrating with the seeds of a new world’)

The objectification of the experience came progressively, as always happens to me. When I have the experience, I am absolutely ‘blank,’ like a newborn baby to whom things come just ‘like that.’ I don’t know what is happening, and I expect nothing. How much time it has taken me to learn this!

There is no preliminary thought, preliminary knowledge, preliminary will: all those things do not exist. I am only like a mirror receiving the experience, the simplicity of a little child learning life. It is like that. And it is the gift of the Grace, truly the Grace: in the face of the experience, the simplicity of a little child just born. And it is spontaneously so, but deliberately too; in other words, during the experience I am very careful not to watch myself having the experience so that no previous knowledge intervenes. Only afterwards do I see. It is not a mental construction, nor does it come from something higher than the mind (it is not even a knowledge by identity that makes me see things); no, the body (when the experience is in the body) is... like that, what in English is called blank. As if it had just been born, as if just then it were being born with the experience.

And only little by little, little by little, is this experience put in the presence of any previous knowledge. Thus, its explanation and its evaluation come about progressively.

It is indispensable if one doesn’t want to be arbitrary.

So in fact, only the final wording is correct, but from the point of view of the ‘historical’ unfolding, it is interesting to observe the passage. It was exactly the same phenomenon for the experience of the Supramental Manifestation. Both these things, the experience of November 7 and of the Supramental, occurred in the same way, identically: I WAS the experience, and nothing else. Nothing but the experience at the time it was occurring. And only slowly, while coming out of it, did the previous knowledge, the previous experiences, all the accumulation of what had come before, examine it and put it in its place.

This is why I arrive at a verbal expression progressively, gropingly; these are not literary gropings – it is aimed at being precise, specific and concise at the same time.

When I write something, I don’t expect people to understand it, but I try to avoid the least possible distortion of the experience or the image in this kind of ‘shrinking’ towards expression.

What is this spring?

The spring? It means exactly this: in the deepest depths of the Inconscient is the supreme spring that makes us touch the Supreme. It is like the Supreme making us touch the Supreme: that is the almighty spring. When you arrive at the very bottom of the Inconscient, you touch the Supreme.

So that is the shortest path!

Not the shortest path! Already for me, it was hard to touch the bottom of the Inconscient, but for others it would take an eternity.

It is something similar to what Sri Aurobindo has written in ‘A God’s Labour.’

Was it the Supreme at the very bottom of the Inconscient who cast you up directly to the Supreme?

Yes. Because at the very bottom of the Inconscient is the Supreme. It is the same idea as the highest height touching the deepest depth. The universe is like a circle – it is represented by the serpent biting its tail, its head touching its tail. It means that the supreme height touches the most material matter, without any intermediary. I have already said this several times. But that was the experience. I didn’t know what was happening. I expected nothing and ... it was stupendous – in a single bound, I sprang up! If someone had had his eyes open, I assure you he would have had to laugh: I was bent over, like this, more and more, more and more, more and more, my head was just about to touch my knees when suddenly – vrrrm! Straight, straight up, my head upright in a single bound!

But as soon as you want to express it, it escapes like water running through your fingers; all the fluidity is lost, it evaporates. A rather vague, poetic or artistic expression is much truer, much nearer to the truth – something hazy, nebulous, undefined. Something not concretized like a rigid mental expression – this rigidity that the mind has introduced right down into the Inconscient.

This vision of the Inconscient... (Mother remains gazing for a moment) it was the MENTAL Inconscient. Because the starting point was mental. A special Inconscient – rigid, hard, resistant – with all that the mind has brought into our consciousness. But it was far worse, far worse than a purely material Inconscient! A ‘mentalized’ Inconscient, as it were. All this rigidity, this hardness, this narrowness, this fixity – a FIXITY – comes from the presence of the mind in creation. When the mind was not manifested, the Inconscient was not like that! It was formless and had the plasticity of something that is formless – the plasticity has gone.

It is a terrible image of the Mind’s action in the Inconscient.

It has made the Inconscient aggressive – it was not so before. Aggressive, resistant, OBSTINATE. That was not there before.

Yes, that’s it. It was not an ‘original’ Inconscient. It was a mentalized Inconscient. With all that the mind has brought in in the way of OPPOSITION – of resistance, hardness, rigidity.

It would be interesting to mention this.

Because the starting point, precisely, was to look into the mental unconsciousness of these people. It was the mental Inconscient. Well, the mental Inconscient REFUSES to change – which is not true of the other one; the other is nothing, it doesn’t exist, it is not organized in any way, it has no way of being, whereas this one is an ORGANIZED Inconscient – organized by a beginning mental influence. A hundred times worse!

This is a very interesting point to note.

It is not the experience, which I had once before, of the original Inconscient. The experience I had this time is of the Inconscient that has undergone the influence of the Mind in creation. It has become... It has become a FAR greater obstacle than before. Before, it did not even have the power to resist, it had nothing, it was truly unconscious. Now it is an Inconscient organized in its refusal to change!

It was a very new experience.

That’s where we are.

And this almighty spring is the perfect image of what is happening – what must happen, what will happen – FOR EVERYONE: suddenly, one is cast forth into the vast.

15. November 1958 – About Mother's experience of 13. November

(Concerning an experience Mother had on November 13 in regard to the disciple’s difficulties)

Truly speaking, perhaps one is never rid of the hostile forces as long as one has not permanently emerged into the Light, above the lower hemisphere. There, the term ‘hostile forces’ loses its meaning; they become only forces of progress, they force you to progress. But to see things in this way, you have to get out of the lower hemisphere, for below, they are very real in their opposition to the divine plan.

It was said in the ancient traditions that one could not live for more than twenty days in this higher state without leaving one’s body and returning to the supreme Origin. Now this is no longer true.

It is precisely this state of perfect Harmony beyond all attacks that will become possible with the supramental realization. It is what all those who are destined for the supramental transformation will realize. The hostile forces know it well; in the supramental world, they will automatically disappear. Having no more utility, they will be dissolved without our having to do anything, simply through the presence of the supramental force. So now they are being unleashed with a fury in a negation of everything, everything.

The link between the two worlds has not yet been built, but it is in the process of being built; this was the meaning of the experience of February 3, 1958: to build a link between the two worlds. For both worlds are indeed there – not one above the other, but within each other, in two different dimensions. Only, there is no communication between them; they overlap, as it were, without being connected. In the experience of February 3, I saw certain people from here (and from elsewhere) who already belong to the supramental world in a part of their being, but there is no connection, no link. But now the hour has come in universal history for this link to be built.

What is the relationship between this experience of February 3 and that of November 7 (the almighty spring)? Is what you found in the depths of the Inconscient this same Supramental?

The experience of November 7 was a further step in the building of the link between the two worlds. Where I was cast was clearly into the origin of the supramental creation – all this warm gold, this tremendous living power, this sovereign peace. And once again I saw that the values governing the supramental world have nothing to do with our values here, even the values of our highest wisdom, even those we consider the most divine when we live constantly in a divine Presence: it is utterly different.

Not only in our state of adoration and surrender to the Supreme, but even in our state of identification, the QUALITY of the identification is different depending upon whether we are on this side, progressing in this hemisphere, or have passed to the other side and have emerged into the other world, the other hemisphere, the higher hemisphere.

The quality or the kind of relationship I had with the Supreme at that moment was entirely different from the one we have here – even the identification had a different quality. One can very well understand that all the lower movements are different but this identification by which the Supreme governs and lives in us was the summit of our experience here – well, the way He governs and lives is different depending on whether we are in this hemisphere here or in the supramental life. And at that moment (the experience of November 13), what made the experience so intense was that I came to perceive vaguely both these states of consciousness at once. It was almost as if the Supreme Himself were different, or our experience of Him. And yet, in both cases, it was a contact with the Supreme. It is probably how we perceive Him or the way in which we translate it that differs, but the fact is that the quality of the experience is different.

In the other hemisphere, there is an intensity and a plenitude which are translated by a power different from the one here. How can I formulate it? – I cannot.

The quality of the consciousness itself seems to change. It is not something higher than the summit we can attain here, it is not one MORE rung, not that. Here, we have reached the end, the summit, but... it’s the quality that is different. The quality, in the sense that a fullness, a richness, a power is there (this is a translation, you see, in our way), but there is a ‘something’ that... that eludes us. It is truly a new reversal of consciousness.

When we begin living the spiritual life, a reversal of consciousness takes place which for us is the proof that we have entered the spiritual life; well, yet another occurs when we enter the supramental world.

And probably each time a new world opens up, there will again be a new reversal. This is why even our spiritual life, which is such a total reversal compared to ordinary life, seems something still so... so totally different when compared to this supramental consciousness that the values are almost opposite.

It can be expressed in this way (but it’s quite approximate, more than diminished or deformed): it’s as if our entire spiritual life were made of silver, whereas the supramental life is made of gold – as if our entire spiritual life here were a vibration of silver, not cold but simply a light, a light that goes right to the summit, an absolutely pure light, pure and intense; but in the other, in the supramental world, there is a richness and a power that make all the difference. This whole spiritual life of the psychic being and of all our present consciousness that appears so warm, so full, so wonderful, so luminous to the ordinary consciousness, well, all this splendor seems poor in comparison to the splendor of the new world.

I can explain the phenomenon like this: successive reversals such that an EVER NEW richness of creation will take place from stage to stage, making whatever came before seem so poor in comparison. What to us seems supremely rich compared to our ordinary life, appears so poor compared to this new reversal of consciousness. Such was my experience.

Last night, my effort to understand what was missing in order to help you completely and truly come out of the difficulty reminded me of what I said the other day about Power, the transforming power, the true realizing power, the supramental power. When you enter that, when you suddenly surge into that Thing, then you see – you see that it is truly almighty in comparison to what we are here. So once again, I touched it, I experienced both states simultaneously.

But as long as this is not an accomplished fact, it will still be a progression – a progression, an ascension; you gain a little, you gain some ground, you rise higher and higher. But as long as the new reversal has not taken place, it’s as if everything had still to be done. It is a repetition of the experience below, reproduced above.

(silence)

And each time, you have the feeling of having lived on the surface of things. It’s a feeling that is repeated over and over again. With each new conquest, you feel that until then you had lived only on the surface of things – on the surface of the realization, on the surface of ‘surrender,’ on the surface of power. It was only the surface of things, the surface of the experience. Behind the surface, there is a depth, and only when one enters into this depth does one touch the True Thing. And it is the same experience each time: what seemed a depth becomes the surface. A surface, with all that it entails of inaccuracy, yes, of artificiality – artificial – an artificial transcription. It feels like something not really alive, a copy, an imitation: it’s an image, a reflection, but not THE Thing itself. You step into another zone and you feel you have uncovered the Source and the Power and the Truth of things; then this source and power and truth in turn become an appearance, an imitation, a mere transcription in comparison to something concrete: the new realization.

(silence)

Meanwhile, we should acknowledge that we don’t have the key, it is not yet in our hands. Or rather, we know quite well where it is, and there is only one thing to do: the perfect ‘surrender’ Sri Aurobindo speaks of, the total surrender to the divine Will whatever happens, even in the dark of night.

There is night and sun, night and sun, and night again, many nights, but one must cling to this will for ‘surrender,’ cling as through a storm, and put everything into the hands of the Supreme Lord. Until the day when the Sun shall shine forever, the day of total Victory.

22. November 1958 – KARMA is the construction of the EGO

But just this, a faith in the Grace, or an awareness of the Grace, or the intensity of the call, or else naturally the response – the response, the thing that opens, that breaks – the response to this marvelous love of the Grace.

It is difficult without a strong will; and above all, above all the capacity to resist the temptation, which was the fatal temptation throughout all one’s lives – because its power builds up. Each defeat gives it renewed force. But a tiny victory can dissolve it.

Oh, the most terrible of all is when one does not have the strength, the courage, something indomitable! How many times do they come to tell me, ‘I want to die, I want to flee, I want to die.’ – I say, ‘But die, then, die to yourself! No one is asking you to let your ego survive! Die to yourself since you want to die! Have that courage, the true courage, to die to your egoism.’

But because it is karma, one must, one must DO something oneself. Karma is the construction of the ego; the ego MUST DO something, everything cannot be done for it. This is it, THIS is the thing: karma is the result of the ego’s actions, and only when the ego abdicates is the karma dissolved. One can help it along, one can assist it, give it strength, bestow courage upon it, but the ego must then make use of it.

26. November 1958 – Vast majority of men are like prisoners!

(Extract from the last Wednesday class)

Basically, the vast majority of men are like prisoners with all the doors and all the windows shut, so they suffocate (which is quite natural), but they have with them the key that opens the doors and the windows, and they don’t use it... Certainly, there is a period when they don’t know that they have the key, but even long after they do know it, long after they have been told, they hesitate to use it and doubt that it has the power to open the doors and windows, or even that it may be advisable to open them. And even once they feel that ‘After all, it might be a good thing,’ a fear pursues them: ‘What is going to happen once all these doors and these windows open?...’ They become afraid – afraid of losing themselves in this light and in this freedom. They want to remain what they call ‘themselves.’ They love their falsehood and their slavery. Something in them loves it and remains clinging to it. They feel that without their limits, they would no longer exist.

That is why the journey is so long, so difficult. For if one would truly consent no longer to be, everything would become so easy, so swift, so luminous, so joyous – though perhaps not in the way men conceive of joy and ease. At heart, there are very few beings who are not enamored of struggle. There are very few who would consent to having no darkness or who can conceive of light as anything other than the opposite of obscurity: ‘Without shadow, there would be no painting.

Without struggle, there would be no victory. Without suffering, there would be no joy.’ That is what they think, and as long as they think like that, they are not yet born to the spirit.

27. November 1958 – Pujas and Karma

(Concerning the disciple’s karma and the tantric discipline that he is following to dissolve this karma, Mother wonders why She herself had not been able to dissolve it directly and why it was necessary to resort to intermediaries)

I am used to seeing the process or the working of things more from a spiritual point of view, something more universal, whereas this needs to be seen from a detailed, occult point of view.

For example, one thing had always appeared unimportant to me in action – intermediaries between the spiritualized individual being, the conscious soul, and the Supreme. According to my personal experience, it had always seemed to me that if one is exclusively turned towards the Supreme in all one’s actions and expresses Him directly, whatever is to be done is done automatically. For example, if you are always open and if at each second you consciously want to express only what the Supreme Lord wants to be expressed, it is done automatically. But with all that I have learned about pujas, about certain scriptures and certain rituals as well, the necessity for a ‘process’ has become very clear to me. It’s the same as in physical life; in physical life, everything needs a process, as we know, and it is the knowledge of processes that constitutes physical science. Similarly, in a more occult working, the knowledge and especially the RESPECT for the process seem to be much more important than I had first thought.

And when I studied this, when I looked at this science of processes, of intermediaries, suddenly I clearly understood the working of karma, which I had not understood before. I had worked and intervened quite often to change someone’s karma, but sometimes I had to wait, without exactly knowing why – the result was not immediate. I simply used to wait without worrying about the reasons for this slowness or delay. That’s how it was. And generally it ended, as I said, with the exact vision of the karma’s source, its initial cause; and scarcely would I have this vision when the Power would come, and the thing would be dissolved. But I didn’t bother about finding out why it was like that.

One day I had mentioned this to X when he was showing me or describing to me the different movements of the pujas, the procedure, the process of the puja. I said to him, ‘Oh, I see! For the action to be immediate, for the result to be immediate, one must acknowledge, for example, the role or the participation of certain spirits or certain forces and enter into a friendly relationship or collaboration with these forces in order to obtain an immediate result, is it not so?’ Then he told me, ‘Yes, otherwise it leaves an indefinite time to the play of the forces, and you don’t know when you will get the result of your puja.’

That interested me very much. Because one of the obstacles I had felt was that although the Force was acting well, there was a time lag that appeared inevitable, a time element in the work which seemed unavoidable – a play left to the forces of Nature. But with their knowledge of the processes, the tantrics can dispense with all that. So I understood why those who have studied, who are initiated and follow the prescribed methods are apparently more powerful – more powerful even than those who are conscious in the highest consciousness.

What interested me is that in their case (those who follow tantric or other initiations), what is doubtful is whether or not they can succeed in receiving the response of the true Power, the divine power, the supreme power; they do everything they can, but this question still remains. Whereas for me, it is the opposite situation: the Power is there, I have it, but how can I make it act here in matter? The process for making it act immediately was missing – though not totally; I know from the psychological standpoint, but there is something other than the psychological power, there is the whole play of conscious, individualized forces that are everywhere in Nature and that have the right to exist. Since it was created this way, it must express something of the supreme Will, otherwise He wouldn’t have made use of intermediaries – but in His plan, it is obvious that the intermediary has a legitimate place.

It is like the story X told me of his guru who could command the coming of Kali (something which seems quite natural to me when one is sufficiently developed); well, not only could he commend the coming of Kali, but Kali with I don’t know how many crores of her warriors!... For me, Kali was Kali, after all, and she did her work; but in the universal organization, her action, the innumerable multiplicity of her action, is expressed by an innumerable multitude of conscious entities at work. It is this individualization, as it were, that gives to these forces a consciousness and a certain play of freedom, and this is what makes all the difference in action. It is in this respect that the occult system is an absolutely indispensable complement to spiritual action.

The spiritual action is direct, but it may not be immediate (anyway, that’s my experience). Sri Aurobindo said that with the supramental presence, it becomes immediate – and I have experienced this. But this would then mean that the supramental Power automatically commands all these intermediaries, whereas if it’s not present, even the highest spiritual power would need a specialized knowledge to act in this realm, a knowledge equivalent to an occult or initiatory knowledge of all these realms. This is why I told X, ‘Well, you taught me many things while you were here.’ There is always something to learn.

Of course, when the Supramental is here, it will be very different. I see it clearly: in moments when it is there, everything is turned inside out, and all this belongs to a world... to the world of preparation. It is like a preparation, a long preparation.

It remains to be seen if all this has first to be mastered before there is even the possibility of holding the Supramental, of FIXING it in the manifestation. That is the great difference. For example, those with the power to materialize forces or beings lack the capacity to fix them, for these are fluid things which act and are then dissolved. That is the difference with the physical world where it is this condensation of energy that makes things... (Mother strikes the arms of her chair) stable. All the things in the extra-physical realms are not stable, they are fluid – fluid and consequently uncertain.

28. November 1958 – Capability of the physical body

(Extract from the last Friday class)

As it is, the physical body is really only a very disfigured shadow of the eternal life of the Self, but this physical body is capable of a progressive development; the physical substance progresses through each individual formation, and one day it will be able to build a bridge between physical life as we know it and the supramental life that is to manifest.

December 1958 – Black magic against the Mother

(This note was written by Mother in English. It concerns an attack of black magic that threatened her life and in the end completely changed her outer existence. A new stage begins.)

Two or three days after I retired to my room upstairs, early in the night I fell into a very heavy sleep and found myself out of the body much more materially than I do usually. This degree of density in which you can see the material surroundings exactly as they are. The part that was out seemed to be under a spell and only half conscious. When I found myself at the first floor where everything was absolutely black, I wanted to go up again, but then I discovered that my hand was held by a young girl whom I could not see in the darkness but whose contact was very familiar. She pulled me by the hand telling me laughingly, ‘No, come, come down with me, we shall kill the young princess.’ I could not understand what she meant by this ‘young princess’ and, rather unwillingly, I followed her to see what it was. Arriving in the anteroom which is at the top of the staircase leading to the ground floor, my attention was drawn in the midst of all this total obscurity to the white figure of Kamala (A disciple) standing in the middle of the passage between the hall and Sri Aurobindo’s room. She was as it were in full light while everything else was black. Then I saw on her face such an expression of intense anxiety that to comfort her I said, ‘I am coming back.’ The sound of my voice shook off from me the semi-trance in which I was before and suddenly I thought, ‘Where am I going?’ and I pushed away from me the dark figure who was pulling me and in whom, while she was running down the steps, I recognized a young girl who lived with Sri Aurobindo and me for many years and died five years back. This girl during her life was under the most diabolical influence. And then I saw very distinctly (as through the walls of the staircase) down below a small black tent which could scarcely be perceived in the surrounding darkness and standing in the middle of the tent the figure of a man, head and face shaved (like the sannyasin or the Buddhist monks) covered from head to foot with a knitted outfit following tightly the form of his body which was tall and slim. No other cloth or garment could give an indication as to who he could be. He was standing in front of a black pot placed on a dark red fire which was throwing its reddish glow on him. He had his right arm stretched over the pot, holding between two fingers a thin gold chain which looked like one of mine and was unnaturally visible and bright. Shaking gently the chain he was chanting some words which translated in my mind, ‘She must die the young princess, she must pay for all she has done, she must die the young princess’.

Then I suddenly realized that it was I the young Princess and as I burst into laughter, I found myself awake in my bed.

I did not like the idea of something or somebody having the power to pull me like that so materially out of my body without my previous consent. That is why I gave some importance to the experience.