January 1961

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10. January 1961 – Divine Love (Aphorism 49)

What is the next aphorism?

49 – To feel and love the God of beauty and good in the ugly and the evil, and still yearn in utter love to heal it of its ugliness and its evil, this is real virtue and morality.

Do you have a question?

How can one collaborate in curing the evil and ugliness seen everywhere? By loving? What is the power of love? What effect can an individual consciousness, acting alone, have on the rest of mankind?

How to collaborate in curing evil and ugliness?... We can say that there’s a kind of hierarchic scale of collaboration or action; a negative cooperation and a positive cooperation.

To begin with, there’s what could be called a negative way, the way expounded by Buddhism and similar religions: the refusal to see. To be in a state of such purity and beauty that there is no perception of evil and ugliness. It’s like something that doesn’t touch you because it doesn’t exist in you. This is the perfection of the negative method.

It is quite elementary: never take notice of evil, never speak of the evil present in others, never perpetuate the vibrations of evil by observation, criticism or giving undue attention to the evil deed. This is what Buddha taught: each time you mention an evil you help spread it.

This skirts the issue.

Nevertheless, it ought to be a very general rule; yet its critics have a reply: ‘If you don’t see evil you can never cure it. If you leave someone to his squalor he will never emerge from it.’ (It’s not exactly true, but it’s how they legitimize their actions.) In this aphorism, Sri Aurobindo has anticipated these objections: it is not through ignorance or unconsciousness or indifference that you fail to see evil – you can see and even feel it, but you refuse to collaborate in spreading it by giving it the force of your attention or the support of your consciousness. And for that, you must yourself be above the perception and sensation – able to see evil or ugliness without suffering, without feeling shocked or troubled. You see them from a height where such things do not exist, yet you have the conscious perception of them – they don’t affect you, you are free. This is the first step.

The second step is to be POSITIVELY conscious of the supreme Goodness and Beauty behind all things and supporting all things, permitting them to exist. Once you have seen Him, you can perceive Him behind the mask and the distortion – even ugliness, even cruelty, even evil are a disguise for that Something which is essentially good or beautiful, luminous, pure.

With this comes TRUE collaboration. For when you have this vision, this awareness, when you live in this consciousness, you also get the power to PULL That into the manifestation on earth and put it into contact with what, for the time being, distorts and disguises; thus the deformation and disguise are gradually transformed by the influence of the Truth behind.

Here we are at the top rung on the scale of collaboration.

Put this way, there is no need to bring the principle of love into our explanation. But if we want to know or understand the nature of the Force or Power that permits and accomplishes this transformation (specially in the case of evil, but for ugliness to some extent as well), we see that of all powers, Love is obviously the mightiest, the most integral – integral in that it applies to all cases. It’s even mightier than the power of purification which dissolves bad wills and is, in a way, master over the adverse forces, but which doesn’t have the direct transforming power; because the power of purification Must FIRST dissolve in order to form again later. It destroys one form to make a better one from it, while Love doesn’t need to dissolve in order to transform: it has the direct transforming power. Love is like a flame changing the hard into the malleable, then sublimating even the malleable into a kind of purified vapor. It doesn’t destroy: it transforms.

Love, in its essence and in its origin, is like a white flame obliterating ALL resistances. You can have the experience yourself: whatever the difficulty in your being, whatever the weight of accumulated mistakes, the ignorance, incapacity, bad will, a single SECOND of this Love – pure, essential, supreme – melts everything in its almighty flame. One single moment and an entire past can vanish. One single TOUCH of That in its essence and the whole burden is consumed.

It’s easy to understand how someone who has this experience can spread it and act upon others, since to have it you must touch the unique, supreme Essence of the whole manifestation – the Origin and the Essence, the Source and the Reality of all that is; then you immediately enter the realm of Unity where there is no more separation among individuals: it’s a single vibration that can repeat itself endlessly in outer forms.

If you go high enough, you come to the Heart of everything. Whatever manifests in this Heart can manifest in all things. This is the great secret, the secret of divine incarnation in an individual form. For in the normal course of things, what manifests at the center is only realized in the outer form with the awakening and RESPONSE Of the will within the individual form. But if the central Will is constantly, permanently represented in one individual, he can then serve as an intermediary between that Will and all beings, and will FOR THEM.

Whatever this being perceives and consciously offers to the supreme Will is replied to as if it came from each individual being. And if individuals happen to be in a more or less conscious and voluntary relationship with this representative being, their relationship increases his efficacy and the supreme Action can work in Matter in a much more concrete and permanent way. This is the reason for these descents of what could be called ‘polarized’ consciousnesses that always come to earth for a particular realization, with a definite purpose and mission – a mission decided upon before the actual embodiment. These mark the great stages of the supreme incarnations upon earth.

And when the day comes for the manifestation of supreme Love – a crystallized, concentrated descent of supreme Love – that will truly be the hour of Transformation, for nothing will be able to resist That.

But as it’s all-powerful, a certain receptivity must be prepared on earth so its effects are not devastating. Sri Aurobindo has explained it in one of his letters. Someone asked him, ‘Why doesn’t this Love come now?’, and he replied something like this: If divine Love in its essence were to manifest on earth, it would be like an explosion; for the earth is not supple enough or receptive enough to widen to the measure of this Love. The earth must not only open itself but become wide and supple. Matter – not just physical Matter, but the substance of the physical consciousness as well – is still much too rigid.

***

Wouldn’t it be better if each time you answered these questions on the Aphorisms verbally?

Ah, that’s always better! With pencil and paper I have to look at what I’m writing and it holds me back like a leash.

Then why don’t you just speak? T or Z could come and listen to you – they would be overjoyed!

Oh no, my child, you don’t see at all! To speak I must have a receptive atmosphere! The idea of talking aloud all alone in my room would never occur to me. Sound doesn’t come: what comes is a direct transmission – and if I manage to connect it to my hand and write it’s transmitted, although it always gets somewhat pulled down. I can be doing anything at all, it doesn’t matter, but it must be something that doesn’t monopolize my attention, like brushing my hair in the morning for example: then it comes directly and nothing stops it! But I would never think of uttering a word! That only happens when I find some receptivity in front of me, something I can use.

What I say to people depends entirely upon their inner state. That’s precisely why I had such enormous difficulty at the Playground – the atmosphere was so mixed! It was a STRUGGLE to find someone receptive so I could speak. And if I’m in the presence of people who understand nothing, I can’t say a word. On the other hand, some people come prepared to receive and then suddenly it all comes – but usually there’s no tape-recorder!

I have replied endlessly, I have given all sorts of explanations about the organization of the School, about World Union, about the true way to organize industry (its true functioning) – so many things! If all that were compiled we could publish brochures! Sometimes I’ve spoken three-quarters of an hour non-stop to people who listened with delight and were receptive but quite incapable of making a written report of it. At times like that we could have used one of your machines! But when things are organized in advance, it may well be that nothing comes out at all – mentalizing stops the flow. if I is in front of me, I can’t say anything to her because she doesn’t understand. I already have trouble writing to her – what I have to say is always brought down a bit; but if she were here in the room and I had to speak to her, nothing at all would come out!

No, when we feel like it and when she doesn’t raise any question about an aphorism – at least not an impossible question – we’ll do this: I will speak here, it’s much easier for me. This way things come that I haven’t seen before; while when I write like that, they are usually things I’ve seen on other occasions (not that I try to recall them, they are there and simply come back). But when there’s a new contact, something new always comes.

***

(A little later, Mother made the following remark concerning the Agenda of December 13, 1960, where she speaks of the physical Mind’s ‘disbelief’ and defeatist reactions as intimately linked to the body’s illnesses.)

This defeatist Mind is still functioning – and in full swing!

When we get out of that....

I want to be able to act directly without its help – do what Sri Aurobindo said: be rid of it!

12. January 1961 – Sins and Sinners (Aphorism 50)

What is the next aphorism?

50 – To hate the sinner is the worst sin, for it is hating God; yet he who commits it glories in his superior virtue.

Do you have a question?

When we enter a certain state of consciousness, we plainly see that we are capable of anything and that ultimately there is no ‘sin’ not potentially our own. Is this impression correct? And yet certain things make us rebel or disgust us. We always reach some inadmissible point. Why? What is the true, effective attitude when confronted with Evil?

There is no sin not our own....

You have this experience when for some reason or other, depending on the case, you come into contact with the universal consciousness – not in its limitless essence but on any level of Matter. There is an atomic consciousness, a purely material consciousness and an even more generally prevailing psychological consciousness. When, through interiorization or a sort of withdrawal from the ego you enter into contact with that zone of consciousness we can call psychological terrestrial or human collective (there is a difference: ‘human collective’ is restricted, while ‘terrestrial’ includes many animal and even plant vibrations; but in the present case, since the moral notion of guilt, sin and evil belongs exclusively to human consciousness, let us simply say ‘human collective psychological consciousness’); when you contact that through identification, you naturally feel or see or know yourself capable of any human movement whatsoever. To some extent, this constitutes a Truth-Consciousness, or at such times the egoistical sense of what does or doesn’t belong to you, of what you can or cannot do, disappears; you realize that the fundamental construction of human consciousness makes any human being capable of doing anything. And since you are in a truth-consciousness, you are aware at the same time that to feel judgmental or disgusted or revolted would be an absurdity, for EVERYTHING is potentially there inside you. And should you happen to be penetrated by certain currents of force (which we usually can’t follow: we see them come and go but we are generally unaware of their origin and direction), if any one of these currents penetrates you, it can make you do anything.

If one always remained in this state of consciousness, keeping alive the flame of Agni, the flame of purification and progress, then after some time, not only could one prevent these movements from taking an active form in oneself and becoming expressed physically, but one could act upon the very nature of the movement and transform it. Needless to say, however, that unless one has attained a very high degree of realization it is virtually impossible to keep this state of consciousness for long. Almost immediately one falls back into the egoistic consciousness of the separate self, and all the difficulties return: disgust, the revolt against certain things and the horror they create in us, and so on.

It is probable – even certain – that until one is completely transformed these movements of disgust and revolt are necessary to make one do WITHIN ONESELF what is needed to slam the door on them. For after all, the point is to not let them manifest.

In another aphorism, Sri Aurobindo says (I no longer recall his exact words) that sin is simply something no longer in its place. In this perpetual Becoming nothing is ever reproduced and some things disappear, so to speak, into the past; and when it’s time for them to disappear, they seem – to our very limited consciousness – evil and repulsive: we revolt against them because their time is past.

But if we had the vision of the whole, if we were able to contain past, present and future simultaneously (as it is somewhere up above), then we would see how relative these things are and that it’s mainly the progressing evolutionary Force which gives us this will to reject; yet when these things still had their place, they were quite tolerable. However, to have this experience in a practical sense is impossible unless we have a total vision – the vision that is the Supreme’s alone! Therefore, one must first identify with the Supreme, and then, keeping this identification, one can return to a consciousness sufficiently externalized to see things as they really are. But that’s the principle, and in so far as we are able to realize it, we reach a state of consciousness where we can look at all things with the smile of a complete certainty that everything is exactly as it should be.

Of course, people who don’t think deeply enough will say, ‘Oh, but if we see that things are exactly “as they should be,” then nothing will budge.’ But no! There isn’t a fraction of a second when things aren’t moving: there’s a continuous and total transformation, a movement that never stops. Only because it’s difficult for us to feel that way can we imagine that by our entering certain states of consciousness things would not change. Even if we entered into an apparently total inertia, things would continue to change and we along with them!

Ultimately, disgust, rebellion and anger, all movements of violence, are necessarily movements of ignorance and of limitation with all the weakness that limitation implies. Rebellion is a weakness, for it’s the feeling of an impotent will. When you feel, when you see that things are not as they should be, then you rebel against whatever is out of keeping with your vision. But if you were all-powerful, if your will and your vision were all-powerful, there would be no opportunity to rebel! You would always see that all things are as they should be! That is omnipotence. Then all these movements of violence become not only useless but profoundly ridiculous.

(When asked later about the meaning of this somewhat elliptical statement, Mother said: ‘There are two stages. The first involves a mental (and possibly intuitive) vision of what will be (perhaps in an immediate future), and this is what we call seeing things “as they should be.” The other is an identification with the supreme Will and the perception that at each second everything is exactly as the Supreme wants it to be, that it is the precise expression of the Supreme. The first is a vision of what is coming and says, “That’s how things should be.” But we overlook the distance between what presently exists and what is coming. While if we go high above and become one with the Consciousness of the supreme Will, we see that at every instant, at every moment in the universe, all is exactly as it should be – exactly as the Supreme wants it to be. That is Omnipotence.’)

Consequently, there is only one solution: by aspiration, concentration, interiorization and identification, to unite with the supreme Will. And that is both omnipotence and perfect freedom. It’s the only omnipotence, the only freedom – all the rest are approximations. You may be en route, but it’s not That, not the total thing.

If you make the experiment, you will come to see that this supreme freedom and this supreme power are accompanied by a total peace and an unfaltering serenity; if you notice any contradiction – revolt, disgust or something inadmissible – this indicates that some part in You is not touched by the transformation, is still en route: something still holding on to the old consciousness, that’s all.

In this aphorism, Sri Aurobindo speaks of those who hate sinners – that one mustn’t hate sinners.

It’s the same problem seen from another angle, but the solution is the same.

But the difficulty isn’t so much not hating the sinner, but not hating the virtuous! That’s far more difficult! Because one readily understands sinners, those poor people, but the virtuous....

Actually, what you hate in them is their self-righteousness, only that. After all, they’re right not to do evil – they can’t be blamed for that! But what’s hard to tolerate is their sense of superiority, the way they look down their noses at all these poor fellows who are no worse than they!

Oh, I could cite a few shining examples!

Consider the case of a woman with many friends, and these friends are very fond of her for her special capacities, her pleasant company, and because they feel they can always learn something from her. Then all of a sudden, through a quirk of circumstances, she finds herself socially ostracized – because she may have gone off with another man, or may be living with someone out of wedlock – all those social mores with no value in themselves. And all her friends (I don’t speak of those who truly love her), all her social friends who welcomed her, who smiled so warmly when passing her on the street, suddenly look the other way and march by without a glance. This has happened right here in the Ashram! I won’t give the details, but it has happened several times when something conflicted with accepted social norms: the people who had shown so much affection, so much kindness... oh! Sometimes they even said, ‘She’s a lost woman!’

I must say that when this happens here.... In the world at large it seems quite normal, but when this happens here it always gives me a bit of a shock, in the sense that I say to myself, ‘So they’re still at that level!...’

Even those who claim to be broad-minded, above these ‘conventions,’ immediately fall right into the trap. And to ease their consciences they say, ‘Mother wouldn’t allow that. Mother wouldn’t permit that. Mother wouldn’t tolerate such a thing!’ – to add a further inanity to the rest.

This state is very difficult to get out of. It is really Pharisaism – this sense of social dignity, this narrow-mindedness – because no one with an atom of intelligence would fall into such a hole! Those who have traveled through the world, for instance, and seen for themselves that social mores depend entirely upon climatic conditions, upon races and customs and still more upon the times, the epoch – they are able to look at it all with a smile. But the self-righteous… oooh!

This is a primary stage. As long as you haven’t gone beyond this condition, you are unfit for yoga. Because truly, no one in such a rudimentary state is ready for yoga.

17. January 1961 – Our Self-deception (Aphorism 51)

51 - When I hear of a righteous wrath, I wonder at man’s capacity for self-deception.

What do you have to say?

Our self-deception is always in good faith! We always act for the welfare of others or in the interests of humanity and to serve you (that goes without saying!). How exactly do we deceive ourselves?

I would like to ask you a question in turn – because there are two ways of understanding your question. It can be taken in the same ironic or humorous tone that Sri Aurobindo has used in his aphorism when he wonders at man’s capacity for self-deception. That is, you are putting yourself in the place of the self-deceiver and saying, ‘But I am of good faith! I always want the welfare of others – the interests of humanity, to serve the Divine (of course!). Then how can I be deceiving myself?’

But actually, there are really two quite different forms of self-deception. One can be very shocked by certain things, not for personal reasons but precisely because of one’s goodwill and ardor to serve the Divine, when one sees people misconducting themselves, being egoistical, unfaithful, treacherous. There comes a stage when one has mastered these things and doesn’t permit them to manifest IN ONESELF; but to the extent that one is in contact with ordinary consciousness, ordinary viewpoints, ordinary life and thought, their possibility is still there, latent, because they are the inverse of the qualities one is striving for. And this opposition always exists until one has risen above and no longer has either the quality or the defect. As long as one has virtue, one always has its latent opposite. The opposition disappears only when one is beyond virtue and sin. But until then, there is this kind of indignation stemming from the fact that one is not entirely above: it’s a period when one totally disapproves of certain things and would be incapable of doing them. And up to this point, there is nothing to say, unless one gives an external, violent expression to his indignation. If anger interferes, it indicates an entire contradiction between the feeling one wants to have and this reaction towards others. Because anger is a deformation of vital power originating from an obscure and thoroughly unregenerate vital, a vital still subject to all the ordinary actions and reactions. When an ignorant, egoistic individual will exploits this vital power and encounters opposition from other individual wills around it, then under the pressure of opposition this power changes into anger and tries to obtain through violence what could not be achieved by the pressure of the Force alone.

Anger, moreover, like all forms of violence, is always a sign of weakness, impotence and incapacity. Here the deception comes from the approval one gives it or the flattering adjective one covers it with; for rage can be no more than blind, ignorant and asuric – opposed to the light.

But this is still the best of cases.

There is another case where people – without knowing it or because they WANT to ignore it – always pursue their personal interests, their preferences, their attachments, their concepts; people who are not entirely consecrated to the Divine and make use of moral and yogic ideas to conceal their personal motives. These people doubly deceive themselves: not only do they deceive themselves through their outer activities, their relations with others, but they also deceive themselves about their personal motives; instead of serving the Divine they are serving their own egoism. And this happens constantly, constantly! One serves his own personality, his egoism, while pretending to serve the Divine. This is no longer even self-deception: it’s sheer hypocrisy.

This mental habit of always cloaking everything with a favorable appearance, of giving all movements a favorable explanation, is at times so flagrant that it can fool nobody but oneself (although it may occasionally be subtle enough to create an illusion). It is a sort of habitual self-exoneration, the habit of giving a favorable mental excuse, a favorable mental explanation for all one does, all one says, all one feels. For example, someone with no self-control who strikes another in great indignation and is ready to call it divine wrath! Righteous is perfect, because righteous immediately introduces this element of puritanical morality – wonderful!

This power of self-deception, the mind’s craft in devising splendid justifications for any ignorance or folly whatsoever, is tremendous.

And it’s not a random experience coming now and then, it’s something you can witness minute by minute. You generally see it far more readily in others! But if you watch yourself carefully, you will catch yourself a thousand times a day – looking at things in a favorable way: ‘Oh, it’s NOT the same thing!’ And besides, it’s NEVER the same for you as it is for your neighbor!

22. January 1961 – Vital Forces causing attacks

I saw it last night… oof! It was a kind of artificial hurricane created by semi-human beings (that is, they have human forms but they aren’t men). They created the storm to cut me off from ‘my home.’ But everything and everyone was disrupted - it must have been going on for a rather long time. Finally last night it became quite amusing: I kept attempting to get to ‘my home’ which was up above, but each time I tried to find a way everything was blocked by... try to imagine, artificial, mechanical and electric thunderstorms, and then things made to cave in. All of it was artificial, nothing real, and yet terribly dangerous.

At last I found myself in a big place down below where there was a row of houses, all kinds of things, and it was absolutely essential that I go back up – when suddenly a somewhat indistinct form (rather dark, unluminous) came to me and said, ‘Oh, don’t go there, it’s very bad, very dangerous! They’ve set it all up in a terrifying way: none can withstand it! You mustn’t go there, wait a bit. And if you need something, do come, you know I have everything you need! (Mother laughs) it’s a little old and dusty but you’ll manage!’ Then she led me into a huge room filled with objects piled one on top of another, and in one corner she showed me a bathtub – my child, it was a marvel! A splendid pink marble bathtub! But it was unused, dusty and old. ‘We’ll just wipe it off,’ she said, ‘and you’ll be able to use it!’ She showed me other areas for washing and dressing, there was everything one could possibly need. ‘You can use it all. Don’t go up there!’ I looked at her closely. She struck me as having a tiny face, it was odd – it wasn’t a form, it was... it was a form and yet it wasn’t! As imprecise as that. Then I clasped her in my arms and cried out, ‘Mother, you are nice!’ (Mother laughs) I knew then that she was material Mother Nature.

After that I felt quite at ease. The battle was over – it was over FOR THE MOMENT, because they weren’t finished: they continued their uproar on the other side; but I didn’t have to go there anymore.

It has been deferred because I was still down below; I had not yet returned to the upper levels. Anyhow....

But they are furious! There is evidently a whole alignment of forces (they must be vital forces) between here and... my domain. They’re furious! They set up explosions, demolitions.... And I could see all the settings – they were quite artificial, nothing real, but dangerous nonetheless.

All in all, it was rather amusing.

You were disrupting their work, is that it?

Yes, I am disrupting their work – I know perfectly well that I am disrupting their domination of the world! All these vital beings have taken possession of the whole of Matter (Mother touches her body) – life and action – and have made it their domain, this is evident. But they are beings of the lower vital, for they seemed artificial – they didn’t express any higher form, but an entire range of artificial mechanisms, artificial will, artificial organization, all deriving from their own imagination and not at all from a higher inspiration. The symbol was very clear.

And I saw my own domain through them and through it all; I saw my domain: ‘I can see it!’, I said. But no sooner would I start on my way than the path would be lost, I no longer saw it, I couldn’t see anymore where I was going. It became almost impossible to get my bearings there: hundreds and thousands of people, things – utter confusion. An incoherent immensity – and violent, what violence!

Oh, no! (Mother laughs) I don’t use such violent means! No, no! It was very strange.... When it fell upon me (four or five days ago, I no longer recall), everything I had gained materially disappeared! As though all that had been conquered and mastered, even what had begun to change, even wrong functionings that had completely ceased, all that had been set right and brought under control: gone! Gone! Completely gone! As if everything came back in one fell swoop.

I remained perfectly tranquil, there was nothing else to do; I knew it meant a battle. I was perfectly tranquil, but I could no longer eat, I could no longer rest, do japa or walk, and my head felt as though it would burst. I could only abandon myself (Mother opens her arms in a gesture of surrender), enter into a very, very deep trance, a very deep samadhi – this is something one can always do. But that was the only thing left to me. Ideas were just as clear as ever (all that is above and doesn’t budge), but my body was in a very bad way. It was a fight, a fight at each second. The least thing, just to walk a step, was a struggle, an awful battle!

Then last night I saw the symbol, the image of the thing. But... what was it? It was an element in the most material Matter, because it was deep down below; yet despite it all, Mother Nature was in charge there: she was familiar with everything, knew everything and it was all at her disposal – absolutely the most material Nature. And she herself had no light, but was very, very... she had a concealed power that was completely invisible.

Each time I set out to leave her domain and ascend above, it triggered a hurricane. I would pass this way and the storm started up, pass that way, unleash a gale. Finally she approached me and said very gently, very sweetly, in a most unassuming way, ‘No, don’t go there, don’t go! Don’t try to return to your home. They have set up a dreadful hurricane!’ And artificial: there were explosions like bombs everywhere, and even worse, like thunderbolts. One could see the artificial tricks and electrical effects they were using to create their thunder, but it was on a tremendous scale!

It isn’t over.

I simply consented to stay there. ‘You will have all you need, stay here quietly.’ And what beautiful things she had, lovely things! They were unused and dusty. (It was surely the symbol of ancient realizations – realizations of the ancient Rishis, things like that. Who knows?) They were first class, but completely neglected and thick with dust, like material objects left unused – which no one knew HOW to use. She put them at my disposal: ‘Look, look, let me show you!’ There was a tremendous accumulation of things, piled in such great confusion that one couldn’t see. Yet the marvel of it was that when she led me to a corner to show me something, everything immediately moved aside and order was restored, so that the object she wanted to show me stood out all by itself. And oh, a thing of beauty!... Made of pink marble! A pink marble bathtub of a shape I didn’t recognize – not Roman, not antique (not modern, far from it!) – how beautiful it was! And whenever she wanted to show me something in this untidy and cluttered room full of objects piled one on top of another, they would organize themselves, take their proper place, and all became neat. ‘You will just have to dust them off a bit,’ she said. (Mother laughs)

But I’m not surprised it came down on you.

For me it was in the head (not last night but over the past few days), when I was trying to do my japa – oh, it was as though my head would burst! All the nerves were not just tense (Mother touches the nape of her neck), but cramped. And my head felt as if boiling oil were being poured inside it; it was about to explode, and I couldn’t see clearly.

Something was obviously bent on preventing me from going down for the distribution. But by an act of will I went down. ‘I will do it,’ I said. But it was difficult. There were moments when it sidled up to me: ‘Now you’re going to faint,’ and then, ‘Now your legs will no longer be able to walk. Now....’ It kept coming like that. So I kept repeating the japa the whole time, and it was touch-and-go right up to the end. Finally I couldn’t distinguish people, I saw only shapes, forms passing by, and not clearly. When the distribution was over, I got up (I knew I had to get up), I stood up without flinching and stepped down from the chair without faltering. But I was not careful and when I turned away from the light in the room to go towards the staircase – an abrupt blackout. Not the blackout of a faint – my eyes no longer saw. I saw only shadows. ‘Ah!’ I said to myself, ‘where is the step?!’ And to avoid missing it, I clutched the railing. What a commotion that made! Champaklal came rushing up, thinking I was about to fall!

Anyhow....

It was only afterwards, a long time after, that I began to see again. It was clearly something that was NOT WILLING. But when will it give in?... I can’t say. No victory has been won, far from it. And it has remained like this: status quo.

It will probably have to begin again, but in what manner?

Evidently all the vital forces who have taken the habit of ruling the earth (last night it had the proportions of the earth, it wasn’t universal) are the very ones who refuse to listen; they don’t at all like what I am doing.

You see, personal surrender and devotion is an excellent solution for the individual, but it doesn’t work for the collectivity. For example, as soon as I am alone and lying on my bed – peace! (Ah, I forgot! They had invented yet another thing: making my heartbeats irregular. Every three or four beats it would stop; then it would start up again, pounding as if I had been struck. Three, four beats, a faint little beat, then stop... then, bang! Blow after blow.... One more of their extraordinary inventions!) But, as soon as I stretch out and make a total surrender of all the cells – no more activity, nothing – everything goes well.

But I am well aware that this surrender has an effect on the action only to the extent that the Supreme Lord has decided upon the action, and those movements stretch over long periods of time (Later, on the 27th, Mother remarked: ‘I was reading about this very thing yesterday in The Secret of the Veda, in the first hymn translated by Sri Aurobindo (the reference is to the colloquy between Indra and Agastya, Rig Veda 1.170 – cf. The Secret of the Veda, Cent. Ed., X.241 ft.), and it helped me put my finger on the problem. In this hymn there is a dispute between Indra and the Rishi because the Rishi wants to progress too quickly without first passing through Indra [the god of the Mind], and Indra stops him; finally they reach an agreement. Sri Aurobindo’s commentary is quite interesting: when one has the INDIVIDUAL power to go directly, but neglects the steps which are still necessary for the whole, for the universal movement, then one is stopped short. That is absolutely my experience.’):

all sorts of things may happen before the final Victory is won. Because, for us, the scale is very small; even if it were of terrestrial proportions, it would be a very small scale; but on a universal scale.... These forces have their place and their action, their universe, and as long as their place and their action are maintained, they will be here. So before their action can be exhausted or become useless, many things can happen....

Individually, however, there is almost instantaneous bliss. But this is not a true solution... it’s a solution in the long run, by repercussion. To have true command here in this world, all of that must be mastered.

And this is the confusion made by all those people who believed that their... what they called their ‘personal salvation’ was the salvation of the world – it’s not true at all! It isn’t true – it’s a PERSONAL salvation.

(silence)

But all of that is wonderfully, accurately expressed and EXPLAINED in Savitri. Only you must know how to read it! The entire last part, from the moment she goes to seek Satyavan in the realm of Death (which affords an occasion to explain this), the whole description of what happens there, right up to the end, where every possible offer is made to tempt her, everything she must refuse to continue her terrestrial labor... it is my experience EXACTLY.

Savitri is really a condensation, a concentration of the universal Mother – the eternal universal Mother, Mother of all universes from all eternity – in an earthly personality for the Earth’s salvation. And Satyavan is the soul of the Earth, the Earth’s jiva. So when the Lord says, ‘he whom you love and whom you have chosen,’ it means the earth. All the details are there! When she comes back down, when Death has yielded at last, when all has been settled and the Supreme tells her, ‘Go, go with him, the one you have chosen,’ how does Sri Aurobindo describe it? He says that she very carefully takes the SOUL of Satyavan into her arms, like a little child, to pass through all the realms and come back down to earth. Everything is there! He hasn’t forgotten a single detail to make it easy to understand – for someone who knows how to understand. And it is when Savitri reaches the earth that Satyavan regains his full human stature.

24. January 1961 – Experience of the New Consciousness

In the middle of the night before last, I woke up (or rather I returned to an external consciousness) with the feeling of having a much larger (by larger I mean more voluminous) and much more powerful being in my body than I usually have. it was as if it could scarcely be held inside me but was spilling over; and SO COMPACTLY POWERFUL that it was almost uncomfortable. The feeling of: what to do with all this?

It lasted the remainder of the night and all day long I had considerable trouble containing an overwhelming power that spontaneously created reactions utterly disproportionate to a human body and made me speak in a way that.... When something was not going well: wham! Such an instantaneous and strong reply that it looked like anger. And I found it difficult to control the movement – it had happened already in the morning and it very nearly happened again in the afternoon. ‘That last attack has weakened me terribly!’ I told myself, I don’t have the strength to contain this Power; it’s difficult to remain calm and controlled.’ That was my first thought, so I insisted upon calm.

Then yesterday afternoon, when I went upstairs to walk, a couple of things occurred – not personal, but of a general nature – concerning, for instance, certain old-fashioned conventions having to do with women and their particular nature (not psychological, physical) – old ideas like that which had always seemed utterly stupid to me suddenly provoked a kind of reprobation completely out of proportion to the fact itself.

Then one or two other things (Satprem later asked Mother what she meant by these ‘things,’ and Mother replied: ‘For example, there was a certain man’s attitude with respect to life and to the Divine, and what he thought of himself, and so forth. You see, what came was a whole range of characters and one particular action of one man, and then something else came up.... How to explain? ... These are POINTS OF WORK which come to me, things that present themselves in the atmosphere for me to see – things I see and which have to be acted upon.’) happened in regard to certain people, certain circumstances (nothing to do with me personally: it came from here and there). Then suddenly, I saw a Force coming (‘coming,’ well, ‘manifesting’) which was the same as that ‘thing’ I had felt within me but even bigger; it began whirling upon the earth and within circumstances... oh, like a cyclone of compact power moving forward with the intention of changing all this! It had to change. At all costs, it must change!

I was above, as usual (Mother points above her head, indicating the higher consciousness), and I looked at that (Mother bends over, as if looking down at the earth), and said to myself, ‘Hmm, this is getting dangerous. If it continues like this, it will result in... in a war or a revolution or some catastrophe – a tidal wave or an earthquake.’ So I tried to counteract it by applying the highest consciousness to it, that of a perfect serenity. And I saw especially that this consciousness has been missioned to transform the earth through the Supermind and by the supramental Force, avoiding all catastrophes as far as possible: the Work is to be done as luminously and harmoniously as the earth would allow, even by going at a slower pace if need be. That was the idea. And I tried to counteract that whirlwind power with this consciousness.

(long silence)

I must say that after this, when I read The Secret of the Veda as I do each evening.... In fact, I am in very close contact with the entire Vedic world since I’ve been reading that book: I see beings, hear phrases.... It comes up in a sort of subliminal consciousness, a lot of things are from the ancient Vedic tradition. (By the way, I have even come to see that the pink marble bathtub I told you about last time, which Nature had offered me, belongs to the Vedic world, to a civilization of that epoch. – A few days later, Mother rectified: ‘I have looked at the experience again and realized that it’s not Vedic but pre-Vedic. The experience put me into contact with a civilization prior to the Vedas – the Rishis and the Vedas are a kind of transition between that vanished civilization and the Indian civilization which grew out of the Vedic Age. It was yesterday [January 26] that I perceived this, and it was quite interesting.’) There were – there are always – Sanskrit words coming up, sentences, bits of dialogue.... This is of interest, because I realized that what I had seen the other day (I told you about it) and then what I saw yesterday – that whole domain – was connected to what the Vedas call the dasyus – the panis and the dasyus (In the Vedas, the panis and dasyus represent beings or forces hidden in subterranean caves who have stolen the ‘Riches’ or the ‘Lights’, symbolized by herds of cows. With the help of the gods, the Aryan warrior must recover these lost riches, the ‘sun in the darkness,’ by igniting the flame of sacrifice. It is the path of subterranean descent.) – the enemies of the Light. And this Force that came was very clearly a power like Indra’s (Indra represents the king of the gods, the master of mental power freed from the limitations and obscurities of the physical consciousness – though something far, far greater), and at war with darkness everywhere, like this (Mother sketches in space a whirling force touching points here and there throughout the world), this Force attacked all darkness: ideas, people, movements, events, whatever made stains, patches of shadow. And it kept on going, a formidable power, so great that my hands were like this (Mother clenches her fists). Later when I read (I happened to be reading just the chapter concerning the fight against the dasyus), this proximity to my own experience became interesting, for it was not at all intellectual or mental – there was no idea, no thought involved.

The remainder of the evening passed as usual. I went to bed, and at exactly a quarter to twelve I got up with the feeling that this ‘presence’ in me had increased even further and really become rather formidable.... I had to instill a great deal of peace and confidence into my body, which felt as though... it wasn’t so easy to bear. So I concentrated, I told my body to be calm and to let itself go completely.

At midnight I was lying in bed. (And I remained there from midnight until 1 o’clock fully awake. I don’t know if my eyes were open or closed, but I was wide awake, NOT IN TRANCE – I could hear all the noises, the clocks, and so forth.) Then, lying flat, my entire body (but a slightly enlarged body, exceeding the purely physical form) became ONE vibration, extremely rapid and intense but immobile. I don’t know how to explain this, because it did not move in space but was a vibration (that is, it wasn’t motionless); yet it was motionless in space. And the exact form of my body was absolutely the most brilliant white Light of the supreme Consciousness, the consciousness OF the Supreme. It was IN the body and it was as though in EACH cell there was a vibration, and it was all part of a single BLOCK of vibration. It extended this much beyond the body (gesture indicating about six centimeters). I was absolutely immobile in my bed. Then, WITHOUT MOVING, without shifting, it began consciously to rise up – without moving, you understand: I remained like this (Mother holds her two joined and motionless hands at the level of her forehead, as if her entire body were mounting in prayer) – consciously... like an ascension of this consciousness towards the supreme Consciousness.

The body was stretched out flat.

And for a quarter of an hour, the consciousness rose, rose, without moving. It kept rising up, up, up – until... the junction was made.

A conscious junction, absolutely awake, NO TRANCE.

Thus the consciousness became the ONE Consciousness: perfect, eternal, outside time, outside space, outside movement... beyond everything, in... I don’t know, in an ecstasy, a beatitude, something ineffable.

(silence)

It was the consciousness OF THE BODY.

I have had this experience before in exteriorization and trance, but this time it was THE BODY, the consciousness of the body.

It remained like that for a certain time (I knew it was a quarter of an hour because the clock chimed), but it was completely outside time. It was an eternity.

Then, with the same precision, the same calm, the same deliberate, clear and concentrated consciousness (absolutely NOTHING MENTAL), I began to come back down. And as I was descending, I realized that all the difficulty I had been fighting the other day and which had created this illness was absolutely ended, ANNULLED – mastered. Actually, it was not even mastery but the non- existence of anything to be mastered: Simply THE vibration from top to bottom; yet there was neither high nor low nor any direction.

And it went on like that. After this, slowly, still WITHOUT MOVING, everything went back into each of the different centers of the being. (Ah, let me say parenthetically that it wasn’t AT ALL the ascent of a force like the ascent of the Kundalini! It had absolutely nothing to do with the Kundalini movement and the centers, it wasn’t that at all.) But while re-descending, it was as though WITHOUT LEAVING THIS STATE, without leaving this state which remained conscious ALL the time, this supreme Consciousness began to reactivate the different centers: first here (Mother points to the center above the head and then touches the crown of the head, the forehead, throat, chest, etc.) then there, there, there. At each there was a pause while this new realization organized everything. It organized and made the necessary decisions, sometimes down to the most minute details: what had to be done in this case or said in that case; and all of that TOGETHER, at once, not one by one but seen entirely as a whole. It kept on descending – I noted many things, it was extremely interesting – down and down, farther and farther, right to the depths. Everything went on at the same time, (Later, Mother added: ‘All the experiences took place one after the other, but the new experience did not cancel the preceding one. The Consciousness – this supreme Unity that I had – remained all the time, to the very end, even while the other centers were awakening. And each center that awakened was a kind of addition, taking away nothing from what had come before. So at the end it was all simultaneous: a kind of global consciousness – total and simultaneous – of everything.... You see, while rising up (one is obliged to say “rising” and “descending” for otherwise one would never be understood), while “rising up” to reach this supreme Consciousness, all the rest was annulled, there was only That. When the supreme Consciousness was realized, it remained ALL the time, continuously, to the very end, it did not move; but meanwhile, the other centers began to awaken one after another. And each awakening center assumed its place but canceled nothing either of what had come before or of what was about to come, so that when I reached the end, all of it together was a simultaneous whole – the Supreme Consciousness.’ When Satprem asked if this Supreme Consciousness was the ‘New Consciousness,’ Mother replied, ‘Not “new!” One can’t say “new” – Supreme Consciousness.’) simultaneously, and at the same time this supreme Consciousness was organizing everything separately. (This entire experience and Mother’s insistence that it all happened ‘without moving,’ unlike the experience of the ascent of the Kundalini, suggests that it is the supramental consciousness concealed in the depths of the cells, that somehow emerges and traverses all the layers until the junction is made with the most material body-consciousness.)

This descending reorganization ended exactly when the clock struck one. At that moment I knew that I had to go into trance for the work to be perfected, but until then I was wide awake.

So I slipped into trance.

I came out of this trance two hours later, at 3 a.m. And during these two hours I saw... with a new consciousness, a new vision, and above all a NEW POWER – I had a vision of the entire Work: all the people, all the things, all the systems, all of it. And it was... it was different in appearance (this is only because appearances depend upon the needs of the moment), but mainly it differed IN POWER – A considerable difference. Considerable. The power itself was no longer the same. (Later, Mother added: ‘The Power that was acting was no longer the power that had been acting previously.’)

A truly ESSENTIAL change in the body has occurred.

I see that the body will have to – how can I express it?... It will have to accustom itself to this new Power. But essentially the change has been accomplished.

It’s not... it is far, very far from being the final change, there’s a lot more to be done. But we may say that it’s the conscious and total presence of the supramental Force in the body.

(silence)

When I got up today, I was going over all this to myself, and my first instinct was not to speak of it, to observe and see what would happen; but then I received a distinct and precise Command to tell it to you this morning. The experience had to be noted down just as it occurred, recorded in its exact form.

In the body now, there is a very clear... not only a certitude, but a feeling that a certain omnipotence is not far away, and that very soon when it sees (‘it’ sees... ‘it’! There is only one ‘It’ in this whole affair, which is neither ‘he’ nor ‘she’ nor...), when it sees that something must be, it automatically will be.

There is still a long, long way to go. But the first step on the way has been taken.

***

(Shortly afterwards, concerning a rampant flu epidemic.)

There is a terrible epidemic in the country – a triple epidemic.

Does a servant come to your house?... No one is sick in his family? Because what happens is that they don’t want to lose their jobs or their salary, so they don’t warn you. They may have smallpox or measles or chickenpox and they don’t take the slightest care to wash or change their clothes; they come to your house and of course they bring along the disease. So the number of cases keeps multiplying and multiplying. I have been meaning to tell Pavitra to be careful of that little character who works for him – even ordinarily I don’t like to see him running around here. It’s strange how it sullies the atmosphere – oh, you can’t imagine! Almost all of them, almost all!

It’s not at all the same as in the West, in Europe or America, not at all. Basically, the people in those countries are made of the same stuff as we are. But here that’s not the case, because for centuries it never changed – a Brahmin, for example, always remained a Brahmin, a Kshatria was always a Kshatria and all his servants were Kshatrias. It stayed in the family, in the sense that in each caste the servants – often poor relatives – be longed to that same caste. From a social standpoint this might not have been too pleasant, but as far as atmosphere was concerned, it was very good. This was changed, however, first by the Muslim invasion, and then especially by the British.

The British, you see, were served only by pariahs (in fact, it’s we Europeans who named them that!). But they were not actually pariahs by birth, they became pariahs out of HABIT.

I have studied the problem very closely, because when you come from Europe you bring all your European ideas with you and you don’t know or understand a thing about the way it really is. I immediately came into contact with Brahmin servants and pariah servants, but I didn’t know that some were Brahmins and others pariahs, nobody had told me anything; it depended upon the people I was with and the places I went. But the contact, the atmosphere (gesture of fingering the air).... You know, I didn’t even need to touch them physically! There was such a difference that I asked Sri Aurobindo, ‘But what is it?’ So he explained the whole thing to me.

You see, originally these ‘pariahs’ were people who took their delight (their pleasure) in filth and falsehood, in crime, in violence and robbery – it was a joy for them. They had castes among themselves; there is still a caste of brigands nearby – I once went to their village to have a look – people who always keep a dagger on them, they love to play with daggers. They steal not so much out of need as out of pleasure. And dirty-they abhor cleanliness! And they will lie even if they have to contradict themselves fifteen minutes later, for the sheer delight of lying.

What an atmosphere it creates!... It’s palpable (Mother fingers the air).

I had a woman here with me who was born among these people. She had been adopted by Thomas (the French musician who composed the comic-opera, Mignon). They had come to India and found this little girl who at the time was very young; she was only thirteen, quite pretty and nice. So they took her back to France with them as a nanny and treated her as one of their own children. She was cared for, educated, given everything, treated absolutely like one of the family; she remained there for twenty years. Moreover, she was gifted with clairvoyance and could tell fortunes by reading palms, which she did remarkably well. She even worked for a while in a café, the Moulin-Rouge or a similar place, as a ‘Hindu Fortune Teller’! What a maharani she was, with her magnificent jewels – and beautiful, as well. In short, she had completely left all her old habits behind.

Then she returned to India and I took her in with me. I continued to treat her almost as a friend and I helped her to develop her gifts.... Mon petit, (Mother frequently addressed Satprem as ‘mon petit’ or ‘petit,’ terms of endearment she used for very few other people. We have unfortunately been unable to find English equivalents that capture the nuances of Mother’s simple ‘petit’ and ‘mon petit,’ and so have decided to leave them in the original French wherever they appear.) how dirty she started to get, lying, stealing, and absolutely needlessly – she had money, she was well treated, she had everything she needed, she ate what we did – there was absolutely no reason! When I finally asked her, ‘But why, why!?’ (she was no longer young at this point), she replied, ‘When I came back here, it took hold of me again; it’s stronger than I am.’ That was a revelation for me! Those old habits had been impervious to education.

We think these people are the way they are because the environment is bad, the education is poor, the conditions are difficult – it’s not true! In the universal economy of things they REPRESENT something, a certain type of force and vibration. It will have to be either dissolved or transformed. Transformed? But perhaps that is.... It may disappear along with the hostile forces. Perhaps once everything has been transformed it will disappear – I don’t know when.

In any case, I really tried my best, with all the power I had, all the knowledge I had, because I liked this girl a lot, it wasn’t at all a question of charity, I found her very interesting. But I watched – with a kind of horror, really – as this past repossessed her more and more, more and more each day, until we were finally obliged to dismiss her, to tell her, ‘Go.’ ‘Yes, I understand,’ she replied, ‘I can’t stay here.’

She lived in France from the age of thirteen, with all that those people did for her! (It was Ambroise Thomas, I remember now. They were so kind to her.) And naturally she had picked up very fine manners – the outer appearances were all there.

All this is just to tell you that some contacts are not very favorable. And I understand full well: I could never tolerate people like that coming into my room – sometimes it would take me hours and hours to put things right!

We have to be careful.

There was a time when we had only a minimum of servants here and they always remained apart – we never had an epidemic. I don’t know for how many years it was – years and years while Sri Aurobindo was here – we never had a single case of an epidemic disease. It began when people started coming here with children; necessarily they brought their servants along with them, who went to the bazaar and even to the movies and here and there. Then everything came in.

But now the situation is bad. There are something like thirty cases of measles, four or five of smallpox and some chickenpox as well. You must be careful. I need you in good health, otherwise we’ll have to stop everything!

There are places where it happens like that: suddenly everything stops – no more school, no more mail, no more trains. I remember a poor little village in Japan where they had a flu epidemic, the first of its kind. They didn’t know what it was and the whole village fell ill. It was winter, the village was snowed in and there was no more communication with the outside (the mail came only once every fifteen days). The postman arrived... and everyone was dead, buried beneath the snow.

I was there in Japan when it happened. A little vale of snow – no one left.

27. January 1961 – The Limitation of Languages

They are only too eager to believe that God can get angry with them!

I try to dispel this notion as much as I can, because it’s not true – it isn’t true.

(long silence)

This time, something has really been achieved.

Since the last experience [January 24] I see it daily. The following day, probably for reasons connected with the body’s development and adaptation, I was rather seriously ill – what is usually called ‘painfully ill’: the body was suffering a lot, or WOULD HAVE suffered a lot had it been in its former normal consciousness. That’s where I saw the difference – a fantastic difference!

I was perfectly conscious (now when I say ‘I’, it refers to my body, I am not speaking of the whole higher consciousness), the body was perfectly conscious of its suffering, the reason for its suffering, the cause of its suffering, everything – and it did not suffer. You understand, the two perceptions were there together: the body saw the disorder, saw the suffering just as it would have felt it a few weeks earlier, it saw all that (‘saw,’ ‘knew’... I don’t know how to express it – it was conscious, it was aware) and it did not suffer. The two awarenesses were absolutely simultaneous.

There is now a kind of VERY PRECISE knowledge of the whole inner mechanism for all things – and what has to be done materially. This is developing, as a flower blossoms: you see one petal open and then another and then another; it is proceeding like that, slowly, taking its time. It’s the same process for the Power.

To illustrate this, an interesting thing came up – yesterday, I think. (All these experiences come to show me the difference, as if to give proof of the change.) Someone had had a dream about me whispered to him by the adverse forces for specific reasons (I won’t go into the details). He was much affected by it, so he wrote down the dream and gave it to me. I was carrying his letter along with all the others, as I usually do, but suddenly I knew I had to read it right away: I read it. Then I saw the whole thing with such clarity, precision, accuracy: how it had come about, how the dream had been produced, its effect – the whole functioning of all the forces. As I read along and it went on unfolding, I did what was necessary for him (he was present at the time) in order to undo what the adverse forces had done. Then at the end, when I had finished, said everything, explained what it was all about and what had to be done, something SO CATEGORICAL came into me (I cannot verbalize this kind of experience, it is what I call the ‘difference’ in power: something categorical). I took the letter, uttered a few words (which I won’t repeat) and said, ‘You see, it’s like this: so much for that,’ and I ripped the letter a first time. ‘Then, that’s for that,’ I tore it a second time... and so on. I ripped it up five times and the fifth time I saw that their power was destroyed.

I have done these things before – it’s a knowledge I already had – and it always had its effect when I did them; it’s not that I am passing from powerlessness to power, not at all. But it’s this kind of... yes, something definite, absolute – a kind of absolute in vision, in knowledge, in action and ABOVE ALL in power – a kind of absolute that doesn’t need to conquer obstacles and resistances, but ANNULS the resistance automatically. Then I saw that something had truly changed.

(After a digression, Mother gives another example of the change:)

I told you something concerning the power of the will, didn’t I?...

Well, yesterday I saw R. He was asking me questions about his work and particularly about the knowledge of languages (he’s a scholar, you know, and very familiar with the old traditions). This put me in contact with that whole world and I began speaking to him a little about what I had already said to you concerning my experience with the Vedas. And all at once, in the same [absolute] way as I told you, when I entered into contact with that world a whole domain seemed to open up, a whole field of knowledge from the standpoint of languages, of the Word, of the essential Vibration, that vibration which would be able to reproduce the supramental consciousness. It all came, so clear, so clear, luminous, indisputable – but unfortunately there was no tape recorder!

It was about the Word, the primal sound. Sri Aurobindo speaks of it in Savitri: the essence of the Word and how it will express itself, how it will bring in the possibility of a supramental expression that will take the place of languages.... I began by speaking to him about the different languages, their limitations and possibilities; and I warned him against the deformations imposed on languages with the idea of making them a more flexible means of expressing something else. I told him how completely ridiculous it all was, and that it didn’t correspond at all to the truth. Then little by little I began ascending to the Origin. So yesterday again, I had this same experience: a whole world of knowledge, of consciousness and of CERTAINTY – precluding the least possibility of contradiction, discussion, or opposition; the possibility DOES NOT EXIST, it doesn’t exist. And the mind was absolutely silent and immobile, listening with obvious pleasure because these things had never before come into my consciousness; I had never been concerned with them in that way. It was completely new – not new in principle but completely new in action.

The experiences are multiplying.

A sound that can bring in the supramental Force?

Yes. While speaking, you see, I went back to the origin of sound (Sri Aurobindo describes it very clearly in Savitri: the origin of sound, the moment when what we called ‘the Word’ becomes a sound). So I had a kind of perception of the essential sound before it becomes a material sound. And I said, ‘When this essential sound becomes a material sound, it will give birth to the new expression which will express the supramental world.’ I had the experience itself at that moment, it came directly. I spoke in English and Sri Aurobindo was concretely, almost palpably, present.

Now it has gone away.

29. January 1961 – The Nectar of Immortality (Aph. 53)

53 – The quarrels of religious sects are like the disputing of pots, which shall be alone allowed to hold the immortalizing nectar. Let them dispute, but the thing for us is to get at the nectar in whatever pot and attain immortality.

This consciousness of immortality... is OUR becoming conscious of the realms where immortality exists; but to bring immortality into the physical consciousness requires not only a transformation of physical consciousness but a transformation of physical substance as well. So....

31. January 1961 – Addendum to Mother's experience (24. Jan)

(Concerning the experience related on January 24, of the supramental Force reorganizing the activity of each center of consciousness. The experience ended in a deep trance: ‘I slipped into trance...’)

I neglected to mention something very important.

At the moment of my coming out of the trance, I had a very concrete, positive perception (not a mental understanding, it didn’t come from the being’s intellectual part, the part that understands and explains everything and Is symbolized, I think, by Indra; it wasn’t in any way conveyed through that higher intelligence, it wasn’t mental). A kind of perception (not really a sensation, it was more than a sensation) of the almost total unimportance of the external, material expression of the body’s condition: the consciousness OF THE BODY was absolutely indifferent to external, physical signs, whether they were like this or like that (the BODY’S consciousness was what had experienced the identity). And this body-consciousness had the perception of the EXTREME RELATIVITY of the most material expression.

I am translating it to make myself understood – it wasn’t like that at the time of the experience. Suppose, for example, that there was a disorder here or there in the body, not actually an illness (because illness implies some important inner factor such as an attack or the necessity for some transformation, many different things), but the outer expression of a disorder, such as swollen legs or a malfunctioning liver – not an illness, a disorder, a functional disorder. Well, it was all utterly unimportant: IT IN NO WAY CHANGES THE BODY’S TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS. Although we are in the habit of thinking that the body is very disturbed when it’s ill, when something is going wrong, it’s not so. It isn’t disturbed in the way we understand it.

Then what is disturbed if not the body?

Oh, it’s the physical mind, this stupid mind! It makes all the trouble, always.

It isn’t the body at all?

No! The body is VERY enduring.

Then what suffers?

Suffering also comes through the physical mind, because if this entity is calmed down, we no longer suffer – exactly what happened to me!

The physical mind, you see, makes use of the nervous substance; if we withdraw it from the nervous substance, we no longer feel anything, for that’s what gives us the perception of sensation.... We know something is wrong, but we no longer suffer from it.

This was a very important experience. Afterwards (especially yesterday afternoon and this morning), I gradually began to realize that this kind of indifferent detachment is the ESSENTIAL condition for the establishment of true Harmony in the most material Matter – the most external, physical Matter (Mother pinches the skin of her hand).

This experience has been like a stage – an indispensable stage for establishing this complete detachment; an indispensable stage so that the harmony of the body-consciousness (which came with the body’s experience of the Divine) might have its effect upon the most external, superficial part of the body.

(silence)

This is the logical consequence of the research I have been doing for a long time now on the cause of illnesses and how to overcome them.

This ought to be noted down, because it’s important. It has seemed all the more important to me these last two days. Beginning yesterday evening, there was a whole series of experiences, and this morning I came to a certain conclusion, whose starting point, I realized, was that experience I had upon coming out of trance....

The rest will come later.

It was the very moment I was coming out of the trance, at 3 a.m. – I came out of it with that; it was the first contact. I had forgotten to mention this to you because it took on importance only very recently.

31. January 1961 – Experimenting with time

...it’s because we are still too bound up in the outermost form of things. You can’t imagine the difference this makes! One does the SAME thing in exactly the same way, the motion is identical, but in one case it takes time, while in the other case it doesn’t.

I have experienced this very concretely. In the mornings, for instance, I have a very short time, very limited and very fixed, to get to the balcony for darshan, and there are a number of completely material things I must do beforehand. It’s quite natural to feel that time must always be the same – but it’s not true. It’s not true – even I am astonished!

With my japa the contrast is the same, it’s absolutely astounding: I feel I am saying the words in the same way, with the same sound, exactly the same rhythm, but in some cases, with a particular inner attitude, the time by the clock is different! Yet nevertheless, bound up as we are in our physical Matter, we imagine it has taken exactly the same amount of time! That’s what is so strange, this extraordinary relativity vis-à-vis the clock.

This must be what they tried to express by Joshua making the sun stand still.

There is something there... to be found. Something extraordinary. How wonderful it will be when we find it!

There are a few secrets like that – I feel them as secrets. And now and then it’s as though I am given an example, as though I am being told, ‘You see, that’s really how it is.’ And I am dumbfounded.... In ordinary language, one would say, ‘It’s miraculous!’ But it isn’t miraculous, it is something to be found.

(In the equations of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, quantities as ‘immutable’ as the mass of a body, the frequency of a vibration, or the time separating two events, are linked to the speed of the system where the physical event takes place. Recent experiments in outer space have allowed the validity of Einstein’s equations to be verified. Thus a clock on a satellite in constant rotation around the Earth will measure sixty seconds between two audio signals, while an identical clock on Earth measures sixty-one seconds between the same two signals: time ‘slows down’ as speed increases. It is like the story of the space traveler returning to Earth less aged than his twin: you pass into another ‘frame of reference.’

It is striking that Mother’s body-experiences very often parallel recent theories of modern physics, as if mathematical equations were the means of formulating in human language certain complex phenomena, remote from our day to day reality, which Mother was living spontaneously in her body – perhaps ‘at the speed of light.)