April 1961

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07. April 1961 – When the body becomes passive and quiet!

I am continuing my reading of the Veda. I had to stop for some days because of a sore throat. But anyway, I’m starting again.

The Vedas, after all, were written by people who remembered a radical experience, which must have taken place on earth at a given moment, as an example of what was to come. (This always happens in the yoga: a first radical experience comes like a herald of the future realization.) So in the terrestrial yoga – in the yoga of the earth, of the planet earth – there was a moment when it came; they who are called the forefathers must have created, through their effort and their yoga, at least an image of the supramental realization. And those who wrote the Vedas, who composed all these hymns, remembered or kept the tradition of that experience. And oh, mon petit, it had the same effect on me as when I read the ‘Yoga of Self-Perfection’ in The Synthesis of Yoga (Mother catches her breath): there is such a gulf between what we are, what life on earth and human consciousness now are, even among the most enlightened, the most advanced, and THAT!...

I don’t know if it’s because I have been so violently attacked – bludgeoned – by all these malevolent energies, but in any case, I sensed acutely the FORMIDABLE immensity of what has to be done... in order for THAT to be realized.

(silence)

When external difficulties subside, when the body becomes passive and quiet, when it is not constantly demanding attention, then you can LIVE in this supramental consciousness and it does not seem so difficult; you feel it is so victorious in its essence that it will end all difficulties.

But for this to come about, you must remain for a while on those higher reaches and not be constantly, constantly dragged down below where you have to fight each minute simply to LAST – to last in all ways: not just personally, but collectively. It’s a minute-to-minute bout, simply to last. And how long do we have to last for the thing to be done?...

It is a difficult period.

And there has been a decline in everyone’s health. Many people are sick. The illnesses are of a more serious nature – there has been a decline.

You have to look at all this with a smile, of course (and I do), but I must say that... the enthusiastic side (you know, that fire of enthusiasm)... has been dampened. Well, there’s no need to get excited – it will take time.

We just have to keep on going, keep on moving: one step after another, one step after another, one step after another, without asking how many steps it’s going to take, or recalling how many we’ve taken.

What we really have to do is come alive from minute to minute, living always in the present moment, stubbornly, like this (Mother puts a fist on the arm of her chair, then another, and so on, in a slow, dogged, unrelenting march).

It’s not something ‘miraculous,’ you know. To be really satisfied, the human mind always needs some kind of miracle. In its thought, the miraculous is associated with the Divine. I know, because I was born like that. I felt like that when I was very young. And only because life has dealt me some extremely brutal denials have I come to this kind of... sober and reasonable attitude. You know (I told you this the other day), it’s disgusting! (Mother laughs) All the bloom has gone... banished by the hard knocks of life. For I was born with this feeling that... yes, that Truth is something miraculous, which has only to show itself to prevail.

It would be like that – without the adverse forces.

The universe would be like that, if it had not been for the deviation of the adverse forces – I see it very clearly. The perversion, the cold-blooded and cruel perversion of sheer malevolent will keeps it from being like that. That’s what intervenes.... They all call it an ‘accident,’ but a lot of good that does us! The fact is there.

The adverse force is what keeps the Divine from blossoming miraculously whenever He appears. Because I know that wherever Matter is not under the influence of this adverse will to any degree, it blossoms immediately. And everything in the human heart, in human consciousness, in human thought, all that is slightly sheltered from this adverse influence – sheltered by the psychic, the divine Presence – blossoms, becomes... immediately becomes marvelous, without any obstacle – all the obstacles come from that source. So it’s all very well to call it an ‘accident,’ but....

It’s obviously reparable, there’s no doubt about that, but at what price? And how it complicates things!

We are told it will be all the more beautiful later – I am absolutely sure of this – I don’t doubt it for a minute, but....

The world as it is, really... say what you like, even upon the most perfect heights, it’s woeful. It is woeful.

There have been moments, you know, in supreme experiences of perfect union in a wondrous Love, when I have turned towards the world – simply turned the consciousness for a second towards the world as it is... (with the aspiration, I remember, for EVERYTHING to participate) and in that state of ecstasy, really, there were... tears of burning sorrow. It happened just like that.

Theoretically, it shouldn’t be that way, but in fact it is. Something will never be perfect until this accident has been abolished.

That is my experience.

And to come to this experience I had to pass through a state of the most supreme indifference, where the whole terrestrial manifestation is an illusion; I passed through that, I had my experience BEYOND that. And beyond that... at the moment of supreme ecstasy came fiery tears of grief.

(silence) I have wondered, at times, whether some extraordinary tapasya might not achieve that.... But....

(silence)

But the indispensable foundation is truly an indomitable courage and unflinching endurance – from the most material cells of the body to the highest consciousness, from top to bottom, entirely. Without that, we’re pretty useless.

And I am really in the most favorable conditions, because my body says ‘yes.’ It says yes, yes, yes – it doesn’t complain. This may be the sense behind all this illness and difficulty.... Not a single day of complaint.

The night before last I was again awakened at midnight (not ‘awakened’: I came out of my trance) with those stings burning from inside out, from the tips of the feet up to here, everywhere, in the back... it lasted four hours, non-stop. Well, my body didn’t once complain. Not once did it ask for it to stop; it just kept quiet, saying: ‘Thy Will be done.’ And not only saying it but FEELING it, quietly – four hours of minuscule tortures. It didn’t say a thing.

Saying nothing is elementary for me! But the body didn’t say anything – it didn’t even fidget; it didn’t even have, you know, that feeling of, ‘When will it be over?’ Nothing. It just stayed quiet, quiet. I was like a statue in my bed, stinging from head to toe. So I really can’t complain! The instrument I have been given is of truly good quality. An unflinching goodwill.

But without any doubt, this is diabolical.

12. April 1961 – Mother's cat stories

I once had a cat with almost a child’s consciousness, and someone poisoned it. And when he came back poisoned, dying, I cursed all people who poison cats. And that’s serious, so you mustn’t do it. It was a real curse – I was with Sri Aurobindo, so it was serious – so don’t do it.

But there is a way....

You know, I made a pact with cats, with the King of the Cats – it goes back very, very far. And it’s extraordinary (it happened in Tlemcen, entirely on the occult plane), extraordinary! For certain reasons, the King of the Cats gave me a power over these creatures – and it’s true. Only I have to see them.

We shall try.

(silence)

What do these animals represent in the terrestrial manifestation? They’re so strange....

Cats are vital forces, incarnations of vital forces. The King of the Cats – that is, the spirit of the species – is a being of the vital world.

For instance, cats can very easily incarnate the vital force of a dead person. I have had two absolutely astounding experiences of this.

The first was with a boy who was a Sanskritist and had wanted to come to India with us. He was the son of a French ambassador – an old, noble family. But he learned that his lungs were bad, and so he joined the Army; he enlisted as an officer, just at the start of the 1914 war. And he had the courage of those who no longer cling to life; when he received the order to advance on the enemy trenches (it was incredibly stupid, simply sending people to be slaughtered!), he didn’t hesitate. He went. And he was hit between the two lines. For a long time, it was a no man’s land; only after some days, when the other trench had been taken, could they go and collect the dead. All this came out in the newspapers AFTERWARDS. But on the day he was killed, of course, no one was aware of it.

I had a nice photo of him with a Sanskrit dedication, placed on top of a kind of wardrobe in my bedroom. I open the door and... the photo falls. (There was no draft or anything.) It fell and the glass broke into smithereens. Immediately I said, ‘Oh! Something has happened to... Fontenay.’ (That was his name: Charles de Fontenay.) After that I came back down from my room, and then I hear a miaowing at the door (the door opened onto a large garden courtyard). I open the door: a cat bursts in and jumps on me, like that (Mother thumps her breast). I speak to him: ‘What is it, what’s the matter?’ He drops to the ground and looks at me – Fontenay’s eyes! Absolutely! No one else’s. And he just stayed put, he didn’t want to go. I said to myself, ‘Fontenay is dead.’

The news came a week later. But the newspapers gave the date when they had moved out of the trenches and been killed – it had been on that day.

(silence)

The other story dates farther back. I was living in another house (we had the whole fifth floor), and once a week I used to hold meetings there with people interested in occultism – they came to have me demonstrate or tell them about occult practices. There was a Swedish artist, a French lady and... a young French boy, a student and a poet. His parents were decent country people who bled themselves white to pay for his life in Paris. This boy was very intelligent and a true artist, but he was depraved. (We knew about it, but it was his private life and none of our business.) One evening, when four or five of us were to meet, this boy didn’t turn up, although he had said he would. We had our meeting anyway and didn’t think much about it – we thought he must have been busy elsewhere. Around midnight, when the people were leaving, I open the door. A big black cat was sitting in the doorway and, in a single bound, it jumps on me, just like that, all curled up in a ball. So I calm it down, I look at it – ‘Ah, the eyes!’ They were this boy’s eyes. (I no longer recall his name.) Right away (at the time we were all involved in occultism), we knew something had happened; he had been unable to come and the cat had incarnated his vital force.

The next day, all the newspapers were full of a vile murder: a pimp had murdered this boy – it was disgusting! Something utterly vile. And it had happened at the very moment he should have come – the concierge had seen him going into the house with this pimp. What happened? Was it just for money or for something else – vice? Or what?

But both times, the incarnation was so (how to put it?) powerful that the eyes changed; the eyes of the cat changed completely into the eyes of the dead person. Unmistakable. Both came to me and both times there was the same movement, the same kind of feline howl – you know how they sound.

But I have had some cats.... I had a cat who was the reincarnation of the mind of a Russian woman. I had a vision of it one day, it was so strange – this woman had been murdered at the time of the Russian Revolution, along with her two little children. And her mind entered a cat here. (How? I don’t know.) But this cat, mon petit.... I got her when she was very young. She would come and lie down, stretched out like a human being, with her head on my arm! (I used to sleep on a Japanese tatami on the floor.) And she would stay there, so well-behaved, didn’t stir all night long! I was really amazed. Then she had kittens, and wanted to give birth to them lying stretched out, not at all like a cat. It was very difficult to make her understand that it couldn’t be done that way! And one night after she had had her kittens, I saw her... I saw a young woman in furs, with a fur bonnet – you could just see a tiny human face; she had two little ones and she came to me and placed them at my feet. Her whole story was there in her consciousness: how she and the two children had been murdered. And then I realized she was the cat!

The cat wouldn’t leave her kittens for a moment! Not for anything. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t go outside to relieve herself, nothing: she stayed put. So I told her, ‘Bring me your kittens.’ (If you know how to handle them, cats understand very well when they’re spoken to.) ‘Bring me your little ones.’ She looked at me, went and brought one of her kittens, and placed it between my feet. Then she went to fetch the other one and placed it between my feet (not beside, between my feet). ‘Now you can go out,’ I told her. And out she went.

I had another cat named Kiki. He had a wonderful color and was just like velvet. We used to have meditations and he would come, get up on a chair and go into trance; he would make the brusque movements of trance during the meditation. And I had to rouse him out of it, otherwise he wouldn’t wake up!

Once this cat was stung by a scorpion. A foolhardy youngster, he used to play with scorpions. I had to rescue him one day; I came onto the verandah just when he was playing with a big scorpion. I caught the cat, put him on my shoulder and killed the scorpion. But another time I wasn’t there, and he was stung. He came inside, done for. I clearly saw the signs that he had been poisoned by a scorpion. I put him on a table and went to call Sri Aurobindo. ‘Kiki has been stung by a scorpion,’ I said. (He was dying, almost in a coma.) Sri Aurobindo pulled up a chair, sat down facing the table and began to gaze at Kiki. This lasted about twenty or twenty-five minutes. Then suddenly the cat relaxed completely and... fell asleep. When he woke up, he was entirely cured.

Sri Aurobindo didn’t touch him, he didn’t do anything; he simply gazed at him.

I had another cat I called Big Boy. Oh, how beautiful he was! Enormous! A tail like the train of a gown. He was beautiful! Since there were all kinds of cats prowling around, including a big fierce tomcat who was extremely vicious, I was very afraid for this one when he was little and I got him used to spending his nights inside (which is hard for a cat to do). I forbade him to go out. So he spent his nights inside and when I got up in the morning, he got up too and came and sat down in front of me. Then I would say, ‘All right, Big Boy, you can go,’ and he would jump out the window and go off – but never before. And this is the one who was poisoned.

Because later on he would go roaming about; he had become terribly strong and would prowl around everywhere. At that time I was living in the Library house, and he would go off as far as the Ashram street (the Ashram didn’t belong to us yet, the house was owned by all kinds of people), but when I would go out on the terrace across from Champaklal’s kitchen and call, ‘Big boy! Big Boy!’ although he couldn’t hear it, he could sense it, and he would come back galloping, galloping. He always came back, unfailingly. The day he didn’t come back, I got worried; the servant went looking for him – and found him moaning, vomiting, poisoned. He brought him to me. Oh, really! it was.... He was so nice! He wasn’t a thief or anything – he was a wonderful cat. Someone had laid out poison for god knows what cat, and he ate it. I showed him to Sri Aurobindo and said, ‘He has been killed.’

Before that, I lost another one from that kind of typhoid cats get. He was called Browny and he was so beautiful, so nice, such a marvelous cat! Even when utterly sick, he wouldn’t make a mess, except in a corner prepared just for that; he would call me to carry him to his box, with such a soft and mournful voice. He was so nice, with something sweeter and more trusting than a child. There is a trust in animals which doesn’t exist in humans (even children already have too much of a questioning mind). But with him, there was a kind of worship, an adoration, as soon as I took him in my arms – if he could have smiled, he would have. As soon as I held him, he became blissful.

That one too was beautiful, with such a color! Golden chestnut, I have never seen a cat like him. He is buried here beneath the tree I named ‘Service.’ I put him beneath the roots myself. There had been an old mango tree there that was withering away. We replaced it with a little copper pod tree with yellow flowers.

These animals are so nice when you know how to handle them.

When I moved here to the Ashram, I said, ‘We can’t bring any cats into this house, it’s quite impossible.’ This was after Big Boy’s death, and we had had enough of cats. I gave away the others, but the first one, the mother of the whole line, was old and didn’t want to leave, so I felt her behind. She stayed in a house over there, within the Ashram compound. And one day – she was very old and could no longer move – I saw her come dragging in and sit down on that terrace on the other side. (Now you can’t see it any more – the Service Tree has hidden it completely – but in those days you could see it very clearly.) She came and sat down over there where she could watch me... until she died. Quietly, without moving, she died watching me.

All these cat stories! If we had photographs, we could make a pretty little album of cat stories.

And extraordinary, extraordinary details! Showing such intelligence, oh!... This woman – I mean this cat who had been a woman – if you knew how she brought up her children, oh! With such patience, such intelligence and understanding! It was extraordinary. One could tell long, long stories: how she taught them not to be afraid, to walk along the edge of walls, to jump from a wall to a window. She showed them, encouraged them, and finally, after showing and encouraging them very often (some would jump, others were afraid), she would give them a push! So of course they would jump immediately.

And she taught them everything. To eat, to.... This cat would never eat before they had all eaten.

She would show them what to do, give each one what it needed. And once they had grown up and she didn’t have to look after them anymore, if they kept coming back she would send them away: ‘Go away! Your turn is over, it’s finished. Go out into the world!’ And she would take care of the new ones.

Once one of her kittens was ill. She was pretty and gray colored, clear gray like a very soft fur, very pretty. She had caught this cat sickness and was lying down. And the mother was teaching all the little ones not to come near her; she would make them go all the way around, as if her instinct told her it was contagious. And you would see them (the sick kitten was right in their way) going all the way around, never coming near.

These cat stories went on for years and years....

And it isn’t true that they don’t obey! It’s just that we don’t know how to handle them. Cats are extremely sensitive to the vital force, to vital power, and they can be made perfectly obedient – and with such devotion! Cats are said to be neither devoted nor attached nor faithful, but that’s not true at all. You can have quite a friendly relationship with them.

And, an incredible thing... this cat was very pretty, but she had a wretched tail, a tail like an ordinary cat; and one day when I was with her at the window, one of the neighbor’s cats wandered into the garden – an angora with three colors, three very prominent colors, and such a beautiful tail trailing behind! So I said (my cat was just beside me), ‘Oh! Just see how beautiful she is! What a beautiful tail she has!’ And I could see my cat looking at her. My child, in her next litter she had one exactly like that! How did she manage it? I don’t know. Three prominent colors and a magnificent tail! Did she hunt up a male angora? Or did she just will for it intensely?

They are really something, you can’t imagine! Once, when she was due to give birth and was very heavy, she was walking along the window ledge and... I don’t know what happened, but she fell. She had wanted to jump from the ledge, but she lost her footing and fell. It must have injured something. The kittens didn’t come right away, they came later, but three of them were deformed (there were six in all). Well, when she saw how they were, she simply sat on them – killed them as soon as they were born. Such incredible wisdom! (They were completely deformed: the hind paws were turned the wrong way round – they would have had an impossible life.)

And she used to count her little ones. She knew perfectly well how many she had. I just had to tell her, ‘Keep only two or three’ – although the first time there were only three, which was still too many, yet it was absolutely impossible not to let her keep them all. But later on I had to chide her. I didn’t take them from her, but I would speak to her, convince her: ‘It’s too much, you’ll be ill. Just keep these. See how nice these two are. Take care of them.’

Oh, what lovely cat stories! That was a whole period... for many, many years.... Many years.

Mind you, I would never have considered having any, but two cats were already there when I came to the house. They were not very interesting cats, but they became the parents of the one I just told you about (those boys who were living with Sri Aurobindo had already had some experience; they knew quite a few things about cats), and that was the origin of all the cats I had here. But people (you know how simplistic they always are!) believed I had some special attachment for cats, so then of course everybody started keeping cats! It was no use my telling them, ‘No, it’s a particular study we’re making – I wanted to see, to learn certain things, and I learned what I had to – but now that I have moved to another house, the cat era is over; the old friends are gone, only the younger generation is left.’ I gave them all away and said) ‘That’s enough.’ But it’s hard to make people understand – some people here have 25 cats! That’s unreasonable! It’s not the way to deal with cats. You have to look after them as I did, and then it becomes interesting.

There was one – I know I SAW it: when he died there was already the embryo of a psychic being, ready for a human incarnation. I made them progress like wildfire.

18. April 1961 – A Universal Unfolding

The subconscient is seething.... We shall see. And you?

I stumbled upon a sentence from Sri Aurobindo yesterday or the day before. From the occult standpoint it has to do with a rather important problem, and I would really like some light on this question: ‘The man who slays is only an occasion, the instrument by which the thing done behind the veil becomes the thing done on this side of it.’

It means exactly this (I am going back to the preceding sentence): Who can protect the one whom God has already slain? He has already been slain by God. When God has decided that someone is to be slain, nothing can protect him or keep him from being slain. And Sri Aurobindo adds: the man who slays (because it is not God who slays directly, he uses a man), the man who slays is only a circumstance, the instrument through which the thing decided by God behind the veil is accomplished materially here.

These are political texts from the revolutionary period, concerning bomb attacks against the English. And then he says that the man God has protected can never be touched. However hard you try, you will never be able to slay him. But who can protect the man God has already slain? He has already been slain by God. And man is simply the instrument used by God to do here what has been done there (it has ALREADY been done there). It’s very simple.

Yes, I quite understand. But in general, does EVERYTHING that happens here first get played out on the other side in some way? It’s an occult problem, and furthermore a problem of freedom.

According to my experience both things are simultaneous, so to speak. It’s we who introduce the notion of time, but the notion of time doesn’t exist on the other side.

For example, if I were asked how much time it takes for a thing decided upon there to be realized here, I would answer that it is absolutely indeterminate. That is my experience. I always give the following example because it’s so clear: Thirty-five years before India became free, I saw that she was free. It was already done. And I have also seen things which for us are almost instantaneous – something is decided there and realized almost instantly here. And there are all sorts of possibilities between these two extremes, because the notion of time is not at all the same – so we can’t judge. It is facile to say that what you are seeing will happen in a year or in a week or in an hour – but in fact, this is impossible. It depends upon the case and certain factors which are part of the whole.

In one chapter of The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo says that there is a state of consciousness in which all is from all eternity – everything, without exception, that is to be manifested here....

In detail?

In a certain state of consciousness (I no longer remember what he calls it – I think it’s in the ‘Yoga of Self-Perfection’), one is perfectly identified with the Supreme, not in his static but in his dynamic aspect, the state of becoming. In this state, everything is already there from all eternity, even though here it gives us the impression of a becoming. And Sri Aurobindo says that if you are capable of maintaining this state, then you know everything: all that has been, all that is and all that will be – in an absolutely simultaneous way.

But you must have a firm head on your shoulders! Reading some of these chapters in ‘Self-Perfection,’ I thought it would be better if it didn’t fall into just anyone’s hands.

Anyway, in this state the feeling of uncertainty completely disappears (he explains it very well).

We think it’s BECAUSE we do such and such a thing that something else happens. (And how frequently, too!) People are constantly saying and writing: do this and that will happen. But the fact that this person speaks and the other one acts is also absolutely decreed.

If we could really get this into our heads, it would probably make them swim.

But things as they are wouldn’t be changed at all. I have had a very clear experience of this: the absoluteness of all that is materially; everything we think we are doing, or are planning, or intending, doesn’t change anything about anything. But then, I was intent upon understanding what difference there can be between the true and the false state, SINCE MATERIALLY EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE. (We think that things are like this or like that because of certain reactions we have, but our very reactions are as absolute and decreed as the thing itself.) And yet....

I have had this experience, and I remember it even went on for several days; I saw all material circumstances as an absolute – an absolute that we perceive as an unfolding, but which is an eternally existing absolute. I had this experience, and at the same time I had a very clear perception of what falsehood is – the lie; what, from the psychological, the mental point of view, Sri Aurobindo, translating from the Sanskrit, called crookedness. We attribute the course of circumstances to our psychological reactions – and indeed, they are used momentarily because everything collaborates either consciously or unconsciously to make things be what they have to be – but things could be what they have to be without the intervention of this falsehood. I lived in that consciousness for several days, and it became apparent that this was what separated falsehood from truth. In this state of knowledge-consciousness, the distinction can be made between falsehood and truth; and when seen in that truth-consciousness, material circumstances change character.

Now I no longer have the experience of that state except as a memory, so I can’t formulate it accurately. But what was very clear and comes very often – very often – is the perception of a superimposition of falsehood over a real fact. This brings us back to what I was telling you some time ago, that everything is very simple in its truth, that human consciousness is what complicates everything. But the former was an even more total experience of it.

It is very interesting from the standpoint of death. I saw it once so clearly when someone (I no longer remember whom) had left his body. The word ‘death’ and all these human reactions seemed so foolish! So senseless, ignorant, stupid – false, without reality. There was simply something that shifted, like this (Mother draws a curve showing a shift of consciousness from one mode of being to another), and then we, in our false consciousness, made a drama out of it. But it was simply something evolving (same gesture).

Let me tell you about a recent occurrence. E. had sent a telegram saying that she had a perforated intestine (but it must have been something else because they operated on her only after several days, and when you are not operated on immediately in such cases, you die). Anyway, it was very serious and she was on the threshold of death – that much is certain. She wrote me a letter the day before the operation (what is interesting is that now she doesn’t even remember what she wrote). It was a magnificent letter saying that she was conscious of the Divine Presence and of the Divine Plan. ‘Tomorrow they will operate on me,’ she said. ‘And I am entirely aware that this operation has ALREADY been done, that it is a fact accomplished by the Divine Will; otherwise it could be a fatal ordeal.’ And she said she was conscious of the supreme Will’s action, in a perfect peace. It was a magnificent letter. And the whole thing went off almost miraculously; she recovered in such a miraculous way that the surgeon himself said, I must congratulate you, to which she replied, ‘How surprising! You did the operation!’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we did the operation, but it is your body that willed to be healed, and I congratulate you for your body’s willpower.’ Of course she wrote to me that she knew who had been there to see that all went well. And this feeling of the thing being already accomplished is a beginning of the consciousness Sri Aurobindo speaks of in the ‘Yoga of Self-Perfection,’ where one is simultaneously both here and there. Because, as Sri Aurobindo says, some people have managed to be entirely ‘there,’ but what he has called the ‘realization’ is to be both there and here simultaneously.

Of course, one might wonder what the meaning of everything here is, if it has all been already accomplished above, on an occult plane, and we are merely re-enacting it.

No, no!

We are like puppets!

No! That’s exactly our falsehood! What we see is not THE THING; it’s a reflection, a distorted image in our consciousness. The thing itself exists outside this reflection, and in that existence it doesn’t have the character we attribute to it. Once we have grasped this, we understand that we can get out of it – otherwise, we could never get out!

There is a universal unfolding, the true unfolding, that of the Supreme Lord who watches (this is the best way to put it) his own unfoldment. But for some reason or other, there has been a deformation of consciousness which makes us see this unfolding as something separate, a more or less adequate expression of the Divine Will. But it isn’t so! It is the very unfolding of the Divine within Himself – within Himself, from Himself, for Himself. And it’s simply our falsehood that makes a separate thing of it... The very fact of objectifying (what WE call ‘objectification’) is already a falsehood.

I have had this particular consciousness in flashes. The difficulty is that in expressing it, we use all our mental faculties, and they themselves are false – so we are cornered. Because when you follow through.... Whatever you say – ,If this, if that, if the other...’ – is all part of our general stupidity. Going right to the end of it, you are suddenly like this: ‘Ah!’ (Mother remains suspended midway in her sentence) There is nothing more to do, not a move to make.

Only, as I have told you, practically speaking this experience can be dangerous. When it came, you see, one part of me was having the experience, and one part wasn’t yet ready for it. Well, I was awake enough to tell myself, ‘The part experiencing this prevails and keeps the rest calm, yet if the preparation had not been adequate, it could have produced an imbalance.’ And if by mischance someone without sufficient strength had the possibility of picking up something of that, well, he would lose his head.

This has made it very clear to me why certain things can illuminate some people (I have clearly seen it) and drive others utterly mad – completely destroy their balance. You might say to me, ‘Then it’s because they had to go mad!’ Yes, evidently.

But even if it’s put in absolute terms, the relationships remain exactly the same. You see, the initial impulse is to say, ‘What’s the use of doing anything?’ But look here, the very fact that you might want to do something is part of the general determinism! Because we always keep something back and won’t admit it into the total scheme of things, otherwise.... There is no way to get out of it – that’s just the way it is.

And Sri Aurobindo explains this in such a complete, total and compact way, that there is no escape; so this so-called incapacity, this idea of still being incapable of emerging from one’s divided state, becomes false.

But you have to have a firm head on your shoulders. You must always be able to refer to THAT (pointing above) and then here, silence (Mother touches her forehead): peace, peace, peace, stop everything, stop everything. Don’t try, above all, don’t try to understand! Oh, there is nothing more dangerous! We try to understand with an instrument not made for understanding, that’s incapable of understanding.

In any case, for your question it’s very simple: we don’t need to go to these extremes!

No, I wasn’t putting the problem on a metaphysical plane but on an occult one... as if the play were acted out occultly and we were executing it materially.

For us, it seems like that.

It seems like that.... You mean it is He who is playing within Himself.

That is still another way of putting it!

(silence)

When I used to speak at the Playground, I tried to explain this one day – I was facing the same problem: what really is? And clearly, it is utterly impossible to understand with the mind. But I had a vision of a kind of infinite Eternity through which the Supreme Consciousness voyages; and the path this Consciousness travels is what we call the ‘manifestation.’ And this vision explained absolute freedom, it explained how both things – absolute freedom and absolute determinism – could coexist in an absolute way. The image in my vision was of an eternal Infinity in which that Consciousness voyages – one can’t even say ‘freely,’ because ‘freely’ would imply that it could be otherwise.

All who experience this say that the first movement of the manifestation, or the creation (creation, manifestation, objectification: all these words are imperfect) is CHIT, Consciousness that becomes Power. Consequently, Consciousness goes voyaging along in SAT, in Being – static, eternal, infinite and necessarily outside time and space – and this movement of Consciousness is what produces time and space within this Infinity and Eternity. This leads to the understanding that things can simultaneously be absolutely free and absolutely determined.

This vision I had is of no value to anyone else, but it gave me a kind of satisfaction, a kind of peace (for a while).

(long silence)

I go on reading the Vedas and I see quite well how beautiful it is and how effective it must have been for those people, what a power for realization these hymns must have had! But for me....

Yet for a time I was in contact with all these gods and all these things, and they had an entirely concrete reality for me; but now... I read and I understand, but I cannot live it. And I don’t know why. It still hasn’t triggered the experience. You see, experience for me – the constant, total and permanent Experience – is... that there is nothing other than the Supreme – only the Supreme – that the Supreme alone exists. So when they speak of Agni or Varuna or Indra... it doesn’t strike a chord. However, what the Vedas succeed in doing very well is to give you the perception of your infirmity and ineptitude, of the dismal state we are in now; it succeeds wonderfully in doing that!

Yesterday, this ardor of the Flame was there – burning all to offer all. It was absolutely concrete, an intensity of vibrations; I could see the vibrations – all the movements of obscurity and ignorance were cast into that. And I recall a time when I was translating these hymns to Agni with Sri Aurobindo, and Agni was real for me. Well, yesterday it wasn’t that, it wasn’t the god Agni, it was a STATE OF BEING. It was a state of the Supreme, and as such, it was intimate, clear, intense, vibrant and living.

(silence)

Only just towards the end of the night, after 2 a.m., does all this subconscient rise up to be relived. And with such a new and unexpected perception, oh!... It’s incredible! It changes all values and relationships and reactions (Mother shapes great movements of shifting forces); it’s like a chessboard... absolutely unexpected!

And I see a very steady, insistent and regular action to eliminate moral values. How I have been plagued all my life by these moral values! Everything is immediately placed on a scale of moral values (not ordinary morality – far from it! But a sense of what has to be encouraged or discouraged, what helps me towards progress or what hampers it); instantly everything was seen from the angle of this will to progress – everything, all circumstances, reactions, movements, absolutely everything was translated by that. Now, the subconscient is mounting upwards and, knee-deep in it, you see it as a lesson to tell you: so much for all your notions of progress! They are all based on illusions – a general lie. Things are not at all what they seem, they don’t have the effects they appear to have, nor the results that are perceived – all, all, all, oh Lord!

(silence)

Well, obviously to establish contact with and manifest what the people of the Vedas called the ‘Truth,’ I still have a lot of things to change... a lot.

And yet it’s a fact that I am in the state where nothing exists any longer but the Divine, the Supreme – the Supreme in every vibration, in everything I do, everything I feel. But in some way it must still be conditioned by my consciousness, since... since it’s not yet THE Truth.

(long silence)

Something is happening there (Mother touches her head); something is taking shape, being worked on.... Every day, twice a day, during my long evocation-invocation-aspiration (or prayer, if you like), I say to the Supreme Lord, ‘Take possession of this brain.’ (I don’t mean ‘thought,’ I mean this – Mother points to her head – this substance inside.) ‘Take possession of it!’

Once during the night, I went exploring inside this head; some cells still had fresh imprints of things registered during the day – for whatever reason they hadn’t had time to be combined into the whole, so they showed up as tiny, very clear images, minuscule things utterly devoid of any mental or psychological movement – simply like tiny photographic images. There were three or four images like that, and it was so shocking to see them in this Presence that... all at once I said to myself, ‘Am I going mad?!’ It was that shocking. And I had to bring in a peace, a peace – not to make the movement of possession stop, but to accompany it simultaneously with a mighty peace so I wouldn’t tell myself, ‘You’re losing your head.’ That’s how shocking it was.

A tiny, very tiny image, just like a little photograph, clear! Everything else was in a vibration of transformation – splendid!

You know, mon petit, you really must have your feet on the ground, be very solid, firmly balanced, and not get carried away!

But you seem to be saying that the ideas which govern or underlie our progress are more or less false moral ideas; so what should underlie our progress? What would make us say: this is good or not good, useful or not useful for progress?

That’s just it – none of it is necessary!

Now I know that it’s not necessary at all – not at all. Simply the aspiration must be constantly like this (gesture of a rising flame). Aspiration – that is, knowing what you want, wanting it. But it cannot be given a definite form; Sri Aurobindo has used certain words, we use other words, others use still other words, and all this means nothing – they are simply words. But there is something beyond all words, and that... for me, the simplest thing (the simplest to express) is, ‘The Supreme’s Will.’

And it’s ‘The Supreme’s Will’ FOR THE EARTH – which is quite a special thing. I am in a universal consciousness at the moment and the earth seems to me to be a very tiny thing, like this (Mother sketches a tiny ball in the air) in the process of being transformed. But this is from the standpoint of the Work, it’s another matter.

But for those who are here, we can say, ‘It is what the Supreme Lord is preparing for the earth.’ He sent Sri Aurobindo to prepare it; Sri Aurobindo called it ‘the supramental realization,’ and to facilitate communication we can use the same words. Well, this movement (gesture of a rising flame) towards That must be constant – constant, total. All the rest is none of our business, and the less we meddle with it mentally, the better. But THAT, that Flame, is indispensable. And when it goes out, light it again; when it falters, rekindle it – all the time, all the time, ALL THE TIME – when sleeping, walking, reading, moving around, speaking... all the time.

The rest doesn’t matter, one can do anything (it depends on people and their ways of thinking). You can just ask people like X, they will tell you: ‘You can do anything at all – it doesn’t matter in the least. Only you mustn’t feel it’s you doing it, that’s all. You have to feel that Nature does it.’ But I don’t much approve of this system.

The important thing is the flame.

(silence)

Actually, in these scenes from the subconscient presented during the night, there were things I had believed ill-omened in my life – yet suddenly I saw the vibration of this aspiration arising, with such a power and intensity EVEN THERE. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘how mistaken we are!’

And this aspiration depends neither on the state of health nor.... It’s absolutely independent of all circumstances – I have felt this aspiration in the cells of my body at the very moment when things were at their most disorganized, when, from an ordinary medical standpoint, the illness was serious. The cells THEMSELVES aspire. And this aspiration has to be everywhere.

When one is in this state, there is no need to worry – nothing else matters (Mother bursts into laughter).

25. April 1961 – The World of Space and Time

For obviously it has to be done in this life. The body’s progress can’t be preserved, can it?

Of course not – that’s just it!

It could be, yes, but to no avail. If all these cells which have become so conscious have to break up.... It would result in cells that are conscious, but mixed with.... What would it amount to, mixed with the sum total of all the unconscious cells of the earth? It would be useless.

Yes, it would be useless; I mean, perhaps after millions of years it would gradually snowball and have some effect – but that’s just how Nature functions when left to her own interminable way – it is not yoga.

But once you have effected the transformation in your own body, will it be transmittable to others? Will your experience and your realization be transmittable?

It’s a question of contagion. Spiritual vibrations are quite clearly contagious. Mental vibrations are contagious, and to a certain extent even vital vibrations are contagious (not often in their finer effects, but anyway, it’s clear – a man’s anger, for instance, spreads very easily). Well then, the quality of cellular vibrations should also be contagious.

But the difficulty.... You see, so far as Mind is concerned, the whole yoga has been done – like a path blazed through the virgin forest. And since it has been done, it’s relatively simple: the landmarks are there and one follows them. But here, nothing has been done! One doesn’t know which end to take hold of – no one has ever done it! [186] You meet all the same obstacles before which others have simply said, ‘It’s impossible.’ Sri Aurobindo explains that it’s not impossible, but nothing more. And he himself hadn’t done it.

No, for the least little thing, the whole mechanism has to be discovered, and discovered in a realm of the most total ignorance, where, really, unconsciousness is the most unconscious and ignorance the most ignorant....

Well, we shall see.

After the work:

***

Our habitual state of consciousness is to do something FOR something. The Rishis, for example, composed their hymns with an end in view: life had a purpose – for them, the end was to find Immortality or Truth. But at any level whatsoever, there is always a goal. Even we speak of the ‘supramental realization’ as the goal.

Just recently, though, I don’t know what happened, but something seemed to take hold of me... (how to say it?) this perception of the Supreme who is everything, everywhere, who does everything – what has been, what is, what will be, what is being done – everything. And suddenly there was a kind of... not a thought or a feeling, it wasn’t that; it was rather like a state: the unreality of the goal – not ‘unreality,’ uselessness. Not even uselessness: the nonexistence of the goal. And even what I was saying just now – this will to make the experiment lingering in the body – even this has gone!

It’s... something... I don’t know.

There used to be a kind of mainspring, which had its raison d’être and so persisted: do this to arrive at that, and this leads to that (it’s more subtle, of course); but this mainspring suddenly seems to have been abolished, because it became useless.

Now a kind of absoluteness prevails at each and every second, in each movement, from the most subtle, the most spiritual, to the most material. The sense of linking has disappeared: that isn’t the ‘cause’ of this, and this isn’t done ‘for’ that; there is no ‘there’ one is heading towards – it all seems....

(silence)

Is this, perhaps, how the Supreme sees?... Perhaps that is what it is: the supreme perception, an absolute.

Rather curious.

An absolute – innumerable, perpetual and simultaneous.

Curious.

(silence)

The sense of connection has gone, the sense of cause and effect has gone – all that belongs to the world of space and time.

Each... each what? What is that ‘that’? You can’t say a ‘movement,’ you can’t say a ‘state of consciousness,’ you can’t say a ‘vibration’ (all this still belongs to our ordinary mode of perception), so you say ‘thing’ – ‘thing’ means nothing. Each ‘thing’ carries in itself its own absolute law.

oh, how clumsy all this is! But what is clear, completely clear, is the total absence of cause and effect and of goal, of intention – purpose. There is no... (Mother makes a horizontal motion) this kind of connection doesn’t exist; it’s like this (Mother makes a vertical motion which towers over and embraces everything at once).

And so, in an individual consciousness it’s expressed by an infinitesimal point – a physical body and everything dependent on it; but it’s exactly the same thing as the Supreme Point and everything depending on that. It’s the same thing. It is only like the shifting of a glance – if it can be called a ‘glance’ – like a needle point occupying no space. And yet it is the same consciousness – ‘consciousness’: is it ‘consciousness’?... Something like that. It is not ‘consciousness’ as we understand it, nor is it ‘perception’; it is a kind of will to see (good God, what words!), and with such absolute freedom and omnipotence: it can be this or that, or yet another, and it is EXACTLY the same thing.

Don’t try to understand!

It is obviously untranslatable.

But what can be translated is this kind of sensation that the sequence of cause and effect, of purpose, of goal, all seems to be very far below, very, very DISTANT, very... human – perhaps divine, too (from the viewpoint of the gods it may be like this also, I don’t know), because in the consciousness of the universal Mother it is still there, there is still this ardent love to serve: ‘To do Your Will.’ That is still there, so it’s there with the gods also.

(silence)

It seems unreal. How very curious.

It came last night. It came slowly, but last night it was very strong: no more sequence, no more linking of cause and effect, no more goal, no more purpose, no more intention – a kind of Absolute which does not exclude the creation. It is not Nirvana, it has nothing to do with Nirvana (I know Nirvana very well, I’ve had it – just yesterday evening, for instance, while walking for japa, and even this morning.... You see, I begin by an invocation to the Supreme under his three aspects, and no sooner have I uttered the sound, TAT... when all is abolished: Nirvana. And the last few days I have noticed that it’s instantaneous, so easy! Oh, a delight!... Bah!...). But it’s not Nirvana, it’s beyond that; it contains Nirvana and it contains the manifested world and it contains everything else; all the appearances and disappearances – all of that is contained in it.

Something....

Something which has neither cause nor effect nor prolongation (Mother makes a horizontal motion) nor purpose nor intention – intention to do what?! There is nothing to be done! It’s like this (Mother makes the same vertical motion as before).

I hope I’m not driving you to a lunatic asylum! (Mother laughs)

(Mother gets up to leave)

What is most interesting is that everything stays the same. Everything stays the same. You see how it is – I can do anything, I talk to you, I joke.... Everything stays the same, it doesn’t make a change in anything.

My problem begins when I ask myself how it’s going to change! There it is, petit. I think we would do well to keep all this secret.

29. April 1961 – Aphorism 59 – Mother talks about Religion

59 – One of the greatest comforts of religion is that you can get hold of God sometimes and give him a satisfactory beating. People mock at the folly of savages who beat their gods when their prayers are not answered; but it is the mockers who are the fools and the savages.

Poor T.! She asked me, ‘What does it mean (laughing) to give God a “satisfactory beating”? How is this possible?...’ I still haven’t answered. And then she added another question: ‘Many people say that Sri Aurobindo’s teachings are a new religion. Would you call it a religion?...’ You understand, I began to fume!

I wrote (Mother reads her answer): ‘Those who say that are simpletons and don’t even know what they’re talking about! It is enough to read everything Sri Aurobindo has written to know that it is IMPOSSIBLE (underlined) to found a religion upon his writings, since for each problem, for each question, he presents all aspects and, while demonstrating the truth contained in each approach, he explains that to attain the Truth a synthesis must be effected, overpassing all mental notions and emerging in a transcendence beyond thought.

‘Your second question, therefore, makes no sense! Furthermore, if you had read what appeared in the last Bulletin, you could never have asked it. ‘Let me repeat that when we speak of Sri Aurobindo, it is not a question of teaching nor even of revelation, but of an Action from the Supreme; upon this, no religion whatsoever can be founded.’

This is the first blast.

The second is:

‘Men are such fools’ (laughing: it doesn’t get any better!) ‘that they can change anything at all into a religion, so great is their need for a fixed framework for their narrow thought and limited action. They don’t feel secure unless they can affirm: “This is true and that is not” – but such an affirmation becomes impossible for anyone who has read and understood what Sri Aurobindo has written. Religion and yoga are not situated on the same plane of the being, and the spiritual life can exist in its purity only if it is free from all mental dogma.’

What did Sri Aurobindo mean?...

Do you have the English text? We may have somewhat... popularized it?

The English word is ‘beating’: a good beating. ‘Beating?’ Then that’s just it: ‘une raclée’!

Religion always has a tendency to humanize, to create a God in the image of man – a magnified and glorified image, but essentially always a god with human attributes. And this (laughing) creates a sort of intimacy, a sense of kinship!

T. has taken it literally, but it’s true that even the Spanish, when their god doesn’t do what they want, take the statue and throw it in the river!

There are people here who do the same thing. I know some people who had a statue of Kali in their house (it was their family divinity), and all kinds of calamities befell them, so the last generation became furious and took the idol and threw it into the Ganges. They are not the only ones – there have been several cases like that. And to cap it all, one of them even asked my permission before doing it!

Creating a god in the image of man gives you the possibility of treating it as you would treat a human enemy.

There could be many things to say....

But these idols aren’t merely human creations – they are self-existent, aren’t they?

Oh, I’ve had some very interesting revelations on this point, on the way people think and feel about it. I remember someone once made a little statue of Sri Aurobindo; he gave it a potbelly and... anyway, to me it was ridiculous. So I said, ‘How could you make such a thing?!’ He explained that even if it’s a caricature for the ordinary eye, since it’s an image of the one you consider God, or a god, or an Avatar, since it’s the image of the one you worship, even if only a guru, it contains the spirit and the force of his presence, and this is what you worship, even in a crude form, even if the form is a caricature to the physical eye.

Someone made a large painting of Sri Aurobindo and myself, and they brought it here to show me. I said, ‘Oh, it’s dreadful!’ It was... to the physical eye it was really dreadful. ‘It’s dreadful,’ I said, ‘we can’t keep it.’ Then immediately someone asked me for it, saying, ‘I’m going to put it up in my house and do my puja before it.’ Ah!... I couldn’t help saying, ‘But how could you put up a thing like that!’ (It wasn’t so much ugly as frightfully banal.) ‘How can you do puja before something so commonplace and empty!’ This person replied, ‘Oh, to me it’s not empty! It contains all the presence and all the force, and I shall worship it as that: the Presence and the Force.’

All this is based on the old idea that whatever the image – which we disdainfully call an ‘idol’ – whatever the external form of the deity may be, the presence of the thing represented is always there. And there is always someone – whether priest or initiate, Sadhu or sannyasi – someone who has the power and (usually this is the priest’s work) who draws the Force and the Presence down into it. And it’s true, it’s quite real – the Force and the Presence are THERE; and this (not the form in wood or stone or metal) is what is worshipped: this Presence.

Europeans don’t have the inner sense at all. To them, everything is like this (gesture), a surface – not even that, a film on the surface. And they can’t feel anything behind. But it’s an absolutely real fact that the Presence is there – I guarantee it. People have given me statuettes of various gods, little things in metal, wood or ivory; and as soon as I take one in my hand, the god is there. I have a Ganesh (I have been given several) and if I take it in my hand and look at it for a moment, he’s there. I have a little one by my bedside where I work, eat, and meditate. And then there is a Narayana which comes from the Himalayas, from Badrinath. I use them both as paperweights for my handkerchiefs! (My handkerchiefs are kept on a little table next to my bed, and I keep Ganapati and Narayana on top of them.) And no one touches them but me – I pick them up, take a fresh handkerchief, and put them back again. Once I blended some nail polish myself, and before applying it, I put some on Ganapati’s forehead and stomach and fingertips! We are on the best of terms, very friendly. So to me, you see, all this is very true.

Only....

Narayana came first. I put him there and told him to stay and be happy. A while later, I was given a very nice Ganapati; so I asked Narayana – I didn’t ask his permission, I told him, ‘Don’t be angry, you know, but I’m going to give you a companion; I like you both very much, there’s no preference; the other is much better looking, but you, you are Narayana!’ I flattered him, I told him pleasant things, and he was perfectly happy.

It has always been like that for me – always. And I have never, never had the religious sense at all – you know, what people call this kind of... what they have in religions, especially in Europe. I see only the English word for it: awe, like a kind of terror. This always made me laugh! But I have always felt what’s behind, the presences behind.

I remember once going into a church (which I won’t name) and I found it a very beautiful place. It wasn’t a feast or ceremony day, so it was empty. There were just one or two people at prayer. I went in and sat down in a little chapel off to the side. Someone was praying there, someone who must have been in distress – she was crying and praying. And there was a statue, I no longer know of whom: Christ or the Virgin or a Saint – I have no idea. And, oh!... Suddenly, in place of the statue, I saw an enormous spider... like a tarantula, you know, but (gesture) huge! It covered the entire wall of the chapel and was just waiting there to swallow all the vital force of the people who came. It was... heart- rending. I said to myself, ‘Oh, these people...’ There was this miserable woman who had come seeking solace, who was praying there, weeping, hoping to find solace; and instead of reaching a consciousness that was at least compassionate, her supplications were feeding this monster!

I have seen other things – but I have rarely seen anything favorable in churches. Here, I remember going to M I was taken inside and received there in quite an unusual way – a highly respected person introduced me as a ‘great saint’! They led me up to the main altar where people are not usually allowed to go, and what did I see there!... An Asura (oh, not a very high-ranking one, more like a Rakshasa), but such a monster! Hideous.... So I went wham! (gesture of giving a blow) I thought something was going to happen.... But this being left the altar and came over to try to intimidate me; of course, he saw it was useless, so he offered to make an alliance: ‘If you just keep quiet and don’t do anything, I will share all I get with you.’ Well, I sent him packing! The head of this Math.... It was a Math with a monastery and temple, which means a substantial fortune; the head of the Math has it all at his disposal for as long as he holds the position – and he is appointed for life. But he has to name his successor... and as a rule, his own life is considerably shortened by the successor – this is how it works. Everyone knew that the present head had considerably shortened the life of his predecessor. And what a creature! As asuric as the god he worshipped! I saw some poor fellows throw themselves at his feet (he must have been squeezing them pitilessly), to beg forgiveness and mercy – an absolutely ruthless man. But he received me – you should have seen it!... I said nothing, not a word about their god; I gave no sign that I knew anything. But I thought to myself, ‘So that’s how it is!...’

Another thing happened to me in a fishing village near A., on the seashore, where there is a temple dedicated to Kali – a terrible Kali. I don’t know what happened to her, but she had been buried with only her head sticking out! A fantastic story – I knew nothing about it at all. I was going by car from A. to this temple and halfway there a black form, in great agitation, came rushing towards me, asking for my help: ‘I’ll give you everything I have – all my power, all the people’s worship – if you help me to become omnipotent’! Of course, I answered her as she deserved! I later asked who this was, and they told me that some sort of misfortune had befallen her and she had been buried with only her head above ground. And every year this fishing village has a festival and slaughters thousands of chickens – she likes chicken! Thousands of chickens. They pluck them on the spot (the whole place gets covered with feathers), and then, after offering the blood and making the sacrifice, the people, naturally, eat them all up. The day I came this had taken place that very morning – feathers littered everywhere! It was disgusting. And she was asking for my help!

But the curious thing is that these vital beings are aware of what is happening. I knew nothing about any of it, neither the story, nor the being, nor the head sticking out of the ground – and she wanted me to get her out of it. They ‘feel’ the atmosphere. They are aware – they may not be conscious on higher planes, but they are conscious on vital planes, aware of vital power and the vital force it represents.... It’s like this Asura from M.: when I came in he suddenly seemed to tremble on his pedestal; then he left his idol and came to seek my alliance.

But it’s strange....

(silence)

In churches, I don’t know.... I haven’t been to them very often. I have been to mosques and temples – Jewish temples. The Jewish temples in Paris have such beautiful music; oh, what beautiful music! I had one of my first experiences in a temple. It was at a marriage, and the music was wonderful – Saint-Saens, I later learned; organ music, the second best organ in Paris – wonderful! I was 14 years old, sitting high up in the galleries with my mother, and this music was being played. There were some leaded-glass windows – white, with no designs. I was gazing at one of these windows, feeling uplifted by the music, when suddenly through the window came a flash like a bolt of lightning. Just like lightning. It entered – my eyes were open – it entered like this (Mother strikes her breast violently), and then I... I had the feeling of becoming vast and all-powerful.... And it lasted for days.

Of course, my mother was such an out-and-out materialist, thank God, that it was impossible to speak to her of invisible things – she took them as evidence of a deranged brain! Nothing counted for her but what could be touched and seen. But this was a divine grace – I had no opportunity to say anything. I kept my experience to myself. But it was one of my first contacts with.... I learned later that it was an entity from the past who had come back into me through the aspiration arising from the music.

But I have rarely had an experience in churches. Rather the opposite: I have very often had the painful experience of the human effort to find solace, a divine compassion... falling into very bad hands.

One of my most terrible experiences took place in Venice (the cathedrals there are so beautiful – magnificent!). I remember I was painting – they had let me settle down in a corner to paint – and nearby there was a... (what do they call it?)... a confessional. And a poor woman was kneeling there in distress – with such a dreadful sense of sin! So piteous! She wept and wept. Then I saw the priest coming, oh, like a monster, a hard-hearted monster! He went inside; he was like an iron bar. And there was this poor woman sobbing, sobbing; and the voice of the other one, hard, curt.... I could barely contain myself.

I don’t know why, but I have had this kind of experience so very often: either a hostile force lurking behind and swallowing up everything, or else man – ruthless man abusing the Power.

In fact, I have seen this all over the world. I have never been on very good terms with religions, neither in Europe, nor Africa, nor Japan, nor even here.

(silence)

At the age of eighteen, I remember having such an intense need in me to KNOW.... Because I was having experiences – I had all kinds of experiences – but my surroundings offered me no chance to receive an intellectual knowledge which would have given me the meaning of it all: I couldn’t even speak of them. I was having experience after experience.... For years, I had experiences during the night (but I was very careful never to speak about them!) – memories from past lives, all sorts of things, but without any base of intellectual knowledge. (Of course, the advantage of this was that my experiences were not mentally contrived; they were entirely spontaneous.) But I had such a NEED in me to know!... I remember living in a house (one of these houses with a lot of apartments), and in the apartment next door were some young Catholics whose faith was very... they were very convinced. And seeing all that, I remember saying to myself one day while brushing my hair, ‘These people are lucky to be born into a religion and believe unquestioningly! It’s so easy! You have nothing to do but believe – how simple that makes it.’ I was feeling like this, and then when I realized what I was thinking (laughing), well, I gave myself a good scolding: ‘Lazybones!’

To know, know, KNOW!... You see, I knew nothing, really, nothing but the things of ordinary life: external knowledge. I had learned everything I had been given to learn. I not only learned what I was taught but also what my brother was taught – higher mathematics and all that! I learned and I learned and I learned – and it was NOTHING. None of it explained anything to me – nothing. I couldn’t understand a thing!

To know!...

It was to happen to me two years later when I met someone who told me of Théon’s teaching.

When I was told that the Divine was within – the teaching of the Gita, but in words understandable to a Westerner – that there was an inner Presence, that one carried the Divine within oneself, oh!... What a revelation! In a few minutes, I suddenly understood all, all, all. Understood everything. It brought the contact instantly.

No, but this is something else. Those who are capable of personal experiences pass through everything. But not the common herd.

(silence)

I have had discussions – not ‘discussions,’ exchanges of views – with prelates. There was one cardinal in particular.... I told him my experience, what I KNEW. He replied, ‘Whether you want to or not, you belong to the Church; because those who know belong to the Church.’ And he added, ‘You have the knowledge we are taught when we become cardinals.’ ‘Nobody has taught me anything,’ I said, ‘this is my experience.’ Then he repeated, ‘Whether you like it or not, you belong to the Church.’ I felt like telling him a thing or two, but I didn’t.

Otherwise, you just keep turning in circles, oh, caught by the form, locked in by the form!

I remember a good-hearted priest in Pau [Southern France] who was an artist and wanted to have his church decorated – a tiny cathedral. He consulted a local anarchist (a great artist) about it. The anarchist was acquainted with André’s father and me. He told the priest, ‘I recommend these people to do the paintings – they are true artists.’ He was doing the mural decoration – some eight panels in all, I believe. So I set to work on one of the panels. (The church was dedicated to San Juan de Compostello, a hero of Spanish history; he had appeared in a battle between the Christians and the Moors and his apparition vanquished the Moors. And he was magnificent! He appeared in golden light on a white horse, almost like Kalki.) All the slaughtered and struggling Moors were depicted at the bottom of the painting, and it was I who painted them; it was too hard for me to climb high up on a ladder to paint, so I did the things at the bottom! But anyway, it all went quite well. Then, naturally, the priest received us and invited us to dinner with the anarchist. And he was so nice – really a kind-hearted man! I was already a vegetarian and didn’t drink, so he scolded me very gently, saying, ‘But it’s Our Lord who gives us all this, so why shouldn’t you take it?’... I found him charming. And when he looked at the paintings, he tapped Morisset on the shoulder (Morisset was an unbeliever), and said, with the accent of Southern France, ‘Say what you like, but you know Our Lord; otherwise you could never have painted like that!’

Well.

In short, I have known people from everywhere, I have been everywhere, I have seen and heard everything.... It was very strange, very strange. And I didn’t do it on purpose, but just... because the Lord willed it.

What experiences!