November 1962

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03. November 1962 – The Horror of the subconscious World

But I deliberately come into contact with these things. When I "walk" in the morning for japa, it's all systematically put under the supreme Influence, it gets cleared up and sorted out. Some good work gets done.

We mustn't see these things as inescapable, but rather take them as indications of what's being changed.

That's how it seems, bottomless and limitless, combined in ever new and equally horrible ways. But it's not true: it does change. It does change.

And what inventions – sheer horror! Really, the people who are in contact with that world and express it on earth, it's appalling the inventions they can make. Oh, the tortures men have invented, the things they've done – you can't believe it's real. And it all comes from that subconscient world, which means it is indispensable to clean it out.

But... oh, what a tough work! And thankless too. Thankless because no sooner do you think you've come to the end of something (not that you really think so, you know what it's like there, but you still hope...), than it comes back in another form, which seems even worse than the previous one.

And sometimes it becomes terribly personal, as if you were being personally attacked. I have a whole "theme" of such things which can't even be spoken about because they're too personal – personal in that they appear to involve this body. Last night (ah, by the way, I remember noticing I was physically young – it was in the subtle physical, of course, and I was quite young)... but what a life I led, with so many... oh, revolutions, battles; I was involved in everything, there was tremendous activity. But I was being personally harassed by four or five of the most vile and disgusting old swine, and I had to confront them, hold them in place, keep them under control and make them obey.... Ohh, was I glad to wake up! (It was time to get up; these things always stop automatically because I make it a point to get out of there at four-thirty) But the images, the sensations that went along with it....

Oh, how is it possible! And I was fully conscious of the usefulness of this work: I was keeping them under control.

(In the next conversation, Mother added: "For example, if someone wants to enter some place, you needn't say, 'Don't enter'; you do what's necessary and he cannot enter, he tries but he can't – that's what I call 'keeping under control.' I didn't need to speak to or touch them: the Force was doing the work.")

But the things it involves... ugh! Because for me, all knowledge is through identity – even in the subconscient it's a knowledge through identity – so you can imagine what that means....

No, you must ask to remember to call me when the situation gets unpleasant (Mother laughs); that has rescued people so many, many times, right in the midst of their nightly activity – not at the moment they woke up, no: right in their nighttime consciousness they have seen the results within and around them. Take the story of D., who couldn't get back into his body and called me; it really does have an effect, especially on that sort of beings. Thank God (laughing) they're afraid of me – I have an effect on them.

07. November 1962 – Experience of SAT

(Mother again speaks of the experience of SAT or pure Existence in the background of consciousness, and describes the movement of consciousness needed to enter that state:)

...It's somewhat similar to collecting one's thoughts. It's part concentration, part interiorization, and both together – like drawing back, but without movement.

After a while, it becomes almost automatic; I do it hundreds of times a day. It's difficult to describe, because the description makes it too concrete. But it's a drawing back, an interiorization – a self-gathering. But all those words seem dense, heavy; too material, too heavy. Yet it's a very concrete sensation, very concrete, which immediately brings about a kind of stabilization – everything stops. Everything stops, to the point where even a vibration of pain is stopped, it doesn't exist any more. But when you leave this state, back it comes again. It gets cured only when you persist for some time; otherwise the two might continue to coexist.

The most superficial way of putting it is: "to take a step back." But it's not that, of course.

And it isn't the same as "going within" when you want to find your psychic being, for instance. It isn't the same movement. When you go within to find your psychic being, you feel a shift of position; while in this case there's no shifting – you stay where you are.

You go beyond time, you go beyond space.

I don't know, it's so familiar to me that I feel it's something everyone can do, but it may very well be difficult, I don't know.

That's really what it is: to go beyond this present condition and enter a state where everything is stabilized. You can't say "immobilized," because that would mean the opposite of movement – it isn't the opposite of movement! It's... something else. You immediately have the sense of Eternity; not of something endlessly developing, no: everything stops. But "everything stops" implies the sense of something that "moves," yet you no longer have that sense.

("I mean there is no longer 'something that stops.' But there are no words for it. I choose words for their vaguely analogous meaning, but for me they express something altogether different. There are no words for it! It's a change of state WITHOUT a change of place. This state is clearly outside time and space, that's certain. So you go from the state in time and space to the state where you're outside time and space, and NOT by a change of place ... something! It's something that happens inside, instantaneously. It's not a long passage like the long and gradual movement you experience in meditation, for instance; the passage into Sat isn't a gradual transition from one state to another: it is sudden, like an immediate reversal. But as I just said, there are no words for it; 'reversal' is infinitely too violent for expressing it.")

And yet it is Existence, it is BEING: Being, pure Existence; full consciousness without an object – without an object of consciousness. Pure Existence without any development.

And it's always here, it never leaves you, it's always here; you don't have to go off looking for it – it is always here. If you start thinking about it, you might say: without that, there can be no world; without that, there can be neither time nor space nor movement nor consciousness – nothing. Therefore, it is everywhere.

It doesn't need the Manifestation in order to be – not at ALL. But without it, the Manifestation could not be.

In fact, the aim of meditation is to catch hold of that. And any path whatsoever is good, since you're sure to catch hold of it: it is HERE. You don't have to go far to look for it – it is right here.

It has become a kind of habit: I am eating a meal, for example, and swallow the wrong way or whatever (not even something violent, just a slightly uneasy sensation in the throat), I do this (gesture of drawing back) for one second, and it's finished. Or I am speaking to someone and the right word doesn't come automatically: I just have to do this (same gesture), and there it is. It works for everything. It puts things back in order.

And that's what you have in your meditations. Only (laughing), you won't be happy unless you get out of it – unless something dramatic happens! (Mother laughs and laughs) That's why you complain! Some people work years and years and years to have it just once.

14. November 1962 – The higher it goes the lower...

It's getting interesting.... It's the formulation – not the theory, not the explanation (it's more than intellectual), but the literary expression of what I've been experiencing all these nights. Not only at night, in the daytime too.

It's as if I were touching the dregs of things.

No later than yesterday night, I had this feeling: "My god, there's always farther down to go! It's always lower, ever lower." And at the same time, my identity with the Supreme keeps growing while I simultaneously seem to be going down into the most incredible dark dregs of... yes, of mud, ever possible in life. Look, you speak of Sri Aurobindo's experience – well, I never knew he'd had the vision of all sorts of torture, (In the Alipore jail: "I was mentally subjected to all sorts of torture for fifteen days. I had to look upon scenes of all sorts of suffering...." (See A.B. Purani, Life of Sri Aurobindo, p. 122.)) but I have just had it myself in detail, bit by bit... and what things! Incredible, incredible. And I was wondering, "But why! Why am I seeing all this? Am I losing my contact?" On the contrary, it felt closer and closer, stronger and stronger, more and more conscious, luminous, and at the same time... this (gesture below).

Because my impression was that the higher I rise, the more I notice things below. I wasn't making a doctrine or theory of it, of course – I got rid of that habit a long time ago. But I was looking at it, merely taking note of the fact, without telling myself it was for this or that reason (as you explain here in your book). I observed the phenomenon and was able to say: the more I feel this constant, luminous Presence, the more I see those things. So it has become very clear to me that it is impossible to manifest THAT integrally without everything below being offered up to the Light.

My method is essentially very simple: for each thing that comes, I say, "Here, Lord, it's for You; change it, transform it." A work of offering and dedication (gesture of presenting something to the Light). And this morning there was a sort of reply – not exactly to a question, but as though I were wondering "How do I do it?" (because the Lord tells me I am here for His work), "How do I do His work? What's the new way of doing the Work? We know all the old ways, but what's the new way?" And the reply came, very concrete, without words: "By bringing the two extremes together.

Everything you see, everything that comes to you or that you discover is automatically put in the presence of the Most High, of the Supreme. You join the two extremes. Your whole work is to make the junction."

And now you read me all this! It's as if you were explaining it – don't you find that interesting! (Mother laughs) I find it VERY interesting.

And what's more, this morning Sri Aurobindo said to me, "Today he will tell you something that will explain your experiences to you." So that's what has happened. It's not a mental explanation, you understand – these things are SEEN.

A little later:

If I could tell all I've seen when I remember it in the morning, it would fill hundreds and hundreds of volumes. And in fact, it would shed some light.

I have never stopped seeing things. Now I see both day and night, it makes no difference, although I don't see the same things or do the same work at night as during the day. But all the work is always expressed through visions (I also hear and remember words, but that's secondary): ideas are expressed as images, and wills are expressed as actions. And it all makes a sort of life – a life in other worlds, different worlds.

17. November 1962 – The control center of the Lord of Falsehood

I know it's the will of that Asura I've mentioned to you several times, the Lord of Falsehood who was born the Lord of Truth, and who knows that his hour is at hand ("at hand" relative to that world there) and has declared he will cause as much havoc as he can before disappearing. Quite recently, just before the present conflict broke out, I went to a realm in the vital world which is right above the earth, like a platform (not a mountain top, but a spot where you get an overall view, like the bridge of a ship, for instance, where the captain stands; it was a place like that in the vital world, overlooking all terrestrial life). I went there – it was rather dark, very dark in fact – and that tall being was there (he's quite tall, higher than this room – Mother looks up at the ceiling – he likes to look tall). He's very tall and all black. (That's more or less his natural state; he appears to humans blazing with light, but that doesn't fool someone with inner vision: it's an icy light. But some people are fooled and take him for the supreme God. Anyway, that's an aside.) So he was there and I went to him – not to him: I went to that place and found him there. He was gloating and told me to take a look around.

From there you had a panoramic view of everything. And no sooner did I arrive than a storm broke out – a terrible storm. I kept watching, and then I saw in this direction (I don't know whether it was north, south or west, but it was this direction: Mother points to the north), I saw two nearly simultaneous flashes of lightning. The first one (I was looking north, I was quite conscious of facing north)... the first one, a terrific bolt, came and fell from the east; and just a moment after, very soon after, another came from the west. The two didn't come together, but they fell on the same spot – they didn't meet but they fell on the same spot. It was pitch dark, the earth and everything was dark, you couldn't see a thing, and suddenly those two flashes of lightning lit up the area where they fell, making a dreadful din, and (my field of vision was confined to that area; all the rest was in darkness, you see)... it burst into flames! Everything was set ablaze. In the lightning flashes you could distinguish the tops of monuments, houses, all sorts of things, and then everything burst into flames: a dreadful conflagration.

I even remarked to myself (it was a rather curious feeling), "Well, it's interesting to have such a close view of it." That is, I had the feeling that my "station," as Sri Aurobindo calls it, for viewing the world was very high up, and I'd had to come down to that place. And that's what made me say, "Well, it's interesting to have such a close view of things." (I didn't say it to that being, I thought it.) And he was there next to me, gloating, standing some distance off to my right (looking up, I could see his head – Mother looks up at the ceiling). He was jubilant, gloating: "You see, you see, you see! " Overjoyed. I kept absolutely still; everything was still, calm, motionless (the thought that came was like something passing through me: "It's interesting to have such a close view of it"). And then I stopped everything, like this (Mother remains as still as a statue, fists clenched). And very soon afterwards (I can't say exactly because time there isn't the same as here), very soon afterwards, everything stopped. (In fact, three days later, on November 20, in an unhoped-for turn of events, China declared a unilateral cease-fire and withdrawal of troops, even as they were making a spectacular and almost unopposed advance. No one ever understood why.)

The storm's only purpose was to cause the two thunderbolts, and it stopped after they fell on the earth. And then the flames... the whole area was set ablaze (it was like a huge city, but not a city: most likely it was symbolic of a country): vroom! It burst into flames; some flames were leaping up very, very high. But I simply did this, stopped everything (Mother remains motionless, eyes closed, fists clenched), and then looked out once again – everything had returned to order. Then I said (I don't know why, but I was speaking to him in English... yes, it's because he was speaking English, saying, "You see, you see!"), I said, "Ah, that didn't last long. They quickly brought it under control." With that he turned his back on me (laughing); he went off one way and I the other. Then I regained my outer consciousness, which is why I remember everything exactly.

I believe they began fighting up there two or three days after it happened.

What can the west side be?...

I don't know. I thought it would be Russia, but Russia seems to be trying its hardest not to interfere. I don't know.

Yes, of course, it was India.

When I thought, "It's interesting to have such a close view of it all," there was also a sense of being physically close, a part of me felt physically very close. But you know, I have been close to all the wars (the two previous ones – this is the third), as close as can be: shells were falling on Paris when I was there, during the first war.

So that's what was shown to me in images.

Apart from that, when the news got here that they'd begun amiably killing one another for nothing, as soon as I knew it, I put over the whole border the same thing as that night: Peace and Immobility. Two days later I asked for news. "Oh," I was told, "they seem tired out. They're no longer doing anything."

But everything Sri Aurobindo said has always come true. You know he also said (but it was in jest, he didn't write it)... concerning reuniting with Pakistan he told me: "Ten years. It will take ten years." The ten years passed and nothing happened – OFFICIALLY nothing happened. But the truth is (I learned it through certain government officials), Pakistan did make some overtures in that direction, asking for a union to be reestablished (they would have kept some sort of autonomy, but the two countries would have UNITED, it would have been a UNION), and Nehru refused.

So Sri Aurobindo had seen it.

He had seen it happen. After ten years, when that man who headed Pakistan (This may refer to the death of Liaquat Ali) died, they found themselves in grave difficulty and were unable to get organized; so they sent somebody (unofficially, of course) to ask India to reestablish union on certain bases – but they refused, the Indians refused. It was a repetition of the same stupidity as when Cripps came to make his proposal, when Sri Aurobindo sent a message saying, "Accept, whatever the conditions, otherwise it will be worse later on." That's what Sri Aurobindo told them. Gandhi was there and he retorted, "Why is that man meddling? He should be concerned only with spiritual life."

Mother is probably alluding to difficulties in obtaining the dismissal of the Defense Minister, Krishna Menon. It might be recalled that, under Nehru, India's foreign policy was quite pro-Chinese (the slogan of the day was Hindi-Chini-bhaï-bhaï: Indians and Chinese are brothers), and when China began to sweep down into India, the Defense Minister calmly left for London on some mission or other, declaring: oh, it's nothing!

20. November 1962 – Mother's vision of a bomb on Pondy

Once, you know, when Sri Aurobindo was still here, I saw.... But it was just a vision, and lots of visions come (this was especially true at that time) as possibilities formed in a given world and descending towards the terrestrial manifestation. They come for me to give them the support of my consent, if I find them interesting. So there are all kinds of things! And most of them get sorted out at that point. But anyway, I had a vision in which Pondicherry was completely engulfed by a bomb (in those days there weren't such powerful bombs – so the vision was partly premonitory). So if that happens!... (Mother laughs) As a result of the bombing, I was trapped in a radioactive area (it had been buried underground but not flattened – a kind of cave had been formed), where I stayed for two thousand years.

I woke up after two thousand years with a rejuvenated body. It was a very amusing little story.... And I say "vision," but you don't watch these things like a movie: you LIVE them. I somehow extricated myself from that sort of sealed grotto, and where Pondicherry had once stood (it had been completely razed), I came upon some people working.... They were VERY DIFFERENT, and quite bizarre. I myself must have looked funny, with a kind of costume totally alien to their epoch. (My clothing had also survived the destruction – the whole thing was right out of a storybook!) So of course I attracted some curiosity and they tried to make me understand. "Ah, yes – I know..." one of them said (I understood them because I could understand their thoughts – those two thousand years had enabled me to read people's minds), and they led me to a very old sage, a wise old fellow. I spoke to him and he began leafing through all kinds of books (he had many, many books), and suddenly he exclaimed, "Ah, French! " An ancient language, you see (Mother laughs).

It was very funny. I told the story to Sri Aurobindo, and he had a good laugh.

27. November 1962 – Vision of a cube

I myself had an experience lasting the full half hour of the meditation.

Nothing was left but an immensity, without beginning, without end, neither in space nor in time – outside time. Outside time and space: an immensity of light. It was something of the same nature as light, but not light – far brighter, far... not bright: far more intense than light. It was white, but not our physical white; it was a white... at the time I couldn't define it. Afterwards, looking at it again in my consciousness, it seemed to be the light of a gold turned white, you understand: like when you bring something to white heat. Well, it was like gold becoming white through its intensity. It was ABSOLUTELY immobile – that is, I had the feeling you get in Sat. Yet that immobility contained (how shall I put it?)... yes, it actively contained – although its action wasn't perceptible – a sort of infinite Power, which could be the creative Power. And directed by an unmanifest Consciousness.... If you can make anything out of this, good for you!

Everything was like that, and without thought – I am now trying to put it into words. And at the center of that immensity was a concentration of white light as we know it (far more intense), but denser, forming a sort of cube that was relatively tiny in the immensity, but nonetheless quite perceptible. It was vibrant, fluid, condensed, concentrated, and tremendously active. And all that immensity converged there (how?) without moving. And from there, it was spreading everywhere, without going out.

In order to be discernible, the cube was enveloped in something that looked like a kind of tulle, a tulle made of a pale gray substance, which expressed the individual nonexistence, the perfect humility that completely abolishes the ego: because of that there wasn't the least possibility of ego – if you ask me why, I can't say, but that's how it was. And I was seeing that tulle all the time – something extremely delicate, scarcely perceptible, yet maintaining the cube's form. It was perfect humility (in the divine sense) and total absence of ego – there wasn't even the memory or idea of it, nothing whatever: the abolition of the ego. And it served to receive that immobile immensity which manifested through an action of the Power. And then, the action of the Power.... I was conscious ("I" was conscious – where was I? I don't know; the cube represented my physical being: I had been TOLD it was my physical being), and I was watching it without being situated – I myself had no precise place but could see and understand the whole thing. And I could discern all the action being done through the cube: this action for that thing, this for that, this for that... the whole earth (gesture expressing forces radiating outward, each for a special purpose), things from the past and things FAR into the future.

And it was so imperative!

It took me a long while to formulate it. What I am telling you now came gradually, slowly, through a sort of silent revelation. At the moment, it was nothing but Sat, an immobile Existence.

I didn't seek this experience, nothing. I simply sat down.... The previous time, there was that massive presence of Sri Aurobindo.

I had been forewarned that this time it would be different (besides, I've never had the same experience twice), but this was utterly unexpected – it didn't come as a response to a will to know or anything at all. I seemed to be simply faced with a fact: it was shown to me. I was witness to my own experience, that's all. And I was absolutely certain of its meaning – as when you KNOW and there's no need to discuss or elaborate or explain: that's how it is. And when it was gone, it was gone suddenly, and nothing remained but a blissful tranquillity, a sort of absolute certainty that things ARE like that. Although the appearances may seem altogether different, things ARE like that.

(silence)

And the charm, the charm of the substance enveloping the cube was inexpressible! Something... I can't describe. There were no contrasts, no... the whole thing was in total harmony. Of course, to say it resembled tulle is a crude comparison – a very, very fine tulle, and gray.... Do you know that little wild grass I've named " Humility"? (Strobilanthes kunthianus)

Is it silver, is it...? It's indefinable. That's just what makes that grass so exquisite. Well, the tulle was that color. Afterwards, a long time after, when I began to observe and to... not actually "think," but to try to formulate it, I noticed the color was identical. "Now I know why I named it Humility!" I said to myself. It's like being in a domain where things are known quite naturally, you understand – there's no seeking.

How lovely it was! The sense of delicate beauty in things.

And then the whole time, the body's sensation was.... You see, it no longer has... the sense of its separate form is reduced to a minimum (Mother touches her hands as if seeking the body's limits), but in that experience it had completely vanished. There wasn't even the sense of identity with the cube, because it was self-evident – everything was self-evident. I can't even say "I" was looking – nothing was looking, everything was self-evident.

And that was the Manifestation.

But it was the Manifestation at that PARTICULAR moment – perhaps a very long moment, I don't know – it was one moment of the Manifestation. THAT was the Manifestation; all we see, all we think and understand was nothing, unsubstantial. But THAT.... And with a kind of.... You see, the bliss you experience isn't something you feel as such (you don't feel you are in bliss, it's not like that; you don't feel yourself, there is no awareness of any "you" involved in it): the thing is self-existent, that's all there is to it.

The experience lasted half an hour, unwavering.

Afterwards I began to remember, and as I began to remember, I began to explain, but of course the total truth is somewhere else!

But the body very distinctly feels that things are ALWAYS that way. Always that way. And that everything... oh, the feeling of just how artificial all life's complications and problems are, and how different it could be! That's always in the background. For example, whenever the body feels ill at ease or something isn't working right, there's always a kind of deep feeling behind that it's just bad habits – which are lingering, fading away, losing their force and becoming more and more unreal. But it's... it's like a machine that takes time to run down.

In the other consciousness (the human consciousness), you have the joy, the excitement of the experience; that has completely gone away, absolutely. There's neither the joy of the experience nor the wonder nor.... Everything is so obvious, so obvious: that's IT. And it's not something you're looking at: it's LIKE THAT. That's all, it's just like that.

Somewhere in the active consciousness something KNOWS, constantly, that all the complications and miseries and misfortunes (I mean all the things we call life's "misfortunes") are... a bad habit, nothing more. And it's hard for us to change our habits. Yet THE TIME HAS COME to change habits.

It's just a bad habit.

I can see I am still (and God knows how long it will last!) in that transitional period Sri Aurobindo describes in "The Yoga of Self-Perfection." A period when the true thing is getting established but the tail of the old thing trails behind, mixes in and colors things. Well, it's an old habit, and it takes SUCH a long time to go away.

The habit of not understanding something unless it can be mentally explained is disastrous, for instance. This feeling we have that we don't understand something unless we can explain it – that's really disastrous. That half-hour's experience was something absolute, you see, not for one second was there any concern to know what was going on (naturally!); it was absolute. And only when the time was up and I had to come out of it did I start wondering, "What happened? What does it mean?" It wasn't even that pronounced. It's simply an old habit, what we call "understanding."

A bad habit.

To live THAT spontaneously, all the time – how wonderful it would be!

(silence)

And the Power! The Power was tremendous. And I could see in detail everything it was doing, but in another way. I can say it was a certainty (I knew exactly what it was doing), but I couldn't have described it with the words we use here.

When I came out of it, I drew only one conclusion: "Why am I not in such states more often? I waste my time with a mountain of external things: reading and writing letters, seeing people, doing this and that, putting some order into matter (there's a very strong tendency to bring order – an order of a higher logic – into SMALL material things) – why?" Then the reply came, not in words but very clearly: "Don't worry (Mother laughs). It has to be this way and it's a time of transition."

A time will come when it will all be done automatically, but right now that would be impossible. As it is, the way the Force acts is already making people here a little... disoriented – it's verging on being unintelligible to them. In other words, it's beginning to obey another law. For instance, to know at the exact moment what needs to be done or said, what's going to happen – if there's the slightest bit of concern or concentration to know, it doesn't come. But if I am just like that, simply in a kind of inner immobility, then for all the little details of life, I know at the exact moment. What needs to be said comes: you say this. And not like an order from outside: it just comes, there it is. What needs to be said is there, the reply that needs to be sent is there; the person who enters, enters – you're not forewarned. You do things in a kind of automatic way. In the mental world, you think of something before doing it (it may happen very fast, but both movements are distinct); here it isn't like that.

This is beginning to be a rather constant occurrence. It's already very baffling for all those who live with me, but if I were as I should be, I think it would be quite intolerable.

We must, we must have the endurance for the transition. There has to be a transition.

27. November 1962 – A sense of absolute security

One day, I don't remember on what occasion, I saw what had motivated the "forefathers" who wrote the Vedas: it was the need for immortality; they were in quest of immortality. From there, I went on to Buddha and saw what had set the Buddha on his way: this kind of need for permanence, purely and simply; the vision of the impermanence of things had profoundly troubled him, and he felt the need for Permanence. His whole quest was to find the Permanent (why was he so anxious to have the Permanent?...). There are a few things like that in human nature, in the deep human need. And then I saw another such need: a need for the Certitude which is security. I don't know how to explain it.... Because I had the experience of it, I saw it was one of the human needs; and I understood it very intensely, for when I met Sri Aurobindo, this Certitude is what made me feel I had found the Truth I needed. And I didn't realize how DEEP this need was until he left his body – just then, at the moment of the transition. Then the entire physical consciousness felt its certitude and security collapse. At that moment I saw (we spoke about it with Nolini a year later and he had had exactly the same impression), I saw this was similar to Buddha's experience when he realized that everything was impermanent and so all of life collapsed... in other words, Something Else HAD to be found. Well, at that moment.... I'd already had all my experiences, but with Sri Aurobindo, for the thirty years I lived with him (a little more than thirty years), I lived in an absolute, an absolute of security – a sense of total security, even physical, even the most material security. A sense of absolute security, because Sri Aurobindo was there. And it held me up, you know, like this (gesture of being carried): not for ONE MINUTE in those thirty years did it leave me. That was why I could do my work with a Base, really, a Base of absoluteness – of eternity and absoluteness. I realized it when he left: THAT suddenly collapsed.

And then I understood that it is one of life's needs (there are several); and it's what spurs the human being to get out of his present state and find another one. These needs are (what's the word?)... the seeds, the germs of evolution. They compel us to progress. The whole time Sri Aurobindo was here, as I said, individual progress was automatic: all the progress Sri Aurobindo made, I made. But I was in a state of eternity, of absoluteness, with a feeling of such security, in every circumstance. Nothing, nothing unfortunate could happen, for he was there. So when he left, all at once – a fall into a pit. And that's what projected me wholly... (Mother gestures forward).

That is, I understood why he left. The whole terrestrial evolution had come to a halt. One progressed – one can always progress, that's nothing – but the entire TERRESTRIAL evolution was at a standstill. If there were permanence in life, nothing would budge. And these needs are the seeds of evolution. So that's what I saw: in the past, in the future, universally. It was very interesting.

And with no effort, no tension, no... as if they were the most natural things in the world. Things like this happen all the time.

As soon as I saw that I understood. "Well," I told myself, "if I were a philosopher I could write a thick book about this! " It made me laugh. Because it's not just ONE thing: there are heaps of them, all the time, all the time. Things like this are happening all the time.

The Lord is enjoying himself!

30. November 1962 – Contact with the inner Divine

The other day you were speaking of Sri Aurobindo's departure, and you said, "So when he left, all at once – a fall into a pit. And that's what projected me wholly.... " Did you mean it projected you into the evolution?

The real truth is that it projected me DIRECTLY towards the Supreme, with no intermediary.

I'd had the contact with the inner Divine, I'd had the realization of Eternity, I'd had all those realizations, but... as long as I was living with Sri Aurobindo I felt the absolute through him, and (what shall I say?).... All those imperative "needs" I called the seeds of evolution are the levers or springboards to make man realize that the ONE AND ONLY, the one and only absolute is the Supreme; the one and only permanence is the Supreme; the one and only security is the Supreme; the one and only immortality is the Supreme. That the only purpose of manifestation is to lead YOU THERE.

That's essentially it: from my experience of the Supreme through the manifestation of Sri Aurobindo, I was projected into a direct experience, with no intermediary.

It's poorly expressed, that's not really it, but... (Mother closes her eyes).

I felt very strongly – so intensely it was inexpressible – that there was but ONE THING to lean on, ONE THING sure and unfailing: the Supreme; all the rest comes and goes, it stays, then disappears.

For the sake of the Work, that's obviously what had to be understood.

(silence)

It's difficult to explain, but it was.... You see, in the eternal Play, everything is unstable and everything fails you. And that's how it was: "All will fail you, except the Supreme."

And it becomes such an absorbing and absolute experience (Mother seems to be enveloped in white light)... the uncertainty, the instability, the fleeting, inconstant and impermanent nature of all things – everything collapses, there is nothing to lean on, except THE SUPREME, for He is all.

One thing alone is unfailing: the absolute All.

Words are stupid – it's an experience.

Once you have the experience, that's that: all the rest simply follows from it – details. And I had it then [on December 5, 1950].