AGENDA 1963

May 1963


03. May 1963 – A constant phenomenon

You know, I live from day to day. With only the feeling of "that" moving on very fast. By "that," I mean a large number of things.

It's very hard to say, really.

It's the perception of a terrestrial movement more than anything else. So the details are unimportant in themselves, but they are symptomatic of the whole. I mean that difficulties, obstacles, battles, victories, advances are in themselves nothing but indications of a general movement: at times, the resistance and opposition are formidable; at other times there are fantastic advances or progress, seemingly miraculous. If you see everything together, you feel, you feel a sort of thrust – an overall thrust – in which a small cellular concentration seems really unimportant in itself; its importance diminishes with its lack of resistance, in the sense that the more it allows the Work to be done without hindering or distorting the movement – without hindering it or making it more complicated – the more the sense of its importance diminishes. In other words, it appears important only insofar as it hinders.

There is evidently a twofold movement: on one hand, something that tries to draw less and less the attention and concentration of others, that is, to lessen the sense of intermediary necessary for forces and thoughts to spread (more and more there is an attempt to undo that), and on the other hand, an increase – at times prodigious, staggering – of power. Now and then (seldom, and I must say I don't at all try to make it happen more often), now and then, for a minute – not even a minute: a few seconds – comes a sense of absolute Power; but immediately it is covered over, veiled. The effect at a distance is becoming greater and greater, but that is not the result of a conscious will – I mean there is no attempt to have more power, none at all. Now and then, there's the observation (a very amusing observation, sometimes) that for a moment (but it's a matter of seconds), the Power is absolute, and then the usual hodgepodge takes over again.

The effect on others is increasing considerably, though it too isn't the result of an attempt in that direction, not at all: those things are automatic. Yet, as I said, at certain seconds, there rises... something that wills. "Wills," but not in the ordinary way: something that... it's between knowing, seeing and willing. A little something that has something of all three and is... as hard as diamond... (oh, how can I explain it? I don't know, there are no words for it), it has something of the emotive vibration, but that's not it; it has nothing to do with anything intellectual, nothing at all; it's neither intellectual vision nor supramental knowledge, that's not it, it's something else. It is... a diamondlike, live force – live, living. And that's all-powerful. But extremely fleeting – it immediately gets covered over by a heap of things, like visions, supramental vision, understanding, discernment – all this has become a constant mass, you understand.

From the standpoint of sensitivity or sensation (I don't know what to call it), when the body rests and enters the static state of pure Existence... Before, it was (or gave) a sense of total immobility – not something motionless: a "non-movement," I don't know; not the opposition between something motionless and something in motion, not that – the absence of any possibility of movement. But now, as it happens, the body has the sense not only of a terrestrial movement, but of a universal movement so fantastically rapid that it is imperceptible, beyond perception. As if beyond Being and Non-Being, there were a "something" that's both... I mean, that doesn't move WITHIN a space but is both beyond immobility and beyond movement, in the sense that it's so rapid as to be absolutely imperceptible to ALL the senses (I don't mean merely the physical senses), all the senses in all the worlds.

This is something new.

When I lie down, I go from one state to the other with extraordinary speed. And I've noticed (the thing is just at its beginning, so I can't really say), I've noticed that in that state, the Movement exceeds the force or power that concentrates the cells into an individual form. And that state seems to be all-powerful, although devoid of conscious will or vision (for the moment). It's a state... (how can I explain this?) whose characteristics exceed the power that concentrates the cells into an individual body. The effect is automatic (not willed): as soon as something takes the form of a physical pain, it disappears INSTANTLY. But then, and this is most interesting, the second the body reverts to a certain state – its ordinary state, which isn't the ordinary human state, of course, but its ordinary, habitual state – it recaptures the MEMORY of its pain, and along with the memory comes the possibility of reverting to it if a certain number of conditions are not automatically fulfilled. I don't know if what I am saying makes any sense, but that's how the experience is.... It is probably the passage from the true thing to the thing no longer true – not what is meant by Falsehood here on earth (that's something else altogether), but a first alteration compared to the pure Vibration. It gives the impression of a wrong habit, what remains is merely a question of a wrong habit. It's not the principle of distortion that works here, but the wrong habit due to the effect of ANOTHER principle. And something is to be found to check – check, eliminate, prevent – that effect from recurring automatically.

Because it happens CONSTANTLY. It's a constant phenomenon: passing from this to that, this to that, this to that, to such a point – it's so strong – that a second comes, or a minute, or anyway a certain interval of time (I don't know), when you are neither this nor that; then you have a feeling of nothingness. It lasts just an instant; if it lasted longer, it would probably result in fainting or something, I can't say what. But it happens all the time: this, that (oscillating gesture). And between this and that, there is a passage.

Life on the surface (what people see of it, what they are in contact with) is certainly a sort of mixture of the two, with something going on behind the screen, but what you see on the screen is a sort of combination of the two – they don't really combine, but the visual effect is odd [for Mother]. By "visual," I don't mean just for the eyes but for the outer consciousness. It's a bizarre life, neither this nor that, nor a mixture of the two, nor a juxtaposition, but as though both were operating through each other. It must be intercellular: something that goes this way (Mother intertwines the fingers of one hand with the fingers of the other in a continuous movement of interpenetration), so that the mixture must be very microscopic, on the surface.

But from a much more external viewpoint, the night that followed your arrival there was dreadful, in the sense that the consciousness was put in contact with all the most negative and destructive things: like an entire world, yes, of denial, of refusal too, of opposition, of battle, of ill will – the visual appearance was chalk-white, you know, the soulless white of chalk, everything was like that, even black was chalk-white (!). Something absolutely stripped of all soul life. Horrible. I don't know, I would have to go back years and years and years to find anything like it in my memory. And I was right in it, it was forced on me; it was as if I were made to stay there and watch it all.

I forgot: immediately afterwards I swept everything clean. Except for what I've just said, I don't remember what it was – I don't remember what it was because I did NOT want it to exist. But it was horrible. And in the morning, there was such a painful impression! So I thought something was wrong over there, and when I received your letter, I understood. But it isn't limited to one person or another, one place or another: it seems to evoke a universal way of being, that's what troubles me. As if an entire way of being which I've been resisting for... for, well, more than seventy years at any rate, which I've been keeping at arm's length so it may no longer exist in a real way, as if it were all forced on me. Like a thing from a past that no longer has the right to exist.

Afterwards, it got better. That night was the worst.

But during the morning meditation, I was at a loss.... Is it the symbol of a clinging to the past? Possible. But then there are plenty of people like that in the world, who cling to the past, plenty....

(silence)

The next morning, for an hour, I had an experience.... Everything always happens as if it were in the body (but this body has become a kind of representative and symbolic object), it always takes place that way, whether it's a sense of imminent death or a sense of perfect immortality. All that always takes place in the body – it is the battlefield, it is the field of victory, it is the Defeat, it is the Triumph, it is everything. So I noted the experience down. (Mother hands a slip of paper to Satprem):

The Lord is peaceful resignation, but the Lord is also the struggle and the Victory.”

"He is the joyous acceptance of all that is; but also the constant effort towards a more total and perfect harmony.”

"Perpetual movement in absolute immobility.“

This isn't an intellectual reflection, it's the notation of the experience: the constant, twofold movement of total acceptance of all that is, as an absolute condition to participate in all that will be, and at the same time, the perpetual effort towards a greater perfection. And this was the experience of all the cells.

The experience lasted more than an hour: the two conditions.

That's exactly what made a sharp division in the whole spiritual thought or spiritual will of mankind. The point doesn't seem to have been understood. Some, like Buddha and that whole line, have declared that the world is incorrigible, that the only thing to do is to get out of it, and that it can never be otherwise – it changes, but really remains the same. The result is a certain attitude of perfect acceptance. So, for them, the goal is to get out – that is, you escape: you leave the world as it is and escape. Then there are the others, who sense a perfection towards which men strive indefinitely and which is realized progressively. And I see more and more that the two movements complement each other, and not only complement each other but are almost indispensable to each other.

In other words, the change that arises from a refusal to accept the world as it is has no force, no power: what is needed is an acceptance not only total but comprehensive, joyous – to find supreme joy in things in order to have (it's not a question of right or power)... in order to make it possible for things to change.

Putting it differently, you must become the Supreme in order to help in His action, in the changing of the world; you must have the supreme Vibration in order to participate in that Movement, which I am now beginning to feel in the body's cells – a Movement which is a sort of eternal Vibration, without beginning or end. It has no beginning (the earth has a beginning, so that makes it easy; with the earth's beginning, we have the beginning of the earth's history, but that's not the case here), it has no beginning, it is... something existing from all eternity, for all eternity, and without any division of time: it's only when it is projected onto a screen that it begins to assume the division of time. But you can't say a "second," or an "instant".... It's hard to explain.... No sooner do you begin to feel it than it's gone: something boundless, without beginning or end, a Movement so total – total and constant, constant – that it is perceived as total immobility.

Absolutely indescribable. Yet it is the Origin and Support of the whole terrestrial evolution.

When you speak of terrestrial things, it's very easy, very easy.

These words (Mother shows the notation of her experience) come long after the experience is over. There is a sort of silence, of immobility, and it's like something that settles slowly, slowly; and once it has settled, here is the residue (Mother shows her note, laughing).

11. May 1963 – Mother's Mantra

I saw, in my case, that my mantra has the power of immortality; whatever happens, if it is uttered, it's the Supreme that has the upper hand, it's no longer the lower law. And the words are irrelevant, they may not have any meaning – to someone else, my mantra is meaningless, but to me it's full, packed with meaning. And effective, because it's my cry, the intense aspiration of my whole being.

A mantra given by a guru is only the power to realize the experience of the discoverer of the mantra. The power is automatically there, because the sound contains the experience. I saw that once in Paris, at a time when I knew nothing of India, absolutely nothing, only the usual nonsense. I didn't even know what a mantra was. I had gone to a lecture given by some fellow who was supposed to have practiced "yoga" for a year in the Himalayas and recounted his experience (none too interesting, either). All at once, in the course of his lecture, he uttered the sound OM. And I saw the entire room suddenly fill with light, a golden, vibrating light.... I was probably the only one to notice it. I said to myself, "Well!" Then I didn't give it any more thought, I forgot about the story. But as it happened, the experience recurred in two or three different countries, with different people, and every time there was the sound OM, I would suddenly see the place fill with that same light. So I understood. That sound contains the vibration of thousands and thousands of years of spiritual aspiration – there is in it the entire aspiration of men towards the Supreme. And the power is automatically there, because the experience is there.

It's the same with my mantra. When I wanted to translate the end of my mantra, "Glory to You, O Lord," into Sanskrit, I asked for Nolini's help. He brought his Sanskrit translation, and when he read it to me, I immediately saw that the power was there – not because Nolini put his power into it (!), God knows he had no intention of "giving" me a mantra! But the power was there because my experience was there. We made a few adjustments and modifications, and that's the japa I do now – I do it all the time, while sleeping, while walking, while eating, while working, all the time.

And that's how a mantra has life: when it wells up all the time, spontaneously, like the cry of your being – there is no need of effort or concentration: it's your natural cry. Then it has full power, it is alive. It must well up from within.... No guru can give you that.

Fortunately, I lived with Sri Aurobindo, who never used to sit cross-legged. He told me right away that it was all a question of habits – subconscious habits. It has no importance whatsoever. And how well he explained: if a posture is necessary for you, it will come by itself. And it's perfectly true, for instance, that when necessary, the body will suddenly sit up straight – it comes spontaneously. As he said, the important thing is not the external frame but the inner experience, and if there is a physical necessity and your inner experience is entirely sincere, that physical necessity will come ALL BY ITSELF. This is something I am absolutely sure of. And he gave me his own example (I had mine, too) of certain things considered dangerous or bad, which we both did independently and spontaneously, and which were a great help to us! Consequently, all those stories of posture and so on are the petty mechanical bounds of the human mind.

The deeper significance of figures... There are countless traditions, countless scriptures... which I took great care not to follow. But the deeper significance of figures came to me in Tlemcen, when I was in the Overmind. I don't remember the names Théon used to give to those various worlds, but it was a world that corresponded to the highest and most luminous regions of Sri Aurobindo's Overmind. It was above, just above the gods' region. And it was something in accord with the Overmind creation – the earth under the gods' influence. That was where figures took on a living meaning for me – not a mental speculation: a living meaning. That was where Madame Théon recognized me, because of the formation of twelve pearls she saw above my head; and she told me, "You are that because you have this. Only that can have this!" (Mother laughs) It hadn't even remotely occurred to me, thank God!

But figures are alive for me. They have a concrete reality.

And this (the diagram) is meant to prepare for the "second birth" mentioned in the Vedas, the spiritual birth. Through it one becomes a complete being, consciously complete.

Of course, it's the beginning of realization. But for many people it's the ultimate term. I hope it won't tire you out any more.

I've forgotten all that. I have spent all my time forgetting everything.

I used to write my Sanskrit as I write French – all gone.

One must learn to lose everything in order to gain everything. Always, every minute.

15. May 1963 – On Aphorisms 88-92

88 – This world was built by Death that he might live. Wilt thou abolish death? Then life too will perish. Thou canst not abolish death, but thou mayst transform it into a greater living.

89 – This world was built by Cruelty that she might love. Wilt thou abolish cruelty? Then love too will perish. Thou canst not abolish cruelty, but thou mayst transfigure it into its opposite, into a fierce Love and Delightfulness.

90 – This world was built by Ignorance and Error that they might know. Wilt thou abolish ignorance and error? Then knowledge too will perish. Thou canst not abolish ignorance and error, but thou mayst transmute them into the utter and effulgent exceeding of reason.

91 – If life alone were and not death, there could be no immortality; if love were alone and not cruelty, joy would be only a tepid and ephemeral rapture; if reason were alone and not ignorance, our highest attainment would not exceed a limited rationality and worldly wisdom.

92 – Death transformed becomes Life that is Immortality; Cruelty transfigured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy; Ignorance transmuted becomes Light that leaps beyond wisdom and knowledge.

It's the same idea, that opposition and opposites stimulate progress. Because to say that without Cruelty, Love would be tepid... The principle of Love, as it is beyond the Manifest and the Non-manifest, has nothing to do with either tepidness or cruelty. But Sri Aurobindo's idea, it seems, is that opposites are the most effective and rapid way to knead Matter so that it may intensify its manifestation.

As an experience, it's absolutely certain: when you come in touch with eternal Love, supreme Love, the first, immediate... (what should I say?) perception or sensation (it's not an understanding, it is much more concrete) is that even the most enlightened, kneaded, prepared material consciousness is INCAPABLE of manifesting That! The first impression is that sort of incapacity. Then comes the experience of something manifesting a type of... not exactly "cruelty," because it's not cruelty as we conceive it; but in the totality of circumstances, there is a vibration which is felt as a certain intensity of refusal of love as it is manifested here – that's exactly the thing: something in the material world refuses the manifestation of love as it exists at present (I don't refer to the ordinary world but to the consciousness at its present highest). It's an experience, I am speaking of something that has taken place. Then the part of the consciousness that has been touched by that opposition calls out directly to Love's origin WITH AN INTENSITY IT COULD NOT HAVE HAD WITHOUT THE EXPERIENCE OF THE REFUSAL. Limits are broken, a flood descends which could NOT manifest before, and something is expressed which was not expressed before.

That happened not very long ago.

Seeing that, there is obviously a similar experience in connection with what is called life and death. It's a sort of "overhanging" (it comes to me in English, that's why I have difficulty) of that constant presence of Death or possibility of death. As he says in Savitri, we have a constant companion all the way from the cradle to the grave, we are constantly shadowed by the threat or presence of Death. Well, this gives the cells an intensity in their call for a Power of Eternity which would not be there without that constant threat. Then we understand – we begin to understand very concretely – that all those things are only goads to make the Manifestation progress and grow more intense, more perfect. If the goads are crude, it is because the Manifestation is very crude. As it grows more and more perfect and apt to manifest something ETERNALLY PROGRESSIVE, those very crude methods will give way to more refined ones, and the world will progress without the need for such brutal oppositions. It is only because the world is in infancy and the human consciousness in its very early infancy.

It's a very concrete experience.

So, when the earth no longer needs to die in order to progress, there will be no more death. When the earth no longer needs to suffer in order to progress, there will be no more suffering. And when the earth no longer needs to hate in order to love, there will be no more hatred.

(silence)

It is the quickest and most effective method of pulling the creation out of its inertia and leading it on to its blossoming.

(long silence)

There is a particular aspect of the creation (a very modern aspect, maybe): a need to get out of disorder and confusion – of disharmony and confusion. A confusion, a disorder which assumes all forms, turns into struggles, pointless efforts and wasted energy. It depends on which level you stand on, but materially, in action, it means unnecessary complications, wasted energy and materials, waste of time, incomprehension, misunderstanding, confusion, disorder – what in ancient days they called deformation, crookedness in the Vedas (I don't know the French word for it, it's something crooked which, instead of shooting straight to the goal, weaves its way in sharp and unnecessary zigzags). It's one of the things farthest from the harmony of a purely divine action – which is something so simple.... It looks like child's play... and direct – direct, without those absurd and completely useless twists and turns. Well, it is clearly the same phenomenon: that disorder is a way to stimulate the need for pure and divine simplicity.

The body feels strongly, very strongly that everything could be so simple, so simple!

And for the being – that sort of individual aggregate – to be transformed, it needs in effect to grow simpler and simpler. All those complexities of Nature which man is now beginning to understand and study, which for the smallest thing are so complex (the smallest of our physical workings is the result of such a complex system that it's almost unthinkable... certainly it would be impossible for the human mind to think up and contrive all those things), are now being discovered by science. And it's quite plain to see that for the functioning to become divine, that is, to escape Disorder and Confusion, it must grow simpler and simpler.

(long silence)

In other words, Nature, or rather Nature in its effort towards expression, was compelled to have recourse to an unbelievable, almost endless complexity in order to reproduce the original Simplicity.

It brings us back to the same thing: it is that excess of complexity which makes possible a simplicity that isn't empty – a rich simplicity. An all-embracing simplicity, whereas without those complexities, simplicity is empty.

This has been my experience these last few days.

They are making discoveries like that. In anatomy, for instance, they are making discoveries for surgical treatments that are unbelievably intricate! It's the same for their division of Matter's constituents – a frightful intricacy! And all that is with the view and endeavor to express Oneness, the ONE Simplicity – the divine state.

(silence)

Maybe it will go fast.... But the question boils down to a SUFFICIENT aspiration, sufficiently intense and effective to attract That which can transform all this: complication into Simplicity, cruelty into Love... and so forth.

It's no use complaining and saying it's a pity things are that way. They are the way they are. Why?... When things are no longer that way, we'll probably know why. Or to put it differently: if we knew why, they would no longer be that way.

So speculations such as, "It would have been better if it had not existed," and so on, are all impractical – irrelevant, absolutely useless.

We should hasten to do what we have to do to put an end to it, that's all, that's the only practical thing.

For the body, it's very interesting. But it's a mountain, you see! A mountain of apparently tiny experiences, but in such large numbers that they become sizable. (Later Mother remarked, "Scientists will deny it, they will say I am talking nonsense; but that's because I don't use their language, it's just a question of vocabulary.")

18. May 1963 – Color of Consciousness

(Mother asks for a box of paints to demonstrate practically the gradation of colors of the levels of consciousness, from the most material Nature to the Supreme. The point is to illustrate the symbol of Infinity, the figure 8, which Mother explained in the conversation of May 11: the infinite play of the Supreme reaching down to Nature and Nature rising toward the Supreme. Mother speaks in English in the presence of a disciple, who is a painter, so that he may convey her explanations to H., the disciple who is preparing illustrations for "Savitri.")

Of course, all these things are lights, so you can't reproduce them. But still, it must be a violet that is not dull and not dark (Mother starts from the most material Nature). What she has put is too red, but if it's too blue, it won't be good either – you understand the difficulty? Then after violet there is blue, which must be truly blue, not too light, but it must be a bright blue. Not too light because there are three consecutive blues: there is the blue of the Mind, and then comes the Higher Mind, which is paler, and then the Illumined Mind, which is the color of the flag [Mother's flag], a silver blue, but naturally paler than that. And after this comes yellow, a yellow that is the yellow of the Intuitive Mind; it must not be golden, it must be the color of cadmium. Then after this yellow, which is pale, we have the Overmind with all the colors – they must all be bright colors, not dark: blue, red, green, violet, purple, yellow, all of them, all the colors. And after that, we then have all the golds of the Supermind, with its three layers. And then, after that, there is one layer of golden white – it is white, but a golden white. After this golden white, there is silver white – silver white: how can I explain that? (H. has sent me some ridiculous pictures of a sun shining on water – it has nothing to do with that.) If you put silver, silver gray (Mother shows a silver box nearby shining brilliantly in the sun), silver gray together with white... that is, it is white, but if you put the four whites together you see the difference. There is a white white, then there is a white with a touch of pink, then a silvery white and a golden white. It makes four worlds.

I have explained this [to H.] as I am explaining it to you, but H. has not seen it so she can't understand. I want to show her on paper. It is twelve different things [or twelve worlds], one after another. (Mother seems to have forgotten the red of the vital, which comes between material Nature's violet and the Mind's blue. Thus we have twelve worlds: violet, red, blue (the Mind's three blues), yellow, then the Overmind's prismatic colors, which makes five lower worlds, then finally the three golds of the Supermind and the four whites of the supreme creative Joy or Ananda.)

18. May 1963 – Aphorism 93

93 – Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us to bear and grow in rapture. She has three stages of her schooling, endurance first, next equality of soul, last ecstasy.

... I am still in a period of conflict.

There are all the time periods of conflict between outside ideas and the inner experience.

The problem is this: you can take the attitude of endurance and endure everything, to the point where you are able to turn pain into ecstasy, as he says – it's an experiment that can always be made, at any given moment. But materialist-minded people will tell you, "That's all very well, but you're ruining your body." And that's where... (laughing) we would have to carry out all kinds of experiments, as they do with guinea pigs, to find out whether ecstasy has the power to restore order in the body.

You suffer from, say, a physical trouble, purely physical (morally speaking, it goes without saying, the thing is quite clear; I mean something purely material). Something is disorganized in the working or the structure of the organs. The result is pain. At first you endure, then out of endurance comes perfect equality, and out of perfect equality comes ecstasy – it's perfectly possible; it's not only possible, it has been proved. But the experiment should be carried through TO THE END to know whether ecstasy has the power to restore the body's order, or whether it ends in dissolution: you are in ecstasy and die in ecstasy. That is, you leave your body while in ecstasy. Is that so?... It's not only possible, it's perfectly obvious. But that's not what we want! We want to restore order, to eliminate disorder IN MATTER – does ecstasy have the power to restore order in the physical working and triumph over the forces of dissolution?

The only way to find out is to make the experiment!

But there is always something which says that the risk is great for... We are too – still too cautious. Or is it a lack of faith? But it's a lack of knowledge more than a lack of faith, because if we say, "Whatever happens is the Lord's Will, and if the experiment dissolves the body, well, it only shows He willed it," then there is no need to worry. And it's true, you live in this idea, you feel this way, you sense this way; but there is something on the outside or from the outside that says, "That's all very well, but is this need or inclination to experiment legitimate? Couldn't the same knowledge be obtained without running so great a risk?..."

That's the kind of problem you have to face.

So personally, my attitude (all this has nothing to do with the Bulletin, by the way), my attitude is to watch it all: this opinion, that opinion, this attitude, that attitude, and I stay like this (gesture of a Witness completely outside and passive). I refrain from deciding or acting, I become exclusively a witness – a non-interfering witness. I say to the Lord, "It's for You to decide; it isn't my business, You will decide. Whatever happens is Your concern." So far, this has always resulted in an intervention that restored order, but... but with no positive proof that the order was restored in this way or that, because of this or that. There is no certainty.

In this field, we know nothing. Oh, as soon as we get into the field... even the field of sensation, the vital, all problems are solved. Nothing could be easier, there's nothing to discuss; in the field of feelings, the work was done long ago. That's not what I mean: I mean when we get to the bottom of the problem. There, everything, everything is in a sort of incomprehension, of total ignorance, along with all the ideas that result from the intellectual and scientific development and are so sure of themselves, so full of impregnable certainty! The certainty of the material experience, of the thing you touch.

To use that without being governed by it, to base yourself on that without being influenced by it, is very difficult.

Maybe someone much more intelligent, much smarter than me would find the work easier; but he would probably have more difficulties inside – no such difficulties here! But outside... For example, the chemical discovery of the structure of Matter would seem to be sufficient to serve as a base for true knowledge to act on Matter. And maybe those scientists, those who have discovered and experimented with the structure of Matter, would have no difficulty.... But the field of the greatest difficulty is the medical field, the therapeutic field: their science is still ABSOLUTELY contrary to the true knowledge. And when it comes to the body's equilibrium... They know anatomy, they even know a little (not very, very much) a little about the body's chemistry, they know all kinds of things that the common man doesn't, on the strength of which they make dogmatic assertions and send you packing like an ignorant fool. All this business about the body's workings – how much do they know? Naturally, when you ask them, "But why is it like that?" they reply, "Oh, why? I have no idea."

And their way of telling you, "That's how things are and they cannot be otherwise"! But if you tell them, "Your experience is ultimately based on statistics, but your statistics are useless, they cover such a limited field of experience that they are worthless – there is also all that you don't know," then they feel sorry for you.

They are still in infancy, with the kind of dogmatic certainties characteristic of infancy.

On the other hand, the others, those who know the inside of things, don't have the experience – no one has transformed his body so far! No one can tell you, "Well, it's done this way and it happened that way; this is what I did and that's what happened" – no one. That's why it is so difficult. Very difficult.

And also, oh, there are all those great waves of thought, of convictions (Mother draws great cosmic waves coming from the outside to assail her), that whole habit of Matter of decomposing and recomposing itself, being unbuilt and rebuilt.... It comes again and again, very regularly, like waves beating against a dike. Very difficult.

(silence)

Probably it's necessary because at times, when everything is in utter confusion, at times I ask for an Assurance – and I see very well, very well that if my body's cells, the body consciousness were told, "You are immortal; all those difficulties are experiences; the pain you feel has no importance; this apparent decomposition has no importance; all those things are necessary experiences, and you will go on to the end of the experience, that is, to transformation," if it were told that, obviously it would be mere child's play, just enduring the difficulties – that's nothing. So I wonder.... But never have I been told that, never, never have I been given the Assurance – now and then the body is in a sort of STATE, a state of immortality, but it isn't constant, it's dependent on other things; so the minute it's "dependent," it is no longer a supreme Assurance. There is at the same time a sort of discernment: very likely there would be a general slackening of the cells' effort if they were told, "Never mind, none of this is important, because you will last till the work is done." Maybe they would flag. The concentration of will in the battle would disappear. Which means one of the necessary conditions would be missing.

Then again something else comes and says, "Oh, you always have very favorable explanations to comfort yourself!..." You see, I am like a spectator (Mother does the same gesture of great cosmic waves assailing her) at a sort of contest of all the different reactions. (I put it into words to make myself understood, but there are no words – only SENSATIONS; the verbal translation is just for explaining, but they are like sensations, or rather states of consciousness. They are all states of consciousness.) And they all run into each other... (gesture of waves).

You saw last time how I lost my balance. When you touched my foot, there came down a... not a column, it was a tornado! Of a light so white, so white! Not transparent – sparkling white, white like milk. But such a powerful mass! It came so violently that I lost my balance. That's all, I only lost my balance. And it remained there, it was there – you saw how I stood a moment without raising my head, it was because I was looking at it. It was... it was MUCH MORE SOLID THAN MATTER. Something very peculiar, it was solid! More solid, MORE MATERIAL THAN MATTER. And a power, a weight, a density – extraordinary! Like a great column, and everything became pure white. Absolutely white. Nothing but white, everywhere. It stayed on a few seconds. And the power of it threw me off balance.

I don't recall ever having felt the Force in such a way. It's something (how can I put it?...) more material than Matter. That's it. It didn't come as a descent of light, no: it was like a mass – an AVALANCHE.

White! White, white, sparkling, dazzling. You couldn't look at it. That's why I looked down, I couldn't look at it.

And there was nothing but that – there was no more you or my feet or my body or anything, nothing but that.

(silence)

At night, sometimes I wake up (not "wake up," rather I come to), I come to enveloped in something like that, very, very, very dense – dense. Which has weight. Perhaps a chemist could explain that! I see it as a new thing.

25. May 1963 – Announcement of the New World

It might rather be part of the announcement (not the Annunciation!), the heralding of the new world – of a new world. The Holy Spirit would then be the world that will descend after the human world.

I say this because Théon always announced the coming of the "new world." He didn't speak of "Supermind," he said: "There shall be new heavens and a new earth." That was his explanation. So it may be that, originally, in the origin of the Catholic religion, they too had the idea that after forty days (it could also mean forty centuries, maybe forty eons or forty ages), there would come the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of flames that would enter those who are ready. I find this explanation more logical.

Of course, the bird, the "white dove" they speak of, could be the Universal. Maybe it would manifest openly as a result of that descent?

Basically we always try to cut things into small pieces. It evidently means the manifestation, a new manifestation of the Divine, which takes place some time after the Divine in man is resuscitated. The Divine in man is resuscitated, that's very clear: it has become conscious. And after a time (4 is the manifestation, 10 is the perfection of the manifestation), the perfection of the manifestation of God resuscitated in man allows that universal or cosmic thing to manifest. If you take it like that, it makes sense.

That "universal thing" might be a collective transformation. A transformation that's no longer exclusively individual – the descent of the Holy Spirit into the collectivity?

I had been told that even in the College of Cardinals, things were only suggested, and each one was left to understand more or less deeply, according to his capacity. It's quite likely. But who has kept the tradition intact?... We can't say.

29. May 1963 – About the conversation of 03. May 1963

I would like a clarification on a passage from a previous conversation [of May 3], in which you said: "Something tries to draw less and less the attention and concentration of others...." And you added: "That is, to lessen the SENSE OF INTERMEDIARY necessary for forces and thoughts to spread...." What is this "sense of intermediary"? Do you mean your "role of intermediary" in the diffusion of forces? Do you want to lessen that role – to withdraw?

It isn't "role"! The role is a fact, a sort of ineluctable fact, absolutely independent of the individual will and consciousness – I am more and more convinced of it, fantastically so. The Work is done through a certain number of elements – whether they are aware of it or not, whether they collaborate or not makes little difference. It has been decided that way, it has been chosen that way and it is done that way. Whether you like it or not, whether you are aware of it or not, whether you collaborate or not – very little difference. It's more a question of personal satisfaction!

And inasmuch as the very cells of the body no longer feel their separateness (that is almost entirely gone, even in the sensation), then something is done (or takes place), but without any self-observation. Somewhere (gesture above), something knows, wills and acts; somewhere else, there is a certain number of things in a state of happy receptivity, and absolutely, extraordinarily passive, not interfering. And the less it observes, the better. It remains in an inner contemplation, or rather turned to the Heights (a Height that is everywhere, of course, not just above), a Height perfectly luminous, perfectly conscious, perfectly effective. And that's all that is needed.

The less the consciousness is turned to the outside, the less it perceives obstacles, resistances – all that appears more and more unreal, transient, extremely relative.

In the necessary and unavoidable everyday contact with people, there is a growing perception that whatever the circumstance (which in itself is so simple, simpler than a child, you know – a perfect simplicity), as soon as it comes into contact with the terrestrial human atmosphere, it becomes ever so complicated! And quite unnecessarily. It seems as if the normal human occupation is to complicate all that could be extremely simple. I see this day after day, for all the small events of every day, of each and every minute. With certain consciousnesses – as soon as it touches certain consciousnesses – it is twisted, sometimes into terrible knots. Then it takes a fantastic labor to undo it – the whole thing PERFECTLY unnecessary!

These last few days, in fact, I have been observing it all and wondering, "Why are things this way?..." It must have been the means – probably the most effective means, I don't know – to emerge from inertia, from tamas. If everything worked in that Simplicity, that perfect Quietness, well, human consciousness would be in such a state that it would have simply fallen asleep. It would have reached the state... not even of an animal, perhaps of a slumbering plant!

That must be the reason.

But when you see it from the other side, it's so absurd – fantastically absurd! To such a point that the meaning of every single word you utter is immediately twisted – automatically, you can't say why. With something clear and obvious, which should have gone smoothly, without hurdles, you are immediately caught in a swirl of complications.

All, all, all activities, all of life is like that.

And then there are little nuances, little differences, which naturally assume considerable proportions in those distorted consciousnesses: they say, "Oh, now everything is fine," and then, "Oh, now everything is going wrong," but that's not true! It's always the SAME thing, only with little nuances.

But the true everything is fine, THE TRUE THING as it is, is so simple! So simple, so quiet, so immediate, so direct that it's almost unthinkable for human thought, much less for human sensation.