February 1964 |
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05. February 1964 – On Aphorisms 96-98 |
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96 — Experience in thy soul the truth of the scripture; afterwards, if thou wilt, reason and state thy experience intellectually and even then distrust thy statement; but distrust never thy experience. It doesn't require any explanations. That is to say, to children you should explain that WHATEVER the statement, WHATEVER the Scripture, they are always a step-down from the experience, they are always inferior to the experience. Some people need to know this! 97 — When thou affirmest thy soul-experience and deniest the different soul-experience of another, know that God is making a fool of thee. Dost thou not hear His self-delighted laughter behind thy soul's curtains? Oh, it's charming! You can only comment with a smile: "Never doubt your experience, for your experience is the truth of your being, but do not imagine that truth to be universal; and basing yourself on that truth, do not deny the truth of another, for everyone's experience is the truth of his being. A total Truth could only be the totality of all those individual truths... plus the experience of the Lord Himself!" 98 — Revelation is the direct sight, the direct hearing or inspired memory of Truth, drishti, shruti, smriti; it is the highest experience and always accessible to renewed experience. Not because God spoke it, but because the soul saw it, is the word of the Scriptures our supreme authority. I presume this is in reply to the biblical belief in "God's Commandments" received by Moses, which the Lord is supposed to have uttered Himself and Moses is supposed to have heard — it's a roundabout way... (Mother laughs) to say it's not possible! "The supreme authority because the soul saw it," but it can be a supreme authority ONLY for the soul that saw it, not for all souls. For the soul that had that experience and saw it, it's a supreme authority — but not for other souls. That's one of the things that made me think when I was quite a small child, those twelve "commandments," which, besides, are extraordinarily banal: "Love thy father and mother.... Thou shalt not kill...." Sickeningly banal. And Moses climbed up Sinai to hear that.... Now, I don't know if Sri Aurobindo had in mind the Indian Scriptures.... The Upanishads, then? Or the Vedas— but no, the Vedas were oral. But more and more, my experience is that revelation (it comes, of course), revelation is a thing that can be applied universally, but which, in its form, is always personal — always personal. It's as if you saw the Truth from one ANGLE. The minute it's put into words, it is necessarily, inevitably one angle. You have the experience, without words or thoughts, of a sort of vibration that gives you a sense of absolute truth, and then if you stay very still, without trying to know anything, after a time it seems to go through a filter and is translated into a kind of idea. Then that idea (which is still somewhat hazy, that is to say, quite general), if you remain very still, attentive and silent, goes through another filter, but then a sort of condensation occurs, like drops, and it turns into words. But when you have the experience perfectly sincerely, that is, when you don't kid yourself, it's necessarily one single point, ONE WAY of putting it, that's all. And it can only be that. There is, besides, the very obvious observation that when you habitually use a certain language, the experience expresses itself in that language: for me, it always comes either in English or in French; it doesn't come in Chinese or Japanese! The words are necessarily English or French, with sometimes a Sanskrit word, but that's because physically I learned Sanskrit. Otherwise, I heard (not physically) Sanskrit uttered by another being, but it doesn't crystallize, it remains hazy, and when I return to a completely material consciousness, I remember a certain vague sound, but not a precise word. Therefore, the minute it is formulated, it's ALWAYS an individual angle. It takes a sort of VERY AUSTERE sincerity. You are carried away by enthusiasm because the experience brings an extraordinary power, the Power is there — it's there before the words, it diminishes with the words — the Power is there, and with that Power you feel very universal, you feel, "It's a universal Revelation." True, it is a universal revelation, but once you say it with words, it's no longer universal: it's only applicable to those brains built to understand that particular way of saying it. The Force is behind, but one has to go beyond the words. (silence) They come more and more often, those things that I scribble on a slip of paper, and they always follow the same process: first, always a sort of explosion — like the explosion of a power of truth; it makes great dazzling white fireworks... (Mother smiles), much more than fireworks! Then it rolls and rolls (gesture above the head), it works and works; and then comes the impression of an idea (but the idea is lower down, it's like clothing), and the idea contains its sensation, it brings the sensation along with it — the sensation was there before, but without any idea, so you couldn't define it. There is only one thing: it's always the explosion of a luminous Power. Then, afterwards, if you look at it while remaining very still, while above all the head keeps quiet — everything keeps quiet (gesture of a stillness turned upward) — then, all of a sudden, somebody speaks in your head (!), somebody speaks. It's the explosion that speaks. Then I take a pencil and my paper, and I write. But between what speaks and what writes, there is still a difficult little passage, with the result that when I have written, something above isn't satisfied. So I again keep still: "Ah, no, not that word — this one" — sometimes it takes two days for the thing to be really definitive. But those who are satisfied with the power of the experience skimp it all and send you off into the world of sensational revelations, which are distortions of the Truth. One must be very level-headed, very still, very critical — especially very still, silent, silent, silent, without trying to grab at the experience: "Ah, is it this? Ah, is it that?" Then one spoils it all. But one must look — look at it very attentively. And in the words, there is a remnant, something left of the original vibration (so little), something remains, something which makes you smile, which is pleasant, it bubbles... like a sparkling wine, and then here (Mother shows a word or a passage in an imaginary note), it's lackluster; so you look at it with your knowledge of the language or sense of the rhythm of the words, and you notice: "Here, a pebble" — the pebble must be removed; so then you wait, until suddenly it comes — plop! — it falls into place: the true word. If you are patient, after a day or two it becomes quite exact. I have the feeling it has always been this way, but now it's a very normal, very common state; the difference is that, before, one was satisfied with an approximation (when I see again certain things written in that way, I realize that there is an approximation, that one was satisfied with an approximation), while now one is more level-headed, more reasonable — more patient, too. One waits until it has taken form. In this connection, I have noticed another thing, that I no longer know in the same way the languages I know! It's very peculiar, especially for English.... There is a sort of instinct based on the rhythm of the words (I don't know where it comes from, maybe from the superconscient of the language) that lets you know whether a sentence is correct or not — it's not at all a mental knowledge, not at all (that's all gone, even the knowledge of spelling is completely gone!), but it's a sort of sense or feeling of the inner rhythm. I noticed this a few days ago: in the birthday cards, we put quotations (someone types the quotations, sometimes he makes mistakes), and there was a quotation from me (I didn't at all remember having written it or having thought it either). I saw it — it was in English — I saw it, and in one place it was as if you tripped: it wasn't correct. Then there came to me clearly, "Put this way and that way, the sentence would be correct." (To say this mentalizes it too much: it's a sort of sensation, not a thought, but a sensation, like a sensation of the sound.) With the sentence written this way, the sound is correct; with the sentence written that other way, using the same words but reversing their order (as was the case), the sentence isn't correct, and to correct that sentence where the order of the words had been reversed, it was necessary to add a little word (in that case it was it), and then, with the sound it, the sentence became correct.... All sorts of things — if I were asked mentally, I would say, "I haven't the faintest idea!" It doesn't correspond to any knowledge. But so precise!... Extraordinary. And I understood that this is the way of knowing a language. I always had it in French when I wrote — in the past it was less precise, more hazy, but there was the sense of the rhythm of a sentence: if the sentence has this rhythm, it's correct; if it's incorrect, the rhythm is missing. It was very vague, I had never tried to go deeper into it or make it more precise, but these last few days it has become very accurate. In English I find it more interesting, because, of course, English is less subconscious in my brain than French is (not much less, but a little less), and now it's instantaneous! And then so obvious, you know, that if the greatest scholar were to tell me, "No," I would answer him, "You are wrong, it's like this." That's the remarkable thing, this knowledge is completely independent of outer, scholarly knowledge, completely, and it is ABSOLUTE, it doesn't tolerate discussion: "You may say whatever you like, you may tell me about grammar and dictionaries and usage.... This is the true way, and that's that." |
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22. February 1964 – Mother's birthday message |
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Her single will opposed the cosmic rule. To stay the wheels of Doom this greatness rose. (Savitri, I.II.19) I had a strange night last night. The whole day yesterday, I had an impression — not a vague impression: a very precise sensation — of the Pressure of something that was trying to manifest. But it was so material that it was almost like a physical pressure. And then a kind of Force that not only resisted, but revolted, trying to make a muddle of everything — to create unpleasant circumstances, trouble people, all sorts of perfectly unpleasant little nothings. I was watching all that. And in the evening the resistance and revolt took a concrete form, as it were. Then, in response, there was in all the cells of the body a call, a desperate call for the Truth, as if all the cells were crying out, "Ah, no! We've had enough of this Falsehood, enough, enough, enough! — the Truth, the Truth, the Truth...." It put my body in a very deep trance. And it had the impression of a very, very intense struggle. I was looking, and everywhere there were... as if the world were made of huge engines with enormous pistons that were falling — you know, like in engine rooms: they were rising and falling, rising and falling.... It was like that everywhere. And it was pounding Matter — it was frightful. To such a degree that the body felt pounded. It was a compression — a mechanical compression — and at the same time (both things at the same time), such an intensity of aspiration! There is in these cells an extraordinary intensity: "The Truth, the Truth, the Truth..."1 Then, in the middle of all this, I went into a state of very deep trance, a sort of samadhi, from which I emerged five hours later — it lasted from 10 at night to 3 in the morning — five hours later, beatific, and conscious that I had been conscious all the time, but of something inexpressible. And what a light! A light, a light... a fantastic light. But this morning, the body is a bit... (what's the word?) giddy. Not exactly dizzy... the sensation of a sort of lack of consistency. Yes, like when one is giddy — a giddiness, rather. Because it was such a pounding! Mother, some fifteen days ago, I dreamed that very thing. There was a sort of enormous "drill" boring into Matter; then you came, and you were very interested, as if you participated actively in it. An enormous black drill, like the ones they use to drill wells, boring into a sort of Matter with a color like yellow clay. It struck me very much. About ten or fifteen days ago.... A tremendous power. Yes, yesterday I had the feeling that I was brought into contact with something that's going on ALL THE TIME. Then that's it. Like this, a pounding: you know, those machines that rise and fall and rise and fall.... And there were scores and scores and scores of them... it was endless. But then (laughing), this poor body was lying underneath! I even heard (although I was in trance), I heard my body letting out little cries, "Ah! ah!..." Just a little "ah"! So that's how I am this morning, a little giddy. These are powerful methods! (silence) I have never seen such an intensity in the cells, in the consciousness of the cells... you know, an almost desperate intensity: "We've had enough, enough of this Falsehood! — the Truth, the Truth, the Truth...." And then that Light... bah-bah!... They were conscious of the light. Conscious of a dazzling light. Look, it's the kind of giddiness one has when one has drunk a bit too much — that's it, the giddiness caused by alcohol. But I didn't have the sense of a definitive thing: I had the sense of a beginning! It's only a beginning! Which means that the gap between what they are used to receiving through infiltration and a radical descent is a tremendous one. Several times in his letters, Sri Aurobindo wrote that if the higher Light were to descend abruptly, or if divine Love were to descend abruptly, without preparation... the matter would be shattered. It appears to be quite true! (silence) Even now (Mother touches her hands and fingers), one feels... not the pounding, but the aspiration in all the cells.... (Mother goes into contemplation) Yes, that's what it is, a sort of inebriation. Somewhere in "Savitri," Sri Aurobindo says, "This wine of lightning in the cells...." And came back quivering with a nameless Force Drunk with a wine of lightning in their cells. IV.IV 383 |
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26. February 1964 – People don't understand! |
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I have a feeling that people didn't understand a thing in the last Bulletin — they didn't dare to say anything, but they didn't understand a thing! Even those who, consciously, are supposed to understand: Nolini, Amrita, Pavitra, André... not to mention all the rest who are not as developed intellectually — understand nothing. I have a feeling, a vague feeling that it will give someone, somewhere, very far away physically, a coup de grace, because I had that feeling while having the experience — what I told you and what you noted down was only the memory of the experience, but while I was having the experience and responding (gesture of mental communication), I had the feeling that, somewhere, someone was touched in a radical way, and that it was important for the intellectual atmosphere of the earth. Who is it? I don't know. That's why I let that article be published, because otherwise... You see, when I read something or when, for instance, Nolini reads me a translation, I read with the others' consciousness — how flat it had become! Flat, flat: all the Power was gone. They don't know how to read, they read with their brains. My article gives them a sense of something both very boring and very childish — both at once, so that crowns it all! Because the external form is very simple, of course, without literary pretensions; so it isn't exciting for the brain, not in the least (on the contrary I try to calm it down as much as possible!). Satprem: No, those who understand you best are the simple-hearted. Mother: Yes, they are touched. Satprem: And their understanding is infinitely greater than that of "cultured" people — they understand better, they are more intelligent. Mother: More receptive. Yes, they feel. They feel correctly, they mentalize less. |
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