February 1970

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07. February 1970 – About Death and Consciousness

If... what I know, for instance, the fact that death really does not exist, that it’s... a very small difference (people think it’s a huge difference – it’s a very small difference), but if people were to know that too soon, A LOT OF THEM would go away...

So I’d really like to know what was in the minds of those boys who went away? Whether they knew, whether they were boys with a spiritual life or...? Because, of course, the first stage once one knows that... if one knew that death really isn’t such a total difference as people think, if they knew what it really is without having the inner realization of self-giving, all those who felt hurt would say, “I’m going!...”

All at once I understood that, and I said to myself it’s an infinite Wisdom again, an infinite Grace that man does not know – does not know what death is, he thinks it’s the end.

But I understand one thing, it’s that there should be EITHER the Supreme Consciousness OR inconscience; it’s the transition between the two that’s horrible: a half consciousness is still worse.

There’s a VERY STRONG action. But, of course, people expect everything to go smoothly according to their conception, and then they are surprised: how come this divine Consciousness is at work and there are so many difficult or painful or unexpected things?... – They don’t understand. But this body understands very well! Not for one minute has it complained. It hasn’t even... not for a second has it put the blame on others. It only said to itself, “Poor thing, you still have quite a lot of this old Disorder.”

11. February 1970 – Mother’s Answer to a troubled Girl

The Supreme Lord’s opinion alone matters.

The Supreme Lord alone deserves all our love and gives it back a hundredfold.

18. February 1970 – Vital Beings attack

Oh, but it would take hours to tell it all. It’s certainly in the material world. So then (laughing), last night, suddenly I saw two tall figures with human shapes, but all gray and you couldn’t make out eyes or nose and so on. They had a human shape and all gray; they were the two “doctors” (what doctors I don’t know), and they were discussing. My body was on the bed (though I think I wasn’t sitting, yet I wasn’t standing!), and they were discussing together but without words. It looked like kinds of beings in a lower vital world, huge, tall beings – tall, strong, formidable. Then one of them, in his demonstration, pointed to my heart with his finger, and his finger touched – I let out a scream! A physical scream!

I wasn’t happy.

Never, never, never touched, never. Once, I had a very high fever, 108°, it was tremendous (it didn’t last long, a few hours); I had caught that when I went to a gathering of workers doing a puja or something. I had caught a fever. But Sri Aurobindo was there. And I saw, I saw all the beings of the most material vital charging (gesture of onslaught on the body). I remember that, it was in Sri Aurobindo’s time (quite a long time ago). I saw them, and I said to Sri Aurobindo, “So that’s what gives people dreadful nightmares.” They would draw near (they would try to), and on touching Sri Aurobindo’s presence around me they would draw back, then they would come back again and would be repulsed – it lasted the whole night. But last night, it wasn’t that... Naturally, Sri Aurobindo wasn’t there physically, and... I saw those beings. The main thing is that when that being in his demonstration touched me with his finger, it made me scream – I screamed materially.

21. February 1970 – A Gift for the Body

The body has received a gift this morning… This morning, truly the Supreme Lord has taught it to be entirely His, and it was so wonderful!… The whole night — the whole night and morning — there seemed to be an absolutely concrete demonstration of how to be perfectly His…. Never, never had the body felt like that. Naturally, it’s perfectly aware of what “grates” still — which is in fact why there are traces (they are just traces) of that famous attack, but…

The absolutely concrete experience for the body, it had it the whole morning, and the conclusion came during the meditation.

It’s a bit difficult to define — words diminish a lot. It resembles what we call “peace,” but it’s luminous, with such an impression of… (what’s the word?) ease, well-being… something… It’s not turned this way (gesture to oneself), it’s turned that way (gesture outward), and that’s what makes it so hard to explain. It’s not in the body, in itself, that it finds its well-being, it’s a well-being… (gesture in every direction), a sort of radiating well-being, and so… yes, something resembling a certitude — there’s no more… “anxiety” is quite out of the question (“question” is quite out of the question!…), but it is… it’s more what we call positively well-being and certitude. Something inexpressible. It’s so vast (in the body, that’s the point), so vast… Really it was like an offering for today.

The whole day yesterday, the attack was very strong, as if to see whether the body would bear up. But it kept its trust and calm certitude (that it had the whole day long), and then it became something… that was it, but… It’s hard to explain.

25. February 1970 – Illnesses, Disorders, Consciousness

I spent the whole of last night with Sri Aurobindo, but with a WORLD of explanations. He made me understand lots of things, but quite… well, extraordinary. And practical: on the present state of things… Shouldn’t speak, that’s why I am coughing, it’s on purpose (!)

Among other things and in a quite practical and positive way, he explained to me that the cause of all illnesses, all disorders, all conflicts, here in the material world, is that the two simultaneous movements (one is the movement of duration — what we could call Stability — and the other, the movement of transformation), the two movements in the original Consciousness are only one and not in contradiction; and I was shown how (not with the thought: with the consciousness), here, they are separate, and that’s what is the cause of death. It’s because they can’t be in harmony — they don’t KNOW how to be in harmony: they can, but they don’t know. One is the movement of transformation, the other the movement of stability. When they are not in harmony, or not in harmony where they should be, it causes a break in equilibrium and the being dies — things die, everything dies because of that. But put that way, it makes no sense. It’s the experience of the thing which is given… And this also, the cough and all that — all of it, everything — it’s so simple! So obvious once you have the experience.

We could say (almost) that if the two find their equilibrium of simultaneous existence, it re-creates the Divine… He is in us, but not in harmony.

28. February 1970 – Body and Consciousness

We always think that certain things are dangerous (certain illnesses, for example, or certain disorders) and others are insignificant, and then it’s shown in an absolutely irrefutable manner that it doesn’t at all depend on this, that… all absolutely depends (to put it intelligibly) on what has been decided, on what the Supreme Lord has decided. With the slightest thing, an absolutely insignificant trouble. He can stop the body’s functioning, while something regarded as incurably serious passes off without importance. And it’s demonstrated in practice.

There are troublesome moments. Because mental convictions, mental constructions help the body a lot, and now it no longer has any, so it no longer has that facility. For instance, when you have a mental faith — what’s called faith — it helps you a lot, because it remains without budging through all difficulties… but that’s not there anymore! It’s only the Consciousness, but then the Consciousness… (smiling) the Consciousness makes no fuss. The Consciousness doesn’t talk nonsense, it doesn’t tell you stories at the desired moment in order to help you — it’s like this, as it is (gesture like an immutable presence), in its absolute simplicity and sincerity. So you see very well, you know very well, but…

The body sees very well, it also sees that its sensations are evidently… almost made up, which means that they don’t really correspond to the truth — but… (laughing) that doesn’t help it much!… At times it really feels ill at ease.

It has become so conscious of its own imbecility that… the first effect was to say, “It’s hopeless; it has to dissolve for something else to take the place.” And then there’s always that Smile looking on here, making no fuss…. So… so it tries to be still.

You see, it has gone beyond the stage of imbecility where you say, “Why are these things like this?” — It sees clearly, sees very well why they are like this. But things are so vast, so general that… It’s difficult for the body consciousness to remain in that state of universality all the time.

To make a sentence (because all this looks like sentences), it’s knowing that one lives in a falsehood, knowing what that falsehood is, knowing, in flashes, what the Truth is, and yet being unable to … adjust the two. And seeing why. Because there’s a whole path to travel so this falsehood can abdicate before the Truth, can be transformed into Truth, and in a TRUE way — not arbitrarily but truly. So that requires all kinds of experiences, adjustments, and for us here, it means time, it needs time. It can’t be done instantly. And when the body sees, when it becomes conscious of its imbecility, it would like, it aspires for that to disappear instantly, so things grate.

The body isn’t told anything positively — clearly, I mean precisely — neither that the transformation is possible nor that it’s impossible. So it’s like that, it sees what a tremendous work this is, what difference there is between what it is and what it ought to be, and at the same time, without knowing whether it will be capable of doing the work or not. What’s expected of it? It is told what’s expected of it from one minute to the next; that it’s told very clearly, so it does it, and so at times it can let itself go (Mother stretches her arms in the Great Rhythm), and then things are fine, but… But there is life and all the necessities of life, and each thing is a problem.

In its state of ignorance (a general ignorance), when the body wants to persist, it… (what shall I say?) PASSIVELY accepts to persist as it is; but in its present state, it CANNOT accept to remain as it is, it has too much prescience of what must be, so there’s a sort of need to remain — a need to remain but without remaining, you understand? Things become… in a constant and almost total transformation.

It’s a curious thing. When I am in that state, I am not asleep yet I am not awake; it’s neither one nor the other. It’s a sort of new state I have; whether I am in my bed or sitting in my armchair makes no difference. It’s a certain state I go into, in which I know things in such a clear way, and then (as I did with you) I explain them. Then when I go out of that state, pfft! finished… It’s curious. Nights are very short — very short — yet when I go to bed, its hardly nine, I think, and I get up at 4:30, which is a long time. Yet it’s very short. You understand, I don’t sleep the way people do (but not at all), and I am not awake. It’s something else. And then, things are evident, very easy to understand, I can explain them (as I explain them to you), and it’s a perfectly natural phenomenon — there was no surprise at meeting you (it wasn’t “meeting,” you were there), and I told you things. And then, pfft! finished. Suddenly I’ll cough or have a pain here, there, and then… you fall back into this ordinary imbecility.

Sometimes it’s like that when I am simply sitting there, in my armchair.

But then, the funny thing is that I hear very clearly, see very clearly, but it’s evidently not with these senses because, for instance, right now I don’t hear well and don’t see clearly. But at such times… And I remember that I do things; for example, when I am with Sri Aurobindo at night, it’s with that consciousness; now, materially, my body is stooped — at night it was perfectly normal! Yet I don’t sleep! What is it? I don’t know. There’s something there… Is it possible?

And I don’t go out of my body…. Or is this body replaced by another? — I don’t know.