April 1970

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01. April 1970 – Kali and Krishna

I never heard Sri Aurobindo tell me about those things [Kali and Krishna]. I know there was something of Krishna — he told me so and I saw it; it was what I saw, and he confirmed it, he told me. There was even a day when he felt Krishna IN him, and then… (he hadn’t withdrawn yet at the time, he would see everyone: he saw people, that was when he would see Pavitra and the others), and then he called everyone, sat in the veranda of that house [above the Ashram’s entrance], sat there, had me sit beside him, and called everyone. Then he said, “I have resolved to withdraw from activity; she will be your Mother and will…” He named me officially. Then he withdrew to his room. As for me, I worked in what is now “Prosperity”…. But at the time, he felt Krishna in him — that’s why he withdrew.

04. April 1970 – Plasticity of the New Body

There is obviously a suppleness, a flexibility and a plasticity that are impossible for our bodies as they are. So… as long as there is inside this sort of rigid framework, how can it be plastic?

But it was in Sri Aurobindo?

I SAW him like that — I didn’t touch him.

He was luminous and the impression was one of plasticity.

Only, he isn’t physical, so in the subtle physical that’s the way it is; but in the subtle physical there are no bones.

The transition between this and that is what’s difficult.

(long silence)

Basically, it’s having a permanence without fixity.

Until a new species was conceived of, it was thought that along with fixity there was death and dissolution, and there was no notion of something that would be permanent on earth BUT without being fixed… We can’t say it’s impossible, because everything is possible, but… it means something very different in the combination of matter. Once you said, you told me that one would become visible or invisible at will — but that means a very great plasticity.

And that’s becoming constant. So there is the awareness that there’s only one solution for the body, it’s… total surrender — total. And in that total surrender it realizes that that vibration (how can I explain?), that vibration is not one of dissolution, but something… what?… The unknown, completely unknown — new, unknown.

Sometimes it’s struck with panic. And it can’t say it’s in pain much, I can’t call that suffering; it’s something… quite extraordinary. So, for it, the only solution is… to disappear in the divine Consciousness. Then everything is fine.

But the body knows it’s not that [i.e., dissolution]. You understand, it’s something it doesn’t know. For a time, it thought there were certain influences or certain actions or certain… and now it realizes it’s not that at all. The thing doesn’t depend on influences, doesn’t depend on events, doesn’t depend on action, doesn’t depend on… it’s… something.

Everything is becoming like that, EVERYTHING. The change of sleep is what took place the most easily, but the whole work, all, all that I do — speaking has become a very difficult thing, very difficult… my voice doesn’t come out anymore, it’s as if someone else speaks, you understand?

08. April 1970 – Breathless

But I am constantly out of breath… I don’t think there’s any disease, I don’t get that impression. On the contrary, I get the impression that certain things are rather getting better (oh, nothing very spectacular, but some things do get better). But there are two difficulties: one is breathing — short, very short — and the other is eating… Drinking, I can still drink.

And I would really like not to reach a condition where I’ll be asked to see a doctor, because they can’t understand…

11. April 1970 – A Point of Concentration

It’s a curious situation. The being isn’t at all turned in on itself: there’s nothing, it’s like this (Mother stretches her arms into the infinite). It’s like this. Maybe that’s why: it receives forces but doesn’t keep them, they hardly enter at all [into Mother], it’s like this (gesture of a continuous flow through Mother and spreading outward), all the time. All the time like that. So if I am told about something, it makes a point (Mother pinches a point in space between her two fingers), a point of concentration for a moment; otherwise it’s all the time like that (same gesture of continuous flow), all the time. It goes like this, like this (same gesture of “outward” flow). It feels — the body feels forces coming, but… it doesn’t even feel them going through, doesn’t feel it’s giving them, not at all, it’s like that (same gesture of spreading). It all goes through without… through what, one doesn’t know… Very nonexistent. Very nonexistent. And then, if the body starts being conscious of itself or of something, it’s MOST unpleasant, a discomfort….

I have noticed that with receptive people (I see people, lots of them), with receptive people, it starts flowing and flowing and flowing… like that. And nothing else: no thought, no… not even sensation. But the strange thing is that if the body becomes conscious of itself… it doesn’t suffer, that’s not suffering, but something which is… an inexpressible discomfort.

… And the curious thing is that I don’t at all feel it comes from one place. On the contrary, it’s a concentration: a concentration here, as if… (laughing) as if an expanse of something were pushed through a hole! (Mother draws a small circle between two fingers). You understand, that’s how it is!… Yet, it’s not limited, but it’s… it’s a movement like this (gesture of a flow through Mother). So it’s pointed [at a person or the word]. It’s pointed.

18. April 1970 – In the Subtle Physical

I forget how it started, but I was very ill, seriously ill, and my body wasn’t asleep, yet wasn’t awake (that’s a fairly normal state now: I’ll be absorbed in a consciousness, which I think is the consciousness of the subtle physical; at least I was there last night). So then, I was very ill, but I knew it wasn’t this body (but it was this body’s consciousness), it was a family at the Ashram, and the father was seeking help, looking for a doctor (all the details with such precision!…). And while that was going on, the body said to itself, “So I am identified with this person, since he is treating this person (me, that is); and since I am identified, I must do in this person what needs to be done.” Then I concentrated and called the forces of the Lord, and treated the person. All that down to the last detail. It lasted for two hours. At the same time, I saw people who were extraordinarily interested in the event, looking on; for instance, among them, not to name him, there was Nolini, bent over like that and looking (Mother opens her eyes wide) to try and understand what was going on. Which means it was taking place in a world that had the full appearance — full appearance — of the material world, but in which people were conscious.

I’m not recounting all the details, but my body FELT the battle of the illness. And at the same time it knew it wasn’t its own body, you understand? It was like that, a very complex, very precise consciousness, with a great force. And all of it going on at the same time — I wasn’t asleep.

This morning I expected to be told that something very serious had taken place in that family (there are three sick people in it, three women), that something had happened to one of them. And nothing has happened!… But that was a FACT, I mean it was lived in every detail, with an absolutely clear consciousness, and it was in the subtle physical. But… but I tell you, I felt, the body felt very, very ill. Yet at the same time, it knew it was someone else’s illness. And it took the attitude, it said, “This is taking place so I take the necessary attitude for this person.” And all of it fully conscious. It took the attitude and kept it like that for two hours.

There’s only one possibility: it happened during the night, when those people were asleep, and they didn’t realize… You understand, this body’s impression is that it has saved someone’s life.

Never, never have I lived so totally in the subtle physical, fully conscious, WITHOUT SLEEPING (I was lying on my bed), and it lasted for two hours. Things were as real, as precise as they are here… And the same will: it’s not another will, it’s the same; it’s the divine Will through the psychic working in this body. So it acts there or here without difference. In other words, whether I am in this subtle physical or in the material physical, it’s the same will, the same psychic will that acts — the SAME, exactly in the same way. Which means that… I don’t know what the difference is. There’s a difference… it’s thin, you don’t feel it’s something thick or heavy: it’s thin. That union between the two, between the subtle physical and the material physical, is taking place all the time — day and night and day and night. The work is… You might almost say that there is an attempt to substitute one for the other.

You understand, it’s the kind of consciousness that says, “My body is suffering,” but it wasn’t my body, it was someone else’s body. It said, “I am suffering, but I know it’s not me, it’s the suffering of one member of this family” (I didn’t try to find out which), “and that’s why — it’s because I must do what I would do in my own case.” And I did it, it lasted for two hours.

More and more, there’s a sort of… not exactly fusion [between the subtle physical and the material physical], but… how should I put it?… For everything to hold together, this way of being of the material consciousness continues (the material, physical consciousness), but in it a permeation takes place (it really is a permeation), which doesn’t drive away the other, but… at length, it will probably transform it. It doesn’t drive it [the material consciousness] away, but it’s there and it dominates — at times it doesn’t dominate, it’s the other one that does; and so, depending on the case… it changes external circumstances (its hard to explain).

The body [Mother’s] has certainly been chosen as a field of experiment for some reason, which must be a reason of plasticity of the substance (I don’t know). There may be a reason, but in any case it’s a fact that it has been chosen to make the experiment. Because the experiment is under way: it starts with the more subtle, and you can see that it goes… (Mother makes a gesture of progressive descent into Matter). For months and months it has started with the more subtle, and then, VERY slowly and progressively, it has descended into a more material field. Last night, it was really remarkable… One would have been unable to say, “This is the subtle physical, and that is the material physical.” It was… (Mother holds the fingers of her right hand tightly in those of her left hand), it was surprisingly one within the other. You don’t get the impression of TWO things, yet it’s very different — it seems to be a modality rather than a difference (I don’t know how to express it), a modality that comes exclusively from the consciousness. It’s a phenomenon of consciousness.

In last nights experience, it was everything at the same time: the body felt, acted, it was conscious, it observed, decided — everything, just everything at the same time. There even was… I don’t know, I didn’t have a vision of Sri Aurobindo, but I had the sensation of his presence (that often happens: at times I’ll see him and he won’t speak; at other times I won’t see him but I’ll hear him, he’ll speak to me — the laws are no longer the same), and he made me notice, or rather I noted that although the body was suffering a lot (the situation was critical, you know), there wasn’t the shadow of a fear in the body. Then he told me, “Yes, it’s because it is able not to be afraid that you can do the work.”

The absence of fear is really the result of the yoga for so many years — for half a century.

I remember one thing last night: suddenly I saw a functioning, and I said to myself, “Oh, if we knew this, HOW MANY THINGS — how many fears, how many combinations, how many… would crumble away, would lose all meaning!” It was… what we see as “laws of Nature,” “ineluctable” things, it all was absurd, an absurdity!

There is also this well-known thing: according to the concentration of the consciousness, the value of time changes. That’s perpetual and constant. The same circumstances, the same everyday little events I am made to feel with the ordinary consciousness, and then three or four different consciousnesses — and their value changes. It goes from a long, interminable time to… a second. Which means a demonstration of the unreality of time as we perceive it here — that’s every day, all the time.

There is a Force acting… At least I think, I feel it’s the Force, because it acts through the will (but it’s deeper or truer or higher or whatever than the will). For instance, if I am not “supposed” to say something, instead of its going through the thought, “Mustn’t speak, you mustn’t speak” — I just can’t speak anymore!… All sorts of things like that. The functioning is direct.

And the body is taught to learn… how it should be. The way it eats has completely changed. For speaking too, it’s the same, completely changed.

At times, the body feels such a great strength that it gets the feeling it could do… (it feels, it clearly sees, the hands are strong), a strength of a different quality, but much greater than before. And at other times, it can’t even hold itself upright, and for a reason which isn’t… It no longer obeys the same laws as those that keep us upright. So… And all that takes place in a single day!…

18. April 1970 – Different Regions

It must be a region intermediary between the most material physical, vital and mind. There’s everything imaginable, you can see the most extraordinary things. And that’s how it is. Strangely, even, you have a power there: one drop of truth has a tremendous power in those worlds. With a single movement you can change lots of things. Only, of course, you also create them in the same way: the contrary movement, the movement of ignorance (all the movements of ignorance in the world) create things all the time. That is to say, it means shaping things, or making them active, or having them act… Only, it’s a reality which… which is impermanent, to begin with. Ultimately, very few forms — forms or thoughts — have an eternal reality: all that (Mother makes a gesture of perpetual recasting) is constantly moving and changing.

I remember the first time (that was very long ago, more than… sixty years ago), the first time I asked, “But why do we die? Why do we live to die? — That’s idiotic!” Then I was made to understand that all that we see as “forms” is… (same gesture in perpetual movement). It’s our… clenched little consciousness; a clenched consciousness which makes it all appear a “momentous” phenomenon: we are small, we grow big, and in the end, we dissolve. But everything is like that (same gesture), everything is like that! There are very few things — very few — that are eternal. They have a different quality. It’s the first experience you get when you contact that which is eternal: it has a different vibratory quality… And then, that will to make this last (Mother points to her body), this which is made, entirely made of wrong movements — wrong movements and constantly in movement, constantly changing, constantly (same gesture)… As Sri Aurobindo said, “You want to make your body and everything around it last as it is?” — No, thank you! (Mother laughs) To last is, in fact, to become conscious, fully conscious in the eternal world.

22. April 1970 – A Region of Nature

For instance, there is a region (I went there exclusively for a time, a few months — I don’t remember, maybe a little more, maybe a year), a region where there are many scenes from Nature, like fields, gardens… but all behind nets! There is a net of one color, another color… And it has a meaning. Absolutely everything is behind a net, you are… as if you moved about with nets. But it’s not a single net, it depends: for its form and color the net depends on what’s behind. And it is… the means of communication. You understand, it’s lucky I don’t speak because they’d say I have taken leave of my senses! And I see that with my eyes open, during the day, can you imagine! So I’ll see my room, for example — I’ll be here, seeing people — and at the same time I’ll see one landscape or another, and it all changes and moves about… with a net between me and the landscapes, like that… The net seems to be… (how can I explain?) what separates this subtle physical from the ordinary physical. But what does this net represent? I don’t know… You see, there is no mentalization, there are no explanations, there’s no thought, no reasoning, all that is clearly done away with. So, in fact, I see…

The sensation isn’t the same either. Our way of feeling on the physical level isn’t there, it doesn’t work that way… It’s more like a sense of proximity or non-communication, or indifference; but things belonging to the indifferent world do not show themselves when the dual vision is there.

22. April 1970 – Awesome Power

But it depends a lot — I mean, it STILL depends — on peoples receptivity… And these last few days, I’ve had the impression, or something like a perception, an impression of an AWESOME Power! The Power that would seem capable of bringing a dead man back to life, you know. An awesome Power that uses this [the body] without conscious identification, but quite, quite naturally, without… as if there were no resistance. It’s a natural state, and it’s neither this nor that nor that, it’s… it’s EVERYTHING (gesture showing an immense movement) which… which acts according to circumstances.

29. April 1970 – This Body’s Life

Yet, quite visibly, I am not ill, but at times it’s… very difficult. Very difficult. And then, several times I’ve had both [ways of being] at the same time… So (laughing) the body says to itself, “Well, if people knew the way you are, they’d say you’re quite insane!” (Mother laughs) And it laughs.

It’s not afraid. It’s not afraid…

It suffers; sometimes it suffers with a very… a strange kind of suffering! A very strange kind of suffering. But then, how everything is wonderfully arranged! In the Aphorisms, there are all those things of Sri Aurobindo about the unreality of suffering, and it has come just at the right time! I said to myself, “But how wonderfully arranged it is!” It just came to tell my body, “Don’t worry!…” The duality [suffering and bliss] is so, so concrete that my body is… it groans, literally groans as if it were suffering terribly, and at the same time it says to itself, “Ah, this is bliss!” And it groans! You understand, the two are like this… (fused gesture).

It depends on a little something that looks like an act of will — but that’s not it. That’s not it. I really don’t know… it’s something new.

The body groans, and it says, it says to itself it’s suffering, then a little something occurs (but I don’t exactly know what it is; it looks more like an act of will, but that’s not it), and there’s no more suffering, yet it’s not at all what we call “bliss” — we don’t know what it is… it’s something else. It’s something else. But extraordinary. New, completely new — completely new. So all this is blurred, as it were, imprecise, it’s like… something taking place in a nebula, which is not this and not yet that.

(silence)

It’s no longer, no longer… visibly no longer the body consciousness as it was. No longer: the relationships are no longer the same, the way of hearing, of speaking… (speaking is very difficult, it takes a considerable effort). And it isn’t yet… oh, it’s on the way to something, but it’s not there yet.

(long silence)

But the presence of the Grace is an absolutely marvelous thing! Because as I see things, the experience as it is… if I were not given at the same time the true meaning of what’s taking place, it would be endless agony — it’s the old way of being which is dying.

Naturally, there is the whole yogic preparation, but the body is… you know, it’s a constant miracle! People couldn’t bear it for more than a few minutes, and it goes on and on and on…

It began exactly on the day of darshan.

Once or twice, the body was offered to go back to the previous condition — it refused. It said, “No, it’s EITHER this, or else leaving.”

It’s difficult… difficult to say precisely. We think that this, this appearance (Mother points to her body) is… to the ordinary consciousness it seems to be the most important thing — it’s obviously the last thing that will change. And to the ordinary consciousness, it seems to be the last thing that will change because its the most important: that will be the surest sign. But it’s not that at all!… It’s not that at all.

The important thing is this change in the CONSCIOUSNESS — which has taken place. All the rest is a consequence. And here, in this material world, it appears the most important to us because it’s… everything is upside down. I don’t know how to explain.

For us, when this [the body] is able to visibly be something different from what it is, we’ll say, “Ah, now the thing is done.” — That’s not true: the thing IS DONE. This [the body] is a secondary consequence.