The Mother

Agenda

When a serious decision has to be made, how can one know in which direction lies one's true destiny? ¹

We do not have one destiny, but several destinies.

Each one has the right to reunite with his supreme Origin, whatever his place in the world order – that is the gift the Divine has given to matter, and this is your true destiny. And it is a special gift given to the earth; it does not exist in the other worlds. At the same time, each one has a particular role in the manifestation, which is determined by the Supreme, but this same role can exist on different levels depending upon the degree of evolution of “that” which is within you. If “that” within you is still very young, your realization may be absolute and you may effectively be able to reunite with the Supreme, but the field of realization in the world will be limited, very small. Along the vertical plane, you may be able to touch the Supreme directly, in spite of your smallness, but on the horizontal plane, the extent of your realization will be infinitesimal. We could take the example of Maheshwari, the Mother of Might and All-Wisdom. This aspect of the Mother will assume different forms depending upon the degree of evolution of “that” within you: it might be a mere little group leader, a queen, an empress. She will be in the group leader as well as in the empress, but the field of realization will obviously be different.

So, along this same vertical line that leads you to your divine Origin, you might have several outer destinies depending upon your state of development. The yoga seeks to accelerate things, but this is not always possible, for some psychological combinations in the being can only be worked out through experience. This experience may take a few lifetimes, a few years, a few months, a few minutes.

When seen from the supreme consciousness, the unfolding of all the destinies and all the possibilities of destiny is something infinitely interesting. For example, there are beings accused of megalomania because they have vast projects and great designs which do not always fit in with the world's present possibilities. Most often, it is a simple lack of judgment on their part, a lack of knowledge. They have indeed entered into communication with a higher truth, something that probably corresponds to a future phase of their destiny (which is why they are so convinced), but through lack of judgment, they do not see that the time for this truth has not yet come, that the circumstances are not yet ready, or that the conditions in which they were born prevent them from carrying out what they feel to be true. There is a gap between the vision of a truth and its present possibilities for realization. But these great dreams must not be killed, for it would mean killing something of your own future. Above all, we must refuse, energetically reject, this hideous morality of the Philistine which says that “nothing ever changes,” this flat and vulgar common sense ŕ la Sancho Panza. Simply, one must know how to wait and to nurture one's dreams for a long time.

To conclude, this is what may be said: in the universe, there are no two destinies alike – there cannot be.

Each one's destiny is inevitably fulfilled, but the nearer one is to the Divine, the more this destiny assumes its divine qualities.

 

¹ The following conversation was noted from memory. At this time the conversations were not yet tape-recorded, and Satprem, alas, felt it proper to eliminate all personal issues so that only the “teaching” would remain. The “serious decision” in question concerns leaving the Ashram.
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The Mother

Agenda

 

If there is one fundamental necessity, it is humility. To be humble. Not humble as it is normally understood, such as merely saying, “I am so small, I'm nothing at all” – no, something else... Because the pitfalls are innumerable, and the further you progress in yoga, the more subtle they become, and the more the ego masks itself behind marvelous and saintly appearances. So when somebody says, “I no longer want to rely on anything but Him. I want to close my eyes and rest in Him alone,” this comfortable “Him,” which is exactly what you want him to be, is the ego – or a formidable Asura, or a Titan (depending on each one's capacity). They're all over the earth, the earth is their domain. So the first thing to do is to pocket your ego – not preserve it, but get rid of it as soon as possible!

You can be sure that the God you've created is a God of the ego whenever something within you insists, “This is what I feel, this is what I think, this is what I see; it's my way, my very own – it's my way of being, my way of understanding, my relationship with the Divine, etc.”

And then they say, “I want to close my eyes and see nothing but Him; I want nothing more of the outer world.” And they forget there's Love! That is the great Secret, that which is behind the Existent and the Non-Existent, the Personal and the Impersonal – Love. Not a love between two things, two beings... A love containing everything.

In the early part of the century, I wrote Prayers and Meditations, and I too spoke of “Him”; but I wrote that with all my aspiration, all my sincerity (at least with all the sincerity of the conscious parts of my being) and I locked it up in a drawer so that no one would see it. It was Sri Aurobindo who later asked me to publish it, for it could be useful... If I knew then, fifty years ago, what I know now, I would have been crushed!... All this “shame,” all this “unworthiness”...

After all, it's good to know gradually, good to have some illusions – not for the sake of illusions but as a necessary step along the way.

Everything comes at the right moment.

And what is wonderful is that at each moment the Grace, the Joy, the Light, the Love never cease pouring down in the very midst of all this – despite the ego, despite the shame, despite the unworthiness. To be humble...

*
*   *

(soon afterwards)

I was sick two days ago with a cold and fever. I know why – a point to be transformed. The body may have put too much zeal into it, so it teetered a little. But thanks to that, I had an interesting experience. X¹ had put his force on me to speed up the healing. And of course, according to each one's nature, the force gets colored, so to speak – it clothes itself in a different color. In me, this was translated by a new physical experience which lasted from 4 in the morning till 6:30, when I had to start speaking with people and deal with outer things. It was a kind of eternity, a kind of absolute PHYSICAL immobility which contained no possibility of illness within it – as a matter of fact, nothing remained in this immobility, it was a sort of nirvana. But it did not keep me from going through all my usual motions of getting dressed.

I spent the whole day yesterday trying to understand this experience.

And in that kind of physical eternity (which lasted two and a half hours – it's a long time for an experience), I was aware of something missing, something not there: the joy of the consciousness. Because throughout my life I have developed the habit of being conscious of everything, always, at each second. And the joy of the consciousness was not there. So I thanked the Grace that made me see that this kind of nirvana was quite simply physical tamas.²

(silence)

X has the power of rendering things very material – that's his great power, which is why things get upset when he comes here. Overnight, someone progressing well comes to grips with difficulties; money on the way stops coming; you fall sick, things break down – all because he has the power to give materiality to things from above. For, you see, you can go right to the height of your consciousness and from there sweep away the difficulties (at a certain moment of the sadhana, difficulties truly don't exist; it's only a matter of nabbing the undesirable vibration and it's over, it's reduced to dust). And everything is fine up above, but down below it's swarming. When X comes, it's precisely all this swarming that becomes tangible.

The mastery must be a TRUE mastery, a very humble and austere mastery which starts from the very bottom and, step by step, establishes control. As a matter of fact, it is a battle against small, really tiny things: habits of being, ways of thinking, feeling and reacting.

When this mastery at the very bottom combines with the consciousness at the very top, then you can really begin doing some work – not only work on yourself but also the work for all.

 

¹ The tantric guru.
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² Tamas: inertia. Later, Mother would discover that this is not tamas but something else.
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The Mother

Agenda

(At the time of publishing the following conversation of March 19, 1958, in the Ashram “Bulletin,” Mother added certain commentaries that have a direct bearing upon the preceding conversation about the Last Judgment, and She incorporated an entire passage from the conversation of the end of February 1958 on the same subject.)

One thing seems clear: humanity has reached such a generalized state of tension – tension in effort, tension in action, tension even in daily life – with such an excessive hyperactivity, such an overall restlessness, that the species as a whole seems to have reached a point where it must either burst through the resistance and surge forth into a new consciousness, or else sink back into an abysm of obscurity and inertia.

This tension is so total and so generalized that obviously something must break. It cannot go on like this. Yet all this is a sure sign that a new principle of force, consciousness and power has been infused into matter and by its very pressure has produced this acute state. Outwardly, we might expect to see the old habitual means used by Nature whenever she wants to bring about an upheaval; but here there is a new phenomenon, which is evidently visible only in a select few, although even these few are widespread enough – this phenomenon is not localized in one point or one place in the world, for the signs are to be found in every country all over the earth: the will to find a new, a higher, an ascending solution, an effort to surge forth into a vaster, more encompassing perfection.

Certain ideas of a more general, more extensive, more collective nature, as it were, are being worked out and are at work in the world. And the two go together: a greater and more total possibility of destruction and an inventiveness that unrestrainedly increases the possibility of catastrophe, a catastrophe that would be much more massive than it has ever been; and at the same time, the birth, or rather the manifestation, of much higher and more comprehensive ideas and wills which, when heard, will bring a vaster, more extensive, more complete and more perfect solution than before.

This struggle, this conflict between the constructive forces of an ascending evolution, of an increasingly perfect and divine realization, and the more and more destructive forces – powerfully destructive, forces of an uncontrollable madness – is becoming more obvious, unmistakably visible, and it is a kind of race or battle as to which will be first to reach its goal. All the hostile, anti-divine forces, these forces of the vital world, seem to have descended upon earth and are using it as their field of action; and at the same time, a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended upon earth to bring a new life to it. This renders the battle more bitter, violent and visible, but apparently more decisive, too, which is why we may hope to arrive at an early solution.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when man's spiritual aspiration was turned towards a silent, inactive peace, detached from all the things of this world, an evasion of life to avoid the struggle, precisely, to rise above the battle, to be liberated from effort. It was a spiritual peace where, along with the cessation of tension, struggle and effort, suffering in all its forms also ceased, and this was considered the true and unique expression of the spiritual and divine life. This is what was considered divine grace, divine succor, divine intervention. And even now, in this age of anguish, tension and hypertension, this sovereign peace is of all help the best received, the most welcome, the relief asked and hoped for. For many, it is still the true sign of divine intervention, of divine grace.

In fact, no matter what you wish to realize, you must begin by establishing this perfect and immutable peace – it is the necessary basis for any work; but unless you are thinking of an exclusive or personal and egoistic liberation, you cannot stop there. There is yet another aspect to the divine grace, the aspect of progress that will be victorious over all obstacles, the aspect that will propel humanity into a new realization, open the doors unto a new world, enable not only a select few to benefit from the divine realization, but through their influence, their example and their power, bring a new and better condition to the rest of humanity.

It opens vistas of realization into the future and already foreseen possibilities through which an entire section of humanity, which is consciously or unconsciously open to the new forces, will be lifted up, as it were, towards a higher, more harmonious, more perfect life... and even if individual transformations are not permissible nor possible in all cases, at least there will be a kind of uplifting of the whole, a harmonization of everything, enabling a new order, a new harmony to be established and the anguish of disorder and the present strife to disappear and be replaced by an order that will allow for the harmonious working of the whole.

There will be other consequences that by opposite means will tend to eradicate the perversion and ugliness created in life due to the intervention of the mind, a whole range of deformations that have aggravated suffering, misery, moral poverty, a whole zone of sordid and repugnant miseries that makes an entire portion of human life so hideous. That must disappear. That is what in many respects makes humanity infinitely inferior to animal life, with its simplicity and its natural spontaneity, and which in spite of everything is harmonious. Suffering among animals is never as miserable and sordid as it is in a whole section of humanity perverted by a mentality exclusively turned towards egoistic needs.

One must rise above, surge forth into the Light and the Harmony, or sink back down into the simplicity of a wholesome, unperverted animal life.

(After a moment of silence, Mother adds)

But those who cannot be lifted up, who refuse to progress, will automatically lose the use of the mental consciousness and fall back into an infrahuman stage.

I'll tell you of an experience I had which will help you better understand. It was a short while after the supramental experience of February 3, and I was still in that state where things of the physical world seemed so remote, so absurd. A group of visitors asked permission to greet me, and they came one evening to the playground. They were rich people – that is, they had more money than they needed to live. Among them was a woman in a saree. She was very fat, and her saree was so arranged as to hide her body. When she bent over to receive my blessings, a corner of her saree fell open, uncovering part of her body, a bare belly. An enormous belly. It came as a shock to me... There are obese people who are not at all repugnant, but there I suddenly saw the perversion, the rottenness that this abdomen concealed. It was like an enormous abscess expressing greed, vice, depravity of taste, sordid desire that seeks satisfaction as no animal would, grossly, and above all, perversely. I saw the perversion of a depraved mind placed at the service of the basest appetites. Then, in a flash, something leapt forth from me, a prayer, like a Veda: “O Lord, it is this that must vanish!”

One can well understand that physical misery or the unequal distribution of the world's wealth could be remedied. One can think of economic and social solutions that could remedy all that, but this particular misery, this mental misery, this vital perversion – it is this that cannot change, that does NOT WANT to change. And those who belong to this kind of humanity are condemned in advance to disintegration.

The meaning of original sin is precisely this: the perversion that began with the mind.

That part of humanity, of the human consciousness, which is able to unite with the Supermind and liberate itself will be completely transformed. It is moving towards its future reality as yet unexpressed in the outer form; the part very close to the simplicity of the animal, close to Nature, will be reabsorbed by Nature and thoroughly reassimilated. But that corrupted part of the human consciousness, which through its wrong use of the mind allows this perversion, will be abolished.

That kind of humanity belongs to an unfruitful attempt – and will be eliminated, like so many other abortive species which have vanished in the course of universal history.

Certain prophets in the past had this apocalyptic vision, but as usual things became mixed, and along with their vision of the apocalypse they did not have the vision of the supramental world that will come to uplift the consenting part of humanity and transform this physical world. However, to give hope to those born into this perverted part of the human consciousness, redemption through faith was taught: those who have faith in the sacrifice of the Divine in Matter will automatically be saved, in another world – faith alone, without understanding, without intelligence. They never saw the supramental world, nor did they see that the great Sacrifice of the Divine in Matter is that of an involution which will lead to the total revelation of the Divine in Matter itself.

The Mother

Agenda

 

I don't know if it's due to Z's visit¹ or simply if the time had come and things converged (because that's what generally happens), but a whole period of the past is coming up again – and it's not a purely personal past, for it includes all the acquaintances I used to have, a whole collection of things that represents not only my individual life but something rather collective (as it always is; each of us is always a collectivity but we aren't aware of it, and if anything were taken away, it would unbalance the whole). A whole set of things that were absolutely wiped clean from the memory (it must have been buried somewhere in the subconscient or the semi-conscient – in any case, something more unconscious than the subconscient), and it has all come back up. Oh, things... such things... If just two weeks ago someone had asked me, “Do you remember that?” I would have replied, “No, not at all!” And it's coming from every side. Oh, such mediocrity! (mediocre in the way of consciousness, experiences and activities) and so gray, so dull, so flat! Only this morning, while getting ready for the balcony, I thought, “Is it possible to live like that?!”

And then it became so clear that behind all this there was always the same luminous Presence, this Presence that is everywhere, always, watching over everything.

And as I look now at the things of life, at people, at this totality, I see that it's identically the same thing when seen from there, from that consciousness – it's so drab, dull, insipid, gray, uninteresting, lifeless... Oh, all of life, WHATEVER IT IS, is like that when seen from that consciousness!

So I understood that this must correspond to a certain realm of experience; I understood all those who say, “If it has to be like this, if it can never be otherwise, then...” (this opposition, this abyss between a TRUE life, a TRUE consciousness, a TRUE activity, something living, powerful, fulfilling... and life as it now is), “if there must always be this difference between the physical expression as it is or as it can be in the present circumstances, and the true life, then...” For if despite everything – despite this tremendous distance I've covered in my life (these memories go back more than sixty years) and all the evolutionary effort upwards I have made since that time IN MATTER (I'm not speaking of leaving action) – if that doesn't further reduce this gap between the true consciousness and the possible material realization, then I understand... I understand why people say, “It's hopeless.” (Of course, this “hopeless” is meaningless to me.)

But I... (how can I put this?) I lived their experience, I lived it; and even events which seem quite extraordinary when seen from afar, which is the way they appear to most people, even historical things which have furthered the earth's transformation and its upheavals – the crucial events, the great works, you might say – are woven from the SAME fabric, they are the SAME thing! When you look at all this from afar, on the whole it can make an impression, but the life of each minute, of each hour, of each second is woven from this SAME fabric, drab, dull, insipid, WITHOUT ANY TRUE LIFE – a mere reflection of life, an illusion of life – powerless, void of any light or anything that resembles joy in the least. Oh!... if it has always to remain like that, then we don't want any of it.

Such is the feeling it gives.

For me it's different, because I KNOW that it can and must become something else. But then all this Consciousness which is there and in which I live and which has this world vision must come forward and manifest in the vibration of EACH second – not in a whole which looks interesting when seen from afar; it must enter the vibration of each second, the consciousness of each minute, otherwise...

(silence)

How well I understand all those who don't know or to whom it hasn't been shown or revealed that we are GOING towards something else, that it WILL BE something else!... Such a feeling of futility, stupidity, uselessness, and absolutely devoid of any... any intensity, any life, any reality, any ardor, any soul – bah! It's disgusting.

While it was all coming up, I thought, “How is this possible?...” For during those years of my life (I'm now outside things; I do them but I'm entirely outside, so they don't involve me – whether it's like this or like that makes no difference to me; I'm only doing my work, that's all), I was already conscious, but nevertheless I was IN what I was doing to a certain extent; I was IN this web of social life (but thank God it wasn't here in India, for had it been here I could not have withstood it! I think that even as a child I would have smashed everything, because here it's even worse than over there). You see, there it's... it's a bit less constricting, a bit looser, you can slip through the mesh from time to time to breathe some air. But here, according to what I've learned from people and what Sri Aurobindo told me, it's absolutely unbearable (it's the same in Japan, absolutely unbearable). In other words, you can't help but smash everything. Over there, you sometimes get a breath of air, but still it's quite relative. And this morning I wondered... (you see, for years I lived in that way... for years and years) just as I was wondering, “How was I ABLE to live that and not kick out in every direction?”, just as I was looking at it, I saw up above, above this... (it is worse than horrible, it is a kind of... Oh, not despair, for there isn't even any sense of feeling – there is NOTHING! It is dull, dull, dull... gray, gray, gray, clenched tight, a closed web that lets through neither air nor life nor light – there is nothing) and just then I saw a splendor of such sweet light above it – so sweet, so full of true love, true compassion, something so warm, so warm... the relief, the solace of an eternity of sweetness, light, beauty, in an eternity of patience which feels neither the past nor the inanity and imbecility of things – it was so wonderful! That was entirely the feeling it gave, and I said to myself, “THAT is what made you live, without THAT it would not have been possible.” Oh, it would not have been possible – I would not have lived even three days! THAT is there, ALWAYS there, awaiting its hour, if we would only let it in.

(silence)

And it's still the same thing; only now I'm up here (Mother gestures above the head), I'm here, so it's quite another matter.

I am no longer looking out at the sky from below, but from up above... I am looking, as if each look at each thing seen established the Contact.

It was like that this morning at the balcony.

The rainy season expresses this state of things so well: a constant descent of luminous sweetness (sweetness is not the right word – there must be a Sanskrit word for it, but this is all we have!...) in this endless gloom.

*
*   *

(Soon afterwards, Mother comes back to the same theme)

It all began the day I received the news of Z's arrival. “All right,” I thought, “here's a chunk of life sent back to me for clarifying. I must work on it.” But it didn't stop there... It's strange how all this past had been swept clean – I could no longer remember dates, I couldn't even remember when Z had been here before, I no longer knew what had happened, it had all been wiped clean – which means that it had all been pushed down into the subconscient. I didn't even know how I used to speak to him when I saw him, nothing, it was all gone. All that had remained alive were one or two movements or facts which were clearly connected to the psychic life, the psychic consciousness – but just one or two or three such memories; all the rest was gone.

So a whole slice of my life came back, but it didn't stop there! It keeps extending back further and further, and memories keep on coming, things that go back sixty years now, even beyond, seventy, seventy-five years – they are all coming back. And so it all has to be put in order.

It's quite odd, for this was not a personal consciousness, it was not “someone remembering his life” – this is what I found most interesting; what came were pieces, little chunks of life's construction, a collection of people and circumstances. And it is impossible to separate the individual from all that is around him, it's clear! It all holds together like... (if you change one thing, everything is changed) it holds together like an agglomerated mass.

I had seen this earlier from another angle. In the beginning, when I started having the consciousness of immortality and when I brought together this true consciousness of immortality and the human conception of it (which is entirely different), I saw so clearly that when a human (even quite an ordinary human, one who is not a collectivity in himself – as is a writer, for example, or a philosopher or statesman) projects himself through his imagination into what he calls “immortality” (meaning an indefinite duration of time) he doesn't project himself alone but rather, inevitably and always, what is projected along with himself is a whole agglomeration, a collectivity or totality of things which represent the life and the consciousness of his present existence. And then I made the following experiment on a number of people; I said to them, “Excuse me, but let's say that through a special discipline or a special grace your life were to continue indefinitely. What you would most likely extend into this indefinite future are the circumstances of your life, this formation you have built around yourself that is made up of people, relationships, activities, a whole collection of more or less living or inert things. But that CANNOT be extended as it is, for everything is constantly changing! And to be immortal, you have to follow this perpetual change; otherwise, what will naturally happen is what now happens – one day you will die because you can no longer follow the change. But if you can follow it, then all this will fall from you! Understand that what will survive in you is something you don't know very well, but it's the only thing that can survive – and all the rest will keep falling off all the time... Do you still want to be immortal?” – Not one in ten said yes!... Once you are able to make them feel the thing concretely, they tell you, “Oh no! Oh no! Since everything else is changing, the body might as well change too! What difference would it make!” But what remains is THAT; THAT is what you must truly hold on to – but then you must BE THAT, not this whole agglomeration. What you now call “you” is not THAT, it's a whole collection of things..

Formerly, that was my first step – a long time ago. Now it's so very different... I wonder how it was possible to have been so totally blind as to call that “oneself” at any moment in one's life! It's a collection of things. And what was the link by which that could be called “oneself”? That's more difficult to find out. Only when you climb above do you come to realize that THAT is at work here, but it could work there as well, or as well here, or here, or here... At times there is suddenly a drop of something (Oh, I saw that this morning – it was like a drop, a little drop, but with SUCH an intense and perfect light...), and where THAT falls it makes its center and begins radiating out and acting. THAT is what can be called “oneself” – nothing else. And THAT precisely is what enabled me to live in such dreadfully uninteresting, such nonexistent circumstances. And at the moment when you ARE that, you see how that has lived and how that has used everything, not only in this body but in all bodies and through all time.

At the core, this is the experience; it is no longer knowledge. I now understand quite clearly the difference between the knowledge of the eternal soul, of life eternal through all its changes, and this CONCRETE experience of the thing.

It's very moving.

It was strange, this morning... I came a few minutes late. (I blamed the clocks which weren't working, but it wasn't the clocks which were to blame!) I was getting dressed when suddenly all this came upon me – I had a moment of... it may have lasted one or two minutes, just a few minutes, not long. – Oh, the emotion I had during the experience was... it was very absorbing.

It was no longer this (that is, life as it is on earth) becoming conscious of That (the eternal soul, this “portion of the Supreme” as Sri Aurobindo said); it was the eternal soul seeing life... in its own way – but without separation, without any separation, not like something looking from above that feels itself to be different... How strange it is! It's not something else, it's NOT something else, it's not even a distortion, not even... It's losing its illusory quality as described in the old spiritualities – that's not what it is! In my experience, there was... there was clearly an... emotion – I can't describe it, there are no words. It wasn't a feeling, it was something like an emotion, a vibration... of such TOTAL closeness and at the same time of compassion, a compassion of love. (Oh, words are so pitiful!...) One was this outer thing, which was the total negation of the other and AT THE SAME TIME the other, without the least separation between them. It WAS the other. So what was born in one was born in the other as well, in this eternal light. A sweetness of identity, precisely, an identity that was necessarily such total understanding with such perfect love – but “love” says it poorly, all words are poor! It's not that; it's something else! It's something that cannot be expressed.

I lived that this morning, upstairs.

And this body is... oh, how feeble and how poor it is. All it finds to express itself are the tears that come to its eyes! Why? – I don't know.

It has a lot to do before it is strong enough to LIVE that.

This was still there, like a sweetness, when I came to the balcony... And the notion that people, objects, life, that all that are “different”... is unthinkable! It is not possible. Even thought is so strange!

(silence)

I often find leaving the balcony difficult. And it's only this same gentleman... (you know, the “censor”) who starts telling me, “You're keeping them there in the rain just because you're in ecstasy; you're just letting them stand there drenched and getting a crick in the neck looking up in the air. Aren't you going to let them go?” – When he insists too much, I go back inside.

Maybe that's why he's still there. Otherwise, if I forgot... (Mother laughs)

 

¹ Conversation of November 8, the “artist” disciple with loose morals.
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I've received a letter from a publisher friend of mine. He tells me the real reasons for their refusal of my manuscript “Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.”

Oh, really!

It's interesting. If you want me to read it to you...

(Satprem reads)

... “I had already told you about my misgivings.¹ As to the motives for the decision, it always boils down to the same point: a sincere (though ambiguous) will of ecumenism, a broad rather than deep intellectual curiosity, permit mentalities such as those that give our firm its orientation and public image to pay some attention to academic essays regarded (wrongly so in the present instance) as dealing with the famous ‘Eastern spirituality.’ But as soon as the essays are lived from within, the goodwill withdraws into its shell. The reaction is even worse if the author is a ‘renegade,’ a Westerner who has gone over to the enemy side. (I can vouch for that!²) I must emphasize that this whole process is not only unintentional but, more than that, unconscious (which is not an excuse but an aggravating circumstance). The opposition put up against your first manuscript³ rather hardened with the second, a much more personal book, I mean less ‘detached,’ still less ‘objective’ than the first – and more ample. Through the medium of literature, you were able to convey whatever you liked. Through a direct essay, you will reach – and so much the worse, or so much the better – only those who seek. Our firm and its public do not belong, for that matter, to the category of those who seek.”

He's conscious!

It's obvious, I told you so all along: your book isn't meant for them. There aren't many who seek.

Those who seek... really, there aren't many.

I see the letters we receive from those who are convinced not only that they seek but also that they've found. Letters from would-be disciples of Sri Aurobindo coming from over there, from France, Germany, England – don't understand, they don't understand!

Anyhow, that doesn't matter, it will be for later.

Above all, they think they've understood everything.

Ah, the less you know, the more you think you know.

Yes, they know everything, they can't learn anything from us.

They will have to return both your manuscripts to you. No need for them to rot there.

But I don't see what can touch that?

No, no! It's not worth trying.

But still it's worth it from the point of view of the Work – how will there be a breach there one day?

Oh!... You remember that aphorism of Sri Aurobindo's?... I understand VERY WELL what he means.

That will be the day of the great overturn.

A little child...

[76 — Europe prides herself on her practical and scientific organisation and efficiency. I am waiting till her organisation is perfect; then a child shall destroy her.]

I didn't want to comment on it.... But it's true.

Because they're impregnable. Those people are impregnable.

Mentally.

It's not mentally that you can make them yield.

Then how?... It's either by force – violent force – or else by a miracle (what they call a “miracle”) that will leave them... dumbfounded.

Those people are entirely vulnerable (by vulnerable, I mean defenseless) to spiritual force. The day when it manifests physically, there will be a debacle.

Even here, with these people who through their tradition are so accustomed to the Power, the true spiritual Power, when it just manifests a little, they... they tremble all over. But there they deny it... which means they are completely defenseless.

I don't know when it will come – I don't know, it may not be soon – but one thing I know: when it comes, there will be panic – you know, THE Panic.

And in a panic, you can do something.

(silence)

In any case, your book will be published here, which means it will reach the few who are ready – but not over there.

The Americans are more open, because they have remained more childlike – they think they know everything on a material level, but they also know that there are things they don't know. While the others... they are “beyond childish religious beliefs,” of course!

It's not even true, for as soon as a little something stirs within (gesture at the heart center), they plunge back into their Catholicism.

Anyway...

*
*   *

(There follows a discussion between Mother and Satprem to decide whether Mother's comment on the last aphorism, on renunciation, should be published in the “Bulletin” in full or only in excerpts. At first Mother finds it too “personal.” This raises the problem of the publication of Mother's words.)

...It should have been said objectively, not as “my experience.” But if I start saying “my experience,” I have to go right to the end of my experience, I can't stop halfway.

But that's just the point: it's really striking only when it's YOUR experience.

Yes, but then I would have to tell everything.

It's exactly as your friend wrote in that letter: if you present an “objective” theory, then it's fine – people can take it or leave it, it doesn't matter; but when you introduce that personal element...

Not that I am afraid people may not appreciate (I am perfectly indifferent to that), it's that I fear it may harm some.

Harm, how?

When you read something you are not ready for, it does you no good.

If I at least had put it in a didactic way...

Yes, but in a didactic way it won't have that richness, that force.

Of course, but that's what people consider “intellectual.”

Well, I think we should just ignore them.

Either I should give lessons, or else... But I must say that nowadays I don't enjoy it. I find it so childish to say, “Things happen in this way” – I know perfectly well they don't happen “in this way”! They happen in this way and they happen in another way, and everything is possible. You can't keep telling people, “Everything is possible, you know.” To keep repeating, “Everything is possible, you know,” is absurd.

So either I should keep quiet, or else...

Let me give you another example: when I answer people's letters, I never write about myself, I write about them, yet it's very personal: it's FOR THEM. And in fact, I am coming to see (in not a very pleasant way) that out of a personal answer they want to make a general teaching – it's absurd! Absurd. I say something to this man or that woman, and I'll say the opposite to someone else! But they publish it.... So we should stop publishing anything.

Either stop publishing anything or else, well, too bad....

If we must always take this and that into account, there's nothing we can do or say any more.

I could very well stop publishing anything and declare, “Now, I won't speak any more, it's finished.” But then we would have to stop the Bulletin.

I think you should present your experience, and that's all. Because otherwise, if we cut these texts to leave only the “objective” things, it becomes dry.

Yes, dry and hollow.

And incomplete, terribly incomplete. Then people will understand very dogmatically – that's bad.

I think it's better to put everything in.

To tell the truth (laughing), I don't care! Even if they get the impression that I have “a screw loose”....

Those who get wrong impressions will get them anyhow.

And, truly, sincerely, it's absolutely all the same to me. It's the same when people write to me, “How wonderful”: I smile and I think, “What can they understand?!” I receive letters... priceless letters! Positively exuberant, full of bombastic words, and then there are others who tell me very frankly that they are full of doubt, that I quite simply use “tricks” to run the whole “business” (!) like any ordinary human intelligence, and that they can't feel anything divine at all behind all that – both make the same impression on me, the one and the other! (Mother laughs) To me it's all the same thing. It's their opinions – they have the right to have any opinions they like. To tell the truth, all that we could reply to them is, “Have the opinions that make you progress,” whether in this way or that, it doesn't matter in the least!

That's not the point.... Maybe it's the fear (there is a fear somewhere, I don't know), the fear of opening the intimacy a little too much, a fear from the standpoint of the vibrations.

But (laughing) I don't think there's much danger!

I saw that, in fact: I showed A. some passages from the Agenda that I had selected; obviously A. likes me, also he makes an effort to understand spiritually – well, I clearly saw while he was reading that he doesn't understand. There was a whole part that was absolutely beyond his understanding, he didn't understand, and what little he could catch was just a husk.

So, to tell the truth, it doesn't matter.

Of course, there's the rule that it's not good to speak of yourself – that goes without saying. But what can I talk about now, if not about my experience? Because nothing exists any more – all the so-called “objective” knowledge is to me a useless mental activity.

So let's just leave it at that.

Otherwise, truncated publications... I find that very bad; better nothing at all, because they are, as it were, drained.

Yes, drained of all power.

Let's just leave it as it is.

 

¹ See conversation of May 25.

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² The author of this letter is a Westerner turned Sufi.

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³ Sri Aurobindo or the Transformation of the World.

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