The Mother

Agenda

(Mother gives Satprem a white zinnia she has named “Integral Endurance,” then an allamanda or “Victory,” and finally a flower of “Supramental Victory.”)

Here is an Integral Endurance. But... victory. Victory. And this one is Supramental Victory – that is, victory in ALL details.

It grows in huge clusters of many, many flowers. There.

And I go on reading....

“On Himself”?

Yes – the explanation of his yoga and of what he wants us to realize. After reading it yesterday evening I said to him, “How do you expect it to be done in this!” (Mother laughingly indicates her own body.) “No, no, no!” he replied, “That's not it! What is needed now is to learn how to last. We'll speak of this again,” he told me, “in two or three hundred years.” Ah! (laughing) “Very well!” I said. “Learn to last,” he told me.

Well, we're going to learn how to last.

That's why I gave you “Integral Endurance” – it is his message.

(silence)

Unless one is ABSOLUTELY indifferent, truly one cannot last. This is quite clear. That is the way it must be (gesture of a becalmed sea). For suddenly you find yourself in a state which feels like it could last forever – nothing matters, it goes on and on and on (Mother stretches out her arms, as if floating on a vast, infinite sea)... like this, forever. I have been in this state very often, and you truly feel that.... But the experience must not be in the head (that can be easily had); it has to be HERE (Mother slaps her knees), here in the body. When the body catches on to this, nothing is either disagreeable or agreeable to it – it takes no pleasure, feels no disgust, no uneasiness, no anything. It's in a state, ah!... (same gesture of a becalmed sea)

It's very interesting.

This happens quite often on the balcony, because there I am concentrated on... the descending Light. Then, very often, the body becomes completely still, like this.

That way one can last. Very well. Let's work.

(Mother takes up “Thoughts and Aphorisms.”)

Have you brought a question?

Yes.

Ah! I have seen T., who told me she was finding it too difficult to ask questions [on Sri Aurobindo's Aphorisms] because it always seemed to be the same thing! So now she has nothing to ask. We have decided she won't ask any more questions, unless, by chance, something suddenly arouses a question in her. Otherwise, no more questions (Mother breathes a sigh of relief).

63 – God is great, says the Mahomedan. Yes, He is so great that He can afford to be weak, whenever that too is necessary.

64 – God often fails in His workings; it is the sign of His illimitable godhead.

65 – Because God is invincibly great, He can afford to be weak; because He is immutably pure, He can indulge with impunity in sin; He knows eternally all delight, therefore He tastes also the delight of pain; He is inalienably wise, therefore He has not debarred Himself from folly.

Can God truly be said to be weak or to fail? Does this actually happen, or is it simply the Lord's play?

That's not how it is, mon petit! This is precisely how the modern Western attitude has become twisted compared to the ancient attitude, the attitude – it isn't exactly ancient – of the Gita. It's extremely difficult for the Western mind to comprehend vividly and concretely that ALL is the Divine. It is so impregnated with the Christian spirit, with the idea of a “Creator” – the creation on one side and God on the other! Upon reflection, one rejects this, but... it has entered into our sensations and feelings, and so – spontaneously, instinctively, almost subconsciously – one credits God with all one considers to be the best, the most beautiful, and especially with what one wishes to attain, to realize. (Each individual, of course, changes the content of his God according to his own consciousness, but it's always what he considers to be the best.) And just as instinctively, spontaneously and subconsciously, one is shocked by the idea that things one doesn't like or doesn't approve of or which don't seem to be the best, could also be God.

I am putting this purposely into rather childish terms so that it will be clearly understood. But this is the way it is. I am sure of it because I have observed it in myself for a VERY long time, and I had to.... Due to the whole subconscious formation of childhood – environment, education, and so forth – we have to DRUM into this (Mother touches her body) the consciousness of Unity: the absolute, EXCLUSIVE unity of the Divine – exclusive in the sense that nothing exists apart from this Unity, even the things which seem most repulsive.

Sri Aurobindo also had to struggle against this because he too received a Christian education. And these Aphorisms are the result – the flowering – of the necessity to struggle against the subconscious formation which has produced such questions (Mother takes on a scandalized tone): “How can God be weak? How can God be foolish? How....” But there is nothing but God! He alone exists, there is nothing outside of Him. And whatever seems repugnant to us is something He no longer wishes to exist – He is preparing the world so that this no longer manifests, so that the manifestation can pass beyond this state to something else. So of course we violently reject everything in us that is destined to leave the active manifestation. There is a movement of rejection.

Yet it is He. There is nothing other than He! This should be repeated from morning to night, from night to morning, because we forget it every minute.

There is only He, there is nothing other than He. He alone exists, there is no existence without Him. There is only He!

(silence)

There are some reflections a little further on... (Mother leafs through the text and stops at Aphorism 68). Oh, he has such wonderful things to say!

68 – The sense of sin was necessary in order that man might become disgusted with his own imperfections. It was God's corrective for egoism. But man's egoism meets God's device by being very dully alive to its own sins and very keenly alive to the sins of others.

(Mother laughs) Marvelous!

In any case, there it is – asking that kind of question is still taking the attitude of those who make a distinction between what is Divine and what is not Divine, or rather what is God and what is not God. “How can He be weak?” It's a question I could never ask.

I quite understand. But when one speaks of the Lila, the divine play, it implies that He in some way remains in the background and doesn't really “get into the act,” as they say – that He's no really part of the game, but simply watches.

Yes, yes He is! He is totally involved in it. He Himself is the Play.

It must be remembered that there are all these gradations of consciousness: when we speak of God and his Play we are speaking of God in his transcendent state, beyond everything, beyond all the degrees of matter; when we speak of the Play we are speaking of God in his material state. So we say that God transcendent is watching and playing – in Himself, by Himself, with Himself – his material game.

But all language – all language! – is a language of Ignorance. All means of expression, all that is said and all the ways of saying it, are bound to partake of that ignorance. And that's why it's so difficult to express something concretely true; to do so would require extremely lengthy explanations, themselves, of course, fully erroneous. Sri Aurobindo's sentences are sometimes very long for precisely this reason – he is trying to get away from this ignorant language.

Our whole way of thinking is wrong!

All the believers, all the faithful (those from the West in particular) think in terms of “something else” when they speak of God – He cannot be weak, ugly, imperfect, He is something immaculate – but this is wrong thinking. They are dividing, separating. For subconscious thought (I mean thinking without reflecting, instinctively, out of habit, without observing oneself thinking), what is generally considered “perfection” is precisely what is seen or felt or postulated as being virtuous, divine, beautiful, admirable – but it's not that at all! Perfection means something in which nothing is missing. The divine perfection is a totality. The divine perfection is the Divine in his wholeness, with nothing left out. The divine perfection is the whole of the Divine, with nothing subtracted from it. For the moralists it is the exact opposite: divine perfection is nothing but the virtues they stand for!

From the true standpoint, the divine perfection is the whole (Mother makes a global gesture), and the fact that within this whole nothing can be missing is precisely what makes it perfect.¹ Consequently, perfection means that each thing is in its place, exactly what it should be, and that relationships among things are also exactly what they should be.

Perfection is one way to approach the Divine; Unity is another. But Perfection is a global approach: all is there and all is as it should be – that is to say, the perfect expression of the Divine (you can't even say “of His Will,” because that still implies something apart, something emanating from Him!).

It could be put like this (but it brings it down considerably): He is what He is and exactly as He wants to be. The “exactly as He wants to be” takes us down quite a few steps, but it still gives an idea of what I mean by “perfection”!

Divine perfection implies infinity and eternity – all is coexistent beyond time and space.

(silence)

While “walking” in my room, a series of invocations or prayers have come to me² (I didn't choose them – they were dictated to me) in which I implore the Lord to manifest his Perfection (and I am quite aware of how foolish this expression is, but it does correspond to an aspiration).³ When I say “manifest,” I mean to manifest in our physical, material world – I'm asking for the transformation of this world. And the moment I utter one of these invocations, the sense of the particular approach it represents is there; that's why I am now able to give such a lecture on Perfection – Perfection is one of these approaches. “Manifest this,” I tell Him, “Manifest that, manifest Your Perfection....” (The series is very long and it takes me quite a while to go through it all.) Well, each time I say “Manifest Your Perfection,” I have an awareness of what constitutes Perfection – it is something global.

It's like the word “purity” – one could lecture endlessly on the difference between divine purity and what people call purity. Divine purity (at the lowest level) is to admit but one influence – the divine Influence (but this is at the lowest level, and already terribly distorted). Divine purity means that only the Divine exists – nothing else. It is perfectly pure – only the Divine exists, nothing other than He.

And so on.

This is the third year [of japa] – so it's becoming very clear.

*
*   *

What shall we do now?

Speak about your experience.

I risk repeating myself.

No, never! It's a new experience each time – it's never the same.

Yes. I marvel at people who have the same experience several times over, who hold on to their realizations – I have never been able to do so. There was a time when I tried, but I realized it was stupid, so I don't try anymore. I have never had the same experience twice – never could.

The experience I described the day I said “I have something to tell you” [January 24, 1961] was truly very pleasant and I did try to relive it – but I never could. Whenever I try, whenever something in me insists on recapturing the experience, I always see a Smile and something tells me, “No, no! Let go! You'll see, you'll see....” So I let go.

All right, that's enough-enough for you!

And you – what are you doing?

I'm re-reading “Savitri.”

Lucky man! I would love to read it again. And the more you read, the more marvelous it becomes.

 

¹ Mother later clarified this point: “It is impossible for anything to be missing because it is impossible for anything not to be part of the whole. Nothing can exist apart from the whole. But I am taking this now to its extreme limit of meaning – not down-to-earth, but to the heights, to the extreme limits of meaning. I will explain: everything is not necessarily contained within a given universe, because one universe is only one mode of manifestation – but all possible universes exist. And so I always come back to the same thing: nothing can exist apart from the whole. If we give the whole the name of ‘God,’ for example, then we say that nothing can exist apart from Him. But words are so earthbound, aren't they?” (Mother makes a down-to-earth gesture.)

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² See “Prayers of the Consciousness of the Cells,” Agenda 1, pp. 337-350.

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³ As Mother had previously said that “all is as it should be... the Divine is what He is and exactly as He wants to be,” one shouldn't need to “implore” Him to manifest his Perfection.

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The Mother

Agenda

66 – Sin is that which was once in its place, persisting now it is out of place; there is no other sinfulness.

I don't feel any inspiration.

Do you have a question?

Sin is said to be something no longer in its place. But has something like cruelty, for example, ever had a “place”?

Exactly what came to me – I receive all the questions people ask. The question arises immediately: if one kills out of cruelty, for instance, or inflicts pain out of cruelty, did that ever have a place?... For even though deformed in appearance, it is nevertheless (we always come back to the same thing) an expression of the Divine.

What lies behind, tell me?

Sri Aurobindo always said that cruelty was one of the things most repugnant to him, but he explained it as the deformation of an intensity. We could almost call it the deformation of an intensity of love – something not satisfied with half-measures, something driven to extremes (which is legitimate) – it's the deformation of the need for extremely strong sensations.

I have always known that cruelty, like sadism, is the need to cut through a thick layer of totally insensitive tamas¹ by means of extremely violent sensation – an extreme is needed if anything is to be felt through that tamas. I was always told, for example (in Japan it was strongly emphasized to me), that the people of the Far East are very tamasic physically. The Chinese in particular are said to be the remnants of a race that inhabited the moon before it froze over and forced them to seek refuge on earth (this is supposed to account for their round faces and the shape of their eyes!).... Anyway (laughing), it's a story people tell! But they're extremely tamasic; their physical sensibility is almost nil – appalling things are required to make them feel anything! And since they naturally presume that what applies to them applies to everyone, they are capable of appalling cruelty. Not all of them, of course! But this is their reputation. Have you read Mirbeau's book? (I believe that's his name.) I read it sixty years ago – something on Chinese torture.

Yes, it's well-known.

Very well-known.

But the Chinese are also great artists.

Yes. When I read that book (it was very well written), I understood the problem, and my understanding was confirmed when I went to Japan. Many Japanese also have a blunted sensibility (“blunted” in the sense that to feel anything they need extremely violent stimuli). Perhaps an explanation could be found along these lines.

But behind it all, the original problem remains unresolved: “Why has it become like this? Why this deformation? Why has it all been deformed?...” There are some very beautiful things behind, very intense, infinitely more powerful than we ourselves can even bear, marvelous things. But why has it all become... so dreadful here? That's what comes up immediately – it's why I told you I had no inspiration.

It is....

The notion of sin is something I don't understand, that I have never understood. To me, original sin seemed to be one of the most monstrous ideas people have ever had – sin and I just don't go together!

So, of course, I fully agree with Sri Aurobindo when he says there's no such thing as sin – that's understood, but....

Certain things can be called “sin,” if you like, such as cruelty. Well, the only explanation I see for such things is the deformation of the need or taste for extremely strong sensations. I have noticed that cruel people experience an Ananda in their cruelty – they find an intense joy in it. It is thereby legitimized. Only it's in such a deformed state that it's repugnant.

The idea that things are not in their place, mon petit, is something I understood even as a youngster, and it was eventually explained to me by Théon.

In his cosmogony, Théon accounted for the successive pralayas² of the different universes by saying that each universe was an aspect of the Supreme manifesting itself: each universe was built upon one aspect of the Supreme, and all, one after the other, were withdrawn into the Supreme. He enumerated all the successively manifested aspects, and what an extraordinarily logical sequence it was! I have kept it some place, but I no longer know where. Nor do I remember exactly what number this universe has in the sequence, but this time it was supposed to be the universe which would not be withdrawn, which would, so to speak, follow an indefinite progression of Becoming. And this universe is to manifest Equilibrium, not a static but a progressive equilibrium.³ Equilibrium, as he explains it, is each thing exactly in its place: each vibration, each movement, each... and so on down the line – each form, each activity, each element exactly in its place in relation to the whole.

This is quite interesting to me because Sri Aurobindo says the same thing: that nothing is bad, simply things are not in their place – their place not only in space but in time, their place in the universe, beginning with the planets and stars, each thing exactly in its place. Then when each thing, from the most colossal to the most microscopic, is exactly in place, the whole Will PROGRESSIVELY express the Supreme, without having to be withdrawn and emanated anew. On this also, Sri Aurobindo based the fact that this present creation, this present universe, will be able to manifest the perfection of a divine world – what Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind.

Equilibrium is the essential law of this creation – it is what permits perfection to be realized in the manifestation.

In line with this idea of things “in their place,” another question comes to me: with the descent of the Supermind, what exactly are the very first things that the supramental force will want to or is trying to dislodge?

The first things it will dislodge?

Yes, individually and cosmically, so that everything is in its place.

Will it dislodge anything?... If we accept Sri Aurobindo's idea, it will put each thing in its place, that's all.

One thing must inevitably cease: the Deformation, the veil of falsehood covering Truth, because all we see existing here is due to that. If the veil is removed, things will necessarily be completely different, completely: they will be as we experience them when we emerge individually from that deformed consciousness. When one comes out of that consciousness and enters the Truth-Consciousness, one is incredulous that such things as suffering, misery and death can exist; it's amazing, in the sense that (when one is truly on the other side)... one doesn't understand how all this can be happening. And, although this state of consciousness is habitually associated with the experience of the unreality of the world as we know it, Sri Aurobindo tells us that this perception of the world's unreality need not exist for the supramental consciousness: only Falsehood is unreal, not the world. And this is most interesting – the world has its own reality, independent of Falsehood.

I suppose this will be the first effect of the Supermind – perhaps even its first effect in the individual, because it will begin in individuals first.

This state of consciousness⁴ probably has to become constant, but that would pose a problem: how could one then keep in contact with the world as it is in its deformation? Because I have noticed that when this state is very strong in me, very strong, so strong that it can withstand everything bombarding it from outside, people don't understand a thing I say, NOTHING! Therefore, it would seem to cut off a useful contact.

What would it be like, for instance, to have a small supramental creation as a nucleus of action and influence radiating upon earth (to limit it to the earth)? Is it possible? It's easy to conceive of a superhuman nucleus – a creation of supermen, that is, of men who by virtue of evolution and transformation (in the true sense of the word) have succeeded in manifesting the supramental forces; yet since their origin is human, there is inevitably a contact; even if everything is transformed, even if their organs are transformed into centers of force, a sort of human coloration still remains. These are the beings who, according to tradition, will discover the secret of direct, supramental creation, bypassing the process of ordinary Nature. Then through them the true supramental beings will be born, who will necessarily have to live in a supramental world. But how would contact be made between these beings and the ordinary world? How to conceive of a transformation of nature sufficient to enable this supramental creation to take place on earth? I don't know.

Of course, we know that such a thing will require a considerable amount of time to be done, and it will probably go by stages, by degrees, with faculties appearing that at the moment we can't know or imagine, and which will change the conditions of the earth – this is looking ahead a few thousand years.

There is still this problem: is it possible to make use of the notion of space – I mean space on the planet earth?⁵ Is it possible to find a place where the embryo or seed of the future supramental world might be created?

What I myself have seen... was a plan that came complete in all details, but that doesn't at all conform in spirit and consciousness with what is possible on earth now (although, in its most material manifestation, the plan was based on existing terrestrial conditions). It was the idea of an ideal city, the nucleus of a small ideal country, having only superficial and extremely limited contacts with the old world. One would already have to conceive (it's possible) of a Power sufficient to be at once a protection against aggression or bad will (this would not be the most difficult protection to provide) and a protection (which can just barely be imagined) against infiltration and admixture.... From the social or organizational standpoint, these problems are not difficult, nor from the standpoint of inner life; the problem is the relationship with what is not supramentalized – preventing infiltration or admixture, keeping the nucleus from falling back into an inferior creation during the transitional period.

(silence)

All who have considered the problem have always imagined some place like a Himalayan gorge, unknown to the rest of humanity, but this is no solution. No solution at all.

No, the only solution is occult power. But that.... Before anything at all can be done, it already demands a certain number of individuals who have reached a great perfection of realization. Granting this, a place is conceivable (set apart from the outside world – no actual contacts) where each thing is exactly in its place, setting an example. Each thing exactly in its place, each person exactly in his place, each movement in its place, and all in its place in an ascending, progressive movement without relapse (that is, the very opposite of what goes on in ordinary life). Naturally, this also means a sort of perfection, it means a sort of unity; it means that the different aspects of the Supreme can be manifested; and, necessarily, an exceptional beauty, a total harmony; and a power sufficient to keep the forces of Nature obedient: even if this place were encircled by destructive forces, for example, these forces would be powerless to act – the protection would be sufficient.

It would all require the utmost perfection in the individuals organizing such a thing.

(long silence)

It must be similar to what happened when the first men appeared.

Have we ever really known how the first humans were formed, the first mental realization? Were they isolated individuals, or were they in groups – did the phenomenon take place in a collective milieu or in isolation? I don't know. It may be analogous to the case of the coming supramental creation.

It isn't difficult to conceive of an individual in the solitude of the Himalayas or in a virgin forest beginning to create around himself his miniature supramental world – this is easy to imagine. But the same thing would be necessary: he would need to have attained such perfection that his power would act automatically to prevent any outside intrusion.

Because such beings would automatically become the target of outside attacks?

They would need to be automatically protected; that is, any foreign or opposing element should be kept from approaching.

There are stories like this, you know, about people who lived in an ideal solitude, and it's not at all impossible to imagine. When one is in contact with this Power, when it is within you, you can see that such things are... child's play! It even reaches the point where there is the possibility of changing certain things, of influencing vibrations and forms in the surrounding environment by contagion, so that automatically they begin to be supramentalized. All that is possible – but confined to the individual scale. While if we take the example of what is happening here, where the individual remains right in the midst of all this chaos.... That's the difficulty! Doesn't this very fact make a certain perfection in realization impossible to attain? But the other case, the individual isolated in the forest, is always the same thing – an example giving no proof that the rest will be able to follow; while what's happening here should already have a much broader radiating influence. At some point this has to happen – it MUST happen. But the problem still remains: can it happen simultaneously with or even before the supramentalization of the single individual?

(silence)

The realization under community or group conditions would clearly be far more complete, integral, total and probably more perfect than any individual realization, which is always, necessarily – necessarily – extremely limited on the external material level, because it's only one way of being, one mode of manifestation, one microscopic set of vibrations that is touched.

But for the facility of the work, I believe there's no comparison!

(silence)

But the problem remains: Buddha and all the rest have FIRST realized, then resumed contact with the world. That makes it very simple. But for the total realization of what I envisage, isn't it indispensable to remain in the world? ...

(Mother is absorbed for a while, gazing into the distance)

I am constantly seeing images! Not images, living things – like answers to questions. A magnificent peacock was taking shape (it's the symbol of victory here in India) and its tail opened out, and on it a construction appeared, like this construction of an ideal place.... It's a pity this subtle world can't be photographed! There ought to be photographic plates sensitive enough to do it. It has been tried. It would be interesting because it moves, it's like a movie.

All right, then. What did you want to ask?

I think you've already answered!

No, I don't remember; I went off – wandering.

I asked you about your Force, or the supramental Force; what initial action is it taking now?

Ah yes.

Is it putting things in their places?

In my experience, it is; and it has come to the point where the more concentrated the Force, the more things turn up at the very moment they ought to, people come just when they should and do just what they ought to be doing, the things around me fall into place naturally – and this goes for the LEAST little detail. And simultaneously it brings with it a sense of harmony and rhythm, a joy – a very smiling joy in organization, as if everything were joyously participating in this restructuring. For example, you want to tell someone something and he comes to you; you need someone to do a particular work and he appears; something has to be organized – all the required elements are at hand. All with a kind of miraculous harmony, but nothing miraculous about it! Essentially it's simply the inner force meeting with a minimum of obstacles, and so things get molded by its action. This happens to me very often, VERY often; and sometimes it goes on for hours.

But it's rather delicate, like a very, very delicate clockwork, like a precision machine, and the least little thing throws everything out of gear. When someone has a bad reaction, for instance, or a bad thought, or an agitated vibration, or an anxiety – anything of this nature is enough to dissolve all the harmony. For me, it's translated straight-away into a malaise in my body, a very particular type of malaise; then disorder sets in, and the ordinary routine returns. So again I have to gather up, as it were, the Presence of the Lord and begin to infuse it everywhere. Sometimes it goes quickly, sometimes it takes longer; when the disorganization is a little more radical, it takes a little longer.

This eye [hemorrhage], for instance, resulted from such a disorder, a very dark force that someone allowed to enter, not deliberately, not knowingly, but through weakness and ignorance, always mingled, of course, with desire and ego and all the rest. (Without desire and ego, such things would find no access – but desire and ego are very widespread.) At any rate, that was plainly the cause and I sensed it immediately. Sometimes when it comes, it creeps up like this (Mother brings her hand to her throat), a black shadow strangling you. Yet inwardly nothing is affected at all, to such an extent that if I didn't pay attention to the purely external reaction, I wouldn't know anything had happened (it's the great Play); but externally the indication is immediate: half an hour later I had this eye hemorrhage. I was struggling against a wholly undesirable intrusion, and I knew it – although from an outer point of view, the cause was insignificant. It's not always the events we consider serious or important that produce the most harmful effects – far from it. Sometimes it's an altogether INSIGNIFICANT intrusion of falsehood, for some quite insignificant reason – what is commonly labeled a stupidity. This stems from the fact that the adverse forces are always lying in wait, ready to rush in at the least sign of weakness.

The incomprehension generated by doubt (the kind of doubt that always results from an egoistic movement) is very dangerous. Very dangerous. It's not even necessary to be in a psychic consciousness – even for an enlightened vital consciousness, it produces no effect; but HERE, in this material swarm....

But I don't see how all this work could be done in the solitude of the Himalayas or the forest. There's a great risk of entering into that very impersonal, universal consciousness where things are relatively easy – the material consequences are so far below that it doesn't much matter! One can act directly only in the MIDST of things.

Anyway, at the moment I have no choice – and I am not looking for any. Things are what they are and as they are; and taking them as they are, the work has to be done. The manner of working depends on the way things are.

But it's so lovely when this Harmony comes. You know, puttering about, arranging papers, setting a drawer in order.... It all sings, it's lovely, so joyous and luminous... so delightful! And all, all, all.... All material things, all activities, eating, dressing, everything becomes delightful when this harmony is there, delightful. Everything works out smoothly, it's so harmonious, there's no friction. You see... you see a joyous, luminous Grace manifesting in all things, ALL things, even those we normally regard as utterly unimportant. But then, if this Harmony withdraws, everything – exactly the SAME conditions, the SAME things, the SAME circumstances – becomes painful, tiresome, drawn out, difficult, laborious, oh!... It's like this, and like that (Mother tilts her hand from side to side as on a narrow frontier) like this, like that.

It makes you sense so clearly that things in themselves don't count. What we call “things in themselves” are of no true importance! What really counts is the relationship of consciousness to these things. And there's a formidable power in this, since in one instance you touch something and drop or mishandle it, while in the other it's so lovely, it works so smoothly. Even the most difficult movements are made without difficulty. It's an unheard-of power! We don't give it importance because it has no grandiose effects, it's not spectacular. Yes, there are indeed states of grace when one is in the presence of a great difficulty and suddenly has all the power needed to face it – yes, but that's something else. I am speaking of a power active in ordinary life.

There was an instance of this the other day: someone in a completely detestable mood wrote me a letter; it was impossible, I couldn't reply – I didn't know what to say. I simply applied the Force and remained like this (gesture of an offering to the Light). I said, “We shall see.” Several hours later (I knew I was going to see this person) I didn't even know if I was going to say I had read the letter – or rather if what I was going to say would result from having read it. I had come to that point – nothing. But that very morning a little circumstance occurred that... changed everything! And when I met the person I knew immediately what had to be said, what had to be done, and everything worked out.

That is ONE example. I mention it because it happened the day before yesterday, but this goes on all the time.

I have made it a habit to always do this (gesture of abandonment to the Light). When a problem comes up, I offer it to the Lord and then leave it. And the moment the solution is required, it comes – it comes in facts, in deeds, in movements.

I would be satisfied only if.... Can one ever be satisfied? At any rate, I would begin to be satisfied only if this were a constant and total condition, active in all circumstances and at every moment, day and night. But is it possible with this INUNDATION pouring in from outside? Constantly! While walking this morning I was (how to put it?) something of a witness, watching what was coming in from outside. One thing after another, one thing after another – what a mixture! From all sides, from everyone and everything and everywhere. And not only from here, but from far, far away on the earth and sometimes from far back in time, back into the past – things out of the past coming up, presenting themselves to the new Light to be put in their place. It's always that: each thing wanting to be put in its place. And this work has to be done constantly.... It's as if one keeps catching a new illness to be cured.

A fresh disorder to be straightened out.

Actually, we are very lazy.

Sri Aurobindo wrote that he was very lazy – that consoled me! We are very lazy. We would like (laughing) to settle back and blissfully enjoy the fruit of our labors!

So there, mon petit; it's time to go.

 

¹ Tamas: the principle of inertia and obscurity.

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² Pralaya: The destruction of a universe at the end of a cycle. According to Hindu cosmology, the formation of each universe begins with an “age of truth” (satya-yuga) which slowly degenerates, like the stars, till there is no truth left at all; it becomes a “dark age”(kali-yuga) like ours, and ends with a cataclysm. Then a new universe is reborn out of this cataclysm and the cycle begins again. There is a correspondence here with a modern cosmological theory according to which a phase of contraction, of galaxies collapsing upon themselves, follows a phase of expansion and precedes a new explosion (“Big Bang”) of the “primal egg” – and so on, in a recurring and apparently endless and aimless series of cosmic births which, like our own human births, develop, attain some sort of “summit,” then collapse, always to begin again. According to Théon, our present universe is the seventh – but where is the “beginning”?

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³ Note that modern astronomy is divided between the theory of endless phases of contraction-explosion-expansion, and the theory of a universe in infinite expansion starting with a “Big Bang,” which seems quite as catastrophic, since the universe is then plunging at vertiginous speed into an increasingly cold, empty, and fatal infinity, like a bullet released from all restraints of gravity, until... until what? According to astronomers, an exact measurement of the quantity of matter in a cubic meter of the present universe (one atom for every 400 liters of space) should enable us to decide between these two theories and learn which way it will be best for us to die. If there is more than one atom per 400 liters of space, this quantity of matter will create sufficient gravitation to halt the present expansion of galaxies and induce a contraction, ending with an explosion within an infinitesimal space. If there is less than one atom per 400 liters of space, the quantity of matter and thus the gravitational effect will be insufficient to retain the galaxies within their invisible net, and everything will spin off endlessly – unless we discover, with Mother, a third position, that of a “progressive equilibrium,” in which the quantity of matter in the universe proves in fact to be a quantity of consciousness, whose contraction or expansion will be regulated by the laws of consciousness.

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⁴ When the veil of falsehood has gone: the supramental consciousness.

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⁵ Questioned later about the meaning of this sentence, Mother laughed, “I said that from the other side! It was spoken from a dimension where the notion of space is no longer so concrete.”

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The Mother

Agenda

When one descends into the subconscient, a time comes when it's no longer personal – the whole world is there! Then what can we do? I'm not speaking of you, but what can people like us do to change it? It's a Sisyphean labor! Vibrations from the whole world keep coming in at each instant. How can we change it?

No, you have to approach the problem from the other direction. Evolution begins with the Inconscient, complete Inconscience; and from this Inconscient a Subconscient gradually emerges – that is, a half or quarter-consciousness.... There are two different things here. Consider life on earth (because the process is slightly different in the universe); earth-life begins with total Inconscience and little by little what was involved within it works out and changes this Inconscience into semi-consciousness or subconsciousness. At the same time, there is an individual working that awakens the INDIVIDUAL inconscient to an individual semiconsciousness, and here, of course, the individual has control – although it's not actually individualized because individualization begins with consciousness. The subconscient of plants or animals, for example, isn't individualized; what we call an animal's behavior doesn't arise from individualization but from the genius of the species. Consequently, the individual subconscient is something already evolved out of the general Subconscient. But when one descends to accomplish a work of transformation – to bring Light into the different layers of life, for instance – one descends into a cosmic, terrestrial Subconscient, not an individual Subconscient. And the work of transformation is done within the whole – not through individualization, but through the opposite movement, through a sort of universalization.

No, what I mean is that as we progress, we automatically become universalized....

Yes, necessarily.

And we are told that we have to change the Subconscient, to bring Light into it; but being universal it has no end! New vibrations keep coming in at every instant...

No!

... vibrations from the outside, from here, there – it's endless. How can we change it?

No, it isn't endless – it's limited to the earth's atmosphere.

That's already quite a lot!

Yes, but not endless.

Then how can we act upon it – all these vibrations that keep pouring in from all over the world, from the whole earth?

It isn't difficult – the minute you become universalized you act upon the whole.

Even Buddha said that if you have a vibration of desire, this vibration goes all around the terrestrial atmosphere. The opposite is what's impossible! It's impossible to separate yourself. You can have the idea of being separate, but you can't be separate in reality. In fact, if you are trying to eliminate the Subconscient in yourself your movement must necessarily be general; it can't be personal, you would never get anywhere.

Yes, of course, but these vibrations are ceaselessly re-created.

No, they are not re-created.

But there are people having wrong movements at every instant, so...?

So it all keeps circling round and round in the earth's atmosphere. But compared to the universe, the earth's atmosphere is a very tiny thing. Well, all this keeps circling around within it. And in fact, because of the movement of evolution, there is a progress. The present Inconscient is not as unconscious as the initial Inconscient, and the present Subconscient is not as subconscious nor as generalized as it was at the beginning. This is the meaning of terrestrial evolution.

But if, as you say, it keeps circling around in the earth's atmosphere, doesn't this mean that vibrations are ceaselessly re-created?

Not re-created – they keep circling around, which is not the same thing!

A re-creation would mean that a new contingent of the Inconscient and Subconscient would come in from other spheres, or from the Supreme – well, this isn't the case. We consider the Inconscient to be an “accident”: if it happened, it happened; but it's not part of an infinite and eternal creation.

Then are our vibrations of consciousness effective for changing these general vibrations?

Ah, yes!

In fact, we are the first possible instruments for making the world progress. For example (this is one way of putting it), the transformation of the Inconscient into the Subconscient is probably far more rapid and complete now than it was before man appeared upon earth; man is one of the first transformative elements. Animals are obviously more conscious than plants, but WILLED (and thus more rapid) progress belongs to humanity. Likewise, what one hopes (more than hopes!), what one expects is that when the new supramental race comes upon earth, the work will go much more swiftly; and man will necessarily benefit from this. And since things will be done in true order instead of in mental disorder, animals and everything else will probably benefit from it also. In other words, the whole earth, taken as one entity, will progress more and more rapidly. The Inconscient (oh, all this comes to me in English, that's the difficulty!) is meant to go and necessarily the Subconscient will go too.

Broadly speaking, does this mean that physical Matter will become conscious?

Yes, in a certain way. It will become receptive. The mode of life won't necessarily change, but the form of life will change. Matter will become responsive. Do we say that in French?

Receptive?...

No, receptive is one thing and responsive is another. To respond: Matter will respond to the conscious will. Indeed, this is why there is hope – how else could there be a transformation? Things would always remain as they are! What kind of earth would it be for the supramental race to live on if no Matter gave response, if Matter did not begin to vibrate and respond to the Will? The same difficulties would always be there. And it isn't limited: for instance, even if we imagine a power over the body making corporeal life different, this new corporeal life still has to exist within an environment – it can't remain hanging in thin air! The environment must respond.

It's quite obvious that the Inconscient, the Subconscient and the semi-conscient are accidental; they are not a permanent part of the creation, so are bound to disappear, to be transformed.

Years ago, when Sri Aurobindo and I descended together from plane to plane (or from mode of life to mode of life) and reached the Subconscient, we saw that it was no longer individual: it was terrestrial. The rest – the mind, the vital and of course the body – is individualized; but when you descend below this level, that's no longer the case. There is indeed something between the conscious life of the body and this subconscious terrestrial life – elements are thrown out¹ as a result of the action of individual consciousness upon the subconscious substance; this creates a kind of semiconsciousness, and that stays. For example, when people are told, “You have pushed your difficulty down into the subconscient and it will resurface,” this does not refer to the general Subconscient, but to something individualized out of the Subconscient through the action of individual consciousness and remaining down there until it resurfaces. The process is, so to speak, interminable, even the personal part of it.

Every night, you know, I continue to see more and more astounding things emerging from the Subconscient to be transformed. It's a kind of mixture – not clearly individualized – of all the things that have been more or less closely associated in life. For example, some people are intermingled there. One relives things almost as in a dream (although these are not “dreams”), one relives it all in a certain setting, within a certain set of symbolic, or at any rate expressive, circumstances. Just two days ago I had to deal with someone (I am actively at work there and I had to do something with him), and upon seeing this person, I asked myself, “is he this one or that one?” As I became less involved in the action and looked with a more objective consciousness, the witness-consciousness, I saw that it was simply a mixture of both persons – everything is mixed in the Subconscient.... Already when I lived in Japan there were four people I could never distinguish during my nighttime activities – all four of them (and god knows they weren't even acquainted!) were always intermingled because their subconscious reactions were identical.

In fact, this is what legitimizes the ego; because if we had never formed an ego, we would have lived all mixed up (laughing), now this person, now another! Oh, it was so comical, seeing this the other day! At first it was a bit bewildering, but when I looked closely, it became utterly amusing: two little people with no physical resemblance, yet of a similar type – small and... in short, a similarity. It's like the four men I used to see in Japan: there was an Englishman, a Frenchman, a Japanese and one more, each from a different country; well, at night they were all the same, as if viewed one through the other, all intermingled – very amusing!

But individualization is a slow and difficult process. That's why you have an ego, otherwise you would never become individualized, but always be... (Mother laughs) a kind of public place!

In the end, individualization – and the consequent necessity for the ego – exists for the return to Divine Consciousness to be conscious and willed, with full, conscious participation.

Speaking of individualization, there's a question I've been wondering about: when one speaks of the “central being,” this central being is not something here in physical life, is it?... It's above....

It is above and within and everywhere! (Mother laughs)

No, unless you learn to think at all times with the fourth dimension, you will never understand anything.

But Sri Aurobindo says that this central being is “unborn.” I would like to know whether it is something individual – whether each person has a central being.

The one is not separate from the other.

The one is not separate from the other? In what sense? The central being isn't separate from the Divine, it's one with the Divine. But does each person have a particular, individual central being, or is there one central being for everyone?

It becomes personal in our consciousness. It is a phenomenon of consciousness.

But it's not separate – never separate.

Yes, it isn't separate, but does it have an individuality?

It's never separate, neither from the Center (if it can be called a “center”!) nor from the whole. And as soon as one is in touch with it, this problem no longer arises: it's plain that it can't be otherwise!

Because when one loses his ego and finds this central being, Sri Aurobindo says that an individuality remains – it isn't a dissolution – one retains a personality.

Yes, a personality remains.

Then this is the personality of the central being, the True Personality.

Yes.

Then after all, it's an individual, not an impersonal self.

Individual in action, in manifestation.

This is where the problem arises. Sri Aurobindo says it's permanent, while all the ancient traditions say it disappears with the body.

A permanent individual self?

Otherwise there could be no permanent material life – for this [individuality] is the very nature of materialization. Were it destined to disappear, then the phenomenon of physical dissolution would become permanent, and there would never be physical immortality; because, after exhausting a certain... basically, a certain number of illusions or disorders or falsehoods, one would return to the Truth. But according to Sri Aurobindo, it isn't like that: this individualization, this individual personalization is the Truth, a real, authentic divine phenomenon – the only falsehood is the deformation of consciousness. Well, when we rediscover the true consciousness of Unity – that Unity which is both in and above the manifest and the non-manifest (“above” in that it contains both the manifest and non-manifest equally), well, this Truth includes material personalization, otherwise that² could not exist.

But each individual has a different personality.

Yes... perhaps not in the present state of disorder! But in principle.

Every conscious being?

Yes, in principle – each TRUE soul.

True, meaning formed?

Yes, “formed” if you consider it from below. But if you consider it from above... (Mother laughs).

Each individual represents something of the Divine?

It could be expressed like that, but it's still a separative way of putting it.

But then what is this “personality”!?

It's a mode of being.

It's what makes one being different from the other.

A mode of being, yes, in a way, in its essence – in its essence, because in the manifestation all this is destined to disappear. Yes, they are modes of being – like those first four modes of being³ created at the first manifestation.

But in our case, would there be innumerable modes of being, each representing one particular aspect?

Yes, the multitude – otherwise there can be no Play.

I just translated a passage where Sri Aurobindo speaks of the enjoyment and possession of the One by the multitude, of the multitude by the One, and of the multitude by the multitude.⁴ Such a play must then involve an innumerable diversity – innumerable!

Then why have those who had realizations in the past, who found the true Sell, all said it meant the dissolution of the individual, that no personality remained?

Not all! only those who went off into Non-existence said this. In the Vedas, for example, it's plain that the “forefathers” spoken of were men who had realized immortality upon earth. (Who knows, they may still be alive!) Their conception of things was similar to Sri Aurobindo's.

The other tradition – Théon said it was the origin of both the Kabbala and the Vedas – also held the same concept of divine life and a divine world as Sri Aurobindo: that the summit of evolution would be the divinization of everything objectified, along with an unbroken progression from that moment on. (As things are now, one goes forward and then backwards, then forward and backwards again; but in this divine world, retrogression won't be necessary: there will be a continuous ascent.) This concept was held in that ancient tradition – Théon spoke to me very clearly of it, and Sri Aurobindo hadn't yet written anything when I met Théon. Théon had written all kinds of things – not philosophy, but stories, fantastic stories! Yet this same knowledge was behind them, and when asked about the source of this knowledge he used to say that it antedated both the Kabbala and the Vedas (he was well-versed in the Rig-veda).

But Théon had no idea of the path of bhakti,⁵ none whatsoever.

The idea of surrender to the Divine was absolutely alien to him. Yet he did have the idea of the Divine Presence here (Mother indicates the heart center), of the immanent Divine and of union with That. And he said that by uniting with That and letting That transform the being one could arrive at the divine creation and the transformation of the earth.

Théon was the first one to give me the idea that the earth is symbolic, representative – symbolic of concentrated universal action allowing divine forces to incarnate and work concretely. I learned all this from him.

In this respect, you say somewhere that the gods too must incarnate to become fully conscious.

Yes, because....

How is this possible? Aren't the gods already fully conscious?!

No, they have no psychic being, so that whole side of life does not exist for them.

In all the traditions here in India (and in other countries and other religions as well), most of the time these gods behave impossibly! This is simply because they have no psychic being. The psychic being is the one thing belonging specifically to terrestrial life; it has been given as a grace... to repair, to undo what had been done.

Yes, but aren't the gods conscious of the Divine?

Listen, mon petit, they are conscious of their own divinity, and of that above all!

They are connected with the Divine, yes, but I know from experience that they haven't the faintest notion of what surrender is!

I had a VERY interesting experience – it was last year or the year before, I don't recall, but after I retired to my room upstairs ....⁶ You know that during pujas these goddesses come all the time – they don't enter the body and tie themselves to it, but they do come and manifest. Well, this time – I think it must have been for last year's puja – Durga came (she always arrives a few days in advance and remains in the atmosphere; she is present, like this – gesture as if Durga were walking up and down with Mother). I was in touch with her during my meditations upstairs, and this new Power in the body was in me then as it is in me now, and... (how to put it?) I made her participate in this concept of surrender. What an experience she had, mon petit! An extraordinary experience of the joy of being connected with That. And she declared, “From now on, I am a bhakta of the Lord.”

It was beautiful.

This formidable Power, you see – a universal Power, an eternal and formidable Power – well, she had never had such an experience before, she had only experienced her OWN power. She was used to receiving and obeying Commands, but in an automatic way. Then all at once, she felt the ECSTASY of being a conscious instrument.

Truly... it was truly beautiful.

I knew how it was with her because I remember the days when Sri Aurobindo was here and I used to go downstairs to give meditations to the people assembled in the hall. There's a ledge above the pillars there, where all the gods used to sit – Shiva, Krishna, Lakshmi, the Trimurti, all of them – the little ones, the big ones, they all used to come regularly, every day, to attend these meditations. It was a lovely sight. But they didn't have this kind of adoration for the Supreme. They had no use for that concept – each one, in his own mode of being, was fully aware of his own eternal divinity; and each one knew as well that he could represent all the others (such was the basis of popular worship,⁷ and they knew it). They felt they were a kind of community, but they had none of those qualities that the psychic life gives: no deep love, no deep sympathy, no sense of union. They had only the sense of their OWN divinity. They had certain very particular movements, but not this adoration for the Supreme nor the feeling of being instruments: they felt they were representing the Supreme, and so each one was perfectly satisfied with his particular representation.

Except for Krishna.... In 1926, I had begun a sort of overmental creation, that is, I had brought the Overmind down into matter, here on earth (miracles and all kinds of things were beginning to happen). I asked all these gods to incarnate, to identify themselves with a body (some of them absolutely refused). Well, with my very own eyes I saw Krishna, who had always been in rapport with Sri Aurobindo, consent to come down into his body. It was on November 24th, and it was the beginning of “Mother.”⁸

Yes, in fact I wanted to ask you what this realization of 1926 was.

It was this: Krishna consented to descend into Sri Aurobindo's body – to be FIXED there; there is a great difference, you understand, between incarnating, being fixed in a body, and simply acting as an influence that comes and goes and moves about. The gods are always moving about, and it's plain that we ourselves, in our inner beings, come and go and act in a hundred or a thousand places at once. There is a difference between just coming occasionally and accepting to be permanently tied to a body – between a permanent influence and a permanent presence.

These things have to be experienced.

But in what sense did this realization mark a turning point in Sri Aurobindo's sadhana?

No, the phenomenon was important FOR THE CREATION; he himself was rather indifferent to it. But I did tell him about it.

It was at that time that he decided to stop dealing with people and retire to his room. So he called everyone together for one last meeting. Before then, he used to go out on the verandah every day to meet and talk with all who came to see him (this is the origin of the famous “Talks with Sri Aurobindo”⁹... – Mother is about to say something severe, then reconsiders – anyway...) I was living in the inner rooms and seeing no one; he was going out onto the verandah, seeing everyone, receiving people, speaking, discussing – I saw him only when he came back inside.

After a while, I too began having meditations with people. I had begun a sort of “overmental creation,” to make each god descend into a being – there was an extraordinary upward curve! Well, I was in contact with these beings and I told Krishna (because I was always seeing him around Sri Aurobindo), “This is all very fine, but what I want now is a creation on earth – you must incarnate.” He said “Yes.” Then I saw him – I saw him with my own eyes (inner eyes, of course), join himself to Sri Aurobindo.

Then I went into Sri Aurobindo's room and told him, “Here's what I have seen.” “Yes, I know!” he replied (Mother laughs) “That's fine; I have decided to retire to my room, and you will take charge of the people. You take charge.” (There were about thirty people at the time.) Then he called everyone together for one last meeting. He sat down, had me sit next to him, and said, “I called you here to tell you that, as of today, I am withdrawing for purposes of sadhana, and Mother will now take charge of everyone; you should address yourselves to her; she will represent me and she will do all the work.” (He hadn't mentioned this to me! – Mother bursts into laughter)

These people had always been very intimate with Sri Aurobindo, so they asked: “Why, why, Why?” He replied, “It will be explained to you.” I had no intention of explaining anything, and I left the room with him, but Datta began speaking. (She was an Englishwoman who had left Europe with me; she stayed here until her death – a person who received “inspirations.”) She said she felt Sri Aurobindo speaking through her and she explained everything: that Krishna had incarnated and that Sri Aurobindo was now going to do an intensive sadhana for the descent of the Supermind; that it meant Krishna's adherence to the Supramental Descent upon earth and that, as Sri Aurobindo would now be too occupied to deal with people, he had put me in charge and I would be doing all the work.

This was in 1926.

It was only... (how can I put it?) a participation from Krishna. It made no difference for Sri Aurobindo personally: it was a formation from the past that accepted to participate in the present creation, nothing more. It was a descent of the Supreme, from... some time back, now consenting to participate in the new manifestation.

Shiva, on the other hand, refused. “No,” he said, “I will come only when you have finished your work. I will not come into the world as it is now, but I am ready to help.” He was standing in my room that day, so tall (laughing) that his head touched the ceiling! He was bathed in his own special light, a play of red and gold... magnificent! Just as he is when he manifests his supreme consciousness – a formidable being! So I stood up and... (I too must have become quite tall, because my head was resting on his shoulder, just slightly below his head) then he told me, “No, I'm not tying myself to a body, but I will give you ANYTHING you want.” The only thing I said (it was all done wordlessly, of course) was: “I want to be rid of the physical ego.”

Well, mon petit (laughing), it happened! It was extraordinary!... After a while, I went to find Sri Aurobindo and said, “See what has happened! I have a funny sensation (Mother laughs) of the cells no longer being clustered together! They're going to scatter!” He looked at me, smiled and said, Not yet. And the effect vanished.

But Shiva had indeed given me what I wanted!

Not yet, Sri Aurobindo said.

No, the time wasn't ripe. It was too early, much too early.

(silence)

I had it two years ago.¹⁰ But now there is something else – things are different now.

So, I still haven't answered your questions.

Oh, yes, you've answered all sorts of questions!

 

¹ I.e., they are cast aside or eliminated from the individual Subconscient.

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² “That” seems to refer to physical immortality.

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³ Consciousness or Light, Life, Love or Bliss, and Truth, which then became the first four asuras or demons.

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⁴ See Thoughts and Glimpses: “What then was the commencement of the whole matter? Existence that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being and plunged into numberless trillions of forms so that it might find itself innumerably.... And what is the end of the whole matter? As if honey could taste itself and all its drops together and all its drops could taste each other and each the whole honeycomb as itself, so should the end be with God and the soul of man and the universe.” (Cent. Ed. Vol. XVI, p. 384)

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⁵ Devotion, love for the Divine.

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⁶ After 1958.

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⁷ Each devotee of a particular cult knows perfectly well that his god is simply one way of representing something that is One.

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⁸ From 1926, Sri Aurobindo officially introduced Mother to the disciples as the “Mother”; previously he often called her “Mirra.”

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⁹ Evening Talks, noted by A.B. Purani.

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¹⁰ Again, the dissolution of the physical ego.

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