December 1961

Index

16. December 1961 – Mother's message for January

One day... (I’m translating the last section of The Synthesis of Yoga, ‘The Yoga of Self-Perfection’ – it plunges you into bottomless gulfs...) and one day (I think I’ve told you this), I had a vision of the gap between... not even what ought to be, because we probably haven’t the slightest idea of that, but between our concept of what we would like to be and what is. And it was so dreadful that the body was thrown into, oh... an anguish, a horror; and along with it an intensity of aspiration, a prayer. The gap seemed so tremendous: ‘Is it possible?’

That’s how it felt.

So to calm the body I took a pencil and wrote: ‘My being thirsts.’ (to tell the truth, I wanted to write ‘this body thirsts...’) ‘... for perfection, not this human perfection...’(I should tell you that all the things I am translating are simultaneously accompanied by a set of external circumstances OBVIOUSLY arranged in detail to illustrate the translation: a whole set of quite unpleasant circumstances, besides, serving simultaneously as backdrop and illustration. That’s what brought on the anguish...). ‘This body thirsts for perfection, not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego...’ (it was so clear to me that everything human beings conceive of as perfection is simply the ego wanting to magnify itself for its own greater glory) ‘... not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego and bars the way to the divine Perfection, but that one perfection...’ (these repeated ‘perfections’ are deliberate: it’s like a litany) ‘...but that one perfection which has the POWER to manifest upon earth the eternal Truth.’

It was this need, this need.... All the body’s cells began to vibrate with a more and more intense vibration – it was much more than a need; it was a necessity, a necessity to vibrate in unison with Truth. The cells seemed to be sensing the vibration of Truth, and so the entire body was in a state of total tension – not ‘tension’ in the ordinary sense, but... it was like trying to find a note that rings true. That’s what it was: to make the cells’ vibration ring true to the Vibration of Truth.

But you can’t get that down on paper!

The experience was extremely intense, so I didn’t do anything with my note, I put it aside. Then recently someone mentioned the first of January. ‘What the devil am I going to read to them?’ I wondered... (I usually read them a message). And I thought of this text: ‘I’ll change this scribble a bit, “humanize” it and bring it down a few rungs (smiling); then it will do.’ So I wrote: ‘WE thirst for perfection..., etc.’ In the experience it was only the BODY, you understand (the other part of the being is quite all right) – the body is in this state. All the rest is very happy – very happy, in perpetual joy and eurythmy (gesture of great waves), feeling divine Love (not Love as such... I don’t know how to say it): this Love without object, this Love which is neither ‘originated’ nor ‘received’ – without object, without cause or origin. It’s the feeling of floating in something.

That’s all very fine. But the body remains miserable.

And if I tell that to people, they go wide-eyed. It makes no sense to them – to even have the idea of a perfection existing somewhere, an attainable perfection, is already quite a lot for them! So I wrote: We thirst for perfection, not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego and bars the way to the divine Perfection, but that ONE perfection which has the power to manifest upon Earth the eternal Truth.

The English version is stronger than the French. That’s because it first came in English and then I made a patch-up job in French!

20. December 1961 – The Joy of the Creation

Seen from the European angle, Sri Aurobindo represents an immense spiritual revolution, redeeming Matter and the creation, which to the Christian religion is fundamentally a fall – it’s really unclear how what has come from God could become so bad, but anyway, better not be too logical! it’s a fall. The creation is a fall. And that’s why they are far more easily convinced by Buddhism. I saw this particularly with Richard, whose education was entirely in European philosophy, with Christian and positivist influences; under these two influences, when he came into contact with Théon’s ‘cosmic philosophy’ and later Sri Aurobindo’s revelation, he immediately explained, in his Wherefore of the Worlds, that the world is the fruit of Desire – God’s desire. Yet Sri Aurobindo says (in simple terms), ‘God created the world for the Joy of the creation,’ or rather, ‘He brought forth the world from Himself for the Joy of living an objective life.’ This was Théon’s thesis too, that the world is the Divine in an objective form, but for him the origin of this objective form was the desire to be. All this is playing with words, you understand, but it turns out that in one case the world is reprehensible and in the other it is adorable! And that makes all the difference. To the whole European mind, the whole Christian spirit, the world is reprehensible. And when THAT is pointed out to them, they can’t stand it.

So the very normal, natural reaction against this attitude is to negate the spiritual life: let’s take the world as it is, brutally, materially, ‘short and sweet’ (since it all comes to an end with this short life), let’s do all we can to enjoy ourselves now, suffer as little as possible and not think of anything else. Having said that life is a condemned, reprehensible, anti-divine thing, this is the logical conclusion. Then what to do?... We don’t want to do away with life, so we do away with the Divine.

That’s it exactly.

They can’t take it – even those who are very intelligent (and this man is very intelligent): they immediately close up.

20. December 1961 – Mother's early Vision of Sri Aurobindo

Here, just to give you an example: when I first began to work (not with Théon personally but with an acquaintance of his in France, a boy who was a friend of my brother), well, I had a series of visions (I knew nothing about India, mind you, nothing, just as most Europeans know nothing about it: ‘a country full of people with certain customs and religions, a confused and hazy history, where a lot of “extraordinary things” are said to have happened.’ I knew nothing.) Well, in several of these visions I saw Sri Aurobindo just as he looked physically, but glorified; that is, the same man I would see on my first visit, almost thin, with that golden-bronze hue and rather sharp profile, an unruly beard and long hair, dressed in a dhoti with one end of it thrown over his shoulder, arms and chest bare, and bare feet. At the time I thought it was ‘vision attire’! I mean I really knew nothing about India; I had never seen Indians dressed in the Indian way.

Well, I saw him. I experienced what were at once symbolic visions and spiritual FACTS: absolutely decisive spiritual experiences and facts of meeting and having a united perception of the Work to be accomplished. And in these visions I did something I had never done physically: I prostrated before him in the Hindu manner. All this without any comprehension in the little brain (I mean I really didn’t know what I was doing or how I was doing it – nothing at all). I did it, and at the same time the outer being was asking, ‘What is all this?!’

I wrote the vision down (or perhaps that was later on) but I never spoke of it to anyone (one doesn’t talk about such things, naturally). But my impression was that it was premonitory, that one day something like it would happen. And it remained in the background of the consciousness, not active, but constantly present.

As for Théon, he was European and wore a long purple robe that wasn’t at all like the one in my vision. (I’m not sure, but I think he was either Polish or Russian, but more probably Russian, of Jewish descent, and that he was forced to leave his country; he never said anything about this to anyone, it’s only an impression.) When I saw him I recognized him as a being of great power. And he bore a certain likeness to Sri Aurobindo: Théon was about the same size (not a tall man, of medium height) and thin, slim, with quite a similar profile. But when I met Théon I saw (or rather I felt) that he was not the man I saw in my vision because... he didn’t have that vibration. Yet it was he who first taught me things, and I went and worked at Tlemcen for two years in a row. But this other thing was always there in the background of the consciousness.

Then when Richard came here he met Sri Aurobindo (he was haunted by the idea of meeting the ‘Master,’ the Guru, the ‘Great Teacher’). Sri Aurobindo was in hiding, seeing no one, but when Richard insisted, he met him, and Richard returned with a photograph. It was one of those early photos, with nothing in it. It was empty, the remnants of the political man, not at all resembling what I had seen – I didn’t recognize him. ‘It’s strange,’ I said to myself, ‘that’s not it’ (for I saw only his external appearance, there was no inner contact). But still, I was curious to meet him. At any rate, I can’t say that when I saw this photograph I felt, ‘He’s the one!’ Not at all. He impressed me as being a very interesting man, but no more.

I came here.... But something in me wanted to meet Sri Aurobindo all alone the first time. Richard went to him in the morning and I had an appointment for the afternoon. He was living in the house that’s now part of the second dormitory, the old Guest House. I climbed up the stairway and he was standing there, waiting for me at the top of the stairs.... EXACTLY my vision! Dressed the same way, in the same position, in profile, his head held high. He turned his head towards me... and I saw in his eyes that it was He. The two things clicked (gesture of instantaneous shock), the inner experience immediately became one with the outer experience and there was a fusion – the decisive shock.

But this was merely the beginning of my vision. Only after a series of experiences – a ten months’ sojourn in Pondicherry, five years of separation, then the return to Pondicherry and the meeting in the same house and in the same way – did the END of the vision occur.... I was standing just beside him. My head wasn’t exactly on his shoulder, but where his shoulder was (I don’t know how to explain it – physically there was hardly any contact). We were standing side by side like that, gazing out through the open window, and then TOGETHER, at exactly the same moment, we felt, ‘Now the Realization will be accomplished.’ That the seal was set and the Realization would be accomplished. I felt the Thing descending massively within me, with the same certainty I had felt in my vision. From that moment on there was nothing to say – no words, nothing. We knew it was THAT.

But between these two meetings he participated in a whole series of experiences, experiences of gradually growing awareness. This is partly noted in Prayers and Meditations (I have cut out all the personal segments). But there was one experience I didn’t speak of there (that is, I didn’t describe it, I put only the conclusion) – the experience where I say ‘Since the man refused I was offering participation in the universal work and the new creation and the man didn’t want it, he refused, and so I now offer it to God....

I don’t know, I’m putting it poorly, but this experience was concrete to the point of being physical. It happened in a Japanese country-house where we were living, near a lake. There was a whole series of circumstances, events, all kinds of things – a long, long story, like a novel. But one day I was alone in meditation (I have never had very profound meditations, only concentrations of consciousness – Mother makes an abrupt gesture showing a sudden ingathering of the entire being); and I was seeing.... You know that I had taken on the conversion of the Lord of Falsehood: I tried to do it through an emanation incarnated in a physical being [Richard], and the greatest effort was made during those four years in Japan. The four years were coming to an end with an absolute inner certainty that there was nothing to be done – that it was impossible, impossible to do it this way. There was nothing to be done. And I was intensely concentrated, asking the Lord, ‘Well, I made You a vow to do this, I had said, “Even if it’s necessary to descend into hell, I will descend into hell to do it....” Now tell me, what must I do?...’The Power was plainly there: suddenly everything in me became still; the whole external being was completely immobilized and I had a vision of the Supreme... more beautiful than that of the Gita. A vision of the Supreme. And this vision literally gathered me into its arms; it turned towards the West, towards India, and offered me – and there at the other end I saw Sri Aurobindo. It was... I felt it physically. I saw, saw – my eyes were closed but I saw (twice I have had this vision of the Supreme – once here, much later – but this was the first time)... ineffable. It was as if this Immensity had reduced itself to a rather gigantic Being who lifted me up like a wisp of straw and offered me. Not a word, nothing else, only that.

Then everything vanished.

The next day we began preparing to return to India.

It was after this vision, when I returned from Japan, that this meeting with Sri Aurobindo took place, along with the certainty that the Mission would be accomplished.

This can all be narrated in a very simple way; these things are not metaphysical. It involves occultism, of course, but it’s utterly concrete and simple: things a child could understand.

And these are the real milestones of the whole Story.

I feel it will be told one day. But first of all, this (Mother touches her body) must be sufficiently changed. Then the story will take on its full value.

You understand, none of my certitudes – none, without exception – have EVER come through the mind. The intellectual comprehension of each of these experiences came much later. Little by little, little by little, came the higher understanding of the intellectual consciousness, long after the experience (I don’t mean philosophical knowledge – that’s nothing but scholarly mumbo-jumbo and leaves me cold). Since my earliest childhood, experiences have come like that: something massive takes hold of you and you don’t need to believe or disbelieve, know or not know – bam! There’s nothing to say; you are facing a fact.

Once, during those last difficult years, Sri Aurobindo told me that this was precisely what gave me my advantage and why (how to put it?) there were greater possibilities that I would go right to the end.

I still don’t know. The day I do... it will probably be done. Because it will come in the same manner, like a massive fact: it will be LIKE THAT.

And only much later will the understanding say, ‘Ah! So that’s what it is!’

First it comes, afterwards we know it. For the moment, it’s not here.

23. December 1961 – Mother on Q & A 1956

(For the next ‘Bulletin,’ Satprem reads to Mother from ‘Questions and Answers,’ dated January 4, 1956.)

‘... And so a time comes when one would be incapable of saying, “This is divine and that is not....”

Oh, that’s a wonderful thing – at times it’s truly stupendous!... But go on, continue – it would take too long to go into that!

‘...Because there comes a time when one perceives the entire universe in such a total and comprehensive way that, in truth, it is impossible to remove anything from it without disturbing everything. And going a couple of steps further, one knows for certain that things which shock us as contradictions of the Divine are simply things out of place. Each thing must be exactly in its place, and what’s more, be supple enough, plastic enough, to admit into a harmonious, progressive organization all the new elements constantly being added to the manifest universe. The universe is in a perpetual movement of internal reorganization, and at the same time it’s growing: it’s becoming more and more complex, more and more complete, more and more integral – indefinitely. And as the new elements manifest, the whole reorganization must be built on a new basis, and thus there isn’t a second when ALL is not in perpetual movement. And when the movement is in accord with the divine order, it’s harmonious, so perfectly harmonious that it’s almost imperceptible.... Now, if you descend from this consciousness towards a more external consciousness, you begin naturally to have a very precise feeling of what helps you attain the true consciousness and what bars the way or pulls you backwards or even fights against your progress. And so the perspective changes and you are obliged to say: this is divine or a help towards the Divine; and that goes against the Divine, it’s the Divine’s enemy. But this is a pragmatic standpoint, geared to action, to movement in material life – because you haven’t yet attained the consciousness surpassing all that; because you haven’t reached that inner perfection where you no longer have to fight, since you have gone beyond the field or the time or the utility of struggle. But before reaching that state in your consciousness and action, there is necessarily struggle; and if there is struggle, there is choice; and to choose, you need discrimination.’

(‘Questions and Answers’ of 1956.)

‘All things are attracted to the Divine. Are the hostile forces also attracted to the Divine?’

You know, I can say one thing about this.... There’s a type of woman I have met more or less periodically throughout my life. These beings are under the influence, or are incarnations of, or in any case are responsive to forces which Théon called ‘passive’ – not exactly feminine forces, but on the Prakriti side of the universe: the dark Prakriti side (there is an active dark side, the asuric forces, and a passive dark side). And these are terrible beings, terrible! They have wreaked havoc in life. They represent one of the creation’s biggest difficulties. And they are attracted to me!

They adore me, they detest me, they would like to destroy me – and individually they CANNOT do without me! They come to me like... like fireflies to light. And they hate me! They would like to crush me. That’s how it is.

I have met five women like that, the last two here (they were the most terrible). It’s a phenomenon of hate and rage mixed with love’s greatest power of attraction – no sweetness, of course, no tenderness, nothing like that – but NEED, love’s greatest power of attraction, mixed with hate. And they cling, you know, and then... what fun!

I had a session like that some days ago – it’s a work I’m pursuing. (Likewise, I have constantly been with the adverse force I once told you about, who keeps incarnating especially to harass me – so there’s also this phenomenon, amiably passing from one being to another!) Anyway, not long ago I had given an appointment to this woman and had decided not to say anything – because there was nothing to be done (the most beautiful things go rotten, there’s nothing to do). So I remained silent, indrawn, fully in contact with the Supreme Presence, with the external personality annulled (this experience, in fact, lasting almost one hour, is what gave me the key to everything that has been happening lately).

There was only the Supreme, nothing else – the Supreme THERE, in that very body, mon petit, in that whole agglomeration and in that apparently absolutely anti-divine influence – HIS Presence was there!

It was a truly stupendous experience, petty though the object is (she is insignificant, without any great substance or power – a very minor incarnation; she does have certain not quite human capacities, but they are so veiled by a tiny human personality that scarcely anyone but I can see them).

And in the experience there was no difference between my physical and my inner being (actually, it’s that way more and more for me); even physically, externally, there was a kind of love full of adoration, and so spontaneous – not even any sense of wonder! And there was such a formidable Power in it, formidable from the standpoint of the entire earth.... It lasted one hour. After an hour, the experience slowly began to fade (it had to fade – for purely practical reasons). But it left me so confident of a radical change – not a total change, for it wasn’t permanent – but so radical that even outwardly, way down below in me, something was saying, ‘Ah, how will the meditations with X be now?’ I caught Myself... not thinking, not ‘myself’: someone thought like that, somewhere way down below. This pulled me out of the experience and I wondered, ‘That’s strange, who’s thinking like that?’ It was one of the personalities (in terms of work, it’s the one that gives each action its proper place), someone way down below, spontaneously feeling: ‘But that’s going to change the meditations! What will they be like now?’ When I returned and began to look at things with the usual discernment, I told myself that perhaps there actually will be a change.

But truly, EVERYTHING was changed at that moment: something was achieved. It was the perception of Power – the Power that comes from Love (what Love is to the Supreme Consciousness, which has nothing to do with what we usually mean by the word ‘love’). And it was... it was simple! None of those complications resulting from thought, intellect, understanding – all that was gone, all gone. A formidable Power! And it made me understand one thing, that the state I had been put in (by the Lord of Yoga, in fact) was for obtaining the particular power that comes through an identity with all material things, a power possessed by certain persons – not always yogis, certain mediums, for instance. I saw it with Madame Théon: she would will a thing to come to her instead of going to the thing herself; instead of going to get her sandals when she wanted them, she made the sandals come to her. She did this through a capacity to radiate her matter – she exercised a will over her matter – her central will acted upon matter anywhere, since she WAS THERE. With her, then, I saw this power in a methodical, organized way, not as something accidental or spasmodic (as it is with mediums), but as an organization of Matter. And so... I began to understand: ‘With this comes the power to put each thing in its place!’... provided one is universal enough.

Well, I have understood. And now I know where I stand.

Far from the goal, but at least the way ahead is clear.

And if to this material capacity of identification, of exercising the will, is added that Something which was there during my experience and is truly the expression.... I don’t know if it’s the supreme expression, but for the time being it’s certainly the highest I know of. (It’s far superior to pure Knowledge through identity, to knowing the thing because one IS it – it’s infinitely more powerful than that.) it’s something formidable! It has the power to change everything – and how!

One IS simply That – one vibration of THAT.

(silence)

Since this experience (three or four days ago, five days, I’m not sure), there has been a constant multiplication of FACTS of identification (one is it, and so one DOES it), for all the small things of Matter, the most trivial things in the material world.

(Mother gets up)

But it will take a long time. We mustn’t imagine that it will be done in the blink of an eye – I am ready to spend years on it (if it comes quicker, so much the better).

But it’s the key. The key.

And when it becomes permanent, people will have to watch out when they’re with me! (Mother laughs)

This Power... is it Love?

Well... yes.... It is the essence of Love.

It translates itself into Love. And of course I am not at all speaking of the human, physical quagmire; I am speaking of the most wonderfully beautiful and pure Love imaginable. This Power is the origin of that Love, and it is in the Supreme.

(Mother sits at the organ)

And it has always been said that That and That alone could bring the adverse forces to a halt.