December 1963

Index

03. December 1963 – A German industrial magnate visiting Mother

I had another interesting example, with a visitor: a German industrial magnate, it seems. I had seen his photo and found there was something in him — I had him come. He entered the room and came in front of me: he didn't know what to do (no one had told him anything). So I looked at him and put some force (Mother slowly lowers her hand), a little, progressively. And all at once... (at first he was quite official, it was MISTER So-and-so who was there), all at once his left hand began to rise, like this (gesture of a hand clenched as in trance), all the rest was absolutely still. When I saw that, I smiled and withdrew the force, then let him go. It seems he went downstairs, went into Sri Aurobindo's room and started weeping. Afterwards, the next day, he wrote to me and told me in German English that I had been "too human": "Why have you been too human?" He wanted his being to be DESTROYED in order to be born again to the true life.

That interested me. I thought, "Oh, he felt it, he was conscious both of the force and of my withdrawing it." I answered him, "True, I spared you, but because it was your first visit! Prepare yourself, I will see you again."

You see, he came in as a big industrial person with a remarkable power of mental creation that organizes events — that's what entered the room—and then... it melted. And I didn't put the full charge: I simply put some power like this (Mother lowers her hand), and I was looking him in the face. Then I felt something going on lower down; I looked: his hand was tightly clenched. So I stopped.

But the remarkable thing is that he was CORRECTLY conscious. And he complained.

07. December 1963 – A Letter by Sri Aurobindo

(Mother first reads a letter by Sri Aurobindo:)

The way to get faith and all things else is to insist on having them and refuse to flag or despair or give up until one has them — it is the way by which everything has been got since this difficult earth began to have thinking and aspiring creatures upon it. It is to open always, always to the Light and turn one's back on the Darkness. It is to refuse the voices that say persistently, "You cannot, you shall not, you are incapable, you are the puppet of a dream," — for these are the enemy voices, they cut one off from the result that was coming, by their strident clamour and then triumphantly point to the barrenness of the result as a proof of their thesis. The difficulty of the endeavour is a known thing, but the difficult is not the impossible — it is the difficult that has always been accomplished and the conquest of difficulties makes up all that is valuable in the earth's history. In the spiritual endeavour also it shall be so.

Sri Aurobindo

You see, they cut one off from the result that WAS coming... by their strident clamour and then triumphantly point to the barrenness of the result as a proof of their thesis! And it's so TRUE, it's an experience I've had so many, many times, not only for myself, but for lots of people.

I think ("I think," like the scientists' "it appears") I can announce that something is getting organized in the Subconscient — it's beginning to get organized — in the subconscient of individuals as well as in the general Subconscient. It's less unconscious (!) It's a bit more... yes, a bit more conscious, reflective and organized — a very faint beginning of organization, very little, but a growth in consciousness; it isn't quite so unconscious any more.

It's always the last part of the night that I spend there.... You remember that story of the supramental ship and how things were organized by the will, not by external means? Well, that's the action which is beginning to exist in the Subconscient.

Last night, for instance, early in the morning, there were several layers of cells, as it were, and each cell was I can't say the property, but the possession of someone: what was under his direct control and reflected his "mood," as it is customarily called, his way of being. And there were many levels: you could go upstairs and downstairs.... And the impression I had of myself was that I was much, much taller and that I towered above it all; and I had a different texture, as if I were made of a different substance, not quite the same as the others'. It was as if all that were inside me without being inside me (I can't explain): I was looming over everything and at the same time acting inside. And then, according to the action, people were going upstairs or downstairs, going and coming; but everyone had his own little box — they were BEGINNING to have it, it was beginning to get organized. Each cell was more or less precise: some were very precise, others more blurred, as if on the way to becoming precise. And the whole experience, last night, had a kind of precision about it. I was like something very big, outside, and I was laughing, talking to everyone, but they weren't aware of the action [of Mother]. You see, they seemed to me this tall (gesture: four inches), tiny. But quite alive: they were going and coming, moving about.... And I was talking to them, but they didn't know where the voice was coming from. So I laughed, I found it funny, I said to some, "There! You see, that's your idea of things." And it was... oh, if I compare it to last year, there is a tremendous difference of CONSCIOUSNESS, from the point of view of consciousness. Before, all the movements were reflexes, instincts, as if people were impelled by a force which they were totally unconscious of and considered to be their "character," most of the time, or else Destiny (either their character or Fate, Destiny). They were all like puppets on strings. Now, they are conscious beings — they're BEGINNING, they're beginning to be conscious.

The proportion has changed.

And I was able to show them precisely the proportion between the conscious, willed movement, which can be observed, and that sort of almost unconscious instinct which obeys a COMPELLING Force, that is to say, you know neither where it comes from nor what it means or anything — you just tag along.

Some still had quite blurred and cloudy spaces; with others, it was precise, there were even some very precise details. And clear, clear: there was a light — the dawning of a light.

If this goes on, it will be fine. It will change a lot of things.

It's not individuals as they know themselves — it is their subconscient. It is in the subconscient. The subconscient is a realm just as the material world is a realm — it's in the subconscient.

There have been many efforts, concentrations, meditations, prayers to bring about the clarification and control of all those semiconscious reflexes that govern individuals — a great concentration on that point. And this experience seems to be the outcome.

There are lots of things which people don't even take notice of in life (when they live an ordinary life, they don't take any notice), there's a whole field of things that are absolutely... not quite unconscious, but certainly not conscious; they are reflexes — reflexes, reactions to stimuli, and so on — and also the response (a semiconscious, barely conscious response) to the pressure exerted from above by the Force, which people are totally unconscious of. It is the study of this question which is now in the works; I am very much occupied with it. A study of every second.... You see, there are different ways for the Lord to be present, it's very interesting (the difference isn't for Him, it's for us!), and it depends precisely on the amount of habitual reflex movements that take place almost outside our observation (generally completely outside it) And this question preoccupied me very, very much: the ways of feeling the Lord's Presence — the different ways. There is a way in which you feel it as something vague, but of which you are sure — you are always sure but the sensation is vague and a bit blurred — and at other times it is an acute Presence (Mother touches her face), very precise, in all that you do, all that you feel, all that you are. There is an entire range. And then if we follow the movement (gesture in stages, moving away), there are those who are so far away, so far, that they don't feel anything at all.

This experience made me write something yesterday (but it has lasted several days), it came as the outcome of the work done, and yesterday I wrote it both in English and in French:

"There is no other sin, no other vice than to be far from Thee."

Then, the entire world, the universe, appeared to me in that light, and at every point (which takes up no space), at every point of the universe and throughout the universe, it's that way. Not that there are far and near places in the universe, that's not what I mean (it's beyond space), but there is a whole hierarchy of nearness, up to something that doesn't feel and doesn't know — it's not that it is outside, because nothing can be outside the Lord, but it is as if the extreme limit: so far away, so far, so far — absolutely black — that He seems not to reach there.

It was a very total vision. And such an acute experience that it seemed to be the only true thing. It didn't take up any space, yet there was that sensation of nearness and farness. And there was a kind of Focus, or a Center, I can't say (but it was everywhere), which was the climax of Thee — purely Thee. And it had a quality of its own. Then it began to move farther and farther away, which produced a kind of mixture with something... that was nothing — that didn't exist — but that altered the vibration, the intensity, which made it move farther and farther away to... Darkness — unconscious Darkness.

And something kept coming again and again to me: there is no other sin... (because this followed a few lines I read in Savitri on the glorification of sin in the vital world, the words came to me because of that)... there is no other sin, no other vice than to be far from Thee.

It seemed to explain everything.

It wasn't I who wrote it! There's no "I" in it: it comes just like that.

The far from Thee is so, so intense in its vibration, it has a concrete meaning.

And that's the only thing: all the rest, all moral notions, everything, everything, even the notion of Ignorance... it all becomes mental chatter. But this, this experience, is marvelous. Far from Thee....

11. December 1963 – A frightful battle in the Subconscient

There was in the Subconscient a frightful battle in the night from the 8^th to the 9^th — oh!... It was like a return of the attack on me when you went to Rameswaram (long ago); X said it was a Tantric who had made that formation (it happened on December 9 too and I was very sick, I didn't go out). Well, it was an attack of that kind. I don't know if it comes from the same... I can't say "person," but from the same origin of forces. And very violent, during the night. It went on during the meditation on the 9th: for the first time during those meditations, there was a tremendous battle, in the Subconscient. And the body was in a state... a not too happy state. It stops the heart, you see, so... it was unpleasant.

But afterwards, I saw that it did dislodge something, it wasn't useless. It dislodged something. But it's forces with a radical ill will: they are not merely ignorant — a radical ill will.

No, it's not an individual: it's a universal way of being. It's always that way: things aren't positively impersonal, but they do not belong to one person; they are universal ways of being.

I wasn't conscious of an instrument, but I was conscious of plenty of spots to which the thing clings. It clings not even to beings, but to ways of being of beings: to certain tendencies, certain attitudes, certain reactions — it clings to all that. It's not at all "one" person or "one" will, that's not it, but it's a way of being. It's all universal ways of being that are destined to disappear from the field of activity and are being eliminated.

But the reaction on the body was painful, as it was the first time. The first time (according to X and the Swami), it was supposed to kill me — it didn't even make me seriously ill, but it had a very unpleasant effect. I told you at the time that it was a mantra intended to drain you of all your blood; I've seen several examples of people who died in that way: it was found afterwards to be the result of a mantric formation. In my case, all it succeeded in doing was to make me sick, as if everything came out — I vomited terribly. Then there was something pulling me and I absolutely had to go... my consciousness told me I had to go and see someone (I was all alone in my bathroom when it happened), a particular person whom I had to go and see; and when I opened the door, Z was there, waiting to prepare my bath, but I didn't see him at all and I absolutely wanted to go somewhere, into the other room, so I pushed against him, thinking, "What's this obstacle in my way?" And he thought I was fainting on him! It caused quite a to-do.

I was completely in trance, you see. I was walking, but completely in trance.

Anyway, things went back to normal fairly quickly at the time. But the other day, the 9th, there was a return of that attack, as though that ill will hadn't been completely eliminated, completely defeated — there was a return. It didn't have the same effect, but it was painful. A curious feeling, as if... (I was sitting at the table, as I always do on mornings when there is meditation), then at the beginning, in some parts of the body, the cells seemed to be grating. I concentrated, I called, and I saw there was a battle — a formidable battle being waged down below. It was grating, it's curious. A kind of grating of things that aren't smooth. And I wondered, "When will it be able to relax?" Then spasms here, at the solar plexus. And on those days, the doctor and P. always stay here for the meditation; but I was in trance, in my battle, when suddenly I felt a pressure on my pulse (laughing): it was the doctor, who had got up from his meditation (I must have been making some strange noises!) and was feeling my pulse — it seems my pulse was fading! But I didn't come out of my trance (I was conscious, but I didn't come out of it), I stayed like that till the end of the meditation, even a little afterwards. Then when the grating diminished, I came out of the trance and saw them both standing in front of me. I gave them a nice smile and told them, "It's all right." And I lay down. Then I went into a deep trance, completely out of the body, and everything returned to normal.

Afterwards I took a look. I wasn't too happy: "To do that during the meditation!..." And I was "told" that it could be done only during the meditation and not at any other time, in activity or even in concentration, because it's not the same thing: it could be done only in deep meditation. So I said, "Very well." And I was also shown that there was a concrete result, a kind of partial victory over that type of ill will—a very, very aggressive ill will, extremely aggressive, which belongs to another age: it's something that no longer has the right to exist on the earth. It must go.

It's the same thing, moreover, which brought about Kennedy's assassination. And I suppose that's why I had to intervene. Because Kennedy's assassination has upset many things from the point of view of the general work. And it was the same thing, because as soon as I had news of the assassination, I saw the same kind of vibration, the same black force — very, very black — and spontaneously, I said (it isn't "I" who said it), "Oh, that may mean war." In other words, a victory of that force over the one that tries to follow more harmonious paths. But I have been protesting and working since then, and what happened on the 9th is the outcome of it.

But when you're right in it... it isn't comfortable.

(Then Mother reads a handwritten note which is the continuation of the experience she related on December 7, when she spoke of the varying nearness and farness of the Presence.)

I address it to the Lord:

"It is as if You flowed with the blood, You vibrated with the nerves, You lived with the cells...."

It isn't "in" or "by": it's "with," it's identified. As if You flowed with the blood. And the sensation was absolutely concrete: this Presence of the Lord FLOWS with the blood, VIBRATES with the nerves, and LIVES ("lives," meaning Life, the essence of Life) with the cells.

That's the best time! (Mother laughs)

Well, just recently, since that attack of the 9th, the Presence has increased [in the body]. And that's how I know that something has been won. I mean it has increased in duration, in frequency, and in the promptness of its response, of the time needed to get it.

(silence)

The difference between before and after the 9th is that before the 9th there was a constant pressure of adverse suggestions, as Sri Aurobindo said in that letter we translated last time: "It's all an illusion, it's all imagination...." A constant harassment. And sometimes it even takes very precise forms: "You think you're integrally conscious of the Lord — not in the least! It's just a little bit in your head, vaguely, and so you imagine it's true." When I heard that, it annoyed me very much, and I said, "All right, I'll see." And it is after that kind of battle in the Subconscient that the voice stopped and I had this experience: "It flows in the blood, it vibrates in the nerves, it lives in the cells...."

And everywhere, you see, not just my cells, not just the cells of this body: when the experience comes, it is quite widespread; I have an impression of many bloods, many cells, many nerves.... Which means that the CENTRAL consciousness isn't always aware of it, the individual isn't always aware of it (it has an extraordinary feeling, but it doesn't know what it is), while the cells are aware of it, but they cannot express it.

I felt that several times: when the experience comes, it isn't limited to one body. Only, the consciousness — the observing consciousness — isn't the same everywhere: there are DEGREES of consciousness, and here [in Mother's body] it appears to be a MORE CONSCIOUS center of consciousness, that's all; but otherwise... For the consciousness itself it's that way too: at times it is very much awake, at other times not so awake.... Ultimately, all this is an experience of Oneness, of multiplicity in Oneness, and this experience depends on the degree of nearness and intensity. But it is the all — the all which is one — and seen from the standpoint of the Lord's consciousness.... You know, what we call "the Lord" is that which is fully conscious of itself; and the more the consciousness diminishes, the more you feel it's no longer the Lord — but it is the Lord all the same!

That's how it is.

(silence)

When we speak of "perception or knowledge through identity," it is still something that projects itself, identifies itself and OBSERVES itself while doing so; and it is conscious of the result. But my experience now isn't like that; it isn't something projecting itself: it's an overall perception. So instead of being able to say, "You think this way, THIS ONE thinks that way, THAT ONE feels this way," one thinks it or feels it with more or less clarity in the perception, more or less precision in the perception, but it's always "one" — you don't feel like saying "I"; there's no "I," it's "one," it's something. Listen, I'll give you an example: this morning I received that Italian, he started speaking, making gestures, telling me things — NOT ONE sound reached my ears... yet I knew perfectly well what he was saying. And I answered him in the same way, without speaking. I didn't feel it was someone else talking to me and that I was answering him: it was a totality of movements more or less conscious of themselves, a totality and an exchange, an interchange of movements more or less conscious of themselves, with some vibrations more conscious, some less conscious, but the whole thing very living, very active. But then, in order to speak, I would have had to put myself in the ordinary consciousness in which the Italian was over there and I was here — but it didn't mean anything any more, it wasn't true. So there was something answering within, very actively, very distinctly, and all of it went on together (gesture showing movements of consciousness or waves of vibrations), and at the same time, there was a consciousness — a very, very vast consciousness — which was watching it all [those exchanges of vibrations] and exerting a sort of control, a very, very slight but very precise control, so as to put each vibration in its place.

That's how it is now when I see people. And it seems to be becoming more and more constant.

The other state, the state in which there is "me" and "other people," is becoming unpleasant; it brings things the consciousness disapproves of, reactions the consciousness disapproves of: "Still this? Still this smallness, still this limitation, still this incomprehension, still this darkness?..." All the time like that. So, immediately, something within goes like this (gesture of inner reversal), and it becomes the other way. And the other way is so soft, oh!... So soft, so smooth, without clashes, without friction, without unpleasant reactions — that's what happened when there was that very painful "grating" during the meditation on the 9th it was because the individual reactions of the cells were not in accord with the general harmony.

It's becoming a little interesting. It's a little new.

And there is a kind of joy, an unobtrusive joy, always like a kind of smile... a smile not ironic, but a little...

Putting it into words takes a sort of contraction, which is a pity — a pity. I don't know when there will be a means of expressing ourselves without that contraction.... I remember, I am seeing again or reliving just now the face of that boy, that Italian (he is a thirty-five or forty-year-old man, but young within, very young psychically), and there was this consciousness kneading something within, putting things back into place — but smoothly, without violence or clashes or reactions. And when I told him, "Now it's time to go," it wasn't at all one person saying to another, "It's time to go," it's as if I said to myself, "Now it's time to go." It's very odd. Rather new. Because it has become much more conscious; it had been like that in a sort of natural and spontaneous way of being for a long time, but now it's becoming conscious.

And when there is... For example, when there is a relaxation in someone, or when there is a tensing up, I feel it: something in me relaxes, or tenses up; but not "in me" here, like this (Mother in her armchair): in me THERE (Mother in the "other" person).

And I know the very minute it takes place, you see. But those [tensing up, relaxation] are big movements, so it becomes obvious, but I realize that it goes on all the time — it's like that all the time.

To the point that what happens in the body isn't (oh, it's been that way for a long time, but it's becoming more and more that way), isn't familiar like something that happens in a particular body: it's just one way of being among all the others. It's becoming more and more like that. The reaction here [in Mother's body] isn't any more intimate than the reaction in others. And it's barely more perceptible: it all depends on the state of attentiveness and concentration of the consciousness (it's all movements of consciousness). But the consciousness isn't — is NO LONGER individual AT ALL. I am positive about that. A consciousness... which is becoming more and more total. And now and then — now and then — when everything is "favorable," it becomes the Lord's Consciousness, the Consciousness of everything, and then it's... a drop of Light. Nothing but Light.

14. December 1963 – Receptivity and the feeling of giving

You know, there are, broadly speaking, two categories of people: those who by nature receive, are receptive; who receive and like to receive and to feel they are receiving; and those who like to give and like the feeling of giving. So those who like to receive have the experience of receiving, while those who like to give (laughing) have the experience of giving. But basically, it's all the same thing: it's the Force circulating. The Force circulates, and you get the feeling... (how can I explain it?)... it depends on the position of the consciousness with regard to the individual ego.

When I noticed W's difficulties, I put a lot of force on him, a lot, a great concentration to get him out of that tight corner, because I felt a kind of wavering in him, I felt he wasn't so steady on the path any more. That's what worried me. So I put a very great concentration of force on him to set him on the right road again. And, as I said, the Force circulates; it circulates: it isn't something which goes out like that, like a little beam which you send out, which reaches its goal and stays there — that's not it. It's a thing (round gesture) that spreads out with waves of concentration. And I've noticed this for everybody (I did my first study on myself), but the ego must be completely... (gesture of palms upward, immobile)... must become nonexistent, must stop interfering, at any rate, in order to feel that great, universal Pulsation.

It is simply the art of putting yourself in the right place in order to be in the path of the Force.

Or else, when you are able to see things from above, you can direct concentrations and channel the Force, as it were [on people and events]. And I've noticed (since it became a natural fact for me), I've noticed those two categories of people (with all kinds of nuances and differences): those who are happy to receive, and who are therefore much more conscious of the moment when the Force comes IN, and those (they are generous by nature, but also dominating) who are happier when they have a feeling of giving; so they are far more conscious of the Movement when it goes out of their individuality.

That's just what I knew of W's nature: the ego in him is that he likes to be a guru — that's when one is quite egoistic, but as one grows less so, there still remains that aspect of the nature that makes one more inclined to give than to receive. And as I had made a very strong concentration, quite naturally he felt the force going out of him.

I didn't tell him anything, I simply said it was a very good experience: an experience "that was given to you" or "that you were given" (all that impersonal, as impersonal as possible). I am very glad when people do not tell me, "You did this, you did that..." because immediately I feel that sort of little limitation which is so childish — intellectuals would call it "idolatry"! (Mother laughs) I don't like that.

I was very happy with W's experience. I also saw it was very sincere — naturally he feels filled with force! "But do not attach any importance to where it comes from, it doesn't matter! The Force is there." It's true — in a way, it's true.

(silence)

You know that toy that makes images when it is turned? A kaleidoscope. All the little pieces arrange themselves to form patterns — there's a lot of that in the way forces organize themselves and play.

What I told you last time is still going on and intensifying. But sometimes, at a given moment, a movement comes to me, some reaction, for instance, and something complains (all this is in the BODY's consciousness), the body says, "Oh, I haven't got beyond that, what a wretched shame!" So immediately, there is an answer, and an answer which... It's odd, it doesn't come from one place, it comes from everywhere; and the body's protest also doesn't come from one place: it isn't ONE thing or ONE body that protests, it's a way of being; a terrestrial way of being which is expressed by: "Oh, I am still like that!" And the immediate answer: "But don't you see, don't you see the usefulness of it?" Then I am shown a whole tangled web of movements, vibrations, reactions, actions, all of it; and on one small spot there is a need for a small force: there is a small, slightly inert thing which serves as a support for something else — and then everything becomes clear, everything falls into place! You see so clearly it is egoism; egoism which wants personal, individual perfection: instead of wanting overall progress, it wants personal progress, it still makes breaks where there are none, separations where they do not exist. And you see how a movement going through [Mother] should be accepted when that is its place and when it is the right time for it to be useful, so that the WHOLE may follow its road — it's very, very interesting.

That way, you can gauge precisely how much is left of the old habit of personal reaction, especially in the emotive part of the universal being: it's the emotive part that still remains the most personal, even more so than the purely physical, material part. As soon as the emotive part comes into play, it "personalizes," because it ENJOYS individual reactions; it is the part that LOVES to feel it loves, that LOVES to feel its own emotions, and because of it there remains a faint personal coloration. And when there occurs a somewhat darker or backward movement, the body is indignant and doesn't understand that it's part of the whole, that the whole must go forward together and you can't separate a piece of it to perfect it — it can't be done! It's impossible. It's not that it shouldn't be done — it CANNOT be done. Everything goes together.

(silence)

But since the 9th (the experience of the 9th at this table), there has been a considerable change — considerable.

Yes, but it has to be understandable, really understandable — I am not sure it is. Because when I talk to you, I communicate to you the vibration of the experience, so insofar as you are receptive, you feel it. But it doesn't pass into the printed words — very little, very, very little.

People read with their heads, with their brains.

I see someone like N., who obviously is an exceptional subject in the sense that he vibrates with the intellectual vibration (Sri Aurobindo used to say, and it is obvious, that of all those around him, he was the one who understood best), well, even for him... it goes off at a tangent. It's not that he understands nothing, but it's at a tangent. It's a mitigated understanding, very slightly distorted, and which relates everything to the sense of the person, of the [Mother's] individual, so the thing loses all the ESSENCE of its value.... What I would like to be able to communicate is precisely that absence of individual. But when I express myself, I am forced to say "I," the sentence always has a personal turn, and that's what people see. When I have my experience, it is there, living; you yourself feel it, and with a little movement of adaptation you eliminate the distortion that comes from the language, but others don't do it.

I still feel I am struggling with the old way of speaking, I haven't found yet. It's this obligation of talking "as a person" — what can be done?... But, for instance, Sri Aurobindo would know very well how to speak while doing away with all that sense of personality.

The night before last, almost all of it, was spent with him — all kinds of very interesting things. They are mostly impressions. Extremely interesting impressions. And I understood an entire aspect of the creation....

The way the world is now physically organized, with the difference and specialization in the forms, in sexes, encourages a kind of opposition between the two poles, the union of which results in creation. So, naturally, each pole has enormous difficulty understanding the other (although it thinks and believes it does), especially understanding the pole I place underneath (gesture signifying the basis of the world), which is the effectively creative pole, that is to say, what is expressed by woman. She feels very well that without this (gesture above) the full understanding isn't there; but this, which is above, doesn't AT ALL understand the creative power of that which is below — it knows it in principle, but doesn't understand it. And there is a lack of adaptation, a sort of conflict, which shouldn't exist. It never existed — never — between Sri Aurobindo and me, but I could see it didn't exist because he had adopted the attitude of complete surrender to the eternal Mother (the stage, in the creation, of complete surrender). I would see it, and it embarrassed me! It embarrassed me, I thought, "But why does he think he has to do that (laughing), as if I couldn't understand!" On the contrary, I thirst for the other attitude — for identifying myself this way instead of that way (Mother presses her fist upward against her hand above): for identifying myself from below upward instead of from above downward. It was an aspiration, which has been there... almost for eternities... for the universal creative Force to identify itself with the Creator. And to identify itself not through the descent of the Creator, but through the ascent of the Force — the conscious ascent. But Sri Aurobindo willed it that way, so it was that way... and then I was very busy with my work. For the thirty years we lived together, it went on that way, perfectly smoothly; and I kept my aspiration quiet because I knew that it was his will. But since he left and I was obliged to do his work, so to speak, things have changed. But I didn't in the least want the Creator, because of my taking up the work, to be obliged to adapt himself to the creative Force (that won't do at all!), and my whole aspiration has been for the creative Force to consciously BECOME the Creator. It's becoming increasingly that way. And at the last meeting [with Sri Aurobindo], for a time (not the whole time, but some time), it was that way. Then I understood; it made me understand the play of all the forces in the two elements — the two poles — and how they could be joined, through what process that opposition could disappear so that the total Being might exist.

We're on the way. And it's growing clearer and clearer. It will be tremendously interesting. But that's for later on.

Increasingly (but it began long ago, after Sri Aurobindo left), it is growing, perfecting itself, becoming precise and increasingly conscious: the difference is fading away, the opposition is disappearing altogether, and the possibility is growing of identifying oneself with the other — the other attitude, the one I deliberately call "from above."

Naturally, in human beings, the two are extremely mixed up. Among all the human beings you cannot find two who are one really male and the other really female — that doesn't exist. It's very, very mixed. But the goal is a totality; a totality in which each thing is in its place and plays its part, not in opposition but in perfect union — in identity. And the key to this is beginning to come.

But the difficulties are still there, and they're very subconscious.

It's very interesting.

(silence)

The thing that resists the most on the terrestrial level (perhaps even on the universal level) is that zone (which is more pronounced in the earth's atmosphere), the emotive zone. I had the clear perception that it CLINGS to its emotions, it ENJOYS its emotions. This counteracts the effort towards perfection, towards perfect unity — the pleasure of emotions.

There was an experience for a few seconds, with the clear vision and immediate action of the supreme Force over this [the emotive zone], but the experience wasn't sufficient so it could be noted down.

(silence)

Those things, which are ESSENTIAL conquests and advances and are happening now, take a long, long time to materialize [on earth].... What can be done to make them materialize faster? I don't know.

It's still the same problem as that of Identity I told you about the other day, the nearness to the center: identity, then nearness, then a greater and greater farness — that's why it takes time. To go right to the end takes a long, long time.

(silence)

Sri Aurobindo wrote somewhere, I don't remember where (I am translating, it's not the exact sentence): "The body's cells must burn with the divine Flame."

It's obviously somewhere where he explains transformation. The body's cells must burn with the divine Flame. And you feel it — you FEEL it. It's when they begin to be aflame, to burn with a flame that is clearer and clearer, purer and purer… — when all the smoke is gone.

18. December 1963 – Letter by Sri Aurobindo

"It is equally ignorant and one thousand miles away from my teaching to find it in your relations with human beings or in the nobility of the human character or an idea that we are here to establish mental and moral and social Truth and justice on human and egoistic lines. I have never promised to do anything of the kind. Human nature is made up of imperfections, even its righteousness and virtue are pretensions, imperfections and prancings of a self-approbatory egoism.... What is aimed at by us is a spiritual truth as the basis of life, the first words of which are surrender and union with the Divine and the transcendence of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils of the lower nature."

To them, the Supermind would be the reign of a harmonious equality of all classes and all countries — at the most, a union of all countries and all classes. That's the summit of their dream.

I like this letter, because he says, "I have NEVER promised anything of the kind." This is to me the important point.

21. December 1963 – The Certitude of Ananda

You see, when you have the certitude — the certitude — that Ananda, joy, blossoming are the Truth of your being, when you have that inner certitude and look at life as it is, it appears incredible (not the certitude, but life as it is!), an incredible deformation.

Just recently I have been observing this fact. Apart from Sri Aurobindo, all the people I have ever met and had around me were dissatisfied. And in some cases (cases of lives more constantly intimate with me), either rebels, or people terribly bitter about life as it is — which is the very opposite of my nature. I am rather on the side of those who take things quite philosophically as they are — even when I was a very small child. So then I wondered (I saw this these last few days): "Why is it like that?"

I saw that this attitude or way of feeling is like a fortress for what opposes the transformation.

(silence)

I jotted down two observations this morning and kept them on the table with the idea of reading them to you (they were "remarks," "observations"), and very clearly I was told that to have that very keen sense of discernment which sees all that is contrary to the divine Truth is very good, it's very good not to be disappointed or deceived (in particular not to deceive oneself), but that whenever you stress on that aspect, you give it a POWER OF BEING, a sort of power that prolongs or perpetuates its existence. So I took my notes and threw them into the wastepaper basket! (Mother laughs) They were the result of studies and observations recently.

As long as Sri Aurobindo was here, these things did not come near me because I counted on him for the exact perception of what was to be and what was to disappear; so they were very far away from my consciousness, I didn't bother about them. They came back only afterwards, when I had to take up the whole work.

But, to tell the truth, if we could always keep in our consciousness, in a clear and living way, the vision of WHAT SHOULD BE, not with the illusion that it's already there (there must be no illusions), but a clear, positive vision of what should be, despite all that denies it... we would be very strong. This necessity is beginning to impose itself: that's what I am asked to do now. We KNOW things are not as they should be (God knows we know it!), but to keep deliberately ignoring those denials in order to keep ACTIVELY in the consciousness the vision of what should be — that, I feel, is true creative power.

You know, the fact of no longer having the physical support of Sri Aurobindo's presence was a blow that might have been mortal (I prevented it from being mortal by closing a door, because he had asked me to continue and I decided to continue), but it made certain things rather difficult because it became necessary to have a constant perception of what has to be done and a constant effort to change what is into what should be.... Probably it's a period of work that must be completed now, and he was asking of me the capacity to live in the positive side. The trouble is, the body is itself a kind of contradiction — but it was suggested to me that those contradictions of the body arise from the fact that I admit in the consciousness all the contradictions, and that consequently they are there in the body, too. Instead of looking at the body and saying, "Oh, this (this limitation, that narrowness) is still here," I should look only at WHAT SHOULD BE, and the body would be forced to follow.

This seems to be the preparation of the program for next year — a long, long way to go yet. But anyway, there are still a few days left (!)

There are so many victories I can't win yet! It's obviously an incapacity, there are limitations; it must come from an attitude that's not entirely what it should be.

The Lord's Presence is there, his Action is there, in a way that I could almost call perpetual because It rarely... It never withdraws, but the times when It isn't active, when It becomes a little passive, are far less frequent than the times when It is active — far less, there is a big difference. And yet, the result this ought to bring is not there. Therefore, since It uses this body and this atmosphere [of Mother], there must be something that dims, that limits, that alters.... I could give some quite precise and concrete examples, but anyway they involve certain people here, so I won't mention them. But that's what made me question: why, why?...

I have a feeling that something is pressing to eliminate in my active consciousness that discernment which is so sharp, so imperative — sharp, you know, with a vision... (like the vision I had the other day of the nearness and farness), a vision almost microscopically exact. Obviously, this is helpful to get rid of all the things that shouldn't be, but now there is a will for this attitude to move into the background, and for the active consciousness to see constantly and almost exclusively only WHAT SHOULD BE.

Which means there are movements of elimination, of rejection, movements (for a second) of transformation, and also movements of construction — it seems the time has come to step into the movement of construction.

The body consciousness is still very timid, very timid in the sense that it doesn't have confidence in itself. It feels that if it isn't constantly vigilant, watching, watching, observing, discerning, some things (gesture below) may get through that shouldn't get through. That's what hinders. And that is why this certainty comes more and more: no criticism, no criticism at all, none at all, don't see what shouldn't be — see only WHAT SHOULD BE.

It's a great victory to be won — a great victory.

And all the more great and difficult since (certainly because of the necessities of the work) I am surrounded only by people who are on the other side. I don't have around me a single optimist. All that people tell me, all that they bring to me, is always the vision (more or less clear and complete) of what should go; but the vision of what should be... I have never found it except in Sri Aurobindo.

It's only in sudden gusts, in flashes, now and then, and only when he wrote (never when he spoke) that you could find that sort of sharp thing, of sharp discernment, like in what we translated the other day. Otherwise, when he spoke, when he was with people, there was never a negative criticism.

No one else.

From my earliest childhood (when I was five, my memories at five) and for more than eighty years, I have always been surrounded with people who brought me an abundance of revolt, discontent, and then, more and more so, cases (certain cases have been very acute and still are) of sheer ingratitude — not towards me, that doesn't matter at all: towards the Divine. Ingratitude... that is something I have often found very, very painful — that it should exist. It's one of the things I have seen in my life that seemed to me the most... the most intolerable — that sort of acid bitterness against the Divine, because things are as they are, because all that suffering was permitted. It takes on more or less ignorant, more or less intellectual forms... but it's a kind of bitterness. It takes sometimes personal forms, which makes the struggle even more difficult because you can't mix in questions of persons — it's not a personal question, it's an ERROR to think that there can be a single "personal" movement in the world; it's man's ignorant consciousness which makes it personal, but it isn't: it's all terrestrial attitudes.

It came with the Mind; animals don't have that. And that's why I feel a sweetness in animals, even the supposedly most ferocious, which doesn't exist in man.

(long silence)

And yet, of all movements, the one that gives perhaps the most joy — an unalloyed joy, untainted by that egoism — is spontaneous gratitude.

It is something very special. It isn't love, it isn't self-offering.... It's a very FULL joy. Very full.

It is a very special vibration unlike anything other than itself. It is something that widens you, that fills you — that is so fervent!

It is certainly, of all the movements within the reach of human consciousness, the one that draws you the most out of your ego.

And when it can be a gratitude without motive, that vibration (basically, the vibration of what exists towards the Cause of existence)... then a great many barriers vanish instantly.

(Mother contemplates that vibration of gratitude for a long time)

When you can enter that vibration in its purity, you realize immediately that it has the same quality as the vibration of Love: it is directionless. It isn't something going from one thing to another, it doesn't go from here to there (gesture from low to high) or there to here... it is (round gesture) simultaneous and total.

I mean it isn't something that needs the two poles in order to exist; it doesn't go from one pole to the other or from the other to the one: it's a vibration which in its purity is the same as the vibration of Love, which doesn't go from here to there or from there to here — the two poles of existence.

It exists in itself for its own delight of being. (And what I am saying spoils it a lot.)

Like Love.

Men have repeated ad nauseam that nothing exists without those two poles, that those two poles are the cause of existence and everything revolves around them (Mother shakes her head), but that's not the way it is. This means that man, in his ordinary outward consciousness, cannot understand anything beyond that. There we are. That we know. But in its essence (Mother again shakes her head), Love is not like that.

Ultimately, gratitude is only a very slightly colored hue of the essential Vibration of Love.

31. December 1963 – The Yoga of Self-Perfection and Savitri

But the last part ["The Yoga of Self-Perfection"] is the longest, and it's difficult, too.

He didn't complete it.

He never completed the last chapter, he even told me, "You will complete it when I have completed my yoga," and then he went, left everything.

Afterwards, several times, he told me that I should be the one to complete it — I answered him that I didn't have the brain for it. Or else I would have to write it in a mediumistic way, but I am not a good medium, I am too conscious — the consciousness is immediately awake in the background and watches the phenomenon, so it stops working.

But your Agenda is the end of the "Yoga of Self-Perfection"!

Well, it'll be a long end! (Mother laughs) In other words, when it's over (we must first wait for it to be over), when it's over, with those notes, we could establish something — you'll have to wait for some time! There are still several years to go.

In fact, in Savitri, Sri Aurobindo went through all the worlds, and it so happens that I am following that without knowing it (because I never remember — thank God, I really thank heaven! — I asked the Lord to take away my mental memory and He took it away entirely, so I am not weighed down), but I follow that description in Savitri without mentally knowing the sequence of the worlds, and these last few days... I was in that Muddle of Falsehood (I told you last time), it was really painful, and I was tracking it down to the most tenuous vibrations, those that go back to the origin, to the moment when Truth could turn into Falsehood — how it all happened. And it is so tenuous, almost imperceptible, that deformation, the original Deformation, that you tend to lose heart and you think, "It's still really quite easy to topple over... the slightest thing and you can still topple over into Falsehood, into Deformation." And yesterday, I had in my hands a passage from Savitri that was brought to me — it's a marvel, but... it's so sad, so miserable, oh, I could have cried (I don't easily cry).

The world grew full of menacing Energies,

And wherever turned for help or hope his eyes,

In field and house, in street and camp and mart,

He met the prowl and stealthy come and go

Of armed disquieting bodied Influences.

A march of goddess figures dark and nude

Alarmed the air with grandiose unease;

Appalling footsteps drew invisibly near,

Shapes that were threats invaded the dream-light,

And ominous beings passed him on the road

Whose very gaze was a calamity:

A charm and sweetness sudden and formidable,

Faces that raised alluring lips and eyes

Approached him armed with beauty like a snare,

But hid a fatal meaning in each line

And could in a moment dangerously change.

But he alone discerned that screened attack.

(II.VII.205)

It makes you wonder.... It's like something gluey surrounding you, touching you all over; you can't go forward, you can't do anything without encountering those black and gluey fingers of Falsehood. It was a very painful impression.

And last night, there was the Answer, as it were. This morning, when I got up, I didn't remember clearly, but in the middle of the night I knew it very well. (It's not going from sleep to the waking consciousness: it is coming out of one state to enter another one, and when I came out of that state to enter the so-called normal one, I remembered very well.) I was as if made to live the WAY of turning that Falsehood into Truth, and it was so joyful!... So joyful. In the sense that it's a vibration similar to joy that is capable of dissolving and overcoming the vibration of Falsehood. That was very important: it isn't effort, it isn't righteousness, or scruple or rigidity, none of that, none of that has any effect on that sadness (it is a sadness) of Falsehood — it's something so sad, so helpless, so miserable... so miserable. And only a vibration of Joy can change it.

It was a vibration that flowed like silvery water — it rippled and flowed like silvery water.

Which means that austerity, asceticism, even an intense and stern aspiration, all sternness, all that: no action. No action — Falsehood stays put in the background.... But it cannot resist the sparkling of joy. It's interesting.

(silence)

And in his text, Sri Aurobindo says that the Lord joins the contraries, the opposites, puts them together so they fight each other, and that this will and action give Him a sardonic smile (I am commenting).

A tract he reached unbuilt and owned by none:

There all could enter but none stay for long.

It was a no man's land of evil air,

A crowded neighbourhood without one home,

A borderland between the world and hell.

There unreality was Nature's Lord:

It was a space where nothing could be true,

For nothing was what it had claimed to be:

A high appearance wrapped a spacious void.

Yet nothing would confess its own presence

Even to itself in the ambiguous heart:

A vast deception was the law of things;

Only by that deception they could live.

An unsubstantial Nihil guaranteed

The falsehood of the forms this Nature took

And made them seem awhile to be and live.

A borrowed magic drew them from the Void;

They took a shape and stuff that was not theirs

And showed a colour that they could not keep,

Mirrors to a fantasm of reality.

Each rainbow brilliance was a splendid lie;

A beauty unreal graced a glamour face.

Nothing could be relied on to remain:

Joy nurtured tears and good an evil proved,

But never out of evil one plucked good:

Love ended early in hate, delight killed with pain,

Truth into falsity grew and death ruled life.

A Power that laughed at the mischief of the world,

An irony that joined the world's contraries

And flung them into each other's arms to strive,

Put a sardonic rictus on God's face.

(II.VII.206)

I was asked for an illustration for H.; I saw the image, the Lord's face with a sardonic smile. And then, after last night's experience, this morning suddenly that expression of the face changed, and I saw the image of the true, the true sorrow of Compassion — I don't know how to explain it.... The sardonic smile changed: from sardonic it grew bitter, from bitter it grew sorrowful, from sorrowful it grew full of an extraordinary compassion....

(silence)

So we could say that Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord. And that His Joy is the cure for all Falsehood.

Sorrow had to be expressed so as to be erased from the creation.

And sorrow is Falsehood — the Lord's sorrow, sorrow in its essence, is Falsehood.

So to live in Falsehood is to hurt the Lord.

It opens up horizons....

And His Joy is the cure for everything.

That's the problem seen from the other angle.

So, if we love the Lord, we cannot give Him cause for sorrow, and necessarily we emerge from Falsehood and enter Joy.

That's what I saw last night. It was all silvery. All silvery, silvery....

There was even the vision of how the vibrations were in the cells: vibrations that were silvery, sparkling, rippling, but very regular, and precise... (how can I put it?). It was the contradiction of Falsehood in the cells; like little flashes of silvery light.

But that Falsehood is the great obstacle, the extreme difficulty. It's something gluey which entered the creation and sticks to everything, and which has become a material habit too, because it's not only Mind that has Falsehood in it: there's Falsehood in Life, in Life itself. In the completely inanimate, I don't know.... Maybe it came with Life? (According to Savitri, the origin of Falsehood lies in Life.) But it's as though Unconsciousness, in order to go towards Consciousness, to return to Consciousness, had taken the path of Falsehood and Death instead of the path of Truth.

And Falsehood is this: the sorrow of the Lord.

I was asked for a message for next year, and things of that sort kept coming to me, so I didn't say anything. They wouldn't even understand, it's incomprehensible if you don't have the experience. And if you say just like that, almost dogmatically, "Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord," it doesn't mean anything.

Or if you say it in a literary way, it's no longer true.

And if you said, "Falsehood is the Lord's way of being unhappy" (!) (Mother laughs), people would think you're not being serious.