January 1964

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Undated 1964

The old dreams of the past will turn into meaningful realities.

04. Jan 1964 – The Gods of the Pantheon; Four Aspects of the Mother

No, I am not imagining things: I know! He said that thing (had Sri Aurobindo been here, he would have had a good laugh!), "Oh, the gods, she should let me look after them, I know better than she does"! You understand, when I was giving meditations in the hall downstairs, they were all there: Shiva, Krishna, all the gods of the Indian pantheon were there, seated like this (gesture in a circle) to follow the meditation.

Krishna... sometimes I walked with him for hours in conversation. At night, when I was very tired from my work, he would come and sit on the edge of my bed, I would put my head on his shoulder and fall asleep. And it lasted for years and years and years, you know — not just once by chance.

There are four aspects or "sides" of the universal Mother: Maheshwari (the supreme Mother), Mahakali (the warrior aspect and the aspect of love), Mahalakshmi (the aspect of harmony and beauty), and Mahasaraswati (perfection in the arts and in work).

08. January 1964 – The sardonic laugh of the Lord in Savitri B2C7

(Mother shows a sketch she has just drawn to illustrate the passage in "Savitri" in which Sri Aurobindo speaks of the "sardonic rictus on God's face.")

I wanted to see this "sardonic laugh" of the Lord! So I looked, and instead of a sardonic laugh, I saw a face... with such a deep sorrow — so deep, so grave — and full of such compassion.... It's after that that I said (you remember, it was over there, I was seeing that): "Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord." It was naturally based on the experience that everything is the Lord — there is nothing that cannot be the Lord. So what is this "sardonic" smile?... I was looking at that, and then I saw this face.

So, as I am supposed to do sketches for H.'s paintings, I did the sketch: Falsehood is the sorrow of the Lord.

(Mother shows the sketch representing the Lord's sorrowful face. Long silence)

Sri Aurobindo had the feeling or the sensation that what was farthest from the Lord (I always base myself now on that experience, which is very concrete in its sensation, of the "nearness" or "farness" — it isn't a farness in feelings, not that, it's like a material fact; yet it isn't located in space), well, Sri Aurobindo, for his part, felt that the farthest was cruelty. That's what he felt farthest from; that vibration seemed to him the farthest from that of the Lord.

And yet, it sounds bizarre but in cruelty one can still feel, distorted, the vibration of Love; far behind or deep within that vibration of cruelty, there is still, distorted, the vibration of Love. And Falsehood — the real Falsehood that doesn't arise from fear or anything of the sort, that has no reason behind it — real Falsehood, the negation of Truth (the WILLED negation of Truth), is, to me, something completely black and inert. That's the feeling it gives me. It is black, blacker than the blackest coal, and inert — inert, without any response.

When I read that description in Savitri, I felt a sorrow which I thought I had been unable to feel for a long time — a long time. I thought I was (how shall I put it?) cured of that possibility. And last time, when I saw that, I saw it was still there; and while I was looking, I saw this same sorrow in the Lord, in His face, His expression.

The deliberate negation of all that is divine — of all that we call divine.

The Divine, for us, is always the perfection not yet manifested, all the marvels not yet manifested, and which must keep on growing, of course.

The far end of the Manifestation (assuming that there was a progressive descent... there may have been one, I don't know — there have been so many perceptions of what happened, sometimes contradictory, always incomplete and humanized), but if you consider the aspect of evolution, you tend to consider a far end from which you proceed to another far end (it's obviously childish, but anyway...), or an extreme way of being that grows towards the opposite Extreme Way of Being; well, what seems to me the blackest and most inert, the total negation of "that" to which we aspire, is what constitutes Falsehood.

In other words, this is perhaps what I call Falsehood; because falsehood in the human way is always mixed with all kinds of things — but Falsehood proper is this. It is the assertion that the Divine does not exist, Life does not exist, Light does not exist, Love does not exist, Progress does not exist — Light, Life, Love do not exist. A negative nothingness, a dark nothingness. And it may be this that clung to evolution and made Darkness, which denied Light, Death, which denied Life, and Hatred, Cruelty and all that, which denied Love — but this is already diluted, it's already in a diluted state, there has already been a mixture.

Oh, if we wanted to make poetry (it's no longer a philosophical or spiritual way of seeing, but a pictorial way), we could imagine a Lord who is a totality of all the possible and impossible possibilities, in quest of a Purity and Perfection that can never be reached and are ever progressive... and the Lord would get rid of all in the Manifestation that weighs down His unfolding — He would begin with the nastiest. You see it?... Total Night, total Unconsciousness, total Hatred (no, hatred still implies that Love exists), the incapacity to feel. Nothingness.

We're on the way. I still have a little bit of it [that total Unconsciousness] left.

15. January 1964 – A transitional state

There is a curious transitional state in the most material consciousness, the body consciousness. A transition from the state of subjugation, of helplessness, in which one is constantly at the mercy of forces, vibrations, unexpected movements, all sorts of impulses — to the Power. The Power that asserts and realizes itself. It's the transition between the two; and there is almost a swarm of experiences of all types, from the most mental part of that consciousness down to the darkest, most material part.

And when I want to say something, there immediately comes from all corners a swarm of things that want to be said and rush in all at the same time — which, naturally, prevents me from speaking.

It's a curious state.

The passage from an almost total helplessness — a sort of Fatality, like the imposition of a whole set of determinisms against which you are powerless, which weigh down on you — to a clear, definite Will, which, the MOMENT It expresses itself, is all-powerful.

(silence)

But, as a whole, it gives a sense of treading a very sharp ridge between two precipices.

(long silence)

It's impossible to say....

And this field of experience also includes the physical mind — all the mental constructions that have a direct action on life and on the body; there is there an almost unlimited field of experiences. And everything takes the form not of a speculation or a thought, but of an experience. I'll give you an example to make myself understood. I won't tell you the thing as it occurred, but as I now know it to be.... There is in France someone very devoted, born Catholic, and who was seriously ill. He wrote to me asking what he should do; he said that people around him naturally wanted him to receive extreme unction (they thought he was about to die), and he wrote to ask me if it had any influence on the progress of his inner being and whether he should refuse categorically. I knew none of this [as Mother had not yet received the letter], but I had an experience here, in which a priest and altar boys came to give me extreme unction! (That's how it presented itself to me.) They wanted to give me extreme unction, so I watched — I watched, I wanted to see; I thought, "Well, before dismissing them abruptly, let's see what it is...." (I had no idea why they had come, you understand; someone had sent them to give me extreme unction — not that I felt particularly sick! But anyhow that's how it was.) So before dismissing them, I watched carefully to find out if really it had a power of action, if extreme unction had the power to disturb the progress of the soul and tie it down to old religious formations. I watched and I saw how thin and tenuous it was, without force; I saw clearly that it could have some force only if the priest who performed it was a conscious soul and did it consciously, in relationship with an inner power or force (vital or other), but that if it was an ordinary man doing his "job" and giving the sacraments with the ordinary belief and nothing more, it was perfectly harmless.

Once I had seen that, suddenly (it was as if on a screen) the whole story vanished and it was over. It had come only to make me see it, that's all. But it presented itself in that way in order to make me watch intently, seriously, not as a mental consideration: a vision and an experience.

Immediately afterwards, I had a visit from the Pope! The Pope [Paul VI] had come to Pondicherry (he does intend to visit India), he had come to Pondicherry and asked to see me (quite impossible things materially, of course, but they were perfectly simple and straightforward). So I saw him. He came, we met each other over there (in the music room), and we actually did speak to each other. I really felt the man in front of me (gesture of feeling), felt what he was. And he was very worried at the thought of what I was going to say to people about his visit: the revelation I would give of his visit. I saw that, but I didn't say anything. Finally he said (we were speaking in French, he had an Italian accent; but all this, you see, doesn't correspond to any thought: it's like pictures in a film), he said, "What will you tell people about my visit?" So I looked at him (inner contacts are more concrete than pictures or words) and I simply answered him, after staring at him intently, "I will tell them that we have been in communion in our love for the Lord...." And there was in it the warmth of a golden light — extraordinary! Then I saw something relax in him, as if an anxiety were leaving him, and he left like that, in a great concentration.

Why did that come? I don't know.

And one, two, ten, fifty experiences like that — those two struck me. The first, because the NEXT DAY Pavitra told me a gentleman had written to ask me the question I told you: he had been very ill, he was in bed, anyway at death's door, and he had written to ask that question.

Curious, isn't it?

It's not a mental contact that lets you know he has written and so on; no, it was the experience — it always takes the form of an experience, an ACTION: something that has to be done and gets done, or that has to be known and becomes known. It is never the mental transcription of ordinary life.

The Pope... I wonder why: what happened? What does it mean? Why did it happen? But I still see the scene; it was a very living reality: he was tall, in the room over there (the music room), and there was a somewhat gloomy atmosphere around him, with a kind of worry. But the inner contact was very strong, very strong, very intense, and it went beyond the man — beyond the man, beyond the physical "Supreme Pontiff" — quite beyond. It touched something. Yet I had never thought of him, of course, nothing.

And all this happens IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, not while I am sleeping. All at once, you know... This story happened to me when I had just had my bath! You understand, it's completely unconnected.... All at once something comes, takes hold of me, and then there's a sort of life in which I live, until something is done — some action — and when that action is done, everything goes away. And it goes away without leaving any traces, as if... (Mother pulls away a screen abruptly).

I am giving these two examples because they are recent and a little unexpected (or at least, they didn't correspond to my occupations or preoccupations), but they come in hundreds! Every day thirty, forty of them will come and take hold of me, and then, all at once, I'll go into a concentration, I'll LIVE a certain thing, until I have seen — seen, known through the vision — something that had to be seen, and as soon as it is seen, pfft! gone away, finished. It loses its interest, it's gone.

I'll go into a sort of concentration for a time during which I am completely isolated, absorbed; then when it's over, hup! it goes away abruptly (gesture of pulling a curtain).

And it doesn't stop me from continuing my activities — I tell you, I was dressing again after my bath! But then all the movements become almost automatic: the consciousness is no longer occupied with its gestures, there is only a delegation of the consciousness to keep watch, that's all.

But all this changes my position — my position vis-à-vis the world is changing. How can I explain it?... It's very strange.

More and more, there is something that presses to make itself known and is formulated like this: what wants to come for next February is the Truth-Light... (Mother repeats like an incantation) the Truth-Light, the Truth-Force, the Truth-Light, the Truth-Force... to prepare the way for the manifestation of supreme Love.

But that is for later on.

But immediate, immediate: the Truth-Light, the Truth-Force. It's becoming precise.

I didn't think about it. It was perfectly blank in my head. I didn't know at all. And then that came.

18. January 1964 – Kennedy, Khrushchev, the Brits

...I saw S.G. this morning, the person who went to America, who knew Kennedy and even spoke to him about the possibility of openly joining with Russia so as to exert pressure on the world and prevent armed disputes (he said, "to settle all border and territorial disputes in a peaceful way," beginning, of course, with China and India). Kennedy had been enthusiastic. The Russian ambassador had been summoned at once, and he had telephoned Khrushchev: enthusiastic over the idea (but this Khrushchev seems to be rather a good man). They were supposed to sort it out during a meeting at the U.N. At this point, Kennedy makes off....

But the idea has been taken up again through Khrushchev and he continues to be quite enthusiastic. It seems (I don't know if it's quite true, because it's Z [a Russian disciple] who says so)... but Z sent him my article "A Dream," on the possibility of creating a small "international center" (I don't like the word "international," but never mind), and Khrushchev answered, "This idea is excellent, the entire world should make it a reality." Well, I don't know whether it's correct, but anyway the gentleman seems to be well-disposed. And this S.G. is very intimate with the U.S. ambassador in Delhi.... In brief, S.G. has sent me the new proposal — the first one, I had approved it, I had even put my blessings on it, and he had gone to see Nehru: Nehru immediately called both ambassadors for a conference. At the time, I worked a good deal and things were moving.... Now, it seems that the new president [Johnson] is, for the time being, continuing what the other did: he won't upset the apple cart.... We'll see.

If it succeeds, it will give some concrete expression to the effort of transformation without violence.

Oh, the British, that's a different phenomenon! Anything that isn't British is worthless! (Mother laughs) The British alone are practical, the British alone are intelligent, the British alone know how to live, the British alone are powerful, the British alone... In short, there are only the British, the entire earth ought to be British — but the British, I took a thorough dislike to them when I was five years old! (Mother laughs) I remember, I always used to say, "But our real enemies" (as a child, just like that, between us), "our real enemies aren't the Germans: it's always been the British." And then I had, like Sri Aurobindo, a great admiration for Napoleon, so I had quite a grudge against them for the way they treated him.

Oh, no! The British... (laughing) the only thing that rehabilitated them in the world's history is that Sri Aurobindo went to study in their country! But he clearly said that during his studies there, his whole feeling of intimacy was with France, not England.

Oh, the British... No, the British haughtiness certainly isn't just a legend. What gave them that? Where does it come from? Because, basically, they are Normans, aren't they.

18. January 1964 – A dream of a better place

There should be somewhere upon earth a place that no nation could claim as its own, a place where every human being of goodwill, sincere in his aspiration, could live freely as a citizen of the world, obeying one single authority, that of the supreme Truth; a place of peace, concord, harmony, where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his sufferings and miseries, to surmount his weakness and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the concern for progress would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the search for pleasures and material enjoyment. In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their souls; education would be given not with a view to passing examinations or obtaining certificates and posts, but to enrich one's existing faculties and bring forth new ones. In this place, titles and positions would be replaced by opportunities to serve and organize; everyone's bodily needs would be provided for equally, and in the general organization, intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority would be expressed not by increased pleasures and powers in life, but by greater duties and responsibilities. Beauty in all its art forms — painting, sculpture, music, literature — would be accessible to all equally, the ability to share in the joys it brings being limited solely by one's capacities and not by social or financial position. For in this ideal place, money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social position. There, work would not be for earning one's living, but the means to express oneself and develop one's capacities and possibilities, while at the same time being of service to the group as a whole, which would in turn provide for everyone's subsistence and field of action. In short, it would be a place where human relationships, ordinarily based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in trying to do one's best, of collaboration and real brotherhood.

The earth is not ready to realize such an ideal, for humanity does not yet possess either the knowledge necessary to understand and adopt it or the conscious force indispensable for its execution. This is why I call it a dream.

Yet this dream is on the way to becoming a reality, and it is what we are endeavoring to do at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, on a very small scale and in proportion to our limited means. The achievement is indeed far from being perfect but it is progressive; little by little we are moving towards our goal, which, we hope, we shall one day be able to show to the world as a practical and effective means of emerging from the present chaos to be born to a new life, more harmonious and truer.

22. January 1964 – True purpose of Life

The true purpose of life: to live for the Divine or to live for the Truth, or at least to live for one's soul....

That's the minimum. And then:

And the true sincerity: to live for the Divine without expecting any benefit from Him in return.

I said this yesterday or the day before, because I was very angry with the Ashram people!... We are going through a very difficult period financially, and so, you know, people... they respect you only as long as you have money; when you have no more money, they don't respect you anymore — and they find it so self-evident, so natural! They don't even feel ill at ease, not at all: it's perfectly obvious that you respect someone only when he has money and holds you in his grip.

I wasn't happy, so I wrote this note.

Then Mother shows another handwritten note:

It's prayers that come out from here (gesture to the heart center), like this, all of a sudden, unexpectedly — they come out all the time, but I found this one interesting. It was again after my bath (!). It often happens at that time....

"To be what You want me to be, to do what You want me to do...

That was the beginning; then came the sensation, "What's this ridiculous 'me'?" (It doesn't come from the vital or the mind, though, not at all: it comes from the body, it's the body's cells that suddenly ask themselves, "But what's this 'me'?") So the experience came, and it was very intense:

"To be You, at every moment the supreme Spontaneity."

(silence)

Human beings always do a thing FOR something, with a goal, for a reason, from a motive; even spiritual life, even spiritual effort are FOR the progress of consciousness, FOR reaching the Truth, for... it's a vibration that always has a tail — a tail in front. And these cells have realized that if you can have the vibration without the tail, the power increases tenfold — "tenfold" is nothing! At times the difference is fantastic. And actually, when they said, "To be what You want...," it was a way of expressing a need they felt for that; but once it was expressed, they said, "What's this platitude! What's this 'me' poking its nose in!" Then, all of a sudden, came the True Vibration — the True Vibration, without cause and effect, which at every moment of the universe is total and absolute. And it was translated into: "To be You, Lord, at every moment the supreme Spontaneity."

There was an extraordinarily dazzling light — which didn't last.

(silence)

So the conclusion (afterwards, naturally, when the whole thing had been seen and studied carefully), the conclusion is that the Lord has neither cause nor effect; and all that is is like those pulsations in my experience two years ago (or a year and a half ago, I don't remember — it was in April), the pulsations of Love bursting forth and creating the word, which followed one another but had neither cause nor effect: one pulsation wasn't the result of the one before or the cause of the one after — not at all — each one was a whole in itself.

Each moment of the Supreme is a whole in itself.

And "moment," what does it mean? What does it correspond to in the truth of the Supreme? I don't know — for us, that's how it is translated, because everything is translated that way for us. All change is translated for us as the sense of time — ONE sense of time, a certain sense of time, which may be infinite and eternal, but is a time all the time. And for Him, the change is timeless. What is it? What does it correspond to? I don't know.

Because the consciousness [Mother's] is outside time and space, completely, and yet there is this...

(silence)

(Mother starts coughing)

Someone has given me a present: a head cold — a lavish present!

Who gave it to you?

(Laughing) He didn't do it purposely.

But it's a lesson. I could have been cured immediately (it was yesterday). At first, it met with the true consciousness and the true attitude (even in the body), and for hours it was under control. Then came the people who come every day, some in the morning and some in the afternoon (but it was in the afternoon, yesterday), with their truckloads of work — a truckload, you know, it's dumped as when a truck unloads, meaning they don't wait for one to be unloaded before bringing another: they throw it all together. So, all of a sudden, my nose started running, it was over — there was a tension. The Force that was there couldn't withstand it. In the night and this morning, it was brought under control again and could have gone away; then came the usual people with their usual truckloads (each his truckload, there are four of them); so, right in the middle of the work, again my nose started running. It's stupid, but anyway....

And always the same thing (the first vision was quite correct, I mean the vision of the cells was quite correct): it isn't something coming from outside, it's the impulse that comes from outside, it's the wrong vibration that comes from outside, and the difficulty is that you are unable to replace this wrong vibration or, rather, CANCEL it, with the True Vibration. That's what I had already said: the "proportion" isn't sufficient, so it takes time. I can understand that with a sufficient proportion of cells remaining in the True Vibration, the cure should be instantaneous, that is, the effect of the wrong vibrations should be canceled automatically. But I had seen the thing and spent almost an hour, three quarters of an hour [in concentration], and the little bit that had been affected (it was in the throat) was canceled — it didn't return. It was canceled. But after those three quarters of an hour, I had to resume my activities, see people, do things, take my bath, too (although the bath is always beneficial), and a sort of memory lingered.... And then, from three o'clock, a quarter to three, the invasion started: first one, then another, then two more, then a third, then... So all at once, because my attention had been DIVERTED to what I had to do (scores of answers to be written, of blessings to be sent, of problems to be resolved — all of it dumped on me), as my attention was diverted to that, naturally all at once I started sneezing and so forth — there was nothing to do but... go through it.

Still, for actions in this domain, actions of transformation, I don't say solitude because that's silly — there is no such thing as solitude — but peace is necessary, that is, the perfect control over the activity: the activity must be kept on a level where it doesn't interfere with the inner work — that's the point. That was why, in fact, I was forced (apparently) to remain upstairs, because downstairs it had become... it was infernal — infernal, no one can imagine! It's always the same principle: "Why not me?" And there are 1,300 of them, you understand... let alone the visitors who come in their hundreds (some days, there are more than 200 or 300 of them at one time); they hear that there is "someone worth seeing," and when I was downstairs and one of the "circus showmen" ([laughing] excuse me!) came, he would bring a troop along.

Now, it's a little better, but it has become "Why not me?" Mother has seen such and such a category of people, therefore the entire category has a right to be seen!... The birthdays too, it depends on the ages and occupations: if I see people of a certain age and occupation on their birthdays, all those of about the same age and similar occupation have a RIGHT to come — they have the right — and it is my DUTY to see them. And when I say that I don't have the time... they're upset.

It's a farce, you know! And that farce has been going on since 1929.

But when Sri Aurobindo was here, I only had to mention something to him and he would send word telling people they should keep quiet. (I found all that in his correspondence, I didn't know; how many times he wrote to people!) But afterwards... afterwards they all gloried in their "faithfulness," because they stayed on at the Ashram and kept some sort of consideration for me! So naturally, I was supposed to be infinitely grateful to them — "We have been faithful to the Mother."

At the time, I had all the money (as I did in Sri Aurobindo's time: he never took care of the money, he would hand everything over to me, and afterwards it went on as it was), and that keeps them a little quiet. But when I say, "I don't have any money, I can't pay," then... That's "spiritual life" for you!

Now, according to what I have seen and tested (with "little tests" done casually), there are certainly — oh, being EXTREMELY generous, patient and (what shall I say?) merciful — there are a good third who are here only because they are comfortable: you work if you want to, you don't work if you don't want to, you always eat, you always have shelter and clothes, and, ultimately, you sort of do as you please (you must pretend to obey, that's all). And if you're denied a convenience, you start grumbling — Yoga is simply out of the picture! It's a hundred thousand miles away from their consciousness (their mouths are full of words, but it's only lip service). Sometimes you have a little scruple in order to appear to be doing some work. And some have grown very old or come here because they have become unfit for life outside... so we can't send them away! (It was wrong to accept them — I must say I have little to do with that acceptance: I'll say no, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they'll pretend they heard yes, but anyway... that's life.) So I can't send them away. But I am going to make life ascetic for them: one won't be here to be comfortable anymore — then for what?

Well, we'll see. We have started restrictions — oh, they're not very serious, but anyway...

25. January 1964 – About Jesus's death!

Satprem: There's nothing so clever about Christ! There are millions others who died without making such a fuss!

Mother: That was also my feeling, and it was Théon's too. But Sri Aurobindo... as for him, he clearly said that it had brought a sense of charity, humaneness and fraternity on earth that didn't exist before.

28. January 1964 – Restless Kali

Since World War II, I have been keeping Kali quiet, but she is restless! Times are critical, anything may happen. If people will only give up their ego!

29. January 1964 – Letters by Sri Aurobindo

Mother reads a few extracts from letters of Sri Aurobindo:

I have here three quotations on difficulties.... They apply so marvelously now! Sri Aurobindo wrote them in... 1946, '47, '48 — the dark hours. And things are repeating themselves now:

"The Mother's victory is essentially a victory of each sadhak over himself. It can only be then that any external form of work can come to a harmonious perfection."

November 12, 1937

Then this one, which is very interesting:

"I know that this is a time of trouble for you and everybody. It is so for the whole world. Confusion, trouble, disorder and upset everywhere is the general state of things. The better things that are to come are preparing or growing under a veil and the worse are prominent everywhere. The one thing is to hold on and hold out till the hour of light has come."

(XXVI. 168, June 2, 1946)

This we could repeat to people endlessly, but it is extraordinarily true just now!

To hold on and hold out.

For a long time people have been like bubbling champagne, you know, always wanting to know, "What's going to happen? What can we expect?" A big to-do. I answered, "I don't know." I don't know — I am not trying to know, I am not looking at it, I am not concerned with it: when it comes, it will come. Then, several times (while I was writing birthday cards or letters), several times, it was as if clearly dictated to me, "Prepare yourself for the Truth-Light that is descending." And it's clearly this: the Truth-Light that is going to manifest... the Truth-Light that is descending... the Truth-Light that is preparing its manifestation — all sorts of sentences kept coming to me like that, but always "the Truth-Light." Then I understood that this was what was going to happen.

And now... it's something as solid as cement (which means it's material) and absolutely EVEN, you know, even, not one ripple of form, absolutely flat as a slab of marble, and without beginning or end — limitless, you can't see its end: it's everywhere. Everywhere, and everywhere the same. Everywhere the same. A color... like a sort of gray (a gray, the gray of Matter) that would contain a golden light, yet doesn't shine: it doesn't shine, it doesn't have a luminosity of its own, but it contains light. It doesn't radiate, it isn't luminous, yet it's a gray with a golden light in it — the gray of the most material Matter, of stone; gray, you know. But it contains that light: it's not inert, not insensitive, not unconscious, yet it is MATTER.

Then Mother reads another letter by Sri Aurobindo:

"The extreme acuteness of your difficulties is due to the yoga having come down against the bed-rock of Inconscience which is the fundamental basis of all resistance in the individual and in the world to the victory of the Spirit and the Divine Work that is leading toward that victory. The difficulties themselves are general in the Ashram as well as in the outside world....

The description follows. You would think it was happening now:

“ Doubt, discouragement, diminution or loss of faith, waning of the vital enthusiasm for the ideal, perplexity and a baffling of the hope for the future are the common features of the difficulty. In the world outside there are much worse symptoms such as the general increase of cynicism, a refusal to believe in anything at all, a decrease of honesty, an immense corruption, a preoccupation with food, money, comfort, pleasure, to the exclusion of higher things, and a general expectation of worse and worse things awaiting the world. All that, however acute, is a temporary phenomenon for which those who know anything about the workings of the world-energy and the workings of the Spirit were prepared. I myself foresaw that this worst would come, the darkness of night before the dawn; therefore I am not discouraged. I know what is preparing behind the darkness and can see and feel the first signs of its coming. Those who seek for the Divine have to stand firm and persist in their seeking; after a time, the darkness will fade and begin to disappear and the Light will come."

(XXVI.169-170, April 9, 1947)

Very appropriate.

Very well, we have to stand firm.

Oh, it doesn't even make a slight dent! All those things are exactly like... watching a spectacle.

(silence)

It has become absolutely concrete, you know, as concrete as can be.

And yet, difficulties pour in from everywhere, not only with regard to health (which is still linked to moral things: the mood, the state of consciousness, the thoughts and mental formations, etc.), but to money, the "paper money" which refuses to come! And in this connection, lately I have seen in a fairly interesting way the difference in the material mental atmosphere: there was a sort of certainty that all that was necessary would come somehow — it was impossible for it not to come (I am referring to the general atmosphere); then it was replaced by you know, like when you bang your nose against a wall! That sort of very childlike, carefree trust — vanished! It just vanished So I had to look deeply at it, at what was behind, and that's how I saw this change in the Inertia (how is it going to express itself? I don't know; in what way?...), which I had never seen before.

It is something there, down below. Before, it was here (gesture to the level of the forehead), like this, in the atmosphere; now, it's there (gesture at ground level), that is to say, very low.

It's something that has happened in the Inconscient.

It's interesting. We'll see.

31. January 1964 – Mother's message

I wrote it in English yesterday:

The only hope for the future is in a change of man's consciousness and the change is bound to come.

But it is left to men to decide if they will collaborate in this change or if it will have to be enforced upon them by the power of crushing circumstances.

Then, at the end, I put:

So, wake up and collaborate.

There seems to be a "push from behind" — I don't know how I could explain it to you.... I feel something, as if from behind a veil something were pushing and saying, "Come on! Move on, now!" As if everything were almost completely asleep and there were, behind, something pushing very forcefully.