November 1964

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04. Nov 1964 – The Physical Experience of the Supreme's Presence

For the first time yesterday, I had in a flash — it lasted just a flash — for the first time in my life, I had the PHYSICAL experience of the Supreme's presence in a personal form.

It wasn't a defined form, but it was a personal form. And it came in the wake of a series of experiences in which I saw the different attitudes of different categories of people or thinkers, according to their conviction. And it came as if that form were saying to my body (it was a PHYSICAL presence), as if it were saying, really with words (it was a translation; the words are always a translation — I don't know what language the Supreme speaks (!), but it is translated, it must be translated in everyone's brain according to his own language), as if He were telling me, "Through you" (that is, through this, the body) "I am charging..." (it was like a conquest, a battle), "I am charging to conquer the physical world." That's how it was. And the sensation was really of an all-powerful Being whose proportions were like ours, but who was everywhere at once, and really of a physical "charge" to chase away all the dark little demons of Ignorance, and those little demons were like black vibrations. But He had something like a form, a color... and above all, there was a contact — a contact, a sensation. That's the first time.

I have never tried to see a personal form, and it always seemed to me an impossibility, as if it were childishness and a diminishing; but this came quite unexpectedly, spontaneously, stunningly: a flash. I was so astonished.... The astonishment made it go away.

The first time in my life.

It was a physical presence, with a form, but a form... It was odd, it was a form... As soon as you try to describe it, it seems difficult. But I still have the memory of having seen a sort of form with a quite special — but MATERIAL — light and quality, and which... Yes, maybe it is (Mother looks silently)... maybe that is the form of the supramental being?... It was very young, but with such power! A power, almost a muscular power (but there were no "muscles"), and there was a charge: he literally charged down on people and things, and everything was immediately scattered and upset. And he laughed! He laughed, there was such joy! A joy, a laughter, and, yes, he said, "Through you..." (it was through my physical presence), "I am charging...," I am charging down on Darkness or Falsehood, or whatever — words come afterwards and spoil everything — but the idea was... (no, it wasn't an idea, it was something that was said). It lasted just long enough for me to notice it — a flash. Then I said, "Ah!..." I had, you know, that reaction of astonishment.

The first time — completely unexpected.

And now, during the whole meditation, the presence was there, that presence was there, but so concrete! So concrete, so powerful. Maybe it is... maybe there is a will to make me see the supramental form? It's possible. It was PHYSICAL — it was physical. And there was that CONTACT, the physical contact. But the contact, I have it all the time — as soon as I stop, there is a massive contact, and weightless at the same time.

Yes, it's like what you can see in a flash. It was a form — a form derived from the human form; it wasn't something that contrasted sharply with the human form, but it had something the human form doesn't have: a suppleness and power in the movement. And it was radiant, a little radiant, as though it emanated a little light; but not something that gives you the feeling of the supernatural: not like apparitions in paintings, not that — it was material, it was...

It's the first time. I was sitting like this, as I was just now, the same thing, nothing particular. And it filled me with something inexpressible, a sense of fullness, of joy — of triumph, you know.

It was so brief that I didn't intend to talk about it, because words... You're always afraid of adding to the experience. But this presence was so concrete just now, during the meditation, and time passed so extraordinarily quickly, like a flash. And I had the same feeling, oh, such a fullness!...

He said (it was translated into words: I heard them, in what language I don't know, but I understood very well), I heard the words and he said to me: "Through you, I am charging...." I am charging, as if he were launching into a battle against the world's Falsehood. "Through you, I am charging...," that's perfectly clear, and it was against... I saw little aggregates of black dots being scattered.

But at that moment, I felt something like the representation of certain states of mind, certain intellectual conditions, a whole series of things that represented doubts, negations, ignorant attitudes, revolts... and all at once, this came.

And I still see the form I saw: like that, as if he were launching into battle — but only what you can see in a flash.

07. November 1964 – A new process

For the past three days there has been a constant phenomenon: something... I don't know what it is... as if the whole head were being emptied (Mother shows the blood going downward). Physically, that's what you feel before fainting, as if all the blood were leaving the head: the head empties, and then you faint.

The first time it came was the day before yesterday; I was resting (after lunch I rest for half an hour), and at the end of my rest, suddenly I see myself — I see myself standing near my bed, very tall, with a magnificent dress, and with someone dressed in white beside me. And I saw this just when I seemed about to faint: I was at once the person standing and the person on the bed who was watching, and at the same time I felt that thing flowing downward, flowing downward from the head — the head empties completely. And the person standing smiled, while the person in the bed wondered, "What! I am fainting — but I am in my bed!" There. And as it was time for me to "wake up" (that is, to return to the outer consciousness), I came back.

And I was left with this problem: who was standing there?... Very tall, with a splendid dress, and then a person (who was a human person, but much shorter), a white person beside me, all white. And just when I become conscious of this, when I see this, the head empties completely of something, and the face of the person standing (who was me) smiles. And then, the other part of me that was lying down in my bed said, "What! It's odd, I am fainting; how is it that I am fainting? — I am in my bed!"

I got up and didn't feel anything physically, it didn't correspond to anything.

I haven't had any explanation. I don't have any clue. What does it mean? I don't know.

Obviously, it's something!

But since then it has been like that, and particularly last night when it was terribly cold [monsoon + windstorm], I was completely still in my bed, with an almost constant feeling of that "something" flowing downward — of the head emptying.

It continued this morning, a very bizarre impression. Yet, physically, I feel fine, I took my food, I...

It's always the same thing, you know: I strongly feel that the explanation, or even the physical phenomenon, is the translation of something going on elsewhere. But I don't know what it is.... It is a new process.

There's obviously something going on, but I don't know what it is.... It seems to be going quickly now, a little more quickly.

But the mind (if we can call that "mind"), the physical stupidity cannot understand the process: what's happening, what's going on, it doesn't understand. The body only has, as soon as it is at peace, the feeling of bathing in the Lord. That's all. But in the body (not in its attributes, I mean when neither force nor energy nor power or any of that is there), in it there is, not something powerful, but a very gentle tranquillity. But not even the feeling of a certainty, nothing. It's negative, rather: the sensation of an absence of limits, something very vast, very vast, very tranquil, very tranquil — very vast, very tranquil. A sort of — yes, like a gentle trust, but not the certainty of transformation, for instance, nothing of that kind.

It's strange, it isn't a passivity; it isn't passive, but it's so tranquil, so tranquil, with a sort of — yes — gentleness.

I don't know.

12. November 1964 – The true vibration

There is this phenomenon: as soon as the physical organism, with its crystallization and habits, is put in the presence of a new experience without being carefully forewarned ("Now be careful, this is a new experience!"), it is afraid. It's afraid, it panics, it worries. It depends on the person, but at the very least, in the most courageous, in the most trusting, it creates an uneasiness — it begins with a slight pain or a slight uneasiness. Some are afraid immediately; then it's all over: the experience stops, it has to be started all over again; others (like those English people I was talking about, or like Z) hold on and observe, wait, and then the "unpleasant" effects, one may say, slowly die down, stop and turn into something else, and the experience begins to take on its own value or color.

With those faintings of sorts I told you about the other day, I observed (it went on the whole day), and I saw (saw with the inner vision): it is like the travel — at times as quick as a flash, at other times slow and very measured — of a force that starts from one point to reach another one. That force travels along a precise route, which isn't always the same and seems to include certain cells on its way: the starting point and the arrival point (Mother draws a curve in the air). If you aren't on your guard, if you are taken by surprise, during the passage of the force (whether long or short) you feel the same sensation ("you," meaning the body), the same sensation as before fainting: it's the phenomenon that precedes fainting. But if you are attentive, if you stay still and look, you see that it starts from one point, reaches another point, and then it's over — what that force had to do has been done, and there is no APPARENT consequence in the rest of the body.

I mentioned (not with so many details) the fact to the doctor, not in the hope that he would know, but because (it's amusing) when I speak to him, he tries to understand, of course, and then there is the mirror of his mental knowledge, and in that mirror, sometimes I find the key! (Laughing) You understand, the scientific key of what's going on.

As a matter of fact, it was after I spoke to him (I mentioned it to him as a sort of dizzy spell) that I was able to perceive precisely those "routes." I wondered if it wasn't the projection on a magnifying screen of phenomena taking place between different brain cells? Because those sorts of dizzy spells always follow (today there hasn't been anything at all), they always follow a moment or a day of intense aspiration for the transformation of the brain. It may be that.... You know, all those brain cells in there are hitched together, and if those "hitchings" are disturbed, generally people become deranged; and it gave me the impression of a magnifying projection enabling me to follow the connections established between certain brain cells, so that the functioning may not be the automatic, semiconscious functioning of the old state anymore and the brain may truly become the instrument of the higher Force. Because the formula of my aspiration is always, "Lord, take possession of this brain," and it's always after this intense aspiration that those kinds of phenomena occur. So it is to prepare the brain to be the direct expression of the higher Force.

This is what I have learned these last few days.

I also noted something down, an experience I had this morning. It lasted half an hour, and during that half-hour... (Mother looks for her notes among a series of little scraps of paper)... You know that with people who have a revelation, their state of consciousness changes all at once, and at that moment they have the feeling that everything is changed; then, the next moment, or after a certain time, they realize that all the work... (how should I put it?) of working out the experience remains to be done; that it was only like a flash lasting a certain length of time and that they have to work it out through a process of transformation. This is the usual idea.

And all of a sudden, I saw — that's not it at all! When they have the experience, at the time of the experience, it is the thing ITSELF, the perfection ITSELF that has been reached, and they are in a state of perfection; and it is because they COME OUT of it that they feel they have to slowly prepare themselves for the result.... I don't know if I am expressing myself clearly, but my notation was like this: perfection is there, always, coexisting with imperfection — perfection and imperfection are coexistent, always, and not only simultaneous, but in the SAME PLACE (Mother presses her two hands together), I don't know how to put it — coexistent. Which means that at any second and in any conditions, you can attain perfection: it isn't something that has to be gained little by little, through successive progress; perfection is THERE, and YOU change states, from the state of imperfection to the state of perfection; and it is the capacity to remain in that state of perfection that grows for some reason or other and gives you the feeling that you must "prepare" yourself or "transform" yourself.

That was very real and very concrete.

(Mother gives the text of her note:)

The perfection is there coexistent with the imperfection and attainable at each and any moment.

Yes, it isn't something that becomes: perfection is an absolute state that can be attained at any moment.

And then, the conclusion is very interesting (Mother looks for another scrap of paper).... You remember, I told you that for the body consciousness, the problem that remains hard to solve is that notion (to me, it has become just a notion, it isn't a truth), of the preexistence of all things: of the state in which each thing IS, even in its unfolding.... You understand, it would be as if all the POINTS of the unfolding were preexistent.

I was on the threshold of an understanding (an "understanding": I am not talking about a mental understanding, I am talking about the experience of the fact). The experience of the fact is the experience of the coexistence of the static state and the state of development — of the eternal static state and the state of eternal unfolding (indefinite, rather, not to use the same word). Then, at that point, there was this vision (Mother holds out a note):

"When the truth manifests, the false vibration disappears...

Disappears, it is CANCELED ("cancelled" is the word).

"... as if it had never existed, before the vibration of truth that replaces it. This is the real basis of the theory of Illusion."

Yes, all of a sudden I understood what they really meant when they said that the physical world as it is is illusory.

You can say it is illusory only if it has no lasting existence, of course. And this experience — which I saw, felt, lived — is that the vibration of truth literally CANCELS the vibration of falsehood, which doesn't exist — it existed only as an illusion for the false consciousness we have.

I don't know if I am making myself understood, but it's very interesting.

It's the perception of the world that's illusory — the perception of the world, the perception we have of it, is illusory. The world has a concrete, real existence in what we could call the Eternal's Consciousness. But we, the human consciousness has an illusory perception of this world.

And when the Vibration of Truth triumphs, you see and have the sense of the true reality of the world; and as I said, that illusory perception disappears immediately. it is canceled.

Which means that their way of saying or thinking or understanding that "all that is has existed from all eternity" isn't... it isn't "all that is" as they see it and conceive of it, it isn't even the principle of all that is, it is... it is the ONE Truth that's eternal, and the unfolding... It's difficult to say.... The unfolding follows a law and a process that are quite different from what we conceive or from what we perceive.

It's the same thing again: Truth is there, Falsehood is there (Mother presses her two hands together); perfection is there, imperfection is there (same gesture); they're perfectly coexistent, in the same place — the minute you perceive perfection, imperfection disappears, the Illusion disappears.

Only, I am not speaking here of a mental conception of some vague and general state: I am referring to that state of infinitesimal vibration (which they discovered when they tried to find the makeup of Matter: that's what they are trying to reduce Matter to), it is that state of vibration, it is THERE, it's in that state of vibration that, for the concrete world, imperfection must be replaced by perfection. Do you understand what I am saying? Or does it make no sense?

Yes, it's at that level that the change must take place. At the mental or even vital level, it's a psychological question, it's nothing, it's not really THE THING (it's the thing expressed in a HUMAN consciousness). Because the other day... the other day, suddenly I went out of humanity. My consciousness went right out of the human consciousness. And then I said to myself, "But... all that they say, all that they know, all that they have attempted, all that so-called knowledge which has been accumulated on earth, it's nothing! It's something that belongs only to MAN — eliminate man... and everything exists! And all the explanations man has given about things are like zero." That's it: everything exists.

I had the experience of the universe outside the human perception of that experience; and then the vanity of that human experience was so obvious, you know, that at that point a door began to open onto something else.

All this is perhaps the Lord taking possession of the brain?

It's hard to explain, but as an experience it was extraordinary. You see, we live INSIDE a formation,1 which was the human — human — formation, all human knowledge.... Because I was beginning to try to find what we know of human life and life on earth: it's almost nothing at all, a very small thing (Sri Aurobindo wrote somewhere that there were billions of years BEFORE). So what we know is practically nil. All right. So, to get out of that. And it led me quite naturally to go out of humanity — out of the earth, of the universe; of the earth that has been the product of all that we know (at any rate we are explaining what happened, what was there). And then suddenly, yes, the futility, the vanity of that knowledge appeared very clearly, and there was a sort of flash of something else.

14. November 1964 – Khrushchev, Chinese, Hitler; Savitri B1C4

But what's really interesting is that those who have experiences are for the most part Westerners, particularly Europeans, as though their past of negation had intensified the aspiration and prepared something in their receptivity — it struck me. Not the Americans... the Americans are still as frivolous as children (Mother laughs). But the Indians... obviously they are ahead, but they aren't where they ought to be: it's as if humanity had followed a curve and those who are (or were, rather) at the summit go down again, and then they have to climb up again — the Indians are climbing up again. The others, the Westerners, seem to have a past that was squeezed, that was as if compressed, and which has burst all of a sudden.

Soon afterwards:

I met V., he had a vision two or three days ago. He saw a peacock coming down, and on the peacock someone was sitting, erect, who wasn't Kali but like Kali (the naked Kali) and was holding in her hand the severed head of a man.

Did he see whose head it was?

Asiatic, that's vague.

It may be the sign of a victory.

V. is a very good clairvoyant.

When you spoke to me, I saw the twisted face of a Chinese.

But it could be a previous formation.

(silence)

The Khrushchev affair has been a bad thing. But generally things in the outer world move in a zigzag; instead of going straight, they go like this (zigzag gesture): action, reaction, action, reaction.... That's what Théon always said: in the outer world, a victory for one side always means a sort of RIGHT to victory for the other side; and then he added, "Those who know must be ever vigilant and on the alert, so that when the enemies win a little victory (which may be a perfectly superficial and insignificant victory), they immediately win a big victory!" (Laughing) He said that with great humor. And I noticed that on the individual level, it's true. On the level of countries... unfortunately, the people who determine the destiny of countries (the outer destiny) are incompetent and stupid, and they miss the opportunity. But that Khrushchev affair gave a right to a victory, you understand. It gave the other side a right to a victory.

(Mother looks at the photo) He (Suslov) is only an instrument. I mean he isn't an Asuric incarnation. But a strong will. He isn't a being who acts consciously for the Adversary: he thinks he is doing the right thing.

Oh, he may have violent passions and reactions, and ambitions too, but he isn't one of those beings who know they are instruments of the great Asura — he's not that. He is less dangerous than that. Not like Hitler — who knew, of course.

Hitler asserted that Falsehood should govern the world and that it was governing it. And he was very conscious of being the instrument of the Asura who had himself called "the Lord of Nations," who is precisely the present, current representation of the Asura of Falsehood (the one who was born "the Lord of Truth" — a lovely story...).

That's why Sri Aurobindo clearly and openly took the side of the Allies — it wasn't out of love for the British!

(long silence)

What was Kali sitting on?

On the peacock. It wasn't Kali, but like Kali, and naked.

It is clearly a victory through the disappearance of a man or a country.

I don't know why, while you were speaking to me, I saw the twisted face of a Chinese.

There is another thing. Recently, one day, I suddenly... I am extremely sensitive to the composition of the air, from my earliest childhood: "airs," if I may say so, they each had their own taste, their own color and quality, and I would recognize them to such a point that sometimes I would say, "Oh, the air of..." (I was a child, of course), "the air of this country or the air of that place has come here." It was like that. I was extremely sensitive to the quality of pure air, that is, without the elements that come from the decomposition of life and especially from the places where people are crowded together. It was like that to an extremely sharp degree: for instance, if I was moved from one place to another, I could be suddenly cured of an illness from the change of air. When I met Théon, it became conscious, an object of study, and... it still goes on. Perhaps a few days ago (I can't say, time has no meaning), but not very long ago, I said, "There's something new in the air." And something very unpleasant, extremely pernicious; I felt that that something (I didn't say anything to anyone, naturally) had a peculiar, extremely subtle odor, not a physical one, and had the power to separate vital vibrations from physical vibrations — that is to say, an extremely noxious element.

Immediately I set to work (it lasted for hours), and the night was spent counteracting it: I tried to find which higher vibration could counteract it, until I succeeded in clarifying the atmosphere. But the memory remained very precise. And very recently (maybe a day or two ago), they told me that the Chinese had chosen an Indian territory, in the North, to test a certain kind of atomic bomb, and that they had exploded a certain bomb there. When they told me this, the memory of my odor abruptly came back.

Which means that those vibrations travel very far — the physical vibrations stop at a certain distance (although they go much farther than is believed), but the vital vibrations that are behind (the "nervous" vibrations, if one can say so) must extend TREMENDOUSLY far.

You know, when there was that volcanic eruption in Martinique (it's something much more material), the volcanic dust was picked up after some time in Marseilles — which is far away. Exactly the same dust, carried by the wind. So a bomb of that kind must have considerable effects.

Can a bomb have a nonphysical action, a vital or subtle action?

It acts only because it has a subtle action — nothing would move, everything would be inert if it didn't have a subtle action.

It's the vital contained in Matter — it's like the phenomenon of radiation. It's a violent liberation of something contained in Matter. Like radiation. And it spreads out. They have indeed noticed it, but they don't want to know: when they exploded the bomb in Japan, the consequences went much, much farther than they expected, they were infinitely more serious and long-lasting than expected, because the sudden liberation of those forces... They only perceive a certain quantity, but there is all that is behind, which spreads out and has its action. You see, they observe, for instance, that cows are poisoned and their milk isn't drinkable for a certain time (it happened in England), but that's the most crude and outer phenomenon — there is another, deeper one, which is FAR more serious.

So when I said that ["the twisted face of a Chinese"], it seems to be beside the point, but that's because when those two things coincided, Kali suddenly became furious — I saw Kali furious, as when she decides that it will be "paid for." So V.'s vision adds a few landmarks.

Oh, you know, when she goes into a fit of power... you really feel that the earth is shaking.

(silence)

Very well, we will see.

I always say, "We will see," because... in reality, I am not worried, not worried at all, I am very sure — very sure. I have such an absolute certitude that the Wisdom that acts in the world is infinitely superior to all that we can imagine. We are like ignorant and stupid children in front of "something" that acts with a CERTITUDE, and so luminous, so luminous. With a super-harmony that turns into harmony the things that seem to us the most discordant.

So when I see the anxious human thoughts trying to know (Mother smiles) — "Don't worry, we will see." And when I say, "We will see," I have the joy of a certitude that what we will see will be a thousand times more beautiful than anything we can imagine.

Savitri B1C4:

"When darkness deepens strangling the earth's breast

And man's corporeal mind is the only lamp,

As a thief's in the night shall be the covert tread

Of one who steps unseen into his house.

A Voice ill-heard shall speak, the soul obey,

A power into mind's inner chamber steal,

A charm and sweetness open life's closed doors

And beauty conquer the resisting world

The truth-light capture Nature by surprise,

A stealth of God compel the heart to bliss

And earth shall grow unexpectedly divine."

And even the most skeptical will be compelled to see that something is changing, that it's not the same thing anymore.

Sri Aurobindo said (he said it to me personally and he wrote it), The time has come. Because he went away, people thought he was wrong; that was the general effect, they said to themselves, "He thought the time had come, but he went away because he saw he was wrong." — That's rubbish.

(Smiling) Besides, he didn't go so far away! I spend my nights with him, and with the most complete variety of work — it's a multiple, innumerable "Him"... and so wonderfully adapted to all necessities: terrestrial necessities and individual necessities.

And for him, it's only one small part of himself; because it's with him (I told you the story the other day) that I had that experience of going out of humanity, going out of the material world: it was with him, in his "company," if I may say so!

I like it when it's with him because it gives me a sort of certainty that it isn't an experience of my subjectivity — it's impersonal, entirely impersonal. Even if my subjectivity is worldwide, I don't want my experience to be subjective: I want every consciousness, whatever it may be, human or nonhuman, every consciousness awakening in that field, to have an identical experience, if it is truly objective. So when it's with him, I am quite sure.

(silence)

He continues to be happy with your book and its effects — besides, it's his book (laughing) as much as yours!

21. November 1964 – A Lived Faith

I have a calendar with quotations from Sri Aurobindo, and I had the answer in the evening. I don't remember the exact words, but he said, "The Spirit will change this human body too into a divine reality." That was the answer; he said, THE SPIRIT. I said to myself, "Obviously, but how can THIS be transformed?..."

That's the problem.

And the answer is always the same: it CANNOT depend on our effort. Naturally, it goes without saying that we must make ourselves as plastic and well-disposed as possible (I am speaking of the body), but the change CANNOT depend on it, it doesn't have the knowledge and it doesn't have the power; therefore, the change can only depend on the divine Will.

That's exactly it. This has been the experience of the past few days.

That's because what you call "aspiration" is a movement of your psychic consciousness, mentally formulated and supported by the vital — but it ISN'T YOUR BODY. And it's only if you are very attentive to the vibration of the cells, if you are accustomed to observing them and feeling them that you can see. Well, I don't know, but I can't complain about my body's cells.... You know, it isn't a perception, it isn't a sensation, it is... a LIVED FAITH in the existence of the Supreme alone — you know, a faith that it's the only Reality and the only Existence. Just that, and everything seems to swell up, as if all these cells were swelling up with such joy!... Only, it doesn't take the form of a feeling, not even of a sensation, even less of a thought; so if you aren't very attentive, you don't notice it. But, for instance, when I repeat the mantra, it's repeated by that famous physical mind, which is so stupid (the mantra is the only thing that can keep a rein on it), and now it has become so identified that the mantra is its whole life, it is like a pulsation of its being; but then when I come to the invocation (there is a series of invocations: each one has its own effect on the body), when I come to "Manifest Your Love," I see a sort of twinkling of a golden light, which represents an intense joy in all the cells.

It isn't easy to observe, you must be very, very, very detached from the movement of thought, otherwise you don't notice it. But if you see it, you see that even those cells are there waiting for the Thing.

I don't think that much more can be expected of them, except, perhaps, to get rid little by little of wrong habits and false vibrations (which, naturally, are the cause of what we call "illnesses").

But we can say, looking at it from an external standpoint, that ours is a rather thankless task!... The glory will come afterwards, but will these bodies see it? I don't know. There is such a huge, tremendous difference between what must be and what is. These are poor things, you know, there's no getting away from it, they are poor things.

One may say, along with popular imagination, the taste for the marvelous and all the legends, one may say, "Yes, a sudden transformation," but, but, but... it's just words.

(silence)

I remember having written somewhere, some ten years ago, that I would take it as a sign if my back became straight again. At the time, it wasn't much, but it disgusted me deeply, and I did it as a challenge. Naturally, now it's very far away from my consciousness and my thought, I find it childish, but I remembered it a few days ago also, and I said to myself that now I didn't care a bit about that, because to me it's nothing! All the rest... rail the rest is equally inadequate, incomplete and miserable, you know — miserable. If you think about a divine life, it's miserable.

And curiously, everything comes and presents itself as images and possibilities; so I say to myself, "But if after a time all this suddenly stops functioning, what will have been the use of doing all this work?" And there is always something — something that comes from a very absolute region — which makes me feel or understand or grasp the uselessness of death.

Why am I thus made to feel the uselessness of death?...

God knows, never, not one minute in my life, even when things were the darkest, the blackest, the most negative, the most painful, not once did the thought come, "I would like to die." And ever since I had the experience of psychic immortality, the immortality of consciousness, that is, in 1902 or 3, or 4 at the latest (sixty years ago now), all fear of death went away. Now the body's cells have the sense of their immortality. There was also a time when I almost had a sort of curiosity about death; it was satisfied by my two experiences in which, according to the surface illusion, my body was dead, while, within, I had a wonderfully intense life (the first time, it was in the vital, the other time, way up above). So that even that curiosity (I can't call it "curiosity"), even that question is no longer asked by the cells. But the possibility does present itself: according to the ordinary outer logic, if this isn't transformed, it must necessarily come to an end. And always, always, I receive the same answer, which isn't an answer with words, but an answer with a knowledge (how can I put it?...), a FACTUAL knowledge: "It's no solution." To say things in quite a banal way, this is the answer: "It's no solution."

So we are after another solution, since death isn't considered to be a solution. And it's obvious that it is no solution.

No, it may not be a failure if it's the Lord's Will. It's no longer ours. It's not that we run off, you understand: it's He who decides that it's over.

So the answer comes (not from me, it comes from very far and it's quite ABSOLUTE as a vibration): "It's no solution." It means it isn't, in the present case, considered to be the solution.

Our imagination is very poor. As for me, I can't imagine how it could happen! I can imagine novels, what I call the pulp novels of spiritual life, but that's nothing, it's childish.

(silence)

What I had noted was indeed this: "If my back straightens up, I will understand that there is something stronger than material habit."

Now there are quite a few other things besides my back to be straightened out! Life, seen from the external, superficial — very superficial — standpoint, from the standpoint of appearances, the life of this body is very, very precarious, in the sense that the activities are very limited — very limited — and in spite of this, I often feel that the natural need (it is a natural need) for silence and contemplative immobility (the cells have that: the need for a contemplative immobility), that that need is denied by circumstances. So, seen from outside, it's an infirmity; in other words, ordinary human beings with the ordinary thinking would say, "She gets tired easily, she can't do anything anymore, she..." — it isn't true, it's an appearance. But what is true is that the Harmony isn't established, there is still a difference between the body's sensation and that sort of... exhilaration... it's like an inner glory.

(silence)

It is still a condition in which things haven't adapted, there is a lack of adaptation, and also what may seem to be an incapacity for manifestation (?). Yet the body doesn't have the feeling or sensation of being unable to do what it wants to do — it never has; the power to act remains, but the will to act isn't there. And what still gives that sort of ill-being (a physically painful ill-being) is the friction between the body's spontaneous movement and what comes from outside: the imposition of outside wills.

This ill-being is growing in acuteness. It is true that one second of isolation (not a physical one), of a break in the contact [with others], is enough to restore the Harmony; but otherwise, if you don't take care to isolate yourself within, it creates a kind of disorganization.

And the body no longer finds pleasure in any of those things that are usually pleasant to a body: it's perfectly indifferent to them. But slowly, something, or someone, is teaching it to have, not pleasure or anything that looks (even remotely) like excitement, but a comfortable vibration in certain things of the senses. But that's very, very different from what it was before.

It is clear that in order to follow its own rhythm, the body should reduce its activities to the minimum; not exactly "reduce," but have the freedom of choice of its movements: nothing should be imposed on it from outside — which is quite far from reality. And yet, if one looks at the whole, there is an absolute conviction, even in the body, that nothing happens that isn't the effect of the supreme Will. Therefore, the conditions in which it finds itself are the conditions that He has wanted and wants — that He wants — at every second. So the conclusion is that there must be in the body a resistance or an incapacity to follow the Movement.

When the problem reaches that point, there is always a similar answer: "Don't concern yourself with that!" I think this is wisdom. There you are.

We must learn to let ourselves live, that's the important thing: "Don't be constantly reacting against this, trying that... — let yourself live."

In reality, the will to progress is still quite impregnated with desire: there isn't the smile of Eternity behind it.

The answer is always the same, which can be translated like this (but there aren't any words): "Don't concern yourself with that."

It is still a remnant of the old tension.

(Mother goes into contemplation)

There is, at any rate, a sort of sensation or perception that you are, for the moment, the only one here who really understands what's happening to me. That's something. I am very grateful, as they say, that at least, from the external standpoint, what's going on will not be entirely useless. Because as I said, the signs of the Power being at work are increasing day by day, day by day; only, if this is crystallized around an experience made perceptible to others, I think it becomes clearer, doesn't it, instead of being something quite diffuse. Therefore, even from this external standpoint of the external realization, you can be satisfied. In the great universal work, your existence has its place and its usefulness.

From the personal standpoint... my own feeling is that you are BOUND to have experiences after some time; they have to come, because that field is the one open. Changing this body is something new; but having experiences already exists, so it has to happen to you, it's bound to happen to you. But I believe your experiences will be of a very particular character, in the sense that they will be very positive.

You have categorically refused the experiences that consist in going out of the present existence in search of another — you haven't come for that and you don't want that. What you want is something very concrete — it's a little bit more difficult to have. But it will come.

25. November 1964 – A brief Wonder

Yesterday, during the meditation, I don't know what happened, but when they rang the gong for the end, I absolutely had the feeling it had just started!

As soon as the meditation started, something descended: a stillness, but a very comfortable stillness, extraordinarily comfortable, and then... finished, nothing, blank — completely blank. I was like that all the time at the table, when suddenly (the gong rang) bong! bong! it was over.

Time passed outside time.

It's the first time, because even when I have an experience, even the first time, I remember, when we began collective meditations and Sri Aurobindo came down and literally sat on the [Ashram] compound, it was very interesting, of course, and very compelling, but I was conscious of time. And this time... There have been ups and downs, good experiences and bad ones, all kinds of things, but I have always been conscious of time, while yesterday... I myself was astounded. I heard the gong and I had the feeling it had just started. There was even something in the body that was jubilant like a child: "It's going to last half an hour, it's going to be like this for half an hour" (it was funny, you know)... "ah, the true life at last!" That was the body's feeling, and it was going to last half an hour.... Bong! bong!... As if it had been robbed of its joy!

It's curious.

It started in a strange way: I have a beeswax candle, which smells of honey when it burns, a big candle I was sent from Switzerland. I have already burned half of it: I light it for the meditations. But there was a defect in the wick, it was carbonized, and yesterday it refused to burn. We lighted it — lighted it twice just before — and it went out just at the start of the meditation when they rang the gong. So the body consciousness said, "O Lord, we are so impure that we cannot even burn in front of You!" It was full of spontaneous simplicity: "O Lord, we are so impure..." And immediately, the answer (gesture of massive descent): everything stopped.

Perhaps it was that very childlike, but very spontaneous and very simple movement of the body, conscious of Matter's imperfection, "We are so impure that we cannot even burn in front of You!" — perhaps that's what provoked that answer.

It was a wonder — a brief wonder!

silence)

Afterwards, for the rest of the day, it was as if the body were asking, or were encouraged to ask (usually, it doesn't ask, it doesn't even ask for health or anything), and for the first time yesterday in the afternoon, it seemed to be saying, with a sort of aspiration almost not formulated in words, but with the feeling and impression: "Am I not going to be ready for You to live in these cells? For these cells to be You?..." Words spoil it because they give a somewhat brutal and hard precision, but it was as if the cells were saying, "Never will we have that marvelous Peace...." It was a peace, but a peace full of creative power, and so rich, containing an infinite power, rich with joy; and it gave the body the courage to say, "We will be THAT only if You are here, and You alone."

Sri Aurobindo wrote, "Every event (like every moment of life) will be a marvel when it is the marvelous Whole that lives" — that lives in the body. This was really like the expression of what the body felt. And it is its ONLY raison d'être — there is no other, all the rest... It went through every disgust, every disdain, every indifference, to the point where it asked, "But how can we live? What for? Why, why do we exist, why were we created? Why?... All that is nothing!" And strangely, there was a sort of memory of the eons of time during which people lived in this ignorance of the why and in a sort of bewilderment.... That so much time could have been spent to find the only thing... the only thing that exists! And why all that, why? All that, centuries of absurd sensations.... It was curious: like a slow memory of a futile and useless life — absurd — and so painful! "Why all that in order to find THAT?"

It is curious.

I don't know if it is an answer to this question, but there came today a sort of film show: a long procession of all the stories telling how men destroy what's higher than they, cannot tolerate what's higher than they: the martyrs, the killings, the tragic ends of all those who represented a power or truth higher than mankind. As though that were the explanation — the symbolic explanation — of the reason for the almost infinite time it took for Matter to awaken — awaken to the imperious need for the Truth.

It was as if I were told, "You see, there was a time when they burned you at the stake, tortured you...," memories from past lives. And those memories were associated with the recent story of a Protestant missionary who said, though not in so many words, "We worship Christ only because he DIED for men, because he was crucified for men."

All this seems to have been necessary to knead Matter.

28. November 1964 – A long way to go!

This body is REPRESENTATIVE: as an individual, it is representative of terrestrial modes of being.

And I saw very clearly: some time ago (a year, or maybe more), I believed that the thought and attitude and convictions of certain people [around Mother] were partially the cause of certain difficulties (with regard to age, especially), but that's not true! What people think and what they feel is exactly what's needed to act on this! All that is USED to teach the body what it must know: where its lack of receptivity is, where its inertia is, where... Oh, the slavery to the habit of vibration is a terrible thing, terrible!

From the standpoint of health, it's terrible. And "health" doesn't exist, it means nothing; it no longer means anything. "Disease" no longer means anything, it really doesn't: it's distortions of vibrations and shiftings of vibrations, and... (what can I call it?) encrustations — from the point of view of movement, it's like bottlenecks, and from the point of view of the cell, it's like encrustations: it's what remains of the old Inertia out of which we came.

But it's double: there is Inertia on one hand, and on the other vital perversion — the NERVOUS perversion of the vital world, of the vital influence. There isn't just Inertia: there is a sort of perverted ill will. You can easily (relatively easily) drive it out and eliminate it entirely from conscious mental and vital life; that work, which in the past was considered as, oh, a tremendously difficult thing — changing an individual's nature — is relatively easy; all in the nature that depends on the vital or the mind is relatively easy to change, very easy. I am not saying very easy for the ordinary man, but very easy in comparison with the work in Matter, in the cells of the body. Because, as I told you last time, their goodwill is undeniable and their thrust towards the Divine has become absolutely spontaneous: all that is conscious is luminous — but the trouble is all that isn't yet conscious! It's the mass of all that isn't yet conscious and is, then, tossed between two influences, one as odious as the other: the influence of Inertia (gesture of dazed sluggishness), of the MASS that stops you from moving forward, and the influence of vital perversion and ill will — it's this influence that makes everything crooked, that distorts everything.

And it has become very subtle, very hidden, difficult to ferret out. When almost everything was like that, it was visible, it was conspicuous; but that state changed very fast: the difficulty is what's hidden underneath and isn't "voluminous" enough to draw attention to itself. And, oh, those habits, those habits.... For instance (magnifying it to make it more easily visible), the habit of foreseeing catastrophes....

And anything that disturbs the Inertia is, for Inertia, a catastrophe. In the world, the earthly world (it's the only one I can speak of with competence; of the others, I have only overall visions), in the earthly world, for Inertia (which is the basis of the creation and is necessary to fix, to concretize things), anything that disturbs it is a catastrophe. That is to say, the advent of Life was a monstrous catastrophe, and the advent of intelligence in Life another monstrous catastrophe, and now the advent of Supermind is the final catastrophe! That's how it is. And for the unenlightened mind, it really is a catastrophe! I know cases, for instance, of people who are sick: if they follow the routine of the doctor and medicines and treatment and disease, they get well; if by some mischance (!) they call on the Force and I apply it, the more I apply, the more terrified they are! They feel absolutely unexpected phenomena and they are terrified: "What's happening to me! What's happening to me!" As if it were absolutely catastrophic. The minute the Force comes and they feel just a bit of it, like one drop, they tense up, they resist, they panic, they become absolutely restless. That's right: they become so restless, so absolutely restless! That is, the whole system spends its time rejecting and rejecting all that comes.

It's very interesting.

And I noted it, too, it was that way with the body in the beginning: any unexpected vibration, more powerful, deeper, stronger, TRUER than the individual vibration, and instantly there is a panic in the cells: "Oh, what's going to happen to me!..." Now, thank God, that period is past, but there was a time when it was like that.

So you understand how long the way is.... All that goes on in the mind is child's play in comparison; all their mental difficulties are... to me it's theater — a drama, you know, a drama to interest the public.

Well, I don't know, but there is a long, long way to go — a long way — to change this into a substance plastic enough, receptive enough, strong enough to express the supreme Power. There is a lot to be done, a whole lot.

(silence)

And the popular mind is simplistic, it sees the final result as a natural and almost spontaneous expression; so you aren't so sure, you say to yourself, "After all..." But this also (Mother smiles) is the Supreme's way of doing things — I can see that very clearly.

And I am obliged to keep regular hours because the entire life of others depends on it. That was why people wanted to withdraw into solitude — there is an advantage and a drawback; the advantage is that I try to make things very automatic, that is, quite outside a conscious will: they should work by themselves. On the mental level, it's very easy, you can detach yourself completely and nothing matters; but for the body, it's difficult, because its rhythm... The whole rhythm of ordinary life is a mentalized one; even people who live in vital freedom are at odds with the whole social organization — it's a mentalized life: there are clocks that strike the hour and it is agreed that things must be that way.... Mentally, you can be perfectly free: you leave your body in the cogwheels and stop bothering about it; but when it's this poor body itself that has to find its own rhythm, how difficult it is!... How difficult. Sometimes, all of a sudden, it feels a discomfort; then I look and I see that there is something that could be an experience, but that would necessitate certain conditions of isolation, of quietness and independence, and it isn't possible. Then, very well... as far as I can, I go within and do the minimum (the maximum of what can be done, which is a minimum compared to what could be done).

But of course, Sri Aurobindo always said: "For the Work to be complete, it must be general" — one cannot give up. An individual attempt is only a very partial attempt. But the fact that the Work is general delays the results considerably — well, we have to put up with it. That's how it is, so that's how it is.

(silence)

If the action were individual, it would necessarily be extremely poor and limited; even if the individual is very vast and his consciousness is as vast as the earth, the experience is limited. It's still one aggregate of cells, which can only have a limited sum of experiences (maybe not in the course of time, but undeniably in space). But the minute the identification with the rest takes place, the consequences take place, too: the difficulties of the rest come and have to be absorbed, they have to be transformed. So it amounts to the same thing. It's exactly what's going on now: I don't go out, I have limited my activities as much as possible (I see plenty of people, but still infinitely less than before — before, I used to see them by the thousand), but this reduction is largely made up for by the widening of the physical, material consciousness, to such a point that I constantly, constantly have sensations that seem like individual sensations, but immediately I can see that they are other individuals' sensations, which come because the consciousness is spread out and receives all that in its movement: a movement as if one gathered everything together, then gave it to the Lord.

(silence)

Naturally, it still belongs to the old methods, but we shouldn't brag, you know! We shouldn't think we have arrived before we've reached the end. To the people who write to me, "Oh, I rely on your Force alone, I don't want any medicine," I reply, "You are wrong." Because I, too, take medicine — and I don't believe in it! Yet I take it just the same, because there is all the old suggestion and all the old habit, and I want to give my body the best possible conditions.... But it's quite amusing: as long as it's given the medicine, it stays very quiet, and if it isn't given the medicine, it starts saying, "Why? What's the matter?" Yet when the medicine is there, it has no effect, it doesn't intervene; it's merely... merely a habit.

Not to speak of the cases when it makes things worse. For instance, for those very tooth troubles, the doctor wanted to give me those penicillin pills that you let melt in your mouth to prevent an inflammation; when I take one of those pills (laughing), there's a furious rage in all my teeth! As if all the elements attacked were furious: "Why are you disturbing us? We were nice and quiet, we weren't troubling you!" And everything starts swelling furiously.

It's amusing to follow it consciously, very amusing! And you see: diseases, medicines, all that is part of the old drama.

But we must keep on playing, because there are people who take it seriously! They WANT (it's the habit), they want us to keep on playing: "Keep on playing, don't brag, you still don't know — you still don't know how to cure us or transform us." It's true, I don't deny it, I don't yet know how to transform them, so... One shouldn't be proud, that's very bad.