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11 January 1967
A disciple complained that people took Mother’s time with questions often useless, while less and less time was left for her to attend to apparently more important work. Mother commented:
It has to be like that, since it is like that. It is perhaps a lesson (it is an indication), but it has a purpose. The lesson that I have to understand, I am trying to understand. I am learning to be patient, oh! such a patience…. Always there are revolts, insults, all that. For me it is absolutely zero and sometimes it is even amusing. When I am in my own condition, the true condition of compassion, it changes nothing, it does not raise even a small ripple on the surface, nothing. The question was put to me yesterday; I was asked if insult, the feeling of being insulted, and what is called in English “self-respect” (something corresponding a little to amour-propre in French) had any place in the sadhana. Of course, there is no place for it, it is well understood! But I have seen the movement, it was very clear, I have seen that without ego, when the ego is not there, there cannot be this sort of ruffle in the being. Because I went back far into the past to a time when I still used to feel it (many years ago), but now, it is no longer something foreign even, it is something impossible. The whole being, and even (it is strange), even the physical constitution does not understand what that means. It is the same thing when there is materially a shock (Mother shows a scratch on her elbow), like that for example; it is no longer felt as one feels an injury, it is no longer felt like that. Most often there is nothing at all, it passes absolutely unperceived in the whole; but when something is felt, it is only the impression – a very, very gentle, very intimate impression of a help seeking to make itself felt, a lesson that is to be learnt. But not as one does in the mental way in which there is always a stiffening; it is not that, it is immediately Page – 54 a sort of offering of the being, which gives itself in order to learn. I am speaking of the cells. It is very interesting. Evidently if you mentalise, you must say that it is the feeling or consciousness of the divine Presence in all things and that the mode – the mode of contact – derives from the state in which you are. Yes, that is the experience of the body. And in individuals, when there is any knock or shock, always the only perception is a clear vision of the ego – the ego manifesting itself. They say, “It is the other.” I would not say, “Oh! That one was angry” or “Oh! This one… ”, no, it is his ego; not even his ego: the ego, the ego principle – the ego principle which still intervenes. It is very interesting, because the ego has become for me a kind of impersonal entity, while for everybody else it is the acute sense of his personality! Instead of that, it is a kind of way of being (terrestrial or human, one can say), which is in greater or lesser quantity here or there or there, giving each one the illusion of personality. It is very interesting.
Yes, but the trouble is that others do not learn their lesson, so …
Oh! If they learnt their lesson everything would change very quickly.
So the result is that you are invaded, engulfed. Cannot! All your time is taken, all your …
They cannot engulf me! (Mother laughs) I am too big!
Materially, all the same, you are overwhelmed. Page – 55 I have noticed that if I resist, it becomes bad. If I have the feeling of fluidity, there are no more knocks. It is the same thing as for this scratch (Mother shows her elbow.) If you stiffen and things resist, you get a knock. It is like men who know how to fall: they fall, they break nothing; whereas men who do not know how to fall, just a little fall and they break something. It is the same thing. One must learn how to be… the perfect unity. To correct, to straighten, is still resistance. So what will happen if the invasion, as you say, continues? It will be amusing, let us see! (Mother laughs.) As others are not in the same state, perhaps they will be vexed, but I am helpless! (Mother laughs.) One must always laugh, always. The Lord laughs, and He laughs, and His laugh is so nice, so nice, so full of love. It is a laugh that envelops you with an extraordinary sweetness. This too men have deformed – they have deformed everything (Mother laughs). Page – 56
A somewhat undefinable thing has happened. The body had the habit of performing its functions automatically, as a natural thing; that is to say, for it there was no question of their importance or usefulness. It had not, for example, this mental or vital view of things, of what is “important” or what is “interesting” and what is not. That did not exist. And then, now that the cells are becoming conscious, they stand back, as it were (Mother makes a gesture of withdrawal), they look at themselves, they are beginning to look at themselves in action, and they are very much questioning to what purpose all that is. And then, an aspiration: “How? How should it be truly? What is our function, our utility, our basis? Yes, what is our basis and our standard of life?” One might say, translating once more in mental terms: “How will one be when one is divine? What difference will there be? What is the divine way of being?” And there, what speaks is all this sort of physical basis, which is entirely made up of thousands of small things, absolutely indifferent in themselves, which have no reason for existing except as a whole, as a totality, as a support for another action; but in themselves they seem to have no meaning. And then, once more it is the same thing: a kind of receptivity, of silent opening allowing the thing to enter; and a very subtle perception of a way of being that would be luminous, harmonious. This way of being is still very undefinable; but in this quest, there is a constant perception (translated by a vision) of a multi-coloured light, of all the colours – all the colours, not in layers but as though (gesture of dotting) it was a grouping of all the colours by dots. It is now two years (perhaps a little more, I do not remember) since I met the Tantriks. I was in relation with them and I began to see that Light, and I thought that it was the “tantrik light”, the tantrik way of seeing the Page – 57 material world. But now I see it constantly, associated with everything, and it seems to be what might be called a “perception of true Matter”. All possible colours are joined together without being mixed up (same gesture of dotting), and joined together by luminous dots. Everything is as if made of that. And this seems to be the true way of being – I am not yet sure, but in any case, it is a way of being much more conscious. And I see it all the while: with open eyes, closed eyes, all the while. And you have a strange (for the body), a strange perception, at once of subtleness, of penetrability, if one may say so, of suppleness of form and positively not of an eradication but a considerable diminution of the rigidity of forms – eradication of rigidity, not eradication of forms: a suppleness in the forms. And the body itself, when for the first time it felt this in one part or another, had the impression – it was a bit lost, as it were – the impression that something was escaping. But if one keeps quiet and waits quietly, that is simply replaced by a sort of plasticity, of fluidity, which seems to be a new way for the cells. It would probably be what materially must replace the physical ego; that is to say, the rigidity of the form appears to be yielding to this new way of being. But, well, we know the first contact is always very “surprising”, but gradually the body gets accustomed. It is the moment of the passage from one way to the other which is a little difficult. That is done very progressively, and yet there is a moment (the moment of the passage), a few seconds that are… the least that one can say is, “unexpected”. All the habits are in this way undone. And for all the functions it is the same: for blood circulation, for digestion, for respiration – for all the functions. And at the moment of the passage, it is not that the one suddenly replaces the other, but it is a fluid state between the two, and it is difficult. It is only this great Faith, wholly immovable, luminous, constant, immutable – the faith in the real existence of the supreme Lord, in the Page – 58 sole real existence of the Supreme – which enables everything to continue to be the same in appearance. They are like the big waves of all the ordinary movements, the ordinary ways of being, the ordinary habits which are repulsed, and come back and try to engulf, and once again they are pushed back. And I see that for years the body and the whole bodily consciousness used to fall back into the old way, as a safety, as a means of safety, to escape. And now it has agreed not to do it any more, but to accept on the contrary: “Well, if it is dissolution, it is dissolution” – but it accepts whatever will be. In the mind, when the thing happens in the physical mind (it was years ago, but I had observed it even then), it is this which makes people feel that they are going mad, which frightens them; and with the fright things come to pass, and then they hustle back into the ordinary common sense to get away from it. It is the equivalent – it is not the same thing – but it is the equivalent of what happens in the material: you feel that all the normal stability is disappearing. Well, for a long time – a long time – there was this falling back into the habit; and then you are quite at ease, you begin again. And now they do not want it any more: “Whatever happens, we will see” – the great adventure. “How will we be how will we be? How…” Yes, the cells saying, “How should we be? How will we be?”… It is interesting. Page – 59
This problem of transformation, I see more and more clearly that there are three approaches to it, three ways of proceeding, and to be complete the three must be combined. One, naturally the most important one, is the way that may be called “spiritual”, which is that of contact with the Consciousness – Love-Consciousness-Power, yes, it is that; it is these three aspects: the supreme Love-Consciousness-Power, and the contact, the identification: to render all the material cells capable of receiving That and expressing That – to be That. Of all the means, this is the most powerful, and the most indispensable. There is the occult way, which makes all the intermediary worlds intervene. There is a very detailed knowledge of all the powers and personalities, all the intermediary regions, and it uses all that. It is there that one makes use of the divinities of the Overmind. This is in the second way. Shiva, Krishna, all the aspects of the Mother form part of this second way. And then there is the higher intellectual approach, which is the projection of a spirit transcending the scientific, which seizes the problem from below, and which has its importance also. From the viewpoint of detailed handling, this approach diminishes the approximations, brings a more direct and precise action. If the three can be combined, then evidently the thing will go faster. Without the first nothing is possible, without it the others are even illusory: they lead nowhere, you turn round and round indefinitely. But if you clothe the first with the other two, then I think the action becomes much more precise and direct and rapid. This is the result of the “studies” these days. Page – 60
I have received a few questions from grown-up students (not small children, but grown-ups) on the subject of “death”, of the conditions of death, why there are so many accidents at the present moment, etc. I have already answered two persons. Naturally, the answers were on the mental level, but with an attempt to go beyond. It is this kind of mental logic which wants, yes, things to be deduced from one another in accordance with this logic, so they arrive at questions… that are impossible.¹ It is nothing very new, but it is a widening of the consciousness, and just recently all these questions came into the atmosphere and gave first of all the feeling that man knows nothing about death – he does not know what it is, he does not know what happens, he has built all kinds of hypotheses, but there is nothing certain. And by pushing ahead, by insisting in this way by pushing, I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing which is really death. There is only an appearance, an appearance based on a limited view. But there is no radical change in the vibration of the consciousness. This came as an answer to a kind of anxiety
¹The time and the way of death, are these not always chosen by the soul? In the great destructions of mankind by bombing, flood, earthquake, have all the souls chosen to die together at that moment?
The immense majority of men have a collective destiny. For them the question does not arise at all. One who has an individualised psychic being can survive even in the midst of collective catastrophes, if that is his soul’s choice.
After death, once separated from his physical being, from his vital and mental beings, how is the soul conscious of being, of existing?
The soul is a spark of the Supreme Divine; I do not see how the Lord has need of a body in order to be conscious of his being. Page – 61 (there was a kind of anxiety in the cells in not knowing what death truly was – just that, a kind of anxiety) and the answer was very clear and persistent: it is that the consciousness alone can know, for… for the importance given to the difference of condition is only a superficial importance based upon the ignorance of the phenomenon in itself. One who would be able to maintain a means of communication could say that for himself it makes no considerable difference. But this is something that is being worked out. There are still areas that are not clear, there are details of experience that are missing. So it seems to me that it would be better to wait till the knowledge becomes more complete, because instead of saying an approximation with suppositions, it would be better to say the complete fact with the total experience. Therefore we put it off till later on.
But you say there is no difference… When one is on the other side, does one continue to have or can one have the perception of the physical world?
Yes, yes, it is so.
The perception of beings of…
Yes, it is so. Only, instead of having a perception… you come out of a kind of illusory state and of a perception that is a perception of appearances, but you have a perception; that is to say, there were moments when I had the perception, I could see the difference; only, the experience was not total (it was not total in the sense that it was interrupted by outward circumstances), so it is better to wait a little before speaking of it. But the perception is there. Not absolutely identical, but with an effectivity sometimes greater in itself; but it was not perceived truly from the other Page – 62 side. I do not know how to explain. I have had an example – not an example, but something lived, the full perception – of a person who lived for years with me, who has remained in wholly conscious contact after going out of the body (but going out of the body very materially), and who is not dissolved but is closely associated with another living being, and has continued the life of his own consciousness in this association. And all that – I cannot give the names or the facts, but it is as concrete as it can be. And this continues. All this has been seen – I saw it long ago, but it came back as an illustration of the new consciousness, just this morning. Extraordinarily concrete in its effects: changing the capacities and movements of the consciousness of the other, and consciously – an absolutely conscious life. And it is the same consciousness that was conscious during the period when there was nobody at all and the presence was visible only in the vision at night. There are others. That one is very near and very intimate and it is why I could follow all the details. But it is clear, precise and evident only with this new vision because, how to say?… I knew it – I knew it before, I knew it – but I saw it again with the new consciousness, the new way of seeing, and then the comprehension was total, the perception total, altogether concrete, with elements that were wholly missing – convincing elements – wholly missing in the first perception, which was a mental-vital knowledge. This was a knowledge of the consciousness of the cells. But all that would be interesting only with all the facts (which cannot be given). So I would like to have a more complete, more “impersonal” experience, so to say, that is to say, which is not illustrated by facts, which is a vision of the totality of the process. Then only I shall be able to speak. It will come. Page – 63
Yesterday someone wrote to me asking: “After all, what is the Divine?” I answered. I told him that I was giving a reply to help him, but there could be a hundred which would all be good, one as good as another. “The Divine is lived, but cannot be defined.” And then I added: but as you put to me the question, I answer: “The Divine is the absolute of perfection, eternal source of all that exists, of whom we become conscious progressively, all the while being Himself from all eternity.” Once someone told me also that it was for him something simply unthinkable. So I answered him: “No! That does not help you. You have only to think that the Divine is all (at the maximum, yes), all that we want to become in our highest, most luminous aspiration. All that we want to become, that is the Divine.” He was so happy, he told me: “Oh! That way it becomes easy!” But when you look – as you look coming out of the mental activity and as you look at the experience which you have – and you say to yourself: “How to say this? How to explain this?”, then what is nearest, most accessible is this: into this “something” which we aspire to become, we put instinctively, spontaneously, all that we wish to be, all that we conceive of as most wonderful, all that is the object of an intense aspiration (intense and ignorant), all that. And with all that you come near to the “Something” and… Essentially, it is not by the thought that you have the contact; you have the contact through something identical in the being, which wakes up by the intensity of the aspiration. And then for oneself, as soon as this contact – this fusion – is obtained, even if only for a second, there is no longer any need to explain: it is something that imposes itself in an absolute way and that is outside and beyond all explanation. Page – 64 But in order to reach there, each one puts into it whatever guides him most easily. And when one has the experience, at the moment of this fusion, this joining, it becomes evident to the consciousness that only the identical can know the identical and that therefore it is the proof that It is there (Mother points to the centre of the heart). It is a proof that It is there. And it is by the intensity of aspiration that this awakens. When I received the question, it was altogether as if the person was telling me, “Yes, yes, all that is very good, but after all what is this that is the Divine?” Then I read his letter; there came a silence, a total silence, of everything, and as though a single look, a single look gathering together everything and wanting to see…. I remained in this way, looking, till the words came; then I wrote: “Here is one answer; there could be a hundred, one as good as another.” At the same time, when there was this look towards the “something” that needed definition, there was a great silence everywhere and a great aspiration (gesture as of a flame rising up), and all the forms which this aspiration took. It was very interesting… the story of the aspiration of earth… towards the wonderful Unknown which one wants to become. And everyone – whoever was destined to make the joining – in his simplicity believes that the bridge he has followed is the only one. The result: religions, philosophies, dogmas, credos – battle. Seen as a whole it is very interesting, very charming, with a Smile that looks out. Oh ! this Smile… that looks out. This Smile, as though it were saying, “You make it so complicated and it could be so simple!” To express it in a literary way, one might say: “Such complications for such a simple thing: to be oneself.”
(Silence) Page – 65 And you, what do you think the Divine is?
I do not know, it is a question I never put to myself.
Neither do I ! I have never put the question to myself. Because as soon as there was a need to know, there was spontaneously an answer. And an answer, not with words which one debates: an answer… something like that, a vibration. It is a thing almost constant now. Naturally men create difficulties (I believe they must like them very much, because…) for everything, for the least thing there is always a world of difficulties. So one passes one’s time saying: “Quiet, quiet, quiet – be calm.” And the body itself lives in the midst of difficulties (it also seems to like them !), but all of a sudden the cells sing out their OM... spontaneously. And then it is as though a child’s joy in all these cells which say (Mother, in a tone of wonder): “Ah yes! One is able to do that? One has the right to do that!” It is touching. And the effect is immediate: this great Vibration, peaceful, all powerful. As for me, if I was not under the constant pressure of all the wills around, I would say: “Why do you want to know what the Divine is? What does it matter to you? You have only to become it.” But they do not understand a joke. “I want to know what the Divine is.” “But no, it is altogether useless.” “Ah!” They answer you with a scandalised look: “Ah! It isn’t interesting?” “You have no need to know: you have to become it.” For them, I mean the vast intellectual majority, they cannot conceive that one can do or be something without knowing what it is. That also, one might say if one likes the joke: “It is only when one does not know that one is most divine.” Page – 66 (Mother goes into contemplation.)
For those who like definitions, there is another way of answering to “What is the Divine?”… “A vastness, smiling and luminous.” And it is there, is it not? It is there.
After a few days.
I have something to add to what we said the other day about the Divine. Someone asks me: “And what is God?” It is about a text of Sri Aurobindo. Here it is:
“Love leads us from the suffering of division into the bliss of perfect union, but without losing that joy of the act of union which is the soul’s greatest discovery and for which the life of the cosmos is a long preparation. Therefore to approach God by love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible spiritual fulfilment.”¹
It is in the context of the last phrase that I am asked: “What is God?” Therefore I said (I took up the word “God”): “It is the name man has given to all that surpasses him and dominates him, all that he cannot know, but to which he submits.” Instead of putting “to all that surpasses him”, one might put “to that which surpasses him”, because “all that” is debatable from the intellectual point of view. I mean there is a “something” – a something which is indefinable and inexplicable – and this something, man has always felt, dominates him. It transcends all possible understanding and it dominates him. And so the religions have given it a name; man has called him “God”; the English call him God; in another language he is called in ¹ The Synthesis of Yoga, Cent. Vol. 21, p. 523. Page – 67 another way, but finally it is that. I do not give any definition purposely. Because the feeling of all my life has been that it is a word, and a word behind which people have put many very undesirable things… this idea of God, for example, who wants to be unique, as they say: “God is unique.” But they feel it and they say it as Anatole France said it, I believe it is in the Rَevolte des Anges: “This God who wants to be the only one and all alone.” That is the thing which had made me completely atheist, if one might say so, in my childhood; I did not accept a being who declared himself to be unique and all-powerful, whoever he might be. Even if he was unique and all-powerful (Mother laughs), he must not have the right to proclaim it ! It was like this in my mind. I could give a discourse upon it for a full hour, to say how in each religion they confronted it. In any case, I gave what seemed to me the most objective definition. And like the other day, in “What is the Divine?”, I tried to give the impression of the Thing; here I wanted to fight against the use of the word, which for me is hollow, but dangerously hollow.
I remember a verse from Savitri which is very powerful and which says in a line all that wonderfully. It says: “The Nameless that saw God born.”¹
¹ The bodiless Namelessness that saw God born And tries to gain from the mortal’s mind and soul A deathless body and a divine name. (Savitri, Cent. Vol. 28, p. 40) Page – 68 |