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9 February 1972
This talk begins with Mother’s comments on the message to be distributed on the Darshan of 21 February 1972.
“The complete unification of the whole being around the psychic centre is the essential condition to realise a perfect sincerity.”
I have observed that people were insincere simply because one part of the being says one thing and another part says another thing. It is that which constitutes insincerity.
But it is very difficult to have a state of consciousness that is permanent, to have always the same consciousness ruling all the time.
But that is true so long as one is not unified, my child. As for me it has always been the same thing (Mother makes a gesture of a straight line) for years and years. It comes from there, it is the psychic consciousness, and it is CONSTANT. I have had recently for some moments the experience of un-unified consciousness, but it has not been like that for years and years, at least for thirty years.¹ Directly the psychic being became the master, began ruling the being, it was finished – finished, and it has been like that (same gesture of a straight line). This indeed is a sure sign, always like that, always the same. And it is always the same thing: “What Thou willest, what Thou willest.” And this “Thou” is not something that is up there in some far-off region and whom one does not know: He is everywhere, He is in everything, He is there constantly, He is within the being – and you cling to Him in that way; this the only solution.
¹ In fact sixty-five. Page – 290 This is a recent discovery of mine. It is the discovery why people are insincere (even when they try to be sincere) – because it is now one part, now another part and now a third part that is so; that part is then quite sincere in its demands, but it is not in consonance with the rest.
Yes, this means that the psychic consciousness enters into the physical consciousness.
Yes. Because, there alone things are permanent. Yes…
The psychic consciousness must enter into the ordinary physical consciousness.
Yes. That is the difficult thing.
But, my child, that happened to me, as I told you, at least thirty years ago. The psychic consciousness was always there ruling the being and guiding it. And all impressions, everything was placed before it in this way (gesture as though in front of a searchlight) so that it might give the right direction. And the physical also was all the time as though listening always to the command from the Divine. But the thing was constant, constant – before I came here. I came here in that state – it was long ago. And the thing has not flickered. It is only recently that I had this experience¹ one night for some hours, two to three hours – well, it was horrible, it appeared to me hellish. It was to make
¹ The experience of un-unified consciousness. Page – 291 me know, to make me understand the condition of others. And then, when the psychic is no longer there… The body is like this, always listening, listening, always listening (gesture upward or inward) – listening. But the thing is not expressed in words, – the Divine’s command, – it expresses itself just like a will asserting itself (gesture of an unshakable descent). Need I add anything to make it precise?
You said, “complete unification of the whole being”.
That means the physical also. Page – 292
This talk begins with Mother’s comments on the message to be distributed on February 29, the Golden Day, anniversary of the descent of the Supramental Manifestation upon earth in 1956.
“It is only when the Supramental manifests in the body-mind that its presence can be permanent.”
This message is a saying of Sri Aurobindo’s – they have made out as though it was my saying. It was Sri Aurobindo who wrote it, I simply said: Sri Aurobindo has said “permanently”.
But, Mother, it is your experience, therefore… (Mother laughs). (Silence)
But it would be wiser to speak of it when it has been done! When it has been installed, then… For the moment… (gesture of swinging from one side to another).
This discipline of the physical mind is… I do not know by which end to catch it. I find it very difficult.
Very difficult. It is very difficult. You must begin by obtaining the silence at will. To obtain the silence at any moment. I believe that is the starting-point.
Yes, but to get the silence at will is not difficult, you concentrate for a second and it truly falls silent. And as long as you are concentrated, it is perfectly silent. But the moment you relax your concentration, finished. (Mother laughs) That moves, moves this way, moves that way. Page – 293 The mind now has lost the habit of running about. That habit it must lose.
How to do it?
I do not know, because for me it was spontaneous. Only when someone speaks to me or when something comes to shake me out of it… otherwise, left to itself, quite naturally it is like that (gesture of immobility, turned upward)…. Perhaps that is the way (same gesture): contemplating the Divine in this manner.
(A smiling silence)
It is that, the natural state (same gesture). Strangely enough it is even translated by … a sensation in the body, the sensation of being wholly enveloped, just as if a baby were swathed. Yes, truly it is like that, being enveloped by the Divine (gesture).
(Silence)
It is now two or three days, I do not remember exactly, there was a great difficulty and then immediately I felt myself enveloped (gesture) like a baby being carried in the arms of the Divine. You understand, it was like that. It was as though I was a baby being carried in the arms of the Divine. And then … after a time (but it was rather long) when it had been solely in the Divine Presence like that, the pain disappeared. It did not even ask for the pain to go, it left. It took a little time, it left. I had completely, completely the feeling of being a baby enveloped (gesture) in the arms of the Divine. Extraordinary. Page – 294 (Silence)
Well, for a time it is like that: “What Thou willest, what Thou willest” and then that too falls silent… (Mother opens her hands upward in a gesture of offering). (Silence) It is the type of concentration that must change.
Yes.
Because when you follow this discipline of the physical mind and when it thus escapes you to the right and to the left, you always resume the concentration mentally and mentally re-establish silence. So each time it is through the mind that you practise the discipline …
Ah!
…but the mind, the very moment you relax it… There must be a descent of something, something must take possession.
Indeed, it is the feeling of a baby’s powerlessness, you understand? But it is not a thing “thought out”, “willed”, it is absolutely spontaneous, and then from there you pass into a state… (Mother opens her hands in a smile of beatitude). So long as there is this feeling of someone who wills, who does a thing and all that, it is useless … (same gesture, hands open in a smile).
(Mother goes into contemplation.) Page – 295 The Lord is looking after us?
(Laughing) I believe, yes! (Mother takes hold of the disciple’s hands.) Do you not feel Him?
Yes, Mother. Ah! … Page – 296
About an “accident”.
It is like that. It is like an imperative command: Go straight, else all will go wrong. It is becoming terrible, terrible. It is like a Pressure – a frightful Pressure – to bring about the desired progress. I feel it in myself for my body. But my body is not afraid, it says (Mother opens her hands): “Very well, if I am to end, it is the end.” Every minute it is like that: the true thing (Mother brings down her fist) or the end. That is what seems to have come down – you know I said that something had come down (it is written somewhere) and we shall know one day, we shall know very soon what it is. You have read it, haven’t you?¹
Yes, it was on February 21.
But it is that, it is a kind of … no half-measure, no compromise, no approximation, no … not that. It is this (Mother brings down her fist). And it is so for the body, at every minute there is an imperative: it is life or it is death. It is not the approximation which has lasted indefinitely. For centuries it was neither altogether bad, nor altogether good – it is no longer so. The body knows that this is the way for the supramental body to be formed: it must be wholly under the influence of the Divine – no compromise, no approximation, no “it will
¹ “The whole day of the twenty-first I had a strong feeling that it was the birthday of everyone, and I was impelled to say to everyone ‘Bonne Fête’. “It was a very strong feeling that something new has manifested in the world and that all who were ready and receptive could embody it. “No doubt one will know in a few days what it was.” Page – 297 come”, not so: it is like this (Mother brings down her fist), a formidable Will. But … it is the only way for things to go fast. (Long silence)
But when one begins to understand practically the necessity of the transformation, when the thing starts truly to be understood and when one tries to do something, one finds that when the material substance receives a blow, then it remembers, and for a day or two it aspires, it seeks, and then it relaxes. Yes, yes. There is as though an incapacity for tension.
It is not incapacity.
What is it then?
Bad will. Egoism – what we call egoism the egoism of Matter …
The egoism of Matter.
…that does not want to submit. That I know. I am catching my body all the while, here, there, here, there. It wants to go about it in its very ordinary dawdling way.
It is a kind of relaxation of the aspiration and tension.
Yes, it is that. Page – 298 Then, what is to be done? Every time one must catch it, or what else?
Yes. But it can never be stable unless it is linked truly to the Divine. If you are like this (gesture, the two fists hooked as though up above on a rope), then automatically when the moment becomes quite critical, it goes over to the right side, yes, it goes over to the right side. It is as though all the while you had the feeling that you were hovering between life and death, and the moment you take the right attitude – when the part concerned takes the right attitude – it goes all right. Quite naturally and easily it goes all right. It is wonderful. But it is a tremendous thing, because there is a perpetual danger. Well, perhaps, I do not know, a hundred times during the day there is a feeling: life or (for the cells, I mean), life or disintegration; and then if they do not contract, as they usually have the habit to do, everything goes all right. But they are learning to… (Mother opens her hands in a gesture of self-giving), then it is all right. It is as though by a kind of compulsion the body was being taught eternity. It is truly interesting. And then I see that the external circumstances are becoming frightful (from the ordinary point of view).
(Mother enters into contemplation.) Have you anything to say?
No, it was that, the difficulty that I was meeting. Yes.
I find it very difficult. You try once, twice, ten times to regain yourself, but you have the feeling that this is not the thing to be done, it is some other thing, and that … if there were really no higher power which did the thing for you, nothing at all could be done by you. Page – 299 Yes, it is that. But then, there are experiences, hundreds of them, that the very minute you take the right attitude, the thing is done. It is we who prevent the thing from being done … as though our own control prevented the Force from acting; it is something like that. One must … (Mother opens her hands). (Silence)
I believe, I believe that it is the subconscient which has been convinced that if it does not maintain its control all will go wrong. That is my impression. It is that thing, it is that which says, “Ah, be on your guard, take care.”…
(Mother opens her hands.) Page – 300
For the first time, early in the morning, I saw myself, my body – I do not know whether it is the supramental body or … (how to say it?) a body in transition, but I had a body altogether new, in the sense that it was sexless – it was not a woman nor was it a man. It was very white. But it is because my skin is white, I believe, I do not know. It was very slim (gesture indicating slenderness) – it was pretty. Truly a harmonious form. So it was the first time. I did not know at all, I had no idea of what it would be like, none at all, and I saw – I was like that, I had become like that. Page – 301
The other day you spoke of the vision of your body, this body in transition …
Yes, but I was like that. It was myself. I did not see myself in a mirror: I saw myself like that (Mother bends her head to look at her body). I was… I was like that. It was for the first time. It was at four o’clock in the morning, I believe. It was quite natural – I did not look in a mirror, I was quite natural. I remember only what I saw (gesture from the chest to the waist). I had only a veil on me, so I saw only … it was the trunk that was quite different from the chest down to the waist: neither man nor woman. And it was pretty. I had a form very very slim, very slender – very slender but not thin. And the skin was very white; the skin was like my skin. A very pretty form. But no sex, you could not say – neither man nor woman; sex had disappeared. Also there (Mother points to the chest), all that: nothing. I do not know how to say it. It was like a semblance, but had no form at all (Mother touches her chest), not even as much as men have. A very white skin, all very even. No belly, so to say. The stomach – no stomach. All that was slim. Well, I did not pay any special attention because I was like that and I found it quite natural. It was the first time and it was in the night, the day before yesterday. And last night I saw nothing – that was the first and only time till now.
But it was so in the subtle physical?
It must have been so in the subtle physical.
But how will that pass into the physical? Page – 302 There! I do not know … I do not know. I do not know. Also, it was clear that there should not be any complicated process of digestion nor of elimination as now. It was not like that. But how?… Evidently the food is already very different and becoming more and more different (as for example glucose, things that do not need a complicated digestion). But how is the body itself going to change? I do not know. I do not know. I did not look to see how it was, because it was quite natural, so I cannot give a detailed description. Simply, it was neither the body of a woman nor the body of a man – that is clear. And the “outline”, the silhouette, was almost the same as that of a very very young person. There was a sort of semblance to human forms (Mother sketches it in the air), there was a shoulder and a figure. As though the semblance of a form. I see it, but … I saw it as one sees oneself. And there was a kind of veil that I had put on just to cover myself. It was a mode of being, not surprising to me, it was a natural mode of being. It must be like that in the subtle physical.
No, what seems mysterious is the transit from one to the other.
Yes, how? But it is the same mystery as the passage from the chimpanzee to a man.
Oh no! It is much more tremendous than that, Mother, much more tremendous because, after all, between a chimpanzee and a man there is not much difference.
But there was not much difference in appearance here (Mother Page – 303 sketches a silhouette in the air): there were the shoulders, the arms, a body, a figure like that, legs. All that was the same, only it was…
Yes, but I mean to say that the bodily function of a chimpanzee and that of a man are similar.
They are similar.
Well, yes, they digest, breathe, they… Whereas here…
No, there must have been respiration – on the contrary, the shoulders were broad (gesture). That is important. Only the chest was neither feminine nor masculine, but just a semblance. And then all that – stomach, belly, etc. – they were just an outline, a very slim and harmonious form, but it certainly had not the use to which we put our body. The two things very very different: first, procreation, of which there was no possibility there; secondly, the food. But it is quite clear that the food now is not that of chimpanzees nor that of the first men. It is very different. And now the question is to find a food which needs no complicated digestion. … Here it seems to me that the food should not be positively liquid, but not solid either. And then there is the question of the mouth – I do not know. The teeth? Evidently there is no more need of chewing and so the teeth have no more … But there must be something in their place. … That I do not know at all, at all, how the face was, but it did not seem to have a very different look from what it is now. Evidently, what will change very much, which had become very important, was breathing. It is upon this that this being greatly depended.
Yes, probably it absorbs the energies directly. Page – 304 Yes. But probably there will be intermediary beings that will not last very long, like the intermediary beings that were between the chimpanzee and man. But I do not know, something must happen that has not happened till now.
Yes. (Silence)
Sometimes I have a sort of feeling that the time of realisation is near.
Yes, but how?
Yes, how, one does not know.
Is that (Mother points to her body), is that going to change? It must change or it has to follow the old ordinary process of undoing itself and remaking itself…. I do not know…. Evidently life can be much prolonged, there are examples but … I do not know. I do not know.
Many a time I have had the feeling that, rather than a transformation, it will be a concretisation of the other body.
Ah!… But how?
That also, the transition, one does not know. But instead of this one becoming the other, it is rather the other that will take the place of this one.
Yes, but how? Page – 305 Yes, how, I do not know.
(After a silence) Yes, the person that I was the night before yesterday, evidently if it materialised itself … But how?
(Mother goes into contemplation.) One knows nothing! Strange how one knows nothing. (Silence)
Mother, in a poem, “Transformation”, Sri Aurobindo begins in this way:
“My breath runs in a subtle rhythmic stream; It fills my members with a might divine…”
The breath, yes, that, that is important. Page – 306 |