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30 August 1972
I see clearly: it is the consciousness which is directing and not the thought. So, if the consciousness is quietly open to the Divine, everything is all right. All the while things are happening in the consciousness as if all that was coming from the whole world (gesture of assault from all sides): all that denies or contradicts the divine Action – that is coming thus all the time (same gesture). And so, if I know how to be quiet (gesture of self-offering, hands open upward), in an attitude of… (Mother smiles) of non-existence, a kind of… I do not know if it is transparency… I do not know if it should be called transparency or immobility; in any case it is something in the consciousness that is like this (same gesture of self-offering, hands open); when the consciousness is like that everything goes well, but as soon as it starts moving, that is to say, the person shows itself in any way, it becomes detestable. But it is very strong. You know, there are a thousand experiences of the physical body which say: “Ooh! This beatific state is an impossibility” – it is this stupidity which delays everything. It is as though it were the cells – the cells of the body – that are accustomed to fight and suffer and are unable to accept that things could be like that (same gesture of self-giving, hands opened). But when it is like that… it is wonderful. Only, it does not last. It does not last all the time – all the time, all the time things are happening (same gesture of universal assault). But now I see very well, very clearly – very clearly: consciousness is replacing thought. And… (how to say it?) the difference: thought is something which goes this way (gesture of whirling), it moves, it moves… consciousness is something that is like this (gesture of hands opened, offered upward). I cannot explain.
(Mother closes her eyes and remains with the hands open.) Page – 319 Do you have anything to say or ask?
I was asking myself what I could do to hasten the movement. In the daily life we are so much assailed by so many things, are we not?… What can one do to hasten the movement?
If one could remain without being troubled, that would make a great difference. Yes. A great difference. You understand? My body is beginning – just beginning – to know that the divine side means a life (Mother stretches out her arms into an immensity), a life progressive and luminous; but the accumulation of past experiences says: “Oh! It is not possible!” There you are, and so it is this idiotic “not possible” which delays and spoils things. This is based upon the fact that as soon as the body gives up the true attitude, it becomes painful, everything hurts, everything is suffering – the impression is there as of death, of dissolution everywhere. Therefore it is that which strengthens … the imbecility of Matter. So, to tell the truth, I would rather not speak unless it is to answer a precise question.
As for me I ask myself on what point precisely should I apply myself?
(After a silence) Do you feel that you have passed beyond thought?
Ah, yes, that altogether. The only thing that remains in me is a mechanical thought-movement, but other- Page – 320 wise… I can say that I never make use of my thought. I have always the feeling that I am drawing from above. The speculative mind, for example, is impossible for me.
Yes, then it is all right, you are on the right path.
Well, yes! But practically there is the feeling of a struggle, of being somewhat submerged.
Well, for me, all the things on which I used to rely for action have as though crumbled down purposely so that I may say (for everything, even the most trifling things): “What Thou willest.” It has become … it has become my only refuge. To an ordinary observer who does not know, one has to agree to pass for a blockhead.
But there are quite a few who see the Light also, you know.
Possibly. (Mother laughs.) So much the better for them. (Silence)
Very often, very often, I ask the Lord, “How can I help, now that I can no more see clearly nor speak clearly?” It is a state…. And the body does not feel the decline! It is convinced that if tomorrow the Lord wanted it to take up again its activities, it would be able to do so. The strength is there (Mother touches her arms, her muscles), at times a mighty strength!… Why!… The condition is willed so that… I might be left quiet.
But, you know, this is surely a willed state, because I myself have the feeling, so far as I can perceive in Page – 321 my small measure, that in your immobility you are like a tremendous generating centre.
Yes, that I know. That I know. Tremendous. Yes, a Force…. Page – 322
The disciple gives a flower to Mother, and Mother gives it back to the disciple.
It is “the power of Truth in the subconscient”. (Silence) In the subconscient all the contradictions are accumulated. Yes. And it rises thus (gesture of gushing up), all the time, all the time. And then … you have the feeling that you are absolutely imbecile, inconscient, of bad will. And all this (same gesture of a rising up from below). And the consciousness is there (gesture around the head), peaceful, extraordinarily peaceful… (Mother opens out her hands) “May Thy Will be done, O Lord.” And then that puts a pressure upon what is coming from below. It is as though the battle of the world was being fought within my consciousness. It has come to such a point that to forget, to forget the Divine even for a minute spells a catastrophe. And with you, how is it?
Well, it seems to be interminable, this cleansing of the subconscient.
Yes. It is not merely that of one person, it is the subconscient of the earth. It is interminable. And yet one must… So, to stop that means to stop the work. To continue that means it would take time. … I do not know … it is interminable. Page – 323 Clearly, yes, clearly, to stop that means to stop the work. It is as though in the consciousness there (Mother makes a gesture around her head) lay the centre of junction and action. So I have but one means, to keep quiet, quiet, quiet (Mother opens out her hands upward)… to have the feeling that individuality is nothing, nothing, nothing – it allows the divine rays to pass. This is the only solution. It is the Divine who… who must do the battling.
(Silence)
Last time you said: Oh! Hundreds of years will be needed, perhaps thousands, before men turn consciously towards the Divine. But…
Perhaps not.
… one feels that this time something decisive is bound to come.
Yes…. You know, I have the feeling that the person is like an image for fixing one’s attention. Men have need of something – they have always had the need of something of their dimension so that they can fix their attention. And so the body does all it can in order not to be an obstruction to the Divine Force which passes through, it seeks to annul its interception, and at the same time it sees that it is … as though an image that men need to fix their attention. Page – 324
The whole subconscient … (Mother makes a gesture of a rising up from below.)
(Silence)
It is not a sensation, it is not knowledge, it is a kind of… (Mother feels the air with her hand) … it cannot be called a conviction: it is a certitude – a certitude in the perception – that there is a Beatitude which… which is there, ready for us, and that there is a whole world of contradictions suppressed in the subconscient which comes up in this way to prevent us from feeling it. So… one might say it is a battlefield, but in a perfect calm. It is impossible to describe. Impossible to describe. So, if I do not move and if I enter into this Consciousness, time passes with a tremendous speed and in a kind of … luminous calm. And then, the slightest thing that pulls me out of it, it is as though I was dragged into a hell. That is it. The unease is so great that you feel you cannot live one minute or a few minutes in that way. And then … and then you call the Divine … then you feel you nestle within the Divine. Then it is all right. Page – 325
I have had for a moment – just a few seconds – the supramental consciousness. It was so wonderful, my child! … I have understood that if we were made to taste of that now, we would not wish to live otherwise. And we are in the course of (gesture of kneading) changing laboriously. And the change, the process of the change, seems… One can have it through a sort of indifference (I do not know how to say it). But it does not last for long. And generally it is laborious. But that consciousness, it is so wonderful, you know! And it is a very interesting thing, for it is, as it were, an utmost activity in a complete peace. But that lasted only a few seconds.
(Silence) And you?
It is a total consciousness?
It is extraordinary. It is like the harmonisation of contraries. An activity, yes, total, tremendous, and a perfect peace. But all these are words. (Silence) It is a material consciousness?
The action is a material action – but not in the same manner. (Silence) How can one come into contact with that more Page – 326 easily? How can one reach there or be there?
I do not know, because for me the whole consciousness, including that of the body, is always (gesture of offering) turned constantly towards the … what it feels as the Divine. And that without “trying”, you understand?
Yes, yes. Page – 327
You have nothing to ask?
I asked myself a question about Sri Aurobindo. I wanted to know at what point he had arrived when he passed away – at what point of transformation. What difference in the work, for example, is there between what you are doing now and what he was doing at that time?
He had gathered in his body a great amount of supramental force and as soon as he left … You see, he was lying on his bed, I stood by his side, and in a way altogether concrete – concrete with such a strong sensation as to make one think that it could be seen – all this supramental force which was in him passed from his body into mine. And I felt the friction of the passage. It was extraordinary – extraordinary. It was an extraordinary experience. For a long time, a long time like that (Mother indicates the passing of the Force into her body). I was standing beside his bed, and that continued. Almost a sensation – it was a material sensation. For a long time. That is all I know.
But what I wanted to understand is at what point of the inner work was, for example, the cleaning of the subconscient and all that? What difference is there, say, between the work he had done at that time and the work to which you have come now? I mean to say, is the subconscient less subconscient or …
Oh! Yes, that, surely. Surely. Page – 328 Well, this is the mental way of looking at things – I do not have it any more.
Yes, Mother. (Silence)
The difference is perhaps a difference in the general or collective intensity of this Power, of this Force, is it not so?
There is a difference in the power for action. He himself possesses more action, more power for action, now than when in his body. Besides, it is for that that he left, because it was necessary to act in that way. It is very concrete. His action has become very concrete. Evidently it is something which is not at all mental. It is from another region. But it is not ethereal nor… it is concrete. One could almost say that it is material.
But this other region, I have often asked myself what is the true movement one must make to get there. There are two possible movements: the movement inward towards the soul, and another in which the individuality is annulled and one is rather in a wideness without the individual….
Both must be there.
Both must be there? Yes.
(Mother goes into herself.) Page – 329
So it is going to be the new year. …
Do you feel anything for this new year?
(After a silence) Things have taken an extreme form. So there is, as it were, an uplift of the atmosphere towards a splendour… almost inconceivable, and at the same time the feeling that at any moment one may … one may die – not “die”, but the body may be dissolved. And so the two at the same time form a consciousness (Mother shakes her head) … all the old things seem puerile, childish, unconscious – within there … it is tremendous and wonderful. So, the body, the body has one prayer – and it is always the same: Make me worthy of knowing Thee, Make me worthy of serving Thee, Make me worthy of being Thee. I feel in myself a growing force … but it is of a new quality… in silence and in contemplation. Nothing is impossible (Mother opens her hands upward). (Silence)
So, if you have no questions … if you want silence … conscious silence…
But I do not know if I am making the right movement.
(After a silence) But when you want to enter into relation with the Divine, what movement do you make?
I place myself at your feet.
(Mother smiles and goes into herself.) Page – 330 |