January 22, 1961
(Mother had been unwell the past few days. She speaks here of the causes behind the physical disorder.)
Ah! How are you?
You’re the one who should be asked that!
I’m all right.
All right? …
I saw it last night … oof! It was a kind of artificial hurricane created by semi-human beings (that is, they have human forms but they aren’t men). They created the storm to cut me off from ‘my home.’ But everything and everyone was disrupted – it must have been going on for a rather long time. Finally last night it became quite amusing: I kept attempting to get to ‘my home’ which was up above, but each time I tried to find a way everything was blocked by … try to imagine, artificial, mechanical and electric thunderstorms, and then things made to cave in. All of it was artificial, nothing real, and yet terribly dangerous.
At last I found myself in a big place down below where there was a row of houses, all kinds of things, and it was absolutely essential that I go back up – when suddenly a somewhat indistinct form (rather dark, unluminous) came to me and said, ‘Oh, don’t go there, it’s very bad, very dangerous! They’ve set it all up in a terrifying way: none can withstand it! You mustn’t go there, wait a bit. And if you need something, do come, you know I have everything you need! (Mother laughs) it’s a little old and dusty but you’ll manage!’ Then she led me into a huge room filled with objects piled one on top of another, and in one corner she showed me a bathtub – my child, it was a marvel! A splendid pink marble bathtub! But it was unused, dusty and old. ‘We’ll just wipe it off,’ she said, ‘and you’ll be able to use it!’ She showed me other areas for washing and dressing, there was everything one could possibly need. ‘You can use it all. Don’t go up there!’ I looked at her closely. She struck me as having a tiny face, it was odd – it wasn’t a form, it was … it was a form and yet it wasn’t! As imprecise as that.
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Then I clasped her in my arms and cried out, ‘Mother, you are nice!’ (Mother laughs) I knew then that she was material Mother Nature.
After that I felt quite at ease. The battle was over – it was over FOR THE MOMENT, because they weren’t finished: they continued their uproar on the other side; but I didn’t have to go there anymore.
It has been deferred because I was still down below; I had not yet returned to the upper levels. Anyhow….
But they are furious! There is evidently a whole alignment of forces (they must be vital forces) between here and … my domain. They’re furious! They set up explosions, demolitions…. And I could see all the settings – they were quite artificial, nothing real, but dangerous nonetheless.
All in all, it was rather amusing.
You were disrupting their work, is that it?
Yes, I am disrupting their work – I know perfectly well that I am disrupting their domination of the world! All these vital beings have taken possession of the whole of Matter (Mother touches her body) - life and action – and have made it their domain, this is evident. But they are beings of the lower vital, for they seemed artificial – they didn’t express any higher form, but an entire range of artificial mechanisms, artificial will, artificial organization, all deriving from their own imagination and not at all from a higher inspiration. [[These seem to be the forces ruling the subconscious mechanisms or reactions of the body: all the automatism produced by evolution and atavism - what might be termed evolutionary habits. This is the 'descending path,' which started forty years earlier, as Mother said (or the 'physical plunge' referred to by Sri Aurobindo), leading to the pure cellular consciousness. ]] The symbol was very clear.
And I saw my own domain through them and through it all; I saw my domain: ‘I can see it!’, I said. But no sooner would I start on my way than the path would be lost, I no longer saw it, I couldn’t see anymore where I was going. It became almost impossible to get my bearings there: hundreds and thousands of people, things – utter confusion. An incoherent immensity – and violent, what violence!
I felt something last night….
Yes, it was last night.
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I received some extraordinarily violent vibrations.
Ah, you felt them too! …
At one point, it seized me here in the belly as if it wanted to rip something out.
Yes, yes – oh, what violence, what fury!
At first I thought it was coming from you (!) – as if you were trying to remove something undesirable in me.
Oh, no! (Mother laughs) I don’t use such violent means! No, no! It was very strange…. When it fell upon me (four or five days ago, I no longer recall), everything I had gained materially disappeared! As though all that had been conquered and mastered, even what had begun to change, even wrong functionings that had completely ceased, all that had been set right and brought under control: gone! Gone! Completely gone! As if everything came back in one fell swoop.
I remained perfectly tranquil, there was nothing else to do; I knew it meant a battle. I was perfectly tranquil, but I could no longer eat, I could no longer rest, do japa [[Japa: the continuous repetition of a mantra. Mother's mantra is a song of the cells, the sole material or physical process used by her for awakening the cells and stabilizing the Supramental Force in her body. ]] or walk, and my head felt as though it would burst. I could only abandon myself (Mother opens her arms in a gesture of surrender), enter into a very, very deep trance, a very deep samadhi – this is something one can always do. But that was the only thing left to me. Ideas were just as clear as ever (all that is above and doesn’t budge), but my body was in a very bad way. It was a fight, a fight at each second. The least thing, just to walk a step, was a struggle, an awful battle!
Then last night I saw the symbol, the image of the thing. But … what was it? It was an element in the most material Matter, [[Later, Mother specified: 'These are elements in the material substance entirely possessed by adverse forces and opposed to the transformation.' ]] because it was deep down below; yet despite it all, Mother Nature was in charge there: she was familiar with everything, knew everything and it was all at her disposal – absolutely the most material Nature. And she herself had no light, but was very, very … she had a concealed power that was completely invisible.
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Each time I set out to leave her domain and ascend above, it triggered a hurricane. I would pass this way and the storm started up, pass that way, unleash a gale. Finally she approached me and said very gently, very sweetly, in a most unassuming way, ‘No, don’t go there, don’t go! Don’t try to return to your home. They have set up a dreadful hurricane!’ And artificial: there were explosions like bombs everywhere, and even worse, like thunderbolts. One could see the artificial tricks and electrical effects they were using to create their thunder, but it was on a tremendous scale!
It isn’t over.
I simply consented to stay there. ‘You will have all you need, stay here quietly.’ And what beautiful things she had, lovely things! They were unused and dusty. (It was surely the symbol of ancient realizations – realizations of the ancient Rishis, things like that. Who knows?) They were first class, but completely neglected and thick with dust, like material objects left unused – which no one knew HOW to use. She put them at my disposal: ‘Look, look, let me show you!’ There was a tremendous accumulation of things, piled in such great confusion that one couldn’t see. Yet the marvel of it was that when she led me to a corner to show me something, everything immediately moved aside and order was restored, so that the object she wanted to show me stood out all by itself. And oh, a thing of beauty! … Made of pink marble! A pink marble bathtub of a shape I didn’t recognize – not Roman, not antique (not modern, far from it!) – how beautiful it was! And whenever she wanted to show me something in this untidy and cluttered room full of objects piled one on top of another, they would organize themselves, take their proper place, and all became neat. ‘You will just have to dust them off a bit,’ she said. (Mother laughs)
But I’m not surprised it came down on you.
Oh, I felt it! It was very violent. It came down on me three times and I told myself, ‘Hmm, someone is cleaning out!’ It felt like something was being removed from me that shouldn’t be there. But the third time I doubted it was you because it became so violent, particularly around the abdomen, like something being torn out of me. Strange…. Vibrations, nothing but vibrations … very, very violent.
For me it was in the head (not last night but over the past few days), when I was trying to do my japa – oh, it was as though my
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head would burst!All the nerves were not just tense (Mother touches the nape of her neck), but cramped. And my head felt as if boiling oil were being poured inside it; it was about to explode, and I couldn’t see clearly.
Something was obviously bent on preventing me from going down for the distribution. [[On the previous day, January 21, Saraswati Puja, Mother had given a message and photos to each disciple. ]] But by an act of will I went down. ‘I will do it,’ I said. But it was difficult. There were moments when it sidled up to me: ‘Now you’re going to faint,’ and then, ‘Now your legs will no longer be able to walk. Now….’ It kept coming like that. So I kept repeating the japa the whole time, and it was touch-and-go right up to the end. Finally I couldn’t distinguish people, I saw only shapes, forms passing by, and not clearly. When the distribution was over, I got up (I knew I had to get up), I stood up without flinching and stepped down from the chair without faltering. But I was not careful and when I turned away from the light in the room to go towards the staircase – an abrupt blackout. Not the blackout of a faint – my eyes no longer saw. I saw only shadows. ‘Ah!’ I said to myself, ‘where is the step?!’ And to avoid missing it, I clutched the railing. What a commotion that made! Champaklal came rushing up, thinking I was about to fall!
Anyhow….
It was only afterwards, a long time after, that I began to see again. It was clearly something that was NOT WILLING. But when will it give in? … I can’t say. No victory has been won, far from it. And it has remained like this: status quo.
It will probably have to begin again, but in what manner?
Evidently all the vital forces who have taken the habit of ruling the earth (last night it had the proportions of the earth, it wasn’t universal) are the very ones who refuse to listen; they don’t at all like what I am doing.
You see, personal surrender and devotion is an excellent solution for the individual, but it doesn’t work for the collectivity. For example, as soon as I am alone and lying on my bed – peace! (Ah, I forgot! They had invented yet another thing: making my heartbeats irregular. Every three or four beats it would stop; then it would start up again, pounding as if I had been struck. Three, four beats, a faint little beat, then stop … then, bang! Blow after blow…. One more of their extraordinary inventions!) But, as soon as I stretch out and make a total surrender of all the
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cells – no more activity, nothing – everything goes well.
But I am well aware that this surrender has an effect on the action only to the extent that the Supreme Lord has decided upon the action, and those movements stretch over long periods of time [[Later, on the 27th, Mother remarked: ‘I was reading about this very thing yesterday in The Secret of the Veda, in the first hymn translated by Sri Aurobindo (the reference is to the colloquy between Indra and Agastya, Rig Veda 1.170 – cf. The Secret of the Veda, Cent. Ed., X.241 ft.), and it helped me put my finger on the problem. In this hymn there is a dispute between Indra and the Rishi because the Rishi wants to progress too quickly without first passing through Indra [the god of the Mind], and Indra stops him; finally they reach an agreement. Sri Aurobindo’s commentary is quite interesting: when one has the INDIVIDUAL power to go directly, but neglects the steps which are still necessary for the whole, for the universal movement, then one is stopped short. That is absolutely my experience.’ ]] : all sorts of things may happen before the final Victory is won. Because, for us, the scale is very small; even if it were of terrestrial proportions, it would be a very small scale; but on a universal scale…. These forces have their place and their action, their universe, and as long as their place and their action are maintained, they will be here. So before their action can be exhausted or become useless, many things can happen….
Individually, however, there is almost instantaneous bliss. But this is not a true solution … it’s a solution in the long run, by repercussion. To have true command here in this world, all of that must be mastered.
And this is the confusion made by all those people who believed that their … what they called their ‘personal salvation’ was the salvation of the world – it’s not true at all! It isn’t true – it’s a PERSONAL salvation.
(silence)
But all of that is wonderfully, accurately expressed and EXPLAINED in Savitri. Only you must know how to read it! The entire last part, from the moment she goes to seek Satyavan in the realm of Death (which affords an occasion to explain this), the whole description of what happens there, right up to the end, where every possible offer is made to tempt her, everything she must refuse to continue her terrestrial labor … it is my experience EXACTLY.
Savitri is really a condensation, a concentration of the universal Mother – the eternal universal Mother, Mother of all universes from all eternity – in an earthly personality for the Earth’s salvation. And Satyavan is the soul of the Earth, the Earth’s jiva. So when the Lord says, ‘he whom you love and whom you have
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chosen,’ it means the earth. All the details are there! When she comes back down, when Death has yielded at last, when all has been settled and the Supreme tells her, ‘Go, go with him, the one you have chosen,’ how does Sri Aurobindo describe it? He says that she very carefully takes the SOUL of Satyavan into her arms, like a little child, to pass through all the realms and come back down to earth. Everything is there! He hasn’t forgotten a single detail to make it easy to understand – for someone who knows how to understand. And it is when Savitri reaches the earth that Satyavan regains his full human stature.
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