July 18, 1962
(Concerning the vibration of supreme Love Mother experienced on April 13:)
Matter needs quite a preparation to make it strong enough to hold those vibrations, and … and the body seems to be given a trickle to see how much it can bear. But there’s such an immediate intensity of joy in all the cells, in the heart and organs, that it all seems on the verge of exploding.
It comes just to tell you, “See, this is how it is.”
I can bring it on at will simply by putting myself in a certain state. But then I notice that someone (“someone” … well, that’s a way of speaking) is dosing it out, allowing the contact for a certain
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length of time or in a certain amount; and there’s nothing to be done about it, it’s an Order from above. A mere hint of impatience would spoil everything – the power to establish the contact would probably be lost. I have never done this and I don’t intend to.
(silence)
It’s like an image…. You see, the body is stretched out here on the chaise longue…. You know how it is when experiments are done on animals? It’s something like that – the body is there as the “subject” of an experiment. Then there’s my consciousness, the part focused on the earthly experience and the present transformation (it’s what I mean when I say “I”). And then the Lord…. I say “the Lord” – I’ve adopted that because it’s the best way of putting it and the easiest for me, but I never, NEVER think of a being. For me, it’s a simultaneous contact with the Eternal, the Infinite, the Vast, the Totality of everything – the totality of everything: all that is, all that has been, all that will be, everything. Words spoil it, but it’s like that – automatically – with consciousness, sweetness and … SOLICITUDE. With all the qualities a perfect Personality can offer (I don’t know if you follow me, but that’s the way it is). And “That” (I use all these words to say it, and three-fourths is left out) … is a spontaneous, constant, immediate experience. So the “I” I spoke of asks that the body may have the experience, or at least an initial taste, even a shadow of the experience of this Love. And each time it’s asked for, it comes INSTANTLY. Then I see the three together[[ The body, the "I," and the Lord. ]] – in my consciousness and perception the three are together – and I see that this Love is dosed out and maintained in exact proportion to what the body can bear.
The body is aware of this and is a little sad about it. But immediately comes something soothing, calming, making it vast. The body instantly senses the immensity and regains its calm.
This experience I am describing is exactly what happened yesterday (it happens every day, but yesterday it was especially clear). And it’s still here – I am seeing it as I saw it, it’s still here. Actually, it is always here – always here – though it’s more striking when the body is stretched out, motionless in the Yoga. The experience is slightly different when walking because that involves action. When the body walks, it acts on behalf of everything that’s related to it, hence the action is vaster and more powerful.
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But when it is stretched out and asks the Lord to take possession of it, it really asks with all its aspiration. And the very intensity of the aspiration brings in the possibility of a slight emotional vibration. But it is immediately drowned in … the immobile immensity of matter, which senses the Divine Descent like a leaven that makes dough rise – that’s it exactly, the terrestrial immensity of matter and the leavening action of the Divine Descent…. The intensity of these vibrations is above and beyond anything we are used to feeling – the vital seems dull and flat in comparison. And what a Wisdom! … It knows how to make use of time – that is, it actually changes itself into time – so as to … minimize the possibilities of damage.
It’s plain to see that, left to itself in its full power of transformation and progress, this flame of aspiration, this flame of Agni would have scant consideration for the result of the process – the result of the process is that fire burns. And there could be mishaps in the functioning of the organs. All the organs must undergo a transformation, but were it too rapid and too sudden, well, everything would go out of whack. The machine would simply explode. But this Wisdom doesn’t come from the universal consciousness (which I don’t really think is so wise!), it’s infinitely higher: the Supreme Wisdom. Something so wonderful! It foresees things the universal forces in their universal play would overlook – a wonder!
(silence)
We mustn’t be in a hurry.
It’s hard to imagine how a physical body can, for instance, extend or enlarge itself. It all seems unimaginable.
It is unimaginable because the body can’t do it yet.
No … and besides, you don’t see. If my body resembled its consciousness (because it Is conscious), if what you see with your eyes corresponded to what the body feels, it would probably look monstrous, hideous … or terrifying!
What the eyes see is so false, so false!
But now the body – the body itself, its very own self – feels it is WITHIN things or WITHIN people or WITHIN an action. There are no more limits, none of this (Mother touches the skin of her hands as if all separation had disappeared). Take this example: someone accidentally bumps me (it does happen) with an object or a part of his body. Well, it is NEVER something external: it happens INSIDE
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- the body’s consciousness is much larger than my body. Yesterday, the table leg bumped my foot; so there was the ordinary outward reaction (it operates automatically and in a curious way – the body jumped), and then the body-consciousness – now I am speaking of the body-consciousness – saw that an unexpected and involuntary collision of two objects had taken place INSIDE ITSELF. And it also saw that if it made a certain movement of concentration at that particular spot, inside itself, some pain or damage would result; but if it made the other movement of … (how shall I put it?) of union, of abolishing all separation (which it can do very well), well, then the results of the blow would be annulled. And that’s what happened, I did it. I was simply sitting down, and I let my body cope with the whole thing (while I watched with keen interest); and I noticed it really did feel the blow inside and not outside – it wasn’t that something from outside had struck it, but that there had been an unexpected, or rather an unforeseen and involuntary collision of two things inside itself. And I clearly followed how the body made a more complete movement of identification (you see, someone with the sense of separation had moved the table, so the sense of separation accompanied the blow, and then of course there was all the regret,[["The regret of the person who bumped me," Mother specified. "This person's state of consciousness entered the body along with the blow. And this kind of regret for having given a blow was an ego movement. All these vibrations accompanied the blow and that's what the body had to annul in order to annul the result." ]] and so on and so forth); well, the body simply went into its usual state where there’s no sense of separation, and the effect vanished instantaneously. Had I been asked, “Where were you hit, what spot?”, I couldn’t have told, I don’t know. All I know, because of words I heard spoken, is that the table leg bumped into my foot. But where? … I can’t say; I couldn’t have said even five minutes after the incident – it had utterly disappeared, and disappeared through a VOLUNTARY movement.
This body-consciousness has a will; it is constantly, constantly calling upon the Lord’s will: “Lord, take possession of this, take possession of that, take….” There’s no question of taking possession of the will, that was done ages ago, but: “Take possession of these cells, those cells, this, that….” It is the BODY’S aspiration. Well, the blow wasn’t caused by this will acting in the body; the blow didn’t come directly from the body, but from something that had slipped in through an unconscious element; and the body simply erased, or absorbed, digested this unconsciousness – and the thing vanished without a trace!
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And do you know how this body is?… It immediately began wondering (I was quietly watching it all from above), “What if” (“ifs” are always idiotic but it’s an old bodily habit), “what if the object had been sharp, would the results have been so easy to annul?” (Mother laughs) Then I distinctly heard someone reply (I am putting it into words), “You idiot! That wouldn’t have happened in the first place! ” That is, the necessary protection would have been there. The protection intervenes only when necessary, not just for the fun of it. “You numbskull,” it said (I am translating freely), “how silly can you be! It wouldn’t have happened.”
But what a world it is – a world of experiences! And the consciousness is somewhere way up high but seeing very clearly, watching with interest.
You just can’t imagine – you CANNOT…. When I try to see life as most people see it (it’s getting increasingly difficult! but anyhow), the way people ordinarily see it, it becomes a big mishmash! I understand nothing, it makes no more sense – nothing makes sense. Simply, for the sake of the action, I have been warned that nobody can understand – NOBODY can comprehend to what extent the Lord is intermingled, is present and active in all things.
In all things.
(silence)
For instance, sometimes He “tells” me (of course it’s not external; it’s an extremely delicate working, and sort of automatic; no time elapses between the order and its execution: they’re not two movements but one single thing) … when He says “Speak,” or when He says “Keep silent” – like the other day when, as you pointed out, I stopped in the middle of a sentence – it’s that all of a sudden … (Mother makes a gesture as if she were unable to speak, or as if suddenly held by silence). At other times it pours out like it’s doing now. And I don’t “hear” an order, I don’t “feel” an order: I LIVE the Order; and it’s so patently the Lord’s that it seems stupid to even mention it.
Oh, such humorous things happen…. The other day I saw T. Her old mother lives in Moscow; she’s very old and on her deathbed, and has asked T. to come see her. So T. is going to go there. It’s a risky adventure. She wrote to ask if she could see me before leaving (I don’t see anyone and I had no intention of receiving her, but it was decided in spite of me and I let her come). She had been told not to speak, but that’s impossible for such a chatterbox!
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So she began by lamenting (probably thinking it was the thing to do) over my “serious illness” and god knows what else – I didn’t listen. I simply told her, “No, it’s not that, it’s the yoga.” Then, with the effervescence of an ignorant child: ” Yoga! But you shouldn’t be doing yoga! You shouldn’t be….” Just then, the Lord’s face came (the Lord’s face often takes on Sri Aurobindo’s appearance – an idealized Sri Aurobindo, not exactly as he was physically), and it came here (right up against Mother’s face), and it was blue. Then It made my finger touch her cheek, like this (Mother seems to tap T.’s cheek), and It told that child, “Little children don’t know what they’re talking about.” And it was so thoroughly Him! He was speaking and I saw only Him, his appearance: “Little children don’t know what they’re talking about.”
I don’t know how I looked (I was enjoying myself enormously), but she must have felt something (she didn’t say a word), she must at least have felt something strange because a shudder went through her being. And I was told that when she left, she said, “I may come back before I leave, but I won’t ask to see Mother!” (Mother laughs.)
But It was blue – all blue. And That said, “Little children don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Voilà. I think our time is up.
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