November 17, 1962
(Concerning the Sino-Indian conflict along the Himalayan border:)
X wrote N. to announce – in precise and almost violent terms – that it was the beginning of a general upheaval, a catastrophic world war.
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I know it’s the will of that Asura I’ve mentioned to you several times, the Lord of Falsehood who was born the Lord of Truth, and who knows that his hour is at hand (“at hand” relative to that world there) and has declared he will cause as much havoc as he can before disappearing. Quite recently, just before the present conflict broke out, I went to a realm in the vital world which is right above the earth, like a platform (not a mountain top, but a spot where you get an overall view, like the bridge of a ship, for instance, where the captain stands; it was a place like that in the vital world, overlooking all terrestrial life). I went there – it was rather dark, very dark in fact – and that tall being was there (he’s quite tall, higher than this room – Mother looks up at the ceiling - he likes to look tall). He’s very tall and all black. (That’s more or less his natural state; he appears to humans blazing with light, but that doesn’t fool someone with inner vision: it’s an icy light. But some people are fooled and take him for the supreme God. Anyway, that’s an aside.) So he was there and I went to him – not to him: I went to that place and found him there. He was gloating and told me to take a look around.
From there you had a panoramic view of everything. And no sooner did I arrive than a storm broke out – a terrible storm. I kept watching, and then I saw in this direction (I don’t know whether it was north, south or west, but it was this direction: Mother points to the north), I saw two nearly simultaneous flashes of lightning. The first one (I was looking north, I was quite conscious of facing north) … the first one, a terrific bolt, came and fell from the east; and just a moment after, very soon after, another came from the west. The two didn’t come together, but they fell on the same spot – they didn’t meet but they fell on the same spot. It was pitch dark, the earth and everything was dark, you couldn’t see a thing, and suddenly those two flashes of lightning lit up the area where they fell, making a dreadful din, and (my field of vision was confined to that area; all the rest was in darkness, you see) … it burst into flames! Everything was set ablaze. In the lightning flashes you could distinguish the tops of monuments, houses, all sorts of things, and then everything burst into flames: a dreadful conflagration.
I even remarked to myself (it was a rather curious feeling), “Well, it’s interesting to have such a close view of it.” That is, I had the feeling that my “station,” as Sri Aurobindo calls it, for viewing the world was very high up, and I’d had to come down to that place. And that’s what made me say, “Well, it’s interesting to have such a close view of
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things.” (I didn’t say it to that being, I thought it.) And he was there next to me, gloating, standing some distance off to my right (looking up, I could see his head – Mother looks up at the ceiling). He was jubilant, gloating: “You see, you see, you see! ” Overjoyed. I kept absolutely still; everything was still, calm, motionless (the thought that came was like something passing through me: “It’s interesting to have such a close view of it”). And then I stopped everything, like this (Mother remains as still as a statue, fists clenched). And very soon afterwards (I can’t say exactly because time there isn’t the same as here), very soon afterwards, everything stopped. [[In fact, three days later, on November 20, in an unhoped-for turn of events, China declared a unilateral cease-fire and withdrawal of troops, even as they were making a spectacular and almost unopposed advance. No one ever understood why. ]] The storm’s only purpose was to cause the two thunderbolts, and it stopped after they fell on the earth. And then the flames … the whole area was set ablaze (it was like a huge city, but not a city: most likely it was symbolic of a country): vroom! It burst into flames; some flames were leaping up very, very high. But I simply did this, stopped everything (Mother remains motionless, eyes closed, fists clenched), and then looked out once again – everything had returned to order. Then I said (I don’t know why, but I was speaking to him in English … yes, it’s because he was speaking English, saying, “You see, you see!”), I said, “Ah, that didn’t last long. They quickly brought it under control.” With that he turned his back on me (laughing); he went off one way and I the other. Then I regained my outer consciousness, which is why I remember everything exactly.
I believe they began fighting up there two or three days after it happened.
What can the west side be?…
I don’t know. I thought it would be Russia, but Russia seems to be trying its hardest not to interfere. I don’t know.
Was it India that was struck?
Yes, of course, it was India.
When I thought, “It’s interesting to have such a close view of it all,” there was also a sense of being physically close, a part of me felt physically very close. But you know, I have been close to all the wars (the two previous ones – this is the third), as close as can be: shells were falling on Paris when I was there, during the first war.
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So that’s what was shown to me in images.
Apart from that, when the news got here that they’d begun amiably killing one another for nothing, as soon as I knew it, I put over the whole border the same thing as that night: Peace and Immobility. Two days later I asked for news. “Oh,” I was told, “they seem tired out. They’re no longer doing anything.”
They are scarcely moving any more.
And then there have been certain political problems [[Mother is probably alluding to difficulties in obtaining the dismissal of the Defense Minister, Krishna Menon. It might be recalled that, under Nehru, India’s foreign policy was quite pro-Chinese (the slogan of the day was Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai: Indians and Chinese are brothers), and when China began to sweep down into India, the Defense Minister calmly left for London on some mission or other, declaring: oh, it’s nothing! ]] – all this making for a bit of work, which turned out rather well. But it’s always mixed, never the full thing; there’s always a result, but not THE result…. I don’t think “the” result is possible with the present conditions on earth: it would be a miracle, upsetting too many things. The consequences would be worse than….
Well, then.
I’ve had my eye on this gentleman since the Second World War (and even earlier), and I know that’s just what he wants. He has foretold all sorts of catastrophic things. So I suppose that’s what X is seeing too, without knowing where it comes from – I don’t know. I wonder…. At any rate, he wrote it so categorically that you might nearly think he wanted it! … I can’t believe he wants it. I simply replied, “Well, yes, it’s ONE possibility.” Which of the two will prevail? That, I don’t know. It’s a secret the Lord doesn’t reveal … because He thinks (and this is altogether certain) that it wouldn’t be good to know what’s going to happen – we wouldn’t do what had to be done. It’s always that way: we don’t know what’s going to happen because then we wouldn’t do what had to be done.
I do what He tells me to do, but He doesn’t say what the consequences will be. And I don’t ask Him; I know it’s none of my business.
For if I knew, even if I didn’t tell, it would spread (Mother shows waves spreading out from her head). And it’s not good that people know.
But I’ve had lots and lots of visions of all types, from the most frightful to the most wonderful – all very apocalyptic, in the realm of the incredible. Many, many things, detailed as well as general. They would fill a volume.
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I don’t know, I have the feeling that humanity isn’t ready for peace and needs to be shaken up.
Yes, unfortunately it’s not ready.
They’re falling into a stupor.
They’re falling into a stupor, lulling themselves with their non violence, their petty morality…. Humanity isn’t ready.
It’s a pity.
Because it can set things back thousands of years…. For there are moments when things converge, and it is rare to have a MOMENT in this Story: it stretches over long, long, almost indefinite periods of time. So to get a MOMENT that becomes something actual in terrestrial life (Mother drives her fist into the Earth) is very difficult. And if that moment is passed by, is missed….
But I always wonder … because Sri Aurobindo left without revealing his secret. He said he was leaving DELIBERATELY – that much he told me. He told me what I needed to know. But he never said the moment hadn’t come (you see, he thought … he came saying the time had come), he never said if he’d seen that things were not sufficiently ready. He told me “the world is not ready,” that much he did say. He told me he was going away deliberately because it was “necessary,” and that I had to stay and continue the work, that I would continue. He said those three things. But he never told me whether or not I would succeed! He never told me whether or not I could bring the moment back.
And I must say I am past the point where it’s interesting to know these things, because … I live a bit too much in the eternity of time for that to be very important.
But outwardly, from what I have seen, from all I’ve observed (I mean the more I am IN the thing): the world is not ready. People … they don’t even understand what it is! So how could they…. When you tell them something or show them something from up here (gesture above), they don’t understand. They don’t understand. To make it understandable, they immediately distort it, disfigure it. So … I don’t know whether….
(long silence)
But strangely enough, ever since these people began fighting up there [along the Himalayan border], the earth has been more receptive.
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Yet people have fought before – people have fought everywhere, haven’t they? Since the last war they have never stopped fighting in one place or another: in Africa, in Asia, everywhere. They’ve been constantly fighting. There was always something, constantly. This whole Algerian story … terrible things went on there; and all the trouble in the Congo and so forth – battles everywhere. But … I don’t know why (it’s not that I wasn’t concerned with these events, they were in my consciousness), but this time two things have happened: a greater Power has descended (something very concrete, almost tangible), a great Power has descended, has been especially sent; and also a certain receptivity – everywhere, even in the Chinese (I don’t mean locally: it’s all over the world). Is it because, materially, there’s some anxiety at the idea of…? If a new world war starts, it’s obviously going to be something unspeakable, frightful, frightful – whole civilizations will be swallowed up. It will put a stop to life on earth in a terrible way. Is that what made people…? Has this awakened some aspiration? Possibly. There’s clearly a greater receptivity. I see this from the fact that whenever the Will spreads out (Mother makes a gesture of emanation), well, it has a more concrete and more immediate effect.
The other conflicts were really very superficial, like minor ailments – skin diseases! Superficial things. There were some appalling horrors, utterly repugnant things, too, everywhere (I remember what happened in Algeria, I was kept informed and I knew what took place: horrible things) … and yet they seemed … yes, they seemed like skin diseases of the earth! They were very superficial. But then suddenly up there [in Nefa and Ladakh], oh, it became something different.
That was the impression: a very localized disease (anyone can catch it, but it’s still very localized). While here, this conflict seems to have FUNDAMENTALLY disrupted something – profoundly. Is it because people THINK it may have a global consequence?… I don’t know. Or is it truly the first sign of something very … very momentous?
(silence)
One day (for me now, everything is part of an extremely precise play of forces) … and one day I had a sort of sensation of one of those profound upheavals … something very widespread and full of GREAT pain. So something in me spontaneously sprang up from the individual soul, the deep psychic being, and said, “Oh! Lord, is it Your will that we have this experience again?” Then everything
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stabilized, stopped, and there was a splendor of Light. But I received no response. Except for that splendor of Light – something triumphant, you know. But it may just as well mean that no matter what happens, this will always be there – which is obvious.
(silence)
I don’t know.
Somewhere, in a place which is not here [physically], some place (Mother gestures into the distance behind her being), there is something that keeps very still, somewhere, very still and beyond all the movements of forces; something seated, as it were, established somewhere, very still and beyond public observation (by “public” I don’t necessarily mean “terrestrial,” I mean the whole world), something that keeps like this (gesture backwards, eyes closed, motionless as a statue), and DOES NOT WANT IT.
I perceive that very distinctly.
In other words, a part of the being is there – a part of the Creative Force – and it does NOT want it.
As if it has truly been decided that this time the experience will go right to the end, right to its goal, without interruption. And this something which … [doesn't want]. The Something that has made the decision and sticks to it.
(silence)
It was so strong that when I was told what X had written, somewhere (it’s somewhere off to my right, I don’t know) … That [the Creative Force] responded right away (we have to use words, and words just don’t work – but I have nothing else at my disposal), and It said, “Well, he wants to remain on the other side, then.”
I refrained from saying anything.
And with the consciousness here, I looked (of course I was asked how he could write or think such things), and I said that each realm has its own determinism, and if you see only that determinism, things seem absolutely decreed. X’s vision, I said, belongs to the vital-physical determinism of the earth (Life and Matter), in which the catastrophe seems inevitable; but there are higher realms whose intervention can change everything.
But one must see and live in those higher regions.
In X’s case, his personal contact rises to the heights, but it’s purely personal. While his overall vision (I am not saying universal: overall) stops at the vital-physical plane, with a touch of
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the mental, and THAT’S ALL. There’s a contradiction between his personal possibility, which reaches very high (although on quite a tenuous peak), and his overall vision. When his attention turns outward, it is very limited; it may be terrestrial, but it’s … it’s crusted over, so to speak.
So that’s the explanation I gave. But the truth….
That’s all.
Have you read Sri Aurobindo’s last letters on China? [[See Addendum. ]]
Oh, yes – he read them to me himself! (Mother laughs.)
But everything Sri Aurobindo said has always come true. You know he also said (but it was in jest, he didn’t write it) … concerning reuniting with Pakistan he told me: “Ten years. It will take ten years.” The ten years passed and nothing happened – OFFICIALLY nothing happened. But the truth is (I learned it through certain government officials), Pakistan did make some overtures in that direction, asking for a union to be reestablished (they would have kept some sort of autonomy, but the two countries would have UNITED, it would have been a UNION), and Nehru refused.
How foolish!
So Sri Aurobindo had seen it.
He had seen it happen. After ten years, when that man who headed Pakistan died, [[This may refer to the death of Liaquat Ali, and the grave economic and political difficulties resulting in the dissolution of the Pakistani Parliament in October 1958, and General Ayub Khan's seizure of power. ]] they found themselves in grave difficulty and were unable to get organized; so they sent somebody (unofficially, of course) to ask India to reestablish union on certain bases – but they refused, the Indians refused. It was a repetition of the same stupidity as when Cripps came to make his proposal, when Sri Aurobindo sent a message saying, “Accept, whatever the conditions, otherwise it will be worse later on.” That’s what Sri Aurobindo told them. Gandhi was there and he retorted, “Why is that man meddling? He should be concerned only with spiritual life.”[[In April 1942, when England was struggling against the Nazis and Japan, which was threatening to invade Burma and India, Churchill sent an emissary, Sir Stafford Cripps, to New Delhi with a very generous proposal which he hoped would rally India's goodwill and cooperation in the fight against the worldwide threat. In this proposal, Great Britain offered India Dominion status, as a first step towards an independent government. Sri Aurobindo at once came out of retirement to wire his adhesion to Cripps; he wired all of India's leaders, and even sent a personal messenger to Gandhi and the Indian Congress to convince them to accept this unhoped for proposal without delay. One of Sri Aurobindo's telegrams to Rajagopalachari (the future President of India) spoke of the grave danger, which no one seemed to see, of rejecting Cripps' proposal: "... Some immediate solution urgent face grave peril. Appeal to you to save India formidable danger new foreign domination when old on way to self-elimination." No one understood: "Why is he meddling?" Had it accepted Dominion status, India would have avoided the partition of the country in two, the artificial creation of Pakistan, as well as the three wars that were to follow (and which we haven't heard the last of), and the blood bath that ravaged Bengal and the Punjab in 1947 at the time of the partition. (See in Addendum an extract from Sri Aurobindo's message on the occasion of India's Independence.) ]]
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They have conscientiously ruined the country.
Yes.
Yes, as much as they could. [[There is another side to the story. When Nehru died, Mother said in a message of May 27, 1964: “Nehru leaves his body but his soul is ONE with the Soul of India, that lives for Eternity.” ]]
That’s what X saw: that they have been the ruin of the country. And so he said, “These men have ruined the country and they shall be destroyed.” That’s what was in his head and that’s why he is opening the door to this drama – which would mean a frightful destruction.
It’s true that they deserve it! They have acted perfectly stupidly all along. Out of ambition, vanity, all sorts of things, but especially out of stupidity and total lack of understanding – a blind vision, reaching no farther than their noses.
Don’t keep this. I don’t want to keep political memories. I haven’t said anything about the world situation for a long time, because I don’t want people to know (it’s not that I don’t know, but I don’t want it known). If I ever get involved in politics – if things take a positive turn, that is – I will start saying what I know in 1967. But not before.
Prior to that: complete silence. I say nothing. I try to act, that’s all
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.[[ All the same, Satprem did keep this conversation, being unable to censor Mother's words or to delete them from History - for where is the borderline between censorship and falsehood? ]]
***
ADDENDUM
(Extract from Sri Aurobindo’s message on the occasion of India’s Independence:)
August 15, 1947
August 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But we can also make it by our life and acts as a free nation an important date in a new age opening for the whole world, for the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity.
August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition. Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world-movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though then they looked like impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement. In all these movements free India may well play a large part and take a leading position.
The first of these dreams was a revolutionary movement which would create a free and united India. India today is free but she has not achieved unity. (…) The old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. India’s internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go. [[Seven weeks after India's Independence and the creation of Pakistan, Pakistan invaded Kashmir. ]] (…)
Sri Aurobindo
***
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(Extract from a letter of Sri Aurobindo concerning the invasion of South Korea on June 15, 1950.)
June 28,1950
I do not know why you want a line of thought to be indicated to you for your guidance in the affair of Korea. There is nothing to hesitate about there, the whole affair is as plain as a pike-staff. It is the first move in the Communist plan of campaign to dominate and take possession first of these northern parts and then of South East Asia as a preliminary to their manoeuvres with regard to the rest of the continent – in passing, Tibet as a gate opening to India. [[Tibet was invaded four months later, on October 21. India did not protest. ]] If they succeed, there is no reason why domination of the whole world should not follow by steps until they are ready to deal with America. That is, provided the war can be staved off with America until Stalin can choose his time. Truman seems to have understood the situation if we can judge from his moves in Korea, but it is to be seen whether he is strong enough and determined enough to carry the matter through. The measures he has taken are likely to be incomplete and unsuccessful, since they do not include any actual military intervention except on sea and in the air. That seems to be the situation; we have to see how it develops. One thing is certain that if there is too much shillyshallying and if America gives up now her defence of Korea, she may be driven to yield position after position until it is too late: at one point or another she will have to stand and face the necessity of drastic action even if it leads to war. Stalin also seems not to be ready to face at once the risk of a world war and, if so, Truman can turn the tables on him by constantly facing him with the onus of either taking that risk or yielding position after position to America. I think that is all that I can see at present; for the moment the situation is as grave as it can be .[[Cent. Ed., Vol. XXVI., 404 & 416. ]]
Sri Aurobindo
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