Works of Sri Aurobindo

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April

April 6, 1963

There is progress in the impersonalization of the physical, bodily consciousness, with consequences that are probably interesting, but impossible to explain to people who don’t understand. For instance …

(silence)

I am conscious of the body, but it isn’t the consciousness of this body (Mother touches her body): it’s the consciousness of THE Body – it may be anyone’s body. I am conscious, for instance, of vibrations of disorder (most often they come in the form of suggestions of disorder) in order to see whether they are accepted and have an effect. Let’s take the example of a suggestion of hemorrhage, or some such suggestion (I mention hemorrhage because it will soon come into the picture). Under the higher Influence, the body consciousness rejects it. Then begins the battle (all this takes place all the way down in the cells, in the material consciousness) between what we could call the “will for hemorrhage,” for example, and the reaction of the body’s cells. But it’s very like a real battle, a real confrontation. And all of a sudden, there’s something like a general issuing a command and saying, “What’s this!”… You understand, that general is conscious of the higher forces, the higher realities and the divine intervention in Matter; and after trying to use the will, this reaction, that feeling of peace and so on, suddenly he is SEIZED by a very strong determination and issues a command – in no time the effect begins to make itself felt, and little by little everything returns to order.

All this takes place in the material consciousness. Physically, the body has all the sensations – but not the hemorrhage, you understand. But it does have the sensations, that is, the effects: all the sensory effects. It goes on for a while and then follows a whole curve. All right. Once the battle is over, I take a look and wonder (I observe the whole thing, I see my body, which has been fairly shaken, mind you), I say to myself, “What in the world is all this?” But just for a second, then I forget about it.

A few days afterwards, I receive a letter from someone very close, who has an ardent faith and really holds on to me with almost perfect faith, exceptional. In the letter: the whole story, the attack, the hemorrhage, how suddenly the being is SEIZED, the

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consciousness is SEIZED with an irresistible will, and hears words – the very words that were uttered HERE. The result: saved (he was dying), saved, cured.

Just enough time for the letter to reach me.

I remembered my episode … and began to understand that my body is everywhere!!

You see, it’s not a question of just these cells here: it’s a question of cells in, well, quite a lot of people, hundreds, maybe thousands – all that clings anywhere and in any way to the higher Consciousness. And since my mind is silent (I deliberately keep the mind absolutely still, trying not to react to all that constantly comes to it from “outside,” or trying to react almost subconsciously), nothing is there to think, “Oh, it’s this one’s body, it’s that one’s body” – it’s THE Body! That’s what is so difficult for people to understand. It is THE body – this (Mother touches her body) is not my body any more than other bodies (a bit more, in the sense that it is more directly the object of the concentration of the Force). So everything, all the sensations, the movements of consciousness, the battles, all of it is everywhere. And suddenly, with this little affair, oh, I understood a fantastic number of things – and also the difficulty, mon petit!… The difficulty … because really, after this experience, the body was not ill but very tired. But then it is seized with such things all the time! All the time, all the time, all the time, you know, they spring up, brrm! pounce on it, brrm! from this side, that side, every which way. So I have to keep still (gesture of stopping, silent, in the midst of other activities), and then I start waging the battle.

(silence)

Which means the body has got its own difficulties (no aggregate of cells is free from difficulties in the present conditions of life), and I think that its capacity to keep still (to an extent) is its only safeguard … but that doesn’t reduce the difficulties at all, since the contact doesn’t even depend on the physical presence! [[The contact with other bodies (which in fact are not "other"). ]] But then what tremendous, prodigious power has to be EMBODIED in the physical cells to withstand all that! …

But there too, a shift is taking place (what I told you once: those abrupt experiences that do not settle in but are first contacts [[See conversation of March 16. ]]). After the lesson was drawn from this story, suddenly something

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arose in the body consciousness – which isn’t ONE body’s consciousness but a general body consciousness – an aspiration, something so pure, so sweet … so sweet … something like an entreaty that Truth and Light may at last be manifested here, in this. Not “here in this” (Mother touches her own body): it was everywhere.

Then there was a contact [[Gesture of junction between the Supreme and this general body consciousness. ]] – there was a contact – and a pale blue Light, very sweet, very bright, and an Assurance.

It lasted only a second, but it was like a new chapter suddenly opening up.

Mon petit, you are the only person to whom I can say all this – there is not one, not one! Not one able to simply understand. Which makes things more difficult, because I am constantly weighed down by the stupidity of people’s thoughts (stupidity in the sense of incomprehension), the thoughts of all those around me, who think I am (“I,” what they call “I,” you know, “me”), who think I am ill and … I can’t tell them a thing! If I hadn’t spoken to you today, it would be gone. I would never have said anything. Well, that’s the way it is.

So looking at it from an ordinary viewpoint, it’s so … fantastic, it means such a … colossal work. Of course, it’s the Lord who does it, but will this hold out? (Mother touches her body) I can’t say.

If He wants, certainly He will find a way for it to hold out. But the thing is rather new….

(silence)

My only method is a kind of shield of mental silence (in the ordinary mind), so that all the people’s thoughts do not come and pester me all the time, without letup. But they creep underneath! With some people, the moment they enter the room, I feel exhausted, because of their attitude. It doesn’t work through thought at all: it’s a special vibration in my body.

With others, on the contrary, it’s fine.

And I don’t try to observe or study or understand – God knows! There is no need to understand: it’s self-evident.

Only one thing is always present: to keep intact and POWERFULLY conscious the sense of the divine Presence – that’s all. That’s the single concern of the cells.

From time to time (Mother laughs), they hold … a kind of little conference among themselves, they seem to tell each other, "No

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 one can interfere with That!"[[The experience of the Presence. ]] It makes them happy: "All their thoughts are powerless in front of That!"

That’s all, mon petit. More work for you.

It’s stupendous. Stupendous.

Yes, yes. I had a strong feeling of something … well, something rather new.

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