September 7, 1963
(The beginning of this conversation was to disappear, but Satprem chanced on it on a second track of the tape-recording. He found it charming and inserted it back here. Quite often he deleted these beginnings of conversations…. Here the subject was his health, Sujata having written to Mother that it was deteriorating” and proposed that a supplementary diet be given him.)
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So, let me contemplate you! (laughter) How are you, mon petit?
There is some improvement.
A little better…. And that food, is it all right?
Yes, it seems to be helping.
Here … (Mother gives a white hibiscus): it’s the “will one with the Divine Will” – when they’re merged like that and you can no longer tell one from the other. Petit…
***
(Mother comments on an “old” experience of June 29:
the “boat of pink clay.”)
Things are moving much faster than I thought because this experience seems to me far, far, far behind [it dates back two months], so many things have happened since – there are so many things I don’t mention.
***
Soon afterwards
The other day, for some question of work, I was led to explain my position from the standpoint of the materialist conviction (I don’t know what their position is today, because that’s something I am not concerned with generally), but anyway I was led to do it because of a certain work. [[An occult work, obviously. ]]
For them, all the experiences men have are the result of a mental phenomenon: we have reached a progressive mental development (they are at a loss to explain why or how!), anyhow it was Matter that developed Life, Life that developed Mind, and all of men’s so-called spiritual experiences are mental constructions (they use
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other words, but I believe that’s their idea). It is, at any rate, a denial of all spiritual existence in itself and of a Being or Force or Something superior which governs everything.
As I said, I don’t know what their position is today, what point they have reached, but I was in the presence of a conviction of that type.
Then I said, “But it’s very simple! I accept your point of view, there is nothing other than what we see, than mankind as it is; all the so-called inner phenomena are due to a mental, cerebral action; and when you die, you die – in other words, the phenomenon of agglomeration comes to the end of its existence, and it dissolves, everything dissolves. That’s all very well.”
(Quite likely, had things been that way, I would have found life so disgusting that I would have left it long ago. But I must add right away that it’s not for any moral or even spiritual reason that I disapprove of suicide, it’s because to me it’s an act of cowardice and something in me doesn’t like cowardice, so I did not … I would never have fled from the problem.)
That’s one point.
“But then, once you are here on this earth and you have to go to the end, even if the end is nothingness, you go to the end and it’s just as well to do so as best you can, that is to say, to your fullest satisfaction…. I happened to have some philosophical curiosity and to study all kinds of problems, and I came upon Sri Aurobindo’s teaching, and what he taught” (I would say “revealed,” but not to a materialist) “is by far, among the systems men have formulated, the most satisfying FOR ME, the most complete, and what answers the most satisfactorily all the questions that can be asked; it is the one that helps me the most in life to have the feeling that ‘life is worth living.’ Consequently, I try to conform entirely to his teaching and to live it integrally in order to live as best I can – for me. I don’t mind at all if others don’t believe in it – whether they believe in it or not is all the same to me; I don’t need the support of others’ conviction, it’s enough if I am myself satisfied.”
Well, there’s no reply to that.
The experience lasted a long time – for all details, to all problems, that’s what I answered. And when I came to the end, I said to myself, “But that’s a wonderful argument!” Because all the elements of doubt, ignorance, incomprehension, bad will, negation, with that argument they were all muzzled – annulled, they had no effect.
That work, I think, must have had worldwide repercussions. I
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was in it, in that state (with the sense of a very great power and a wonderful freedom) for certainly at least six or eight hours. (The work had started long before, but it became rather acutely present these last few days.)
And afterwards, everything was held in a solid grip – what do you have to say?
(silence)
It’s much easier to answer out-and-out materialists who are convinced and sincere (“sincere” within the limit of their consciousness, that is) than to answer people who have a religion! Much easier.
With Indians, it’s very easy – they’re heaven-blessed, these people, because it takes very little for them to be oriented in the right way.[[ Later Mother added: "This isn't quite correct because I am in contact with the best among Indians, but those who are materialists are very darkly and brutishly so." ]] But there are two types of difficult religion, the Christian religion (especially in the form of Protestantism), and the Jewish religion.
The Jews are also out-and-out materialists: you die, well, you die, it’s over. Though I haven’t quite understood how they reconcile that with their God, who moreover is Unthinkable and must not be named … but who, seen from the standpoint of a vaster truth, seems (I am not sure), seems to be an Asura. Because it’s an almighty and UNIQUE God, foreign to the world – the world (as far as I know) and he are two completely different things.
It’s the same with Catholicism. Yet, if I remember correctly, their God created the world with a part of himself, no?
No, no!
No? Is it only man that he pulled out of his rib?
No! It’s out of Adam’s rib that he pulled man, not out of his own rib!
Aah!
It’s out of Adam’s rib …
… that he pulled woman. Aah! …
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No, no, he “created” the world.
Out of nothingness he made the world?
That’s right.
Then it’s the same problem, the same difficulty. It’s quite simply an incomprehension.
And in fact he sent his son to “save the world.”
Then his son doesn’t belong to the creation?
He is the son of God – not so the others.
He is the ONLY son of God?
Yes, of course!
They’ve twisted everything. But Adam belonged to the creation, didn’t he?
Yes, while Christ isn’t human, he is the son.
But he took on a human body.
Yes, but he’s the son of God. He isn’t a human being become divine, he is a divine being – “the son of God” – who took on a human body.
But that’s understood! All Avatars are like that.
Yes, but he’s the only one.
It’s all twisted.
But the Virgin, in that affair? What happened to her? Because she was a woman, wasn’t she?
She was human.
Yes … because in the story, there’s even a moment when Christ says, “What do I have to do with that woman”! But then, the Assumption? …
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(silence)
Of course, those who know understand very well – it’s all symbolic.
But for instance, I told you I spoke with the Pope for quite a long time the day of his election, and the conversation was abruptly interrupted by a reaction he had. (It was really a mental conversation we were having: I spoke, he replied, I heard his reply – I don’t know whether he was conscious of something … probably not, but anyway; it wasn’t at all a formation of my own mind because I received quite unexpected replies.) But the conversation was interrupted abruptly by a reaction he had when I told him that God is everywhere and in all things; that everything is He; and then a great Force came down into me and I added, “Even when you descend into Hell, He is there too.”
Then everything stopped dead.
Since then I’ve learned that it’s part of their teaching: that what is terrible in Hell isn’t so much the suffering, but that there is no God there; that it’s the only part of the creation in which there is no God – there is no God in Hell. And I asserted that He is there too.
But naturally, from an intellectual point of view, all those things are explained and find their place – man has never thought anything that wasn’t the distortion of a truth. That’s not the difficulty, it’s that for religious people there are certain things they have a DUTY to believe, and to allow the mind to discuss them is a “sin” – so naturally they close themselves and will never be able to make any progress. Whereas the materialists, on the other hand, are on the contrary supposed to know and explain everything – they explain everything rationally. So (Mother laughs), precisely because they explain everything, you can lead them where you want to.
There.
There’s nothing to be done with religious people.
No. And it’s not good to try either. If they cling to a religion, it means that that religion has helped them somehow or other, has helped something in them which in fact wanted to have a certitude without having to seek for it – to lean on something solid without being responsible for its solidity (someone else is responsible! [Mother laughs]), and to leave their bodies in that way. So to want to pull them out of it shows a lack of compassion – they should just be left where they are. Never do I argue with someone who
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has a faith – let him keep his faith! And I take great care not to say anything that might shake his faith because it’s not good – such people are unable to have another faith.
But with a materialist … “I don’t argue, I accept your point of view; only, you have nothing to say – I’ve taken my position, take yours. If you are satisfied with what you know, keep it. If it helps you to live, very good.
“But you have no right to blame or criticize me, because I am taking my position on your own basis. Even if all that I imagine is mere imagination, I prefer that imagination to yours.” That’s all.
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