November
November 4, 1963
(Mother looks tired)
Yesterday, I had resolved to see Sujata, and they kept me standing there arranging objects, perfectly unnecessarily, under the pretext that there are showcases, that visitors are expected and that the objects should be arranged in the showcases…. After spending more than an hour on that work, I told them, “Go away, I’ve had enough! And – do whatever you like.” I was exasperated.
An avalanche of people, of letters, of things, of complications…. But at the same time, there’s an avalanche of … (how can I put it?) – everything, everything is becoming so new. Everything. Everything.
An example: yesterday, for at least a quarter of an hour, I was filled with a sort of marvelous – marveling – admiration for Nature’s fantastic imagination in inventing the animals. I saw all the animals in all their details – that is, the prehuman age. Consequently, there was no mind. And without the mind, how wonderful that imagination was, you know! It was as though I lived in it: there was no man, no thought, but that imaginative power making one species emerge out of another, and then another; and all those details … Everything is becoming like that, as if it were SEEN for the first time and from an altogether different angle; everything, everything: people’s character, circumstances, even the motion of the earth and the stars, everything is like that, everything has become entirely new and … unexpected, in the sense that all the human mental vision – is completely gone! So things are much better! (Laughing) Much better without the human mind. (I don’t mean they are better without man, I mean that seen from another viewpoint than the human, mental viewpoint, everything is far more wonderful.) And then, all the details of every minute, all the people, all the things, all … The trees (Mother looks at the coconut tree in front of her window) that were stripped by the cyclone; this one held up so marvelously and it has a new flower – it has old leaves damaged by the cyclone, but it has grown a new flower. So lovely, so fresh! … Everything is like that.
Me too. Me too, I saw myself (laughing) from a new angle! And the things that in the past were, not positively problems, but anyway "questions to be resolved" (certain actions, certain relationships), all gone! And there is something that thoroughly enjoys itself – I
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don’t know what that something is, but it thoroughly enjoys itself. Outwardly, as I told you, everything is heaped on me ("on me," well, it isn’t on me), on this body, which is obliged to answer questions, obliged to read letters, obliged to see people … whereas it has so much more fun when it can enjoy the inner experience and have this new vision of things – because all that is very material, it’s not going out of Matter to see the world in another way (that has been done for a long time, of course, it’s nothing new, and it’s nothing marvelous), that’s not it: it’s Matter looking at itself in an entirely new way, and that’s where the fun is! It sees the whole affair anew and altogether differently. Then they plunge me back into that stupid way of seeing things, the ordinary human way in which everything becomes a problem, a complication. And I am obliged – obliged to answer people, to listen to what they tell me…. It’s a shame.
They’re wasting my time.
***
(Later, Mother, thinking of the preparation for the next “Bulletin,” asks what the next aphorism is.)
95-Only by perfect renunciation of desire or by perfect satisfaction of desire can the utter embrace of God be experienced, for in both ways the essential precondition is effected, – the desire perishes.
It’s impossible to satisfy desire perfectly – it’s something. impossible. And to renounce desire too: you renounce one desire and get another one. Therefore, both ways are relatively impossible – what’s possible is to enter a condition in which there is no desire.
(long silence)
It’s too bad I can’t keep note of all the experiences that come to me, because just these last few days, for a period of time, there was a very clear perception of the true functioning, which is the expression of the supreme Will and operates spontaneously, naturally and automatically through the individual instrument; I could even say (because the mind is quiet, it keeps quiet): through the body. And the perception of the moment when this expression of the divine Will is blurred, distorted by the introduction of a desire,
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the special vibration of desire, which has a quality all of its own and which comes for many apparent reasons: it’s not only a thirst for something, a need for something or an attachment to something; that same vibration can be triggered by the fact that, for instance, the will expressed seems to be (or at any rate has been taken for) the expression of the supreme Will, but there has been a confusion between the immediate action which was evidently the expression of the supreme Will, and the result which was to follow from that action – it’s a very common mistake. People are used to thinking that when they want a particular thing, that’s what should come; because their vision is too short – too short and too limited, not an overall vision which would make them see that that particular vibration is necessary to trigger a number of other vibrations, and that it’s the TOTALITY of them all that will have an effect, which isn’t the immediate effect of the vibration that was sent out…. I don’t know whether this is clear, but it’s a constant experience.
If I gave an example, it would be easier to grasp, but it must be a lived example, otherwise it’s worthless.
But during that period of time, I made a study and observation of the phenomenon: how the vibration of desire is added to the vibration of the Will sent out by the Supreme (for small everyday acts). And with the vision from above (if you take care, of course, to remain conscious of that vision from above), you see how the vibration sent out was exactly the one sent out by the Supreme, but instead of producing the immediate result which the superficial consciousness expected, it was intended to trigger a whole set of vibrations in order to reach another result, more distant and more complete. I am not talking of big things or terrestrial actions, I am talking of very small things in life. For example, you tell someone, "Give me this," and the person, instead of giving that, misunderstands and gives something else; so if you don’t take care to keep an overall vision, a certain vibration may occur, say of impatience, or a dissatisfaction, along with the feeling that the Lord’s vibration is neither understood nor received. Well, it’s that little ADDED vibration of impatience (or, in fact, of incomprehension of what happens), it’s that feeling of a lack of receptivity or response that has the quality of desire – we can’t call it a "desire," but it’s the same kind of vibration. And that’s what comes and complicates things. If you have the complete, exact vision, you know that "Give me this" will produce a result different from the immediate one and that that other result will bring about yet
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another, which is exactly what should be. I don’t know whether I am making myself clear, it’s a bit complicated! … But it gave me the key to the difference in quality between the vibration of the Will and the vibration of desire. And together with this, the possibility of doing away with that vibration of desire through a broader and more total vision – broader, more total, more distant, that is to say, the vision of a vaster totality.
I am insisting on this, because it eliminates all moral elements. It eliminates the derogatory notion of desire. The vision increasingly eliminates all those notions of good and evil, good and bad, inferior and superior, and so forth. There is only what I might almost call a difference of vibratory quality – “quality” still evokes the idea of superiority and inferiority, it isn’t quality, not intensity either, I don’t know the scientific term they use to distinguish one vibration from another, but that’s it.
But then, the remarkable thing is that the Vibration (what we could call the quality of the vibration that comes from the Lord) is constructive: it constructs, it is peaceful and luminous; while that other vibration, of desire and such like, complicates, destroys and confuses, it twists things – confuses and distorts them, twists them. And it takes away the light: it makes for a dullness, which can be intensified with violent movements to the point of very dark shadows. But even where there is no passion, where passion doesn’t interfere, that’s how it is. You see, the physical reality has become nothing but a field of vibrations mingling together and, unfortunately, clashing together too, in conflict with one another. And the clash, the conflict, is the climax of that kind of turmoil, of disorder and confusion created by certain vibrations, which are ultimately vibrations of ignorance (they come because people don’t know, they are vibrations of ignorance), and are too small, too narrow, too limited – too short. The problem isn’t seen from a psychological standpoint at all: it’s nothing but vibrations.
If we look at it from a psychological standpoint … On the mental plane, it’s very easy; on the vital plane, it’s not too difficult; on the physical plane, it’s a little heavier, because desires are passed off as “needs.” But there too, there has been a field of experience these last few days: the study of medical and scientific conceptions on the body’s makeup, its needs, and what’s good or bad for it. And all this, in its essence, again boils down to the same question of vibrations. It was quite interesting: there was an appearance (because all things as the ordinary consciousness sees them are nothing but appearances), there was an appearance of food poisoning (mushrooms that are thought to have been bad). It was the object of a particular study to find out whether there was something absolute about the poisoning, or whether it was relative, that is, based on ignorance, a wrong reaction and the absence of the true Vibration. And the conclusion was as follows: it’s a question of proportion between the amount, the sum of the vibrations that belong to the Supreme, and the sum of the vibrations that still belong to darkness. Depending on the proportion, the poisoning appears as something concrete, real, or else as something that can be eliminated, in other words, that doesn’t resist the influence of the Vibration of Truth. And it was very interesting, because, immediately, as soon as the consciousness became aware of the cause of the trouble in the body’s functioning (the consciousness perceived where it came from and what it was), immediately the observation began, with the idea: “Let’s see what happens.” First set the body perfectly at rest with the certainty (which is always there) that nothing happens except by the Lord’s Will and that the effect too is the Lord’s Will, all the consequences are the Lord’s Will, and consequently one should be very still. So the body is very still: untroubled, not agitated, it doesn’t vibrate, nothing – very still. Once this is achieved, to what extent are the effects unavoidable? Because a certain quantity of matter that contained an element unfavorable to the body’s elements and life was absorbed, what is the proportion between the favorable and the unfavorable elements, or between the favorable and the unfavorable vibrations? And I saw very clearly: the proportion varies according to the amount of cells in the body that are under the direct Influence, that respond to the supreme Vibration alone, and the amount of other cells that still belong to the ordinary way of vibrating. It was very clear, because I could see all the possibilities, from the ordinary mass [of cells], which is completely upset by that intrusion and where you have to fight with all the ordinary methods to get rid of the undesirable element, to the totality of the cellular response to the supreme Force, which renders the intrusion perfectly innocuous…. But this is still a dream for tomorrow – we’re on the way. But the proportion has become rather favorable (I can’t say all-powerful, far from it, but rather favorable), so that the consequences of the ill-being didn’t last very long and the damage was, so to say, minimal.
But all the experiences nowadays, one after the other – all the PHYSICAL experiences, of the body – point to the same conclusion: everything depends on the proportion between the elements that
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respond exclusively to the Supreme’s Influence, the half-and-half elements, on the road to transformation, and the elements that still follow Matter’s old vibratory process. The latter appear to be decreasing in number, to a great extent, but there are still enough of them to bring about unpleasant effects or unpleasant reactions – things that are untransformed, that still belong to ordinary life. But all problems, whether psychological or purely material or chemical, all problems boil down to this: they are nothing but questions of vibrations. And there is the perception of that totality of vibrations and of what we could call (in a very rough and approximative way) the difference between the constructive and the destructive vibrations. We can say (to put it very simply) that all the vibrations that come from the One and express Oneness are constructive, while all the complications of the ordinary, separative consciousness lead to destruction.
(long silence)
It is always said that it is desire that creates difficulties (and indeed it is so). Desire may be simply something added on to a vibration of will. It is also said that nothing happens except by the supreme Will, so how can the two things be true at the same time and be combined? And it’s because this problem was being posed that I found … The will (when it is the one Will, the supreme Will expressing itself) is direct, immediate, there cannot be any obstacles; so all that delays, blocks, complicates, or even brings about failure, is NECESSARILY the mixture of desire.
This can be seen for everything. Take, for example, an external field of action, in the outer world and with outer things (naturally, to say it is “outer” is simply to put yourself in a false position), but, for example, if in the highest consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness, you tell someone, “Go” (I am giving one example among millions), “Go and see so-and-so, tell him this to obtain that.” If the person is receptive, inwardly immobile and surrendered, he goes, sees the other person, tells him, and the thing happens – without the SLIGHTEST complication, just like that. If the person has an active mental consciousness, doesn’t have total faith and has all the mixture of ego and ignorance, he sees the difficulties, sees the problems to be resolved, sees all the complications – naturally, they all occur! So according to the proportion (everything is a question of proportion, always), according to the proportion, it creates complications, it takes time, the thing is delayed, or, a little worse, it is distorted, it doesn’t occur exactly
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as it should, it is changed, diminished, distorted, or, finally, it doesn’t occur at all – there are many, many degrees, but it all belongs to the domain of complications (mental complications) and desire. Whereas the other way is immediate. Examples of those cases (of all cases) are innumerable, so also are the examples of the immediate case. Then people tell you, "Oh, you’ve worked a miracle!" No miracle was worked: it should always be that way. It’s because the intermediary did not add himself to the action.
I don’t know if that’s clear, but anyway …
So, from the smallest thing to even terrestrial things … I don’t want to be personal at all, so I won’t give examples, but there were some amusing ones, like, for instance, making people such as presidents, prime ministers, make certain decisions – if the right intermediary is there.
It can even be a terrestrial action.
There are examples, in the terrestrial action, of things that were done “just like that”: no one ever understood how it was done or why it was done – just like that, so simply, very simply, it all worked out. And in other cases, to obtain a mere visa or permit, you have to move heaven and earth! So, from the smallest thing, the slightest physical discomfort, to the most global action, it’s all the same principle, it all boils down to the same principle.
Naturally, when you have the experience, it’s very easy to understand, but it’s hard to explain – by the way, I don’t think we can put this in the Bulletin.
Yes, we can, it’s quite clear!
Oh, incomprehensible.
No, no.
Anyway … I tried to take out the personal element as much as possible.
It’s clear.
Is it really?… All right (laughing), very well then!
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