December 11, 1963
There was in the Subconscient a frightful battle in the night from the 8th to the 9th – oh! … It was like a return of the attack on me when you went to Rameswaram (long ago[ [In 1958. ]]); X said it was a Tantric who had made that formation (it happened on December 9 too and I was very sick, I didn’t go out). Well, it was an attack of that kind. I don’t know if it comes from the same … I can’t say “person,” but from the same origin of forces. And very violent, during the night. It went on during the meditation on the 9th: for the first time during those meditations, there was a tremendous battle, in the Subconscient. And the body was in a state … a not too happy state. It stops the heart, you see, so … it was unpleasant.
But afterwards, I saw that it did dislodge something, it wasn’t useless. It dislodged something. But it’s forces with a radical ill will: they are not merely ignorant – a radical ill will.
But it didn’t have a human origin, did it? It wasn’t from a human individual?
No, it’s not an individual: it’s a universal way of being. It’s always that way: things aren’t positively impersonal, but they do not belong to one person; they are universal ways of being.
I mean, there was no human instrument, was there?
I wasn’t conscious of an instrument, but I was conscious of plenty of spots[[ All those to which the force of ill will clings. ]] to which the thing clings. It clings not even to beings, but to ways of being of beings: to certain tendencies, certain attitudes, certain reactions – it clings to all that. It’s not at all “one” person or “one” will, that’s not it, but it’s a way of being. It’s all universal ways of being that are destined to disappear from the field of activity and are being eliminated.
But the reaction on the body was painful, as it was the first time. The first time (according to X and the Swami), it was supposed to kill me – it didn’t even make me seriously ill, but it had a very unpleasant effect. I told you at the time that it was a mantra
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intended to drain you of all your blood; I’ve seen several examples of people who died in that way: it was found afterwards to be the result of a mantric formation. In my case, all it succeeded in doing was to make me sick, as if everything came out – I vomited terribly. Then there was something pulling me and I absolutely had to go … my consciousness told me I had to go and see someone (I was all alone in my bathroom when it happened), a particular person whom I had to go and see; and when I opened the door, Z was there, waiting to prepare my bath, but I didn’t see him at all and I absolutely wanted to go somewhere, into the other room, so I pushed against him, thinking, “What’s this obstacle in my way?” And he thought I was fainting on him! It caused quite a to-do.
I was completely in trance, you see. I was walking, but completely in trance.
Anyway, things went back to normal fairly quickly at the time. But the other day, the 9th, there was a return of that attack, as though that ill will hadn’t been completely eliminated, completely defeated – there was a return. It didn’t have the same effect, but it was painful. A curious feeling, as if … (I was sitting at the table, as I always do on mornings when there is meditation), then at the beginning, in some parts of the body, the cells seemed to be grating. I concentrated, I called, and I saw there was a battle – a formidable battle being waged down below. It was grating, it’s curious. A kind of grating of things that aren’t smooth. And I wondered, “When will it be able to relax?” Then spasms here, at the solar plexus. And on those days, the doctor and P. always stay here for the meditation; but I was in trance, in my battle, when suddenly I felt a pressure on my pulse (laughing): it was the doctor, who had got up from his meditation (I must have been making some strange noises!) and was feeling my pulse – it seems my pulse was fading! But I didn’t come out of my trance (I was conscious, but I didn’t come out of it), I stayed like that till the end of the meditation, even a little afterwards. Then when the grating diminished, I came out of the trance and saw them both standing in front of me. I gave them a nice smile and told them, “It’s all right.” And I lay down. Then I went into a deep trance, completely out of the body, and everything returned to normal.
Afterwards I took a look. I wasn’t too happy: "To do that during the meditation! …" And I was "told" that it could be done only during the meditation and not at any other time, in activity or even in concentration, because it’s not the same thing: it could be done only in deep meditation. So I said, "Very well." And I was
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also shown that there was a concrete result, a kind of partial victory over that type of ill will – a very, very aggressive ill will, extremely aggressive, which belongs to another age: it’s something that no longer has the right to exist on the earth. It must go.
It’s the same thing, moreover, which brought about Kennedy’s assassination. And I suppose that’s why I had to intervene. Because Kennedy’s assassination has upset many things from the point of view of the general work. And it was the same thing, because as soon as I had news of the assassination, I saw the same kind of vibration, the same black force – very, very black – and spontaneously, I said (it isn’t “I” who said it), “Oh, that may mean war.” In other words, a victory of that force over the one that tries to follow more harmonious paths. But I have been protesting and working since then, and what happened on the 9th is the outcome of it.
But when you’re right in it … it isn’t comfortable.
***
(Then Mother reads a handwritten note which is the continuation of the experience she related on December 7, when she spoke of the varying nearness and farness of the Presence.)
I address it to the Lord:
“It is as if You flowed with the blood, You vibrated with the nerves, You lived with the cells….”
It isn’t “in” or “by”: it’s “with,” it’s identified. As if You flowed with the blood. And the sensation was absolutely concrete: this Presence of the Lord FLOWS with the blood, VIBRATES with the nerves, and LIVES (“lives,” meaning Life, the essence of Life) with the cells.
That’s the best time! (Mother laughs)
Well, just recently, since that attack of the 9th, the Presence has increased [in the body]. And that’s how I know that something has been won. I mean it has increased in duration, in frequency, and in the promptness of its response, of the time needed to get it.
(silence)
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The difference between before and after the 9th is that before the 9th there was a constant pressure of adverse suggestions, as Sri Aurobindo said in that letter we translated last time: “It’s all an illusion, it’s all imagination….” A constant harassment. And sometimes it even takes very precise forms: “You think you’re integrally conscious of the Lord – not in the least! It’s just a little bit in your head, vaguely, and so you imagine it’s true.” When I heard that, it annoyed me very much, and I said, “All right, I’ll see.” And it is after that kind of battle in the Subconscient that the voice stopped and I had this experience: “It flows in the blood, it vibrates in the nerves, it lives in the cells….”
And everywhere, you see, not just my cells, not just the cells of this body: when the experience comes, it is quite widespread; I have an impression of many bloods, many cells, many nerves…. Which means that the CENTRAL consciousness isn’t always aware of it, the individual isn’t always aware of it (it has an extraordinary feeling, but it doesn’t know what it is), while the cells are aware of it, but they cannot express it.
I felt that several times: when the experience comes, it isn’t limited to one body. Only, the consciousness – the observing consciousness – isn’t the same everywhere: there are DEGREES of consciousness, and here [in Mother's body] it appears to be a MORE CONSCIOUS center of consciousness, that’s all; but otherwise … For the consciousness itself it’s that way too: at times it is very much awake, at other times not so awake…. Ultimately, all this is an experience of Oneness, of multiplicity in Oneness, and this experience depends on the degree of nearness and intensity. But it is the all – the all which is one – and seen from the standpoint of the Lord’s consciousness…. You know, what we call “the Lord” is that which is fully conscious of itself; and the more the consciousness diminishes, the more you feel it’s no longer the Lord – but it is the Lord all the same!
That’s how it is.
(silence)
When we speak of “perception or knowledge through identity,” it is still something that projects itself, identifies itself and OBSERVES itself while doing so; and it is conscious of the result. But my experience now isn’t like that; it isn’t something projecting itself: it’s an overall perception. So instead of being able to say, “You think this way, THIS ONE thinks that way, THAT ONE feels this way,” one thinks it or feels it with more or less clarity in the
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perception, more or less precision in the perception, but it’s always “one” – you don’t feel like saying “I”; there’s no “I,” it’s “one,” it’s something. Listen, I’ll give you an example: this morning I received that Italian, he started speaking, making gestures, telling me things – NOT ONE sound reached my ears … yet I knew perfectly well what he was saying. And I answered him in the same way, without speaking. I didn’t feel it was someone else talking to me and that I was answering him: it was a totality of movements more or less conscious of themselves, a totality and an exchange, an interchange of movements more or less conscious of themselves, with some vibrations more conscious, some less conscious, but the whole thing very living, very active. But then, in order to speak, I would have had to put myself in the ordinary consciousness in which the Italian was over there and I was here – but it didn’t mean anything any more, it wasn’t true. So there was something answering within, very actively, very distinctly, and all of it went on together (gesture showing movements of consciousness or waves of vibrations), and at the same time, there was a consciousness – a very, very vast consciousness – which was watching it all [those exchanges of vibrations] and exerting a sort of control, a very, very slight but very precise control, so as to put each vibration in its place.
That’s how it is now when I see people. And it seems to be becoming more and more constant.
The other state, the state in which there is “me” and “other people,” is becoming unpleasant; it brings things the consciousness disapproves of, reactions the consciousness disapproves of: “Still this? Still this smallness, still this limitation, still this incomprehension, still this darkness?…” All the time like that. So, immediately, something within goes like this (gesture of inner reversal), and it becomes the other way. And the other way is so soft, oh! … So soft, so smooth, without clashes, without friction, without unpleasant reactions – that’s what happened when there was that very painful “grating” during the meditation on the 9th it was because the individual reactions of the cells were not in accord with the general harmony.
It’s becoming a little interesting. It’s a little new.
And there is a kind of joy, an unobtrusive joy, always like a kind of smile … a smile not ironic, but a little …
Putting it into words takes a sort of contraction, which is a pity – a pity. I don’t know when there will be a means of expressing ourselves without that contraction…. I remember, I am seeing
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again or reliving just now the face of that boy, that Italian (he is a thirty-five- or forty-year-old man, but young within, very young psychically), and there was this consciousness kneading something within, putting things back into place – but smoothly, without violence or clashes or reactions. And when I told him, "Now it’s time to go," it wasn’t at all one person saying to another, "It’s time to go," it’s as if I said to myself, "Now it’s time to go." It’s very odd. Rather new. Because it has become much more conscious; it had been like that in a sort of natural and spontaneous way of being for a long time, but now it’s becoming conscious.
And when there is … For example, when there is a relaxation in someone, or when there is a tensing up, I feel it: something in me relaxes, or tenses up; but not “in me” here, like this (Mother in her armchair): in me THERE (Mother in the “other” person).
And I know the very minute it takes place, you see. But those [tensing up, relaxation] are big movements, so it becomes obvious, but I realize that it goes on all the time – it’s like that all the time.
To the point that what happens in the body isn’t (oh, it’s been that way for a long time, but it’s becoming more and more that way), isn’t familiar like something that happens in a particular body: it’s just one way of being among all the others. It’s becoming more and more like that. The reaction here [in Mother's body] isn’t any more intimate than the reaction in others. And it’s barely more perceptible: it all depends on the state of attentiveness and concentration of the consciousness (it’s all movements of consciousness). But the consciousness isn’t – is NO LONGER individual AT ALL. I am positive about that. A consciousness … which is becoming more and more total. And now and then – now and then – when everything is “favorable,” it becomes the Lord’s Consciousness, the Consciousness of everything, and then it’s … a drop of Light. Nothing but Light.
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