July 18, 1964
(Mother translates into French the following letter by Sri Aurobindo:)
“The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward, not depending on institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out of his growing inner perfection availing to shape a more perfect form and frame of life….”[[We publish below the letter in full. ]]
It made me see something so interesting…. Automatically, human thought is always convinced (automatically convinced, anyway) that things must "follow the mechanism." For the body, in order to get cured, to change something, they instinctively feel that things have to follow the mechanism. For example, I’ve had these last few days an interesting experience concerning a question: "What will the form of the superman be like?"… All the conceptions speak of a man with a more perfect form; but that’s only an improvement. And man does represent a radical change from the ape
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- but from what point of view? Not so much because of the form of his body as because of his POWER OVER THE MECHANISM OF LIFE. So, following this idea, I had a confirmation of what I had seen, that Matter became plastic and obeyed the will. So everyone had a certain amount of matter at his disposal and gave it the forms he liked.
And I saw that human imagination has great difficulty getting out of a sort of enslavement to the physical machinery. That’s what Sri Aurobindo means here.
* * *
(complete text of Sri Aurobindo’s letter)
The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward, not depending on institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out of his growing inner perfection availing to shape a more perfect form and frame of life; for by this inwardness we shall best be able both to see the truth of the high things which we now only speak with our lips and form into outward intellectual constructions, and to apply their truth sincerely to all our outward living. If we are to found the kingdom of God in humanity, we must first know God and see and live the diviner truth of our being in ourselves; otherwise how shall a new manipulation of the constructions of the reason and scientific systems of efficiency which have failed us in the past, avail to establish it? It is because there are plenty of signs that the old error continues and only a minority, leaders perhaps in light, but not yet in action, are striving to see more clearly, inwardly and truly, that we must expect as yet rather the last twilight which divides the dying from the unborn age than the real dawning. For a time, since the mind of man is not yet ready, the old spirit and method may yet be strong and seem for a short while to prosper; but the future lies with the men and nations who first see beyond both the glare and the dusk the gods of the morning and prepare themselves to be fit instruments of the Power that is pressing towards the light of a greater ideal.
Sri Aurobindo
* * *
(Then the conversation turns to Satprem’s brother. This person
will appear several times in the Agenda, which is why
we publish what concerns him.)
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I’d like to talk to you about my brother and sister-in-law. They had an inner opening when they read the book.
I felt that.
And as they are in close touch with me, I’d like to know… I would like you to know and help them. This is my brother’s photo.
Oh!… He’s younger than you. Well, well … There’s a lot of substance.
And this is his wife, a Russian.
Ah, I know her.
You know her?
Yes. What does he do?
He’s a doctor.
He is fine. Very fine, even.
And this is a photo of my friend the publisher, who helped me for the publication of “The Gold-Washer” and the book on Sri Aurobindo.
Oh, a familiar face. [[He is the person who suddenly appeared before Mother during a meditation with Satprem (see Agenda 1, October 30, 1960, p. 459). ]]
More substance here [in the brother]. A lot of substance, a lot.
He’s fine, your brother.
So he has felt the book?
He has been … (gesture of a wall opening up).
He’s a man who gives himself very much to his profession, and he suffers from being too receptive. He gives himself to his patients, so he swallows …
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He receives everything.
As soon as a patient enters his office, he senses whether he will be able to cure him or not. And if he can cure him, he loses all his energy, he gives everything to the patient.
That doesn’t matter; what he needs is to learn to receive, to universalize his receptivity. That’s just what Sri Aurobindo was saying: that “inwardness.” Not to depend exclusively on outward means, but to lean more on the universal Will (gesture above the head) than on the individual will; that way, you always have an inexhaustible source instead of depending on what you eat, how much rest you get, this and that.
That’s the method exactly: to broaden your receptivity indefinitely and depend on the forces that circulate constantly in the world, so that only the most physical materiality is dependent on food and sleep. Because even what you eat feeds you differently according to your receptivity, your inner attitude; there is a capacity for extracting the Force from things, which can be gained from a broadening of the receptivity.
He CAN do that, he can.
You understand, to shrink from giving narrows you – you should give generously and receive generously.
(Mother looks at the photo again)
He has quite a considerable vital capacity…. But the true solution lies in the psychic development. Besides, that’s how doctors cure people, much more than through medicines – much more. With some doctors, when the patient comes into contact with them, he feels supported, helped.
(silence)
So, you did some good work in France.
(Satprem protests: it is Mother who worked)
To me, it doesn’t make any difference!
It’s extremely interesting, because it’s becoming absolutely concrete. It isn’t a thought, it isn’t an idea, it’s absolutely concrete: all, but all the contacts with people are simply vibrations. There isn’t “this person” or “that person,” that’s not it: it’s nothing but
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vibrations, with places or moments of concentration, others of broadening and diffusion. And what’s extremely interesting is that constant mass, in constant motion, of vibrations of all kinds: of falsehood, disorder, violence, complication. Then, within that mass, there is a rain, as it were, but a very consciously directed rain, of vibrations of Light, Order, Harmony, which enter that (Mother draws movements of forces), and it all resists, it all works. It’s something that lives untrammeled, constantly, everywhere, every second, and in a consciousness … if I use the word “love,” it won’t be understood, because … That’s what is everywhere, constantly, eternally and immutably; nothing exists but by That and in That – in fact, only That exists essentially. And within that mass, there is a sort of struggle – which isn’t a struggle because there’s no sense of struggle, but an effort against a resistance, an effort so that Order and Harmony and, naturally, eventually Love (but that’s for later) overcome the disorder and confusion. And in that Order (that essentially true Order), the greatest contradiction is precisely Falsehood. But those are all vibrations. They’re not individual wills or individual consciousnesses: within one individual aggregate, you find the whole range, and not only the whole range, but it changes constantly: the proportion of the vibrations changes; only the appearance remains what it was, but that’s very superficial.
This experience is becoming so constant, so constant that’s it’s difficult for me to adapt myself to the ordinary perception.
For instance, when you show me photos, what I see is the proportion between the vibrations; I don’t see a character with a destiny (all that is no longer true, it’s only very superficially and relatively true, like a story you read in a novel), but the TRUE THING is precisely the extent to which the vibrations are arranged in a given spot, centralize and spread according to the receptivity to the Vibration of Light and Order, and to the possible use of that cellular aggregate.
People who are quite shut up in their bag of skin, in their vital and mental ego, give you the feeling of something totally artificial, hard – hard, dry and artificial. And exact. That’s troublesome, you feel like taking a hammer and bashing them – it happens!
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