August 22, 1964
Something peculiar happened to me…. It was the other day, the last time you came. I looked peculiar that day, didn’t I?
You were tired.
It’s not that! It’s never “tired,” never “ill” – it’s never that, it’s something else. But it takes me a few days to find out what it is.
It’s that the center of the body consciousness moved (usually it’s in the head, in the brain). The body consciousness, the cellular consciousness, the one that responds to the workings of Nature and governs the whole functioning – suddenly it moved, it went out of the body.
I had the experience (I knew what it was, but I didn’t know the consequences or how to express it), I had the experience of my body consciousness going completely out of the body (that must be what happens when one dies, mustn’t it?), and for … apparently for ten or fifteen minutes, I don’t know, it was over, the physical world no longer existed, the body no longer existed. But I was very conscious of a movement of forces and of an action; that corporeal consciousness was even repeating its mantra, that was very interesting: it was repeating its mantra and watching the effect of the mantra on the vibrations of forces. But the consciousness left the body over there (gesture to the bathroom) and came back into it here (on the bed). I was carried .. and what happened between the two, I don’t know. But when you reenter your body (that is, when the most material part of the consciousness has left the body, when you faint or go into a state of cataleptic trance, and then reenter your body), it’s very painful, very painful – all the nerves
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hurt. So then, suddenly, I felt a lot of pain like that (it lasts two seconds, that’s nothing), and then I felt that I was lying on cushions! (Laughing) My last impression was of standing over there!
It’s the first time in my life that has happened. Always, whenever I fainted, I would remain conscious of what was happening to my body; often, I would even see it – I would see it lying on the floor, for instance; but I would remain conscious. This is the first time.
But the effect afterwards was queer, as if all the functionings had lost their (what can I call it?), their captain – they no longer knew what to do. And in the head, at first it felt as if it had grown very, very big, and then there were vibrations … You know, I often mention those Vibrations of Harmony that try to enter the vibrations of Disorder (it’s something I often see now, even with my eyes open: they come through, enter, there are formations, all sorts of things), but that was going on in my head. My head was big (!), and inside, there were all those dots of the white light of Harmony, moving about with a great intensity and power, within a dark gray medium. It was interesting. But I was conscious only of that – the entire relationship with the body had vanished. And the whole day long I had the feeling of a lack of government in the body, as if everything followed its own impulsion; it was very hard to keep it all together.
That’s how it was – very strong. The second day, it was a little less strong; the third day … But there is something that has changed and isn’t coming back. And that something gives the sense of a distance (it’s the word aloofness) from the natural body consciousness that makes the body automatically do all it has to do. It is as if that consciousness were now at a distance, had almost lost interest in what’s happening – not “lost interest,” because it’s laughing! I don’t know why, I feel it’s laughing, as if it were making fun of me, of this body – the poor old thing! (laughing) It has a lot of difficulties, it is made to do some strange things.
And that center hasn’t returned to its normal place?
No, no! Nothing has returned of what was before.
It’s very different from what it was before for so many years – very different. I feel a sort of … Oh, it’s an impression equivalent to the one I had when Sri Aurobindo gave my mind silence. It became perfectly blank and empty (gesture to the forehead), blank and empty, and there was nothing anymore: I couldn’t think anymore, not one idea, not one system anymore,
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nothing – in a word, total imbecility! It never came back. You see, it went up above, and here there was nothing. Well, this time, it was the same thing for the body consciousness: before, it was everywhere like something holding everything together (to such a point that when there was a difficulty, I only had to stop bothering about it all and let that act, and the difficulty would automatically be sorted out by that body consciousness, which knows far better than our active thought what the body should do), and that day it left DELIBERATELY. The decision had been made the night before, but I was resisting it, as I knew the normal consequence was fainting. But "that" willed it so and "that" chose its own time (when there was no danger, when no accident could happen and someone was there to help me), "that" chose its own time and "that" did it deliberately – gone. And it has never returned.
So the first day, I was almost dazed; I was constantly groping for the way to do things. Yesterday, it was still strong. And this morning, suddenly I began to understand (what I call "to understand" is to have control), I understood: "Ah, that’s it!" Because I was wondering, "But what on earth does all this mean? How can I do my work?"… I remember, yesterday I had to see a host of people, people who aren’t close and whose atmosphere isn’t good: it was very difficult, I had to keep a hold on myself, and I must have looked strange, very absent – I was very far away, in a very deep consciousness, so that my body wouldn’t be … you know, that gave it discomfort of sorts – discomfort, yes – it was hard to bear. Yesterday the body was still that way the whole morning; towards evening it got better. But the night wasn’t good, oh!… In the night, I am always given a state of human consciousness to put right, one after another – there are millions of them. And there are always all the images and events that illustrate that particular state of consciousness. At times, it’s very hard going: I wake up tired, as after a long period of work. And last night, that’s how it was; it’s always the various, multiple ways which men have of complicating the original Simplicity: of turning a simple vibration into extremely complicated events – where the thing should be simple and flow naturally, there are endless complications, and such difficulties! Unbearable and insuperable difficulties. I don’t know if you have experienced that: you want to go somewhere, but there are hindrances everywhere; you want to go out of a room, but there is no way out, or there is one, but you have to crawl on the ground under kinds of rocks … and then something in the being refuses, "No, I won’t do it." And with a sense of insecurity, as if at
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any moment the thing could topple over and crush you…. There are people who want to help you, but they can’t do anything at all, they only make the complication still more complicated; you start on a road with the certainty of reaching a particular place, then all of a sudden, in the middle of it the road changes, everything changes, and you have your back to the place you wanted to go…. All kinds of things like that. The symbolism of it is extremely clear. But then, it makes for a lot of work.
Anyway, I got up in that state and began to wonder, “Won’t there be an end to it?”… It’s always, always, always like that. And more and more I have an inner conviction that it isn’t a thing you can obtain through effort and progressive transformation – it would take millions of years! It’s only … the Grace. When the Lord decides, “It’s finished, now it’s going to be like that,” it will be like that. Then you find rest and tranquillity.
I offered Him my whole night and all the difficulties and all the complications, as I always do. Then a sort of Peace came into me, and in that Peace, I saw what it was and said, “That’s odd! The center of the body consciousness isn’t there anymore.”
From that moment on, it got much better. The sort of vague uncertainty this poor body was in went away. Because, naturally, that center was immediately replaced by the clear Consciousness from above, and I hope that little by little it will have complete control over the body.
In fact, it must be – theoretically it must be to replace the natural, automatic consciousness by a conscious consciousness.
It isn’t a consciousness that sees the details: it’s a consciousness that establishes and maintains a Harmony.
There. I thought it was amusing to tell.
Otherwise, it’s endless! …
Everybody is falling ill.[[ About 400 cases of fever in the Ashram. ]] And for me, it’s the same thing: it isn’t an illness – it isn’t an illness, it’s a very strong action on the consciousnesses.
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