October
October 7, 1964
Things (not from the ordinary point of view, but from the higher point of view) have clearly taken a turn for the better. But the material consequences are still there: all the difficulties seem to have worsened. Only, the power of the consciousness is greater – clearer, more precise. Also the action on those who have good-will: they are making rather considerable progress. But the material difficulties seem to have worsened, which means … it’s to see whether we bear up!
From the standpoint of money, it’s serious, the situation is serious. From the standpoint of health, everybody is sick. And from the standpoint of quarrels (!), the quarrels are more bitter, but they are “indicative,” in the sense that those who quarrel realize that they have made a blunder, that it’s something serious.
Recently (it began yesterday), something has cleared in the atmosphere. But there is still a long way to go – a long, long way. I certainly feel it very long, we must endure. Endure and endure. That’s the main impression: we must endure. And have endurance. The two absolutely indispensable things: keep a faith that nothing can shake, not even an apparently complete negation, even if you are suffering, even if you are miserable (the body, that is), even if you are tired – endure. Hold on tight and endure – have endurance. There. With that, it’s all right.
Some letters describing very interesting experiences … People who had been deliberately refusing to understand – they have yielded. Things of that sort. Things that weren’t moving, that were stubbornly stuck, you felt as if they would never move – all of a sudden, pop! gone. Only … what spoils everything is the sort of haste people have to get a visible result. That spoils everything. One shouldn’t think about results.
(silence)
But according to what people tell me who listen to the radio or read the newspapers (none of which I do), the whole world is undergoing an action … which for the moment is unsettling. It seems that the number of apparently “mad” people is increasing considerably. In America, for instance, all the youth seem to be seized with a kind of curious giddiness, which for reasonable people would be disquieting, but which is a sure indication that an uncommon Force is at work. It is the disruption of all habits and all rules – it’s good.
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For the moment, it’s a bit “strange” (!), but it’s necessary.
The action isn’t limited. That is, it’s probably limited to the earth … although manifestations from other planets or other worlds seem to be multiplying, too. And there have been experiences lately, rather curious ones.
Other physical planets?
Physical. Yes, physical.
I don’t know if you’ve heard this, it’s something P. told me. She was still in Switzerland, and shortly before she came back here, she had a vision (she was in her home, simply meditating, and she had a vision), and in her vision she saw five big “luminous cigars” going past like this, slowly, one behind the other, in single file. When she woke up, she wondered what it was…. And a few days later (maybe the next day or the day after, I don’t know), she read in a newspaper the account of people in southern France (I don’t remember in which part) who saw above the sea five “luminous cigars” go by, in single file, exactly the same color as those she had seen. But in their case, they saw it with their physical eyes. So that seems interesting.
It was clearly a phenomenon of a subtle physical order (in its origin) or material vital (in its origin), but which manifested physically, and which may very well have come from other planets that are a little more subtle than the earth.
There are many other experiences; this one I remember clearly. The Action is widespread.
Now, what about you? What do you have to say?
What have you brought? Nothing? Do you have a question to ask?
No … a question of sadhana, perhaps…. Isn’t the true attitude at present to try and be as transparent as possible?
Transparent, receptive.
I ask myself the question because you feel that that transparency is transparent indeed, but it’s a bit … nothing – a nothing that’s full, but still is nothing: you don’t know. You don’t know if it’s a kind of higher “tamas” or…
Above all, one should be trusting.
The big difficulty, in Matter, is that the material consciousness,
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that is to say, the mind in Matter, was formed under the pressure of difficulties – difficulties, obstacles, suffering, struggle. It was, so to speak, "worked out" by those things, and that gave it an imprint almost of pessimism and defeatism, which is certainly the greatest obstacle.
This is the thing I am conscious of in my own work.
The most material consciousness, the most material mind, is in the habit of having to be whipped into acting, into making effort and moving forward, otherwise it’s tames. So then, if it imagines, it always imagines the difficulty – always the obstacle, always the opposition, always the difficulty … and that slows down the movement terribly. So it needs very concrete, very tangible and VERY REPEATED experiences to be convinced that behind all its difficulties, there is a Grace; behind all its failures, there is the Victory; behind all its pain and suffering and contradictions, there is Ananda. Of all the efforts, this is the one that has to be repeated most often: you are constantly forced to stop, put an end to, drive away, convert a pessimism, a doubt or a totally defeatist imagination.
I am speaking exclusively of the material consciousness.
Naturally, when something comes from above, it goes vrrm! like that, so everything falls silent and waits and stops. But … I well understand why the Truth, the Truth-Consciousness, doesn’t express itself more constantly: it’s because the difference between its Power and the power of Matter is so great that the power of Matter is as if canceled – but then, that doesn’t mean Transformation: it means a crushing. It doesn’t mean a transformation. That’s what used to be done in the past: they would crush the entire material consciousness under the weight of a Power that nothing can fight, nothing can oppose; and then they would feel, “Here we are! It’s happened!” It hadn’t happened at all! Because the rest down below remained as it was, unchanged.
Now, there is a will to give it the full possibility of changing; well, for that, it has to be given free play, without bringing in a crushing Power – this I understand very well. But it has the obstinacy of stupidity. How many times at the moment of a suffering, for instance, when a suffering is there, acute, and you feel it’s going to become intolerable, there is in the cells a little inner movement of Call: the cells send out their S.O.S. Everything stops, the suffering disappears. And often (now it’s becoming more and more like that), the suffering is replaced by a feeling of blissful well-being. But the first reaction of that stupid material consciousness, its first reaction: "Ha! Let’s see how long it’s going to last." So,
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naturally, with that movement, it demolishes everything. Everything has to be started again.
I think that for the effect to be lasting (not to be, as I said, a miraculous effect that comes, dazzles, and goes away), for it to be truly the effect of a TRANSFORMATION, one has to be very, very, VERY patient. We are dealing with a very slow, very heavy, very obstinate consciousness, which cannot move on rapidly, which holds on tight to what it has, to what has seemed to it to be a “truth”: even if it is a very small truth, that consciousness holds on tight to it and doesn’t want to budge anymore. So to cure that takes a great deal of patience – a great, great deal of patience.
The whole thing is to endure – endure and endure.
Sri Aurobindo said it several times, in various forms: Endure and you will conquer…. Bear – bear and you will vanquish.
The triumph belongs to the most enduring.
And then (Mother points to her own body), this seems to be the lesson for these aggregates (bodies, you know, seem to me to be simply aggregates). And as long as there is, behind, a will to keep this together for some reason or other, it stays together, but … These last few days (yesterday or the day before), there was this: a sort of completely decentralized consciousness (I am always referring to the physical consciousness, of course, not at all to the higher consciousness), a decentralized consciousness that happened to be here, there, there, in this body, that body (in what people call “this person” and “that person,” but that notion doesn’t quite exist anymore), and then there was a kind of intervention of a universal consciousness in the cells, as though it were asking these cells what their reason was for wanting to retain this combination (if we may say so) or this aggregate … while in fact making them understand or feel the difficulties that come, for example, from the number of years, wear and tear, external difficulties – from all the deterioration caused by friction, wear and tear. But they seemed to be perfectly indifferent to that! … The response of the cells was interesting enough, in the sense that they seemed to attach importance ONLY TO THE CAPACITY TO REMAIN IN CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH THE HIGHER FORCE. It was like an aspiration (not formulated in words, naturally), and like a … what in English they call yearning, a longing for that Contact with the divine Force, the Force of Harmony, the Force of Truth and … the Force of Love, and [the cells' response was] that because of that, they valued the present combination.
It was an altogether different point of view.
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I am expressing it with the mind’s words because there’s no other way, but it was in the field of sensation rather than anything else. And it was very clear – very clear and very continuous, without fluctuations. And then, at that moment, the universal Consciousness intervened, saying, “But here are the obstacles….” And those obstacles were clearly seen: that kind of pessimism of the mind (a formless mind that’s beginning to be born and organized in these cells). But the cells themselves didn’t care a whit! To them it was like a disease, they said, “Oh, that …” (the word distorts, but it was felt as a sort of “accident” or an “inescapable disease or something that DID NOT FORM A NORMAL PART of their development and had been forced on them), “Oh, that, we don’t care about it!” And then, at that moment, a sort of LOWER power to act on that mind was born; it gave the cells a MATERIAL power to separate themselves from that and reject it.
From that point of view, it was interesting. And it was after that that there was the turning point I told you about: a turning point in things as a whole, as if something truly decisive had taken place. There was a sort of trusting joy: “Ah! We’re free from that nightmare.”
Usually, I don’t say anything until it’s firmly established, because … But anyway, that’s how it was.
And at the same time, a relief – a physical relief – as if the air were easier to breathe…. Yes, it was a bit like being shut inside a shell – a suffocating shell – and … at any rate, an opening has been made in it. You can breathe. I don’t know if it’s more than that, but at any rate, something has been as if torn open, and you can breathe.
It was a totally, totally material and cellular action.
But as soon as you descend into that realm, the realm of the cells and even of the cells’ constitution, how much less heavy it seems! That sort of heaviness of Matter disappears: it becomes fluid and vibrant again. Which would tend to show that the heaviness, the thickness, the inertia, the immobility, is something that has been ADDED ON, it’s not an essential quality of Matter – it’s false Matter, Matter as we think or feel it, but not Matter itself as it is.
That was very perceptible.
(silence)
The best one can do is not to have any prejudices or preconceived ideas or principles – oh, moral principles, fixed codes of conduct,
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"what must be done" and "what must not be done," and preconceived ideas with regard to morals, with regard to progress, and then all the social and mental conventions – there’s no obstacle worse than that. I know people who wasted dozens of years trying to overcome one of those mental constructions!
If one can be like this, open – truly open in a simplicity … you know, the simplicity of ignorance that knows it’s ignorant … like this (gesture, hands open), ready to receive all that comes … then, perhaps, something will happen.
Naturally, the thirst for progress, the thirst to know, the thirst to transform yourself, and above all the thirst for Love and Truth – if you can keep that, then you go faster. Really a thirst, a need, you know, a need…. All the rest doesn’t matter, what you need is THAT.
(silence)
To cling to what you think you know, to cling to what you feel, to cling to what you like, to cling to your habits, to cling to your so-called needs, to cling to the world as it is, that’s what binds you hand and foot. You must undo all that, one thing after the other. Undo all the bonds.
This has been said thousands of times, but people go on doing the same thing…. Even those who are, you know, very eloquent, who preach this to others, they CLING – they cling to their own way of seeing, their own way of feeling, their own habit of progress, which to them is the only possible one.
No more bonds – free, free, free, free! Always ready to change everything, except ONE thing: to aspire. That thirst.
I quite understand: some people don’t like the idea of a “Divine” because it immediately gets mixed up with all the European or Western conceptions (which are dreadful), and so it makes their lives a little bit more complicated – but we don’t need that! The “something” we need, the Perfection we need, the Light we need, the Love we need, the Truth we need, the supreme Perfection we need – and that’s all. The formulas … the fewer the formulas, the better. A need, a need, a need … that THE Thing alone can satisfy, nothing else, no half measure. That alone. And then, move on! Move on! Your path will be your path, it doesn’t matter; any path, any path whatever, even the follies of today’s American youth can be a path, it doesn’t matter.
As Sri Aurobindo said, if you can’t have God’s love (I am trans
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lating), well then, find a way to fight with God and have a wrestler’s relationship with Him. [[Aphorism 418: "If you cannot make God love you, make Him fight you. If He will not give you the embrace of the lover, compel Him to give you the embrace of the wrestler." ]]
(meditation)
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