November 14, 1964
… I was read a letter from a young Italian boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, who had remarkable experiences on silence, how he obtains silence and what goes on inside him – truly remarkable. I told you also that I had received a letter from England and the analogy with Z’s experiences, with merely the nuance that spontaneous sincerity gives. Then, there are here a few people who hadn’t budged for years: suddenly they are on the move, they’re beginning to have experiences. But what’s really interesting is that those who have experiences are for the most part Westerners, particularly Europeans, as though their past of negation had intensified the aspiration and prepared something in their receptivity – it struck me. Not the Americans … the Americans are still as frivolous as children (Mother laughs). But the Indians … obviously they are ahead, but they aren’t where they ought to be: it’s as if humanity had followed a curve and those who are (or were, rather) at the summit go down again, and then they have to climb up again – the Indians are climbing up again. The others, the Westerners, seem to have a past that was squeezed, that was as if compressed, and which has burst all of a sudden.
* * *
Soon afterwards
I met V., he had a vision two or three days ago. He saw a peacock coming down, and on the peacock someone was sitting, erect, who wasn’t Kali but like Kali (the naked Kali) and was holding in her hand the severed head of a man.
Did he see whose head it was?
No, I asked him if it was a Western head, or a Chinese one, anyway what it was. He told me it rather looked like an Asiatic head.
Asiatic, that’s vague.
He told me, “I felt it was the sign of a catastrophe or a war.”
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It may be the sign of a victory.
Yes, he said, “Afterwards, there was peace.”
V. is a very good clairvoyant.
When you spoke to me, I saw the twisted face of a Chinese.
But it could be a previous formation.
(silence)
The Khrushchev affair has been a bad thing. But generally things in the outer world move in a zigzag; instead of going straight, they go like this (zigzag gesture): action, reaction, action, reaction…. That’s what Théon always said: in the outer world, a victory for one side always means a sort of RIGHT to victory for the other side; and then he added, “Those who know must be ever vigilant and on the alert, so that when the enemies win a little victory (which may be a perfectly superficial and insignificant victory), they immediately win a big victory!” (Laughing) He said that with great humor. And I noticed that on the individual level, it’s true. On the level of countries … unfortunately, the people who determine the destiny of countries (the outer destiny) are incompetent and stupid, and they miss the opportunity. But that Khrushchev affair gave a right to a victory, you understand. It gave the other side a right to a victory.
I told you I would show you the photo of the man [Suslov] who’s behind Khrushchev’s downfall.
(Mother looks at the photo) He is only an instrument. I mean he isn’t an Asuric incarnation. But a strong will. He isn’t a being who acts consciously for the Adversary: he thinks he is doing the right thing.
He’s a “theoretician.”
Yes.
Oh, he may have violent passions and reactions, and ambitions too, but he isn’t one of those beings who know they are instruments of the great Asura – he’s not that. He is less dangerous than that. Not like Hitler – who knew, of course.
Hitler asserted that Falsehood should govern the world and that it was governing it. And he was very conscious of being the instrument
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of the Asura who had himself called “the Lord of Nations,” who is precisely the present, current representation of the Asura of Falsehood (the one who was born “the Lord of Truth” – a lovely story …).
That’s why Sri Aurobindo clearly and openly took the side of the Allies – it wasn’t out of love for the British!
(long silence)
What was Kali sitting on?
On the peacock. It wasn’t Kali, but like Kali, and naked.
It is clearly a victory through the disappearance of a man or a country.
I don’t know why, while you were speaking to me, I saw the twisted face of a Chinese.
There is another thing. Recently, one day, I suddenly … I am extremely sensitive to the composition of the air, from my earliest childhood: “airs,” if I may say so, they each had their own taste, their own color and quality, and I would recognize them to such a point that sometimes I would say, “Oh, the air of …” (I was a child, of course), “the air of this country or the air of that place has come here.” It was like that. I was extremely sensitive to the quality of pure air, that is, without the elements that come from the decomposition of life and especially from the places where people are crowded together. It was like that to an extremely sharp degree: for instance, if I was moved from one place to another, I could be suddenly cured of an illness from the change of air. When I met Théon, it became conscious, an object of study, and … it still goes on. Perhaps a few days ago (I can’t say, time has no meaning), but not very long ago, I said, “There’s something new in the air.” And something very unpleasant, extremely pernicious; I felt that that something (I didn’t say anything to anyone, naturally) had a peculiar, extremely subtle odor, not a physical one, and had the power to separate vital vibrations from physical vibrations – that is to say, an extremely noxious element.
Immediately I set to work (it lasted for hours), and the night was spent counteracting it: I tried to find which higher vibration could counteract it, until I succeeded in clarifying the atmosphere. But the memory remained very precise. And very recently (maybe a day or two ago), they told me that the Chinese had chosen an Indian territory, in the North, to test a certain kind of atomic bomb,
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and that they had exploded a certain bomb there. When they told me this, the memory of my odor abruptly came back. [[The Chinese exploded their bomb on October 16, the day after Khrushchev's dismissal. ]]
Which means that those vibrations travel very far – the physical vibrations stop at a certain distance (although they go much farther than is believed), but the vital vibrations that are behind (the “nervous” vibrations, if one can say so) must extend TREMENDOUSLY far.
You know, when there was that volcanic eruption in Martinique (it’s something much more material), the volcanic dust was picked up after some time in Marseilles – which is far away. Exactly the same dust, carried by the wind. So a bomb of that kind must have considerable effects.
But the vibrations you’re speaking of aren’t emanated by human beings – by a bomb, you mean?
By the bomb.
Can a bomb have a nonphysical action, a vital or subtle action?
It acts only because it has a subtle action – nothing would move, everything would be inert if it didn’t have a subtle action.
It’s the vital contained in Matter – it’s like the phenomenon of radiation. It’s a violent liberation of something contained in Matter. Like radiation. And it spreads out. They have indeed noticed it, but they don’t want to know: when they exploded the bomb in Japan, the consequences went much, much farther than they expected, they were infinitely more serious and long-lasting than expected, because the sudden liberation of those forces … They only perceive a certain quantity, but there is all that is behind, which spreads out and has its action. You see, they observe, for instance, that cows are poisoned and their milk isn’t drinkable for a certain time (it happened in England), but that’s the most crude and outer phenomenon – there is another, deeper one, which is FAR more serious.
So when I said that ["the twisted face of a Chinese"], it seems to be beside the point, but that’s because when those two things coincided, [[Mother is probably referring to the Chinese explosion and Khrushchev's dismissal (?). ]] Kali suddenly became furious – I saw Kali furious, as when
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she decides that it will be "paid for." So V.’s vision adds a few landmarks.
Oh, you know, when she goes into a fit of power … you really feel that the earth is shaking.
(silence)
Very well, we will see.
I always say, “We will see,” because … in reality, I am not worried, not worried at all, I am very sure – very sure. I have such an absolute certitude that the Wisdom that acts in the world is infinitely superior to all that we can imagine. We are like ignorant and stupid children in front of “something” that acts with a CERTITUDE, and so luminous, so luminous. With a superharmony that turns into harmony the things that seem to us the most discordant.
So when I see the anxious human thoughts trying to know (Mother smiles) - “Don’t worry, we will see.” And when I say, “We will see,” I have the joy of a certitude that what we will see will be a thousand times more beautiful than anything we can imagine.
I read a line in “Savitri” that struck me very much, because I saw a connection with what you said the other day about the coexistence of Falsehood and Truth: “And earth shall grow unexpectedly divine.”[["When darkness deepens strangling the earth's breast And man's corporeal mind is the only lamp, As a thief's in the night shall be the covert tread Of one who steps unseen into his house. A Voice ill-heard shall speak, the soul obey, A power into mind's inner chamber steal, A charm and sweetness open life's closed doors And beauty conquer the resisting world The truth-light capture Nature by surprise, A stealth of God compel the heart to bliss And earth shall grow unexpectedly divine." (Savitri, I.IV.55) ]]
That’s right! That’s right … unexpectedly divine.
And even the most skeptical will be compelled to see that something is changing, that it’s not the same thing anymore.
Sri Aurobindo said (he said it to me personally and he wrote it), The time has come. Because he went away, people thought he was wrong; that was the general effect, they said to themselves, "He thought the time had come, but he went away because he saw he
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was wrong." – That’s rubbish.
(Smiling) Besides, he didn’t go so far away! I spend my nights with him, and with the most complete variety of work – it’s a multiple, innumerable “Him” … and so wonderfully adapted to all necessities: terrestrial necessities and individual necessities.
And for him, it’s only one small part of himself; because it’s with him (I told you the story the other day) that I had that experience of going out of humanity, going out of the material world: it was with him, in his “company,” if I may say so!
I like it when it’s with him because it gives me a sort of certainty that it isn’t an experience of my subjectivity – it’s impersonal, entirely impersonal. Even if my subjectivity is worldwide, I don’t want my experience to be subjective: I want every consciousness, whatever it may be, human or nonhuman, every consciousness awakening in that field, to have an identical experience, if it is truly objective. So when it’s with him, I am quite sure.
(silence)
He continues to be happy with your book and its effects – besides, it’s his book (laughing) as much as yours!
Oh, yes, I have no sensation of being an “author”!
He is happy.
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