April 21, 1965
About the last conversation, a quotation from Sri Aurobindo came to mind.
Which quotation?
You were speaking of the first form of supramental life.
On the earth.
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Yes, in an “improved physical body.” I wondered about that … especially when you speak of “switching to a new body.”
What were you wondering?
This, in particular: The difference between the present human body and the supramental creation is so considerable, the substance must be so different…
Of course.
… that I am wondering to what extent even an improved physical body could be of use? Because the thing is going to be so different. Whether this body is old and bent or young and very supple, does it really make any difference, since …
That’s not what I meant by “improved.” Whether the body is young or old doesn’t make any difference, because the advantages are balanced by drawbacks. I have also looked at the problem – it doesn’t make any difference.
Switching to a new body may become a necessity, that’s all, but it’s secondary.
What I meant by an “improved physical body” is that sort of mastery over the body that’s being gained nowadays through physical training. I have seen lately magazines showing how it had started: the results in the beginning and today’s results; and from the standpoint of the harmony of forms (I am not talking about excesses – there are excesses everywhere – I am talking about what can be done in the best possible conditions), from the standpoint of the harmony of forms, of strength and a certain sense of beauty, of the development of certain capacities of endurance and skill, of precision in the execution combined with strength, it’s quite remarkable if you think of how recent physical training is. And it’s spreading very quickly nowadays, which means that the proportion of the human population that is interested in it and practices it is snowballing. So when I saw all those photos (for me, it’s especially through pictures that I see), it occurred to me that through those qualities, the cells, the cellular aggregates acquire a plasticity, a receptivity, a force that make the substance more supple for the permeation of the supramental forces.
Let’s take the sense of form, for example (I am giving one example among many others). Evolution is openly moving towards diminishing
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the difference between the female and the male forms: the ideal that’s being created makes female forms more masculine and gives male forms a certain grace and suppleness, with the result that they increasingly resemble what I had seen all the way up, beyond the worlds of the creation, on the “threshold,” if I can call it that, of the world of form. At the beginning of the century, I had seen, before even knowing of Sri Aurobindo’s existence and without having ever heard the word “supramental” or the idea of it or anything, I had seen there, all the way up, on the threshold of the Formless, at the extreme limit, an ideal form that resembled the human form, which was an idealized human form: neither man nor woman. A luminous form, a form of golden light. When I read what Sri Aurobindo wrote, I said, “But what I saw was the supramental form!” Without having the faintest idea that it might exist. Well, the ideal of form we are now moving towards resembles what I saw. That’s why I said: since there is an evolutionary concentration on this point, on the physical, bodily form, it must mean that Nature is preparing something for that Descent and that embodiment – it seems logical to me. That’s what I meant by an improved physical form.
The other point is quite secondary, it’s incidental, it isn’t in the line of evolution. I am only saying that it’s a method that CAN be used, and it has been used in the past.
Switching to a new body?
Switching to a new body. The method may be used again, IF IT IS FELT TO BE NECESSARY. It wasn’t the central idea, it was perfectly incidental – it may happen. And all I said was that the consciousness of these cells having lost the sense of ego (I think they have lost it, though this body was formed without the sense of ego – at any rate, if it was necessary at a given time, it no longer is), having lost the sense of ego, it finds no difficulty in manifesting in another body. And this is a perfectly practical and material experience, I mean I have had multiple experiences of this consciousness using that body, this body, that other body … for certain things; of course it was momentary, not in a permanent way, but at will and anyway lasting long enough to make me experience it concretely.
But this is a personal affair, it has nothing to do with the public or collectivity, while the other point is interesting: I have a feeling it is Nature’s collaboration, pushing humanity in that direction in
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order to prepare a matter more receptive to the ideal that wants to manifest.
When I thought about the last conversation again, it seemed to me that the gap between the two creations, the animal and the supramental, is so huge that it doesn’t make much difference whether the body is more supple and so on.
The gap isn’t so huge. The gap is huge in the MODE OF CREATION, that’s where there is a huge gap. That’s where it is difficult to conceive how we will switch from one to the other and how there can be intermediaries.
Exactly, I suddenly remembered in this connection a quotation from Sri Aurobindo that seemed to me interesting. It’s in “The Human Cycle,” at the end of “The Human Cycle.” Here’s what he says: “It may well be that, once started, it [the supramental endeavour] may not advance rapidly even to its first decisive stage; it may be that it will take long centuries of effort to come into some kind of permanent birth. But that is not altogether inevitable, for the principle of such changes in Nature seems to be a long obscure preparation followed by a swift gathering up and precipitation of the elements into the new birth, a rapid conversion, a transformation that in its luminous moment figures like a miracle.”[[The Human Cycle, Cent. Ed. XV.252. ]]
This is very interesting…. Yes (laughing), he said this to me a few days ago!
It is true.
Basically, once there is a body formed, precisely, by an ideal and an increasing development, a body with sufficient stuff and capacities, sufficient potential, there may very well be a rapid Descent of a supramental form, just as there was one with the human form. Because I know that (I know it from having lived it), I know that when the transition – a very obscure transition – from the animal to man (of which they have found fairly convincing traces) was sufficient, when the result was plastic enough, there was a Descent - there was a mental descent of the human creation. And they were beings (there was a double descent; it was in fact particular in that it was double, male and female: it wasn’t the descent
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of a single being, it was the descent of two beings), they were beings who lived in Nature an animal life, but with a mental consciousness; but there was no conflict with the general harmony. All the memories are absolutely clear of a spontaneous, animal life, perfectly natural, in Nature. A marvelously beautiful Nature that strangely resembles the nature in Ceylon and tropical countries: water, trees, fruits, flowers…. And a life in harmony with animals: there was no sense of fear or difference. It was a very luminous, very harmonious, and very NATURAL life, in Nature.
And strangely, the story of Paradise would seem to be a mental distortion of what really happened. Of course, it all became ridiculous, and also with a tendency … it gives you the feeling that a hostile will or an Asuric being tried to use that to make it the basis for a religion and to keep man under his thumb. But that’s another matter.
But that spontaneous, natural, harmonious life – very harmonious, extremely beautiful and luminous and easy!… A harmonious rhythm in Nature. A luminous animality, in fact.
That’s how we began, and it began that way because there was a descent of the higher human mental consciousness into the form that existed. The phenomenon may recur in the same way, with the difference that it can be more conscious and willed – there may be the intervention of a conscious will. It would, or it could happen through an occult process – well, I don’t know, there are all sorts of possibilities, one of which could be the conscious passage of a being who has used the old human body for his development and his yoga, and who would leave that form once it became unnecessary in order to enter a form capable of adapting to the new growth.
Here, the two possibilities meet.
But for the time being, there is no question of that because although the development of physical training is extremely rapid, it’s still clear that it may take hundreds of years.
There is a quotation from Sri Aurobindo in which he says that the first point to be acquired is prolongation of life at will – it isn’t directly immortality: it is prolongation of life at will. He wrote it in the articles on The Supramental Manifestation.
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