June 2, 1965
Mother tries to read a paper with a magnifying glass:
It’s quite peculiar, it doesn’t help me anymore…. Is it clean? (Mother holds out the magnifying glass to Satprem) There seems to be a haze.
Yes, it’s clean.
It’s rather strange, this eyesight. There always seems to be a veil between me and things, constantly; I am so used to it; I see everything very well, but as if there were a slight veil. Then all of a sudden, without any apparent reason (an outwardly logical reason, I mean), a thing becomes clear, precise, sharp (gesture: leaping to the eyes) – the next minute, it’s over. Sometimes it’s a word in a letter or written somewhere, sometimes it’s an object. And it is a different quality of vision, a vision … (how can I explain it?) as if light were shining from within things instead of shining on them: it isn’t a reflected light. It isn’t luminous, it isn’t like a candle, for instance, or a lamp, not that, but instead of being lit by a projected light, things have their own light, which doesn’t radiate.
It’s becoming more and more frequent, but with perfect illogic. Which means that I don’t understand the logic of it at all; I don’t know why this thing ["lights up"] rather than that thing, or that rather than this: suddenly something leaps to the eyes – “Ah!” – and it’s gone in a flash. And the vision is so precise! Extraordinary, with the full understanding of the thing seen while you are seeing it. Otherwise, everything is as if behind … is it a veil? I don’t know.
Sometimes (often), the same thing happens to me with speech. I feel as if I am speaking from very far away or from behind a woolly substance that blunts the precision of vibrations. In its extreme form, it’s because of this that I sometimes don’t hear – nothing: when some people speak to me, I hear absolutely nothing. With others, I hear the drone of a sound devoid of meaning. And with other people, I hear EVERYTHING they say. But it’s a different way of hearing: what I hear is the vibration of their thought and that’s what makes it very clear.
Page 111
I have the same thing with hearing, the same thing with sight. It begins with taste, but that doesn’t interest me much, so I don’t take notice, I don’t pay attention. But a few days ago I had the experience that the quality of tastes had changed: certain things had an artificial taste (the usual taste is an artificial taste) while others carried in themselves a TRUE taste; so this is very clear – very clear and very precise. But it’s not so interesting a subject, so I am not occupied with it so much.
What struck me the most is sight. Hearing … for a very, very long time – years – I’ve had the feeling that when people don’t think very clearly, I can’t hear. But that’s not quite the point: it’s when their consciousness isn’t ALIVE in what they’re saying – it’s not so much a question of “thought,” it’s their consciousness that isn’t ALIVE in what they’re saying; it’s a mental machine; then I don’t understand anything at all – nothing. When their consciousness is alive, it reaches me. And I have noticed, for instance, that people whom I don’t hear think it’s because I am deaf in the ordinary way, so they start shouting – which is even worse! Then it’s as if they were throwing stones in my face.[[Not only did they think Mother deaf, but Satprem heard one of Mother's attendants tell him that the vagaries of her eyesight were due to cataract. Thus Mother was surrounded with people who thought her old and infirm or sick. ]]
There must be an action on the organs.
But it’s my eyes that I find the most interesting. For instance, I noticed this while washing early in the morning: I go into the bathroom before turning the light on, because I turn it on from inside; but I see just as clearly as when the light is on! It makes no difference. And then everything was as if behind a kind of veil. Then I turned my attention (or rather my attention was drawn) and I said to myself, “But all this is becoming so lackluster, it’s completely uninteresting!” And I started thinking (not thinking, but becoming aware of one thing or another), and suddenly, I saw that phenomenon of a bottle in the cupboard becoming so clear, so … with an inner life (gesture as if the bottle lit up from inside). “Oh!” I said – the next minute, it was over.
But I seemed to be told, “Yes, you can. You no longer see this way, but you can see that way; you no longer see the ordinary way, but you can see …” (inward gesture). I have been left with enough vision to be able to move around freely, but this is clearly the preparation for a vision through the inner light rather than projected light. And it is … oh, it’s warm, living, intense – and
Page 112
of such precision! You see everything at the same time, not only the color and shape, but the character of the vibration: in a liquid, the character of its vibration – it’s marvelous. Only, it lasts a moment, it’s like promises that come and tell you (like when you make a promise to someone to comfort him and give him heart), “It will be like this.” Very well. (Mother laughs) In how many centuries, I don’t know!
But when I used to use this magnifying glass, I could read very well (I stopped because of those hemorrhages, though my eyes seem to be well again), but now it’s absolutely no use! (Mother looks at a file with the magnifying glass) It doesn’t grow any clearer, there is always the same cloudiness. It’s bigger, that’s all. (Mother looks again) Strange, it’s bigger but it’s the same thing, there is the same veil … of unreality.
As for the sense of smell, the nature of my sense of smell changed long, long ago. To begin with, I practiced this (a long time ago, years, many years ago): being able to smell only when I wanted to and only what I wanted to. And it was perfectly mastered. It already prepared the instrument a great deal. I can see it was already a preparation. I can smell things … I can smell the vibratory quality of things rather than simply their odor. There is a whole classification of odors: there are odors that lighten you, as if they opened up horizons to you – they lighten you, make you lighter, more joyful; there are odors that excite you (those belong to the category of odors I learnt not to smell); as for all the odors that disgust you, I smell them only when I want to – when I want to know, I smell them, but when I don’t want to know, I don’t. Now it’s automatic. But my sense of smell was very much cultivated even when I was just a child, very long ago: at that time I cultivated the eyes and the sense of smell, both. But my eyes have been used for everything, for all the visions, so it’s something much more complex, while the sense of smell has remained as it was: I can smell people’s psychological state when I come near them; I can smell it, it has an odor – there are very special odors … a whole gamut. I’ve had that for a very, very long time, it’s something that’s quite dominated, mastered. I am able not to smell anything at all: when, for instance, there are bad odors that upset the body’s system, I can cut off the connection completely.
But I don’t notice a great change in this domain because it had already been cultivated very much, while my eyes are much more … (how can I put it?) ahead, in the sense that there is already a much greater difference between the old habit of seeing and the
Page 113
present one. I seem to be behind a veil – that’s really the feeling: a veil; and then, suddenly, something lives with the true vibration. But that’s rare, it’s still rare…. Probably (laughing) there aren’t many things worth seeing!
Oh, listen, it was Y.’s birthday the other day. I told her to come. She came: her face was exactly like her monkey’s! She sat down in front of me, we exchanged a few words, then I concentrated and closed my eyes, and then I opened my eyes – she had the face of the ideal madonna! So beautiful! And as I had seen the monkey (the monkey wasn’t ugly, but it was a monkey, of course), and then that, “Ah!” it struck me, I thought, “What wonderful plasticity.” A face … oh, a truly beautiful face, perfectly harmonious and pure, with such a lovely aspiration – oh, a beautiful face! Then I looked a few times: it was no longer one or the other, it was … it was something (what she usually is, I mean), and it was behind the veil. But those two visions were without the veil.
And for me that’s how it is, I don’t see people, I no longer see (but that has been going on for a long time), I no longer see the way people do, the way they are used to seeing. At times someone tells me, “Have you noticed, so-and-so is like this or like that?” I answer, “No, I haven’t seen anything.” And at other times I see things no one else sees! It’s a much more complete development than simply switching from one vision to the other.
But my senses of smell and vision were developed a lot between the ages of twenty and twenty-four. It was a conscious, willed, methodical education, which had interesting results. And which did a great deal to prepare the instrument for now.
(Mother looks at the time)
Oh, see there, I’ve chattered away again – he is the one who makes me chatter away!
Page 114