July 21, 1965
There is a slight hope that this material mind, the mind of the cells, will be transformed.
This is good news!
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Isn’t it! I am quite astonished. I noticed it yesterday or the day before. I wasn’t well, anyway things weren’t pleasant, and all of a sudden, here was all this mind saying a prayer. A prayer … you know how I used to say prayers before, in Prayers and Meditations: it was the Mind saying prayers; it would have experiences and say prayers; well, here we are, now it’s the experience of all the cells: an intense aspiration, and suddenly all this starts expressing it in words.
I noted it.
And then, interestingly enough …
It was dinner time; there had been (there always is) a fatigue, a tension, the need for more harmony in the atmosphere … it’s becoming a little heavy going; and there I was, sitting, when all of a sudden, all this straightened up like a flame, oh, in a great intensity, and then it was as if this body-mind, on behalf of the body (it was the body beginning to be mentalized), were saying a prayer … (Mother looks for a note) And it very much has the sense of the oneness of Matter (this has been very strong for a long, long time, but it’s becoming very conscious: a sort of identity); so there was the sense of the totality of Matter – terrestrial, human Matter, human Matter – and it said:
“I am tired of our unworthiness. But it is not to rest that this body aspires …
And this was felt in all the cells.
“… it is not to rest that this body aspires, it is to the glory of Your Consciousness, the glory of Your Light, the glory of Your Power, and above all …
Here, it became still much more intense:
“… to the glory of Your all-powerful and eternal Love.”
And all these words had such concrete meaning!
I wrote this very fast, then I left it there. But here’s this mind showing itself to be like the other … (Mother looks for a second note), it has a sort of concern for perfection in the expression; and in the afternoon of the next day (it generally happens after my bath; there is a sort of special activity at that time), after my bath
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it was in that state and I had to write this (it had become quite like a prayer):
“OM, supreme Lord,
God of kindness and mercy,
OM, supreme Lord,
God of love and beatitude …
When it came to “beatitude” … all the cells seemed to be swollen.
“… I am tired of our infirmity. But it is not to rest that this body aspires, it aspires to the plenitude of Your Consciousness, it aspires to the splendor of Your Light, it aspires to the magnificence of Your Power; above all, it aspires to the glory of Your all-powerful and eternal Love.”
There is a sort of concrete content in the words, which has nothing to do with the mind. It is something lived – not just felt: lived.
And then, in the afternoon, it was no longer a prayer, but the observation of a fact (Mother looks for a third note)…. I found it was becoming interesting. It said:
“The other states of being …
If you knew with what sort of disdain it spoke, such a superior air!
“The other states of being, the vital, the mind, may enjoy the intermediate contacts …
In other words, all the intermediate states of being, also the gods, the entities and all those things. And it spoke with a power and a sort of dignity – yes, it was dignity, almost pride, but not an arrogant pride, nothing of the sort. It was the sense of a nobility.
“… The supreme Lord alone can satisfy me.”
And then, there was suddenly such a clear vision that the supremely perfect alone can give this body plenitude (gesture of junction between the High and the Low).
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I found that interesting.
It’s the beginning of something.
(silence)
It started with disgust – a disgust … a sickening disgust – at all this misery, all this weakness, all this fatigue, all this discomfort, all this friction and grating, oof! … And it was very interesting because there was that disgust, and along with it came a sort of suggestion of Annihilation, of Nothingness: of eternal Peace, you understand. And it swept all that away, as if the whole body straightened up: “Hey, but that’s not it! That’s not what I want. I want …” (and then there was a dazzling burst of light – a dazzling golden light) … “I want the splendor of Your Consciousness.”
That was an experience.
(silence)
There is still a bit of friction, but anyway it’s better. Just before you came … You know, there are two, three of them hurling at me everyone’s demands, the work to be done, the answers to be given, the checks to be signed; it’s quite a task … you are harassed, mauled as though by claws. And there is this fatigue I feel every day, always, and because of which I need to be left absolutely undisturbed (you seem to be clawed); and I saw it was because all the work this body is made to do doesn’t come from That to which it aspires – it doesn’t come from up above: it comes from here, from all around, and that’s why it grates, as if something were being ground. Then, very consciously, this mind called on that aspiration and on equanimity, on cellular equality: “Well, this is the time to be in equality,” and instantly a sort of quiet immobility was established, and things were better, I was able to go to the end.
I feel as if the tail of the solution had been caught. [[We cannot help thinking of Sri Aurobindo's "mathematical formula": "Now," he wrote on 16 August 1935, "I have got the hang of the whole hanged thing - like a very Einstein I have got the mathematical formula of the whole affair (unintelligible as in his case to anybody but myself) and am working it out figure by figure." Mother uses almost the same words. ]] Now, naturally, we must work it out.
Anyway, there is some hope.
I had always been under the impression of what Sri Aurobindo said: “This instrument [the physical mind] is useless, it can only
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be got rid of….”[[See in particular Conversations with Pavitra of 20 November 1926. Pavitra complained that “this mechanical part of the mind is carrying me along.” And Sri Aurobindo replied, “It is simply an outer functioning and it will be rejected in the course of the procedure.” That was in 1926. Sri Aurobindo changed his mind later, perhaps in fact when he discovered his “mathematical formula.” ]] It was very difficult to get rid of it because it was so intimately linked to the aggregate of the physical body and its present form … it was difficult; and when I tried and a deeper consciousness tried to manifest, it used to cause fainting. I mean that the union, the fusion, the identification with the Supreme Presence without that, without this physical mind, by annulling it, caused fainting. I didn’t know what to do. Now that it’s collaborating, and collaborating consciously (and with a great power in the sensation, it seems), maybe things are going to change.
Everything that was mental … I remember very clearly the state I was in when I wrote those Prayers and Meditations, especially when I wrote them here (all those I wrote here in 1914): it seems to me cold and dry … yes, dry, lifeless. It’s luminous, it’s lovely, pleasant, but it’s cold, lifeless. Whereas this aspiration here [in the cellular mind], oh, it has a power – a power of realization – quite an extraordinary power. If this becomes organized, it will be possible to do something. There is an accumulated power there.
(silence)
And the last two nights, the activities of the morning, those that take place in the subtle physical with Sri Aurobindo and all the people here, have suddenly become concerned with food! But in a very different form. It’s always to give me indications about people, about things. The night before last, there was an amusing incident. You know that Mridu, the fat woman who used to cook for Sri Aurobindo, is in the subtle physical. When she died, Sri Aurobindo (I didn’t even know she had died), Sri Aurobindo went to fetch her in her house, then brought her to me and put her at my feet here: that’s how I knew she had died (I was told the next morning). But I didn’t understand what had happened; I saw Sri Aurobindo go into Mridu’s house, then come back (laughing) with a small bundle like this, and put it at my feet! I was flabbergasted, I saw it was Mridu, and I ran after Sri Aurobindo to ask him, “What on earth does this mean?!” Then everything vanished. The next day, I was told she was dead. And she lives like that, in the subtle physical, and I see her very, very often, very often (she is a little better than
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she was physically, but not much more intelligent!). But the other night, she brought me big prunes (they were this big), and I ate a few, and found them very good; then Pavitra came along, looked at those poor prunes and told me, “Oh, you shouldn’t eat this, there’s mold on it!” I remembered it because it amused me. And I looked, saying (laughing), “I don’t see any mold, and anyway they are very good!” And last night, there was a man (whom I know very well, but I can’t remember his name) who told me I absolutely must drink milk! (For years and years I haven’t drunk a drop of milk.) And he showed me the milk saying, “You see, you should mix the milk in soup, in this, in that.” I wondered, “That’s odd, why all of a sudden…?” I never, ever used to have dreams of food! (They aren’t dreams, by the way: I am not asleep, I am perfectly conscious.) It began two nights ago: first I ate prunes – big prunes like this – then last night, I was told to take milk! But it was so insistent that for a moment this morning I wondered if I should start drinking milk!
This is also new.
The series had begun with that vision (always in the same domain) in which I went to fetch tea for Sri Aurobindo and was given earth with a slice of plain bread!
It’s a whole world that’s beginning to open up. We’ll see. There. So have you brought something?
But it’s true, for a day or two I’ve had the feeling of a more pleasant atmosphere.
Ah!
I don’t know if it has to do with me personally, but a more … yes, a more happy atmosphere …
Yes, that’s right.
… that grates less.
Yes, that’s how it must be. We’ll see…. If what I perceive is correct, things must move in that direction.
Generally when you are “unwell,” I am in a terribly bad mood.
Yes … Oh, but I say it’s the other way around, mon petit!
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(Laughing) I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to be unkind, but I felt like telling you, “Good heavens! What a bad mood you’re in, it makes me ill!” (Laughter)
It’s true, it’s neither in this direction nor in that one (gesture from Mother to Satprem and from Satprem to Mother): it’s all one. That’s why I didn’t say anything. Because our habit is to see like this (gesture from one to the other), but it’s not true, it’s not like that: it is a whole, which in everyone takes its own expression.
All right.
***
A little later, about “Savitri” and the Debate of Love and Death:
He said he wanted to redo all this passage, but he never did it. And when he was asked (I don’t know if it was Nirod or Purani who asked him), he said, “No, later.”
And he knew very well that there was no “later.” At the time he already knew it.
“No, later.”
I don’t know….
***
Satprem rises to leave:
So, you mustn’t be in a bad mood. (Laughing) You’ll tell me I mustn’t be ill! … Very well, very well.
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