July 27, 1966
Today is the birthday of Jyotin, the gardener. He brought me this, look! … (Mother gives a double pink lotus) It’s beautiful.
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The day man will be like this …
There, exactly! Exactly what I was thinking. When you see this, you feel your infirmity. (Mother looks at the flower again) It’s wonderful, isn’t it?
Man really isn’t an improvement! … He is full of miseries and ugly things, while this is so simple, so spontaneous.
Yes, a few days ago the consciousness was under attack. All that is petty, sordid, ugly, oh … poor, helpless, all that – it was such an avalanche! … This poor body, it cried over its incapacity to express anything superior. And then, the answer was very simple – it was very clear, very strong – and the experience came: the only solution – the only way out of the difficulty is to BECOME divine Love. And the experience was there at the same time for a few moments (it lasted long enough, maybe more than half an hour). Then you understand that everything you have to go through, all these ordeals, all this suffering, all these miseries, is nothing in comparison with the experience of what will be (and what is). But we are still incapable, meaning that the cells haven’t the strength yet. They are beginning to have the capacity to be, but not the strength to keep That – “That” cannot stay yet.
And That has such an extraordinary power to transform what is! All our notions (and this had become visible), our notions of miracle, of marvelous change, all the stories of miracles that have been told, all of it becomes a child’s prattle – it’s nothing! Nothing. All that we try to have, all that we aspire to have, all that … is childishness.
Only, it was clear that this isn’t ready yet.
And it was so extraordinary that the cells felt they couldn’t live on without … without That. That was the impression: That, or else dissolution. And when That had gone away … It didn’t go by accident but deliberately, and with the clear notion: “Now no fuss, you must prepare yourself for That to stay.” And it was so categorical (gesture like a Command from above), that there was no arguing. When That had left, there was a sort of suffocation. Then the Command came, with the rigidity of a wall: “No fuss, you must prepare yourself.”
Then you return to your senses, and it all seems so … oh!
There is the certitude – the certitude based on experience – that when That is here, it will be … Or rather, while That is here (since It was here for a while), all the splendors you experience by rising, going out, leaving the body, are nothing. It’s nothing, it
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doesn’t have that concrete reality. When you have the experiences up above, you live up above and everything appears lackluster and useless in comparison, but even that appears vague in comparison with HERE. This is truly why the world was created: it’s to add to that essential Consciousness something so concrete and so solid, so real, and with such tremendous power!
Only, to the body consciousness it seems long. Up above, of course, there is a smile, but for the body … And strangely enough, there isn’t in the body that joy of the memory of the experience. You have the joy of the memory of the experiences up above, but here, it’s not like that! It’s not that. The body might say, “It’s no use for me to remember: I want to have the thing.” Because wherever the mind comes in, the memory is charming, but here, it’s not like that. It’s not like that: on the contrary, it intensifies the need to be, the aspiration, the need. And life looks like something so stupid, false, artificial, meaningless, without … “What’s all this nonsense we constantly live in!” And yet, when That was there, nothing was destroyed, everything remained, but it was something else altogether.
Later … (Mother seems about to say something, then stops her self) … later.
No, it has made me understand something, but it’s something very (how can I put it?), very intimate…. When Sri Aurobindo left, I knew I had to cut the link with the psychic being, otherwise I would have gone with him; and as I had promised him I would stay on and do the work, I had to do that: I literally closed the door on the psychic and said, “For the moment this doesn’t exist anymore.” It remained like that for ten years. After ten years, it slowly, slowly began to open again – it was frightening. But I was ready. It began to open again. But then, that experience surprised me when I had it; I wondered why it had been like that, why I had received that command and had to do it. And when there was in the body that identification with divine Love [a few days ago], after that had left, the cells were ordered to undergo a similar phenomenon [to what happened after Sri Aurobindo's departure]. And I understood why the whole material world is closed: it’s to allow it to exist WITHOUT the experience [of divine Love]. Naturally, I had understood why I was made to close off my psychic, because … because it was truly impossible, I couldn’t go on existing outwardly without Sri Aurobindo’s presence. Well then, the cells have understood that they must go on existing and living their life without the presence of divine Love. And that’s how it took place in the
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world: it was a necessary phenomenon for the formation and development of the material world.
But we’re perhaps nearing … We are nearing the time when it will be allowed to open again.
(silence)
You remember, I don’t know if it was in a letter or an article, Sri Aurobindo spoke of the manifestation of divine Love; he said, “Truth will have to be established first, otherwise there will be catastrophes….” I understand that very well.
But it’s a long time in coming! (Mother laughs)
Up above, nothing is long. But anyway, it’s here that we are ordered to exist and to achieve.
It’s on this occasion, too, that I had an answer regarding death. I was told, “But they all want to die! Because they don’t have the courage to be before That is manifested.” And I saw – I clearly saw it was like that.
The power of Death is that they all want to die! Not like that in their active thought, but in the body’s deep feeling, because it doesn’t have the courage to be without That – it takes great courage.
So they began with a complete ignorance and general stupidity, participating in all that this life is outwardly (as if it were something wonderful!). But as soon as they begin to grow a little wiser, it stops being wonderful. It’s like what I said about this flower [the lotus]: when you know how to look at a flower, at the so spontaneous and, oh, uncomplicated expression of this marvelous Love, then you understand how long the way is – all these attachments, all this importance we give to useless things, whereas there should be a spontaneous and natural beauty.
If the world understood too soon, nobody would want to stay on, basically! That’s the point.
Yes, exactly! That’s the point.
If they knew too soon, if they were able to see the opposition between what is and what must be, they wouldn’t have the courage. One must … one must truly be heroic – heroic. I assure you, I see these cells, they are heroic – heroic. As for them, they don’t "know" in that mental way: it’s only their adoration that saves them. That is, "What You will, Lord, what You will, what You will … ," with the simplicity of a child’s ingenuous heart: "What You will, what You will, what You will … only what You will and nothing but
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what You will exists." Then it’s all right. But without that, it’s not possible. It’s not possible to know what they know and to continue to be if That isn’t there. You know, the feeling is, "At Your service, what You will, what You will … whatever You will … ," without discussion, without anything, without even a sensation, nothing: "What You will, what You will…."
This is the only strength, there is no other.
Well, some have to do it, don’t they! Otherwise it would never get done.
And at that moment [[When the experience of divine Love left the body. ]] (it was a rather difficult moment), there was even in the consciousness … it was like a sword of white light that nothing can shake and which gave the cells the sensation, “What! But you should be in an ecstasy of joy, now that you know what will be” – what there IS, in principle.
But it has caused a sort of detachment from the gestures, the outside, as if life weren’t quite real – yet real at the same time, but the Reality isn’t there…. There is the sense of the Presence; that’s constant. And that’s a good thing to begin with, it strongly counterbalances the sense and perception of all the Distortion. There is even an insistence from this Presence for That alone to exist and to increasingly reduce the reality of the perception of what must not be. There will be a great strength in the being when the perception of what must not be is dimmed, erased as something far away and nonexistent.
That’s what is being prepared.
What makes the work a little more complicated is that it isn’t limited to this (Mother’s body), it’s everything, everything around … and to a rather considerable distance. Because the contact in thought is almost perfectly established: it’s impossible for someone to think [of Mother] without there being a response in the consciousness – a response, a perception. So, imagine what it is … It’s rather vast and rather complicated.
And there are kinds of rungs or stages – stages in the response of the consciousness; rungs and stages according to the degree of development and consciousness. It makes for, oh, not an immensity, but still a rather extensive world. In this perception, the earth isn’t very large.
And there is a precision in details for tiny things, like what goes on in an individual’s consciousness, for instance, or the response to certain events. It’s very, very precise. But there is always a ban
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on saying things so as not to give them a power of concretization. But the work is being done like that, on all the planes; on all the planes (there are even planes beneath the feet), constantly, constantly, without stop, night and day.
***
A little later
We’re still receiving heaps of letters. Lots of people want to come and are asking questions. There’s going to be a crush of people – some are arranging planes! So yesterday I said, “We’ll have a direct yearly flight: Paris-Auroville!” And they’re going to prepare an airfield. We are already in negotiations with the government for the land: it’s huge, we could make four or five airfields! There will be a landing field in Auroville: Paris-Auroville! (Mother looks very amused.)
It seems that in 1972, there will be a new plane that will fly from Paris to India (Paris-Auroville!) in four hours. Which means that if they leave Paris in the evening, they’ll reach here at daybreak (you know that some time is lost while coming here). And if they leave here at noon, they’ll reach Paris at 10 in the morning – two hours before they left.
They’ll end up going so fast that they’ll reach the day before they left!
Four hours is fast.
A lot of use that’ll be!… I am regressive, you know. What’s the use of going so fast!
It’s interesting.
Do you really think it’s any use?
(Mother laughs … silence) Some rather queer things are going on. But I’ll talk about them when I have completed my observations.
Another year or two, and there will be something to say.
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