February 10, 1968
(Mother uses an English word for a French one.)
Strangely, the English word now comes to me more easily than the French one. I know very well why: it’s because in that part I am constantly in contact with Sri Aurobindo, so when I need a word, it’s in his storehouse that I find it! Whereas with me, here (gesture to the forehead), it’s becoming quite fine … very fine!
* * *
(Regarding the crush in the Ashram and around Mother.)
It’s absolutely obvious, absolutely indisputable that all this, that is, all the circumstances of life, all that happens, has been willed, decided on, organized. And it’s the best possible training for the body. It’s to give it three things:
The first is (one more English word) a reliance – that is, it should lean on the Divine ALONE for support, for the source of its strength, its health, its capacity; it means that all material rules and laws are rejected and must cease to have any importance.
That’s the body’s experience almost every minute.
This first: the only support is the Divine – food, rest, etc., none of those things exist anymore. They no longer exist – in fact, they don’t exist, but they no longer exist as a factor of importance.
Then, two things, which seem to be contradictory (in the ordinary consciousness they are), but which in fact are only complementary. A surrender (there’s no other word), a total abdication – total, immediate, complete. That is to say, equality and acceptance – not even “acceptance”: everything, everything is good, everything is good. Which means that if death were to come tomorrow, it would cause no trouble, and if life must last forever, it causes no trouble – like that, you understand (perfectly equal and sovereign gesture): SPONTANEOUS, spontaneous, effortless acceptance, without reasoning, without … spontaneous and total, like that (same gesture). That’s the second point.
And the third: a tre-men-dous will! Every moment it expresses itself as … For instance, something is thrown out of gear, it hurts; then, with that background … it isn’t a “background,” it’s
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a BASE, a base of equality ( equality is still seen from the other side! It’s not that, it is … an adherence, a spontaneous adherence), on that base, there is a tremendous will – tremendous – to be … WHAT THE DIVINE WILLS, but not with the idea that it might be like this or like that. Well, to express it truly, we should say, “To be divine” – to be divine. That is, to dominate all situations, all wills, all circumstances, like that (same perfectly equal and sovereign gesture).
So those three things are simultaneous and constantly present. And all that is going on in the body.
The body (this is becoming interesting) has the same experiences on the heights of the consciousness, the same experiences (supramental ones, we could say, because, well, there, it’s really supramental) as the vital, the mind and the inner beings had previously.
It’s going through the same experiences – the body itself.
That happened the last few nights: it suddenly remembered the time (some twenty years ago, for instance) when those experiences were experiences of the vital, the mind, the psychic being and above. It was the way of being there (gesture above), but the body was left out: it was in a different way, in its own way. But now, it’s the body: the same experiences, the very same, come back to it like that, and with a certitude and solidity in their base that are incomparable!
There are still, in a subconscious background, bad habits – all the bad habits: defeatism, doubt, pessimism, all that (it’s a way of being of that region), but it has gone underground, and when it does come through (more out of habit than out of bad will), when it … in English I would say bubbles out, it gets such a slap!
I clearly see that when this state of will (there is really only one way to put it and it looks like a masquerade, but it’s “to be divine,” like that, an all-powerful will), when that becomes the normal and spontaneous way of being, then we’ll begin to have serious results.
There is still something that watches itself be – which means there is still much that isn’t as it should be.
But there are slight oscillations between the old habit of yielding, of being human (with all that it entails), and the other way of being. The other way is vigilant, it’s on the alert and says, “No, no! No more of that, no more! The time for that is over.” Because, very clearly, that means a slide towards death; the other way is the ascent towards … we won’t yet say “immortality” because that’s difficult for this substance, but life at will.
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We’ll see.
There’s a very clear vision, now, very clear and certain, that death is the acceptance of defeat, so … But everywhere, and for everybody.
Previously, it was an inescapable habit (Mother draws a circle), the inevitable outcome – it’s no longer that at all, no longer at all! It’s still the memory of a disastrous past.
There.
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