July 20, 1968
(Mother looks better, although she is still coughing. Satprem,
on the other hand, has caught a fever.)
It comes from there [the Vatican], it’s the same origin as with me. The first time I was on my guard, but this time I’ve been taken by surprise…. If it amuses them!
* * *
Soon afterwards
I can’t speak…. (Mother coughs) Z has made a “confession” to me and has asked me some questions. I intended to reply to her today, but today I don’t have any voice. If you’d like to read it … (Mother holds out a letter to Satprem).
“I have the feeling of a division and a confusion in my
mind, and probably between different parts of my being
of which I am not clearly conscious.
“In one of those parts, the Divine, or the Supreme, is a
formless, undefined, vast thing which I do not really
know, but aspire to know, and that is what my thought
and love turn to when no other part or circumstance
interferes. That is what I find in the depths. In it, I find
the explanation and raison d’être of all things, and each
day allows me, to the extent of my small capacity, to
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discover a new aspect of it. There are no problems or
difficulties there, everything is peaceful and happy.
In another, more complex part, there is the everyday
life and the ordinary personality. There, things are com
pletely different. The central pole of that part has so far
been love, but love as I understand it here, that is, not
something subtle that rises but something concrete which
is lived and exchanged, and which in order to exist needs
the presence of the physical being, the ‘living with, ‘other
wise it has no raison d’être, having no base or concrete
form. That is probably why you told me I loved love and
not individuals. It’s very true, because to me, individuals
are only an occasion to live love, or what I call love.
"Now there is no longer any human person in my life,
nothing anymore; this void may be what gave rise to the
recent crisis. I vaguely feel something unclear, which
I cannot define but do not like, as if a part of me were
trying to live with You what it can no longer live with
human beings…. My present difficulty comes from the
impossibility to reconcile the two parts of my being,
inner and outer, and from the ensuing divorce as far as
you are concerned. Could you please enlighten me on
the following points:
Ah, here are her questions.
1. Is what I call the Supreme, which I turn to within,
a reality to the extent of my small capacity? And is
my movement towards that a true thing, or an
imagining and a flight from another reality which
I refuse to recognize?
That’s easy!
2. What is the relationship between what I call the
Supreme, which I seek within, and yourself?
(Laughing) She doesn’t expect me to answer that!
3. What is the meaning, on the practical level of the
Yoga, of Sri Aurobindo’s recommendation to go
through You in order to attain Realization?…
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Did he say one had to go through the Mother?
Yes. He said that if one turned exclusively to the Impersonal,
one would tend towards an immobile, static realization, whereas
going through you would lead to the dynamic realization.
Oh, that’s it…. Then?
"… And in my case, what does it imply regarding
the right attitude towards the Supreme and towards
You?"
Is that all?
Yes. She makes divisions.
Yes, it’s absurd. I intended to answer her, but I can’t speak. She’ll have to wait.
(long silence)
But still, on a practical level, I have sometimes wondered (in
my case) about this: when I concentrate, my more spontaneous
tendency is to concentrate on "That," which I do not define:
it’s "That."
(Mother approves eagerly) Yes, yes.
But at times I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to concentrate on
a more precise form such as yours, for instance – I am not
making any difference.
That’s not my opinion.
It’s not your opinion?
It shrinks things a lot.
I’m not making any difference, mind you, I don’t say, "There’s
Mother and then there’s the Supreme," but I wonder if practi
cally it wouldn’t be better if it were "You" rather than "That."
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No! No, when people ask me, I tell them straight, “No.” Because in spite of everything, even if one understands, one is influenced by the fact of a personal form, a personal appearance, a defined personality – that’s worthless. There are those who prefer to go to the Supreme through the idea of “the Mother,” that is to say, of the realizing Force. As for me … naturally, for me it has no meaning. But I see very clearly, I know that if people call me, it never goes here (Mother points to herself), it always goes straight towards the Supreme; even what goes through the active consciousness goes straight to the Supreme. But for them, sometimes it’s easier. So I let them do it, but … Because it doesn’t matter; this person [Mother] has become quite … what could we call it? It’s not even an image, it may be a symbol…. But it’s like people who, in order to fix their attention, need to fix a point. I see what constantly happens: instead of directly going like this (gesture towards the Supreme) and of being a little imprecise for people, it goes like this (towards Mother), it’s gathered here (in Mother), and it goes there (towards the Supreme).
(Mother draws with her two arms a sort of path going towards
her, rising upward, then coming down again through her
towards the people. The whole path looks much like the
silhouette of a single Being.)
And here [in Mother], the fact of the physical presence allows the forces to be directed more precisely. I see how the Force from above acts (gesture of a descending pressure or mass), and people get the contact through a similarity of vibration. But when it goes
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like this (gesture through Mother), there is the addition of that physical, material knowledge, which makes it [the action of the Force] more precise and concrete. From the point of view of help, it’s … Sri Aurobindo was right: the help is more direct. It spares people a work. I see what comes, that sort of atmosphere (it’s much more than an atmosphere: it’s a Presence, you know, constant, He is constantly there), but then, in the consciousness here [in Mother], the action is growing more precise: it’s growing more precise on an individual level, depending on the case, the need, the occasion. It’s a sort of almost automatic work. I can imagine it helps people, obviously. They generally need a personal thing – by “personal” I mean with a vibration identical to theirs.
I don’t know if it’s because of this cold, I am not sure (I don’t think so – I know very well where it comes from), the whole morning (during the night and the morning), there has been a sort of perception of all kinds of states of consciousness this body has been through, groups of circumstances, and then a perception so concrete, you know, so absolute: “Where is the person? Where, where is the individual? Where is the person? Where …” And with such a clear vision of the supreme Consciousness, which, on the other hand, is the ONLY permanent consciousness – the supreme Consciousness at play in all that, all those movements, all those actions, all those … But it was felt and lived in such a concrete way that I saw, for instance, that this body, which people think is the same body as the one born more than ninety years ago, isn’t at all the same! Everything has changed: the cells have changed, everything! Everything: the state of consciousness is absolutely different. So then, where is the person? Where? … Suddenly there was, “Where, where is that personality? Where is it?…” There was only That (gesture above): Consciousness. And then, the vision of the whole, of things taking form and … (wavy gesture of a Whole diversifying into innumerable forms).
In other words, that experience one generally has in the higher mind, in the psychic, is now the body’s – it’s the body in its cellular constitution that has it. It had that experience this morning: That alone was permanent, That which, through innumerable changes, remains … (immutable, unshakeable gesture with the edge of the hand).
It was such a concrete experience – so concrete for the body – that it wondered how it still remained in a form?
And then, all the ordinary notions … no more meaning. No more meaning, they’ve become meaningless.
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It began yesterday with the notion of the infinitely small and all those worlds organized like that. [[Mother may be alluding to her vision of a cell in a gigantic hand. ]] And the impression of a larger personality (I mean, taking up more space, if I may say so), in which men, all men were only tiny constituent elements…. That was yesterday. And today, it was the opposite, but complementary experience. And so the outcome is this vision of the All and of all things – the All which, because of our infirmity, we always see with limits.
(Mother goes into a long contem
plation, then suddenly smiles)
I don’t know if it’s a result of what I told you or what, but I’ve seen an immense Being who came holding a little child by the hand … and the little child was you. He came to put the child in front of me, like this (gesture at Mother’s feet). Immense, immense, far taller than the house, you know: the little child was like a finger to him (Mother shows two phalanges of her little finger). He was holding the child like that, and came and put him in front of me (Mother laughs).
Maybe it’s the continuation of what I told you! But it was very concrete. [[Satprem assumes that the immense being was the "That" he was turning to in preference to Mother's person. And "That" came and showed him his place. ]]
Sri Aurobindo said that when you go beyond the Impersonal, you find the Personal: THE Person. I am sure he had the experience…. My own sensation is a sort of fusion – a fusion of all sense of personality into … I don’t mean into an impersonality, that’s not true, but it’s something limitless, yet you get a sense, not personal at all in the narrow meaning of the word, but with all the concrete reality of the Person. You understand, it’s the body’s experience (I never had any difficulty in the other regions), the experience OF THE BODY. The body has the experience of that fusion, constantly; it constantly seems to melt, but … for it, it’s nevertheless from the identical to the identical; the feeling (feeling or sensation) of “otherness,” of being “other,” it perceives as its own imperfection. Yet it’s not at all the experience of an immoderately magnified self, absolutely nothing of that sort, but … What’s wholly concrete is the All-Consciousness (the body does feel it’s much more than that, it’s only one aspect and is much more than that). But it’s the constant, constant experience.
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This idea of Personal or Impersonal has no meaning. It doesn’t correspond to anything. The body has completely lost the sense of its personality, completely, and strangely – it’s strange. For instance … (for the moment, everything, but everything expresses itself as phenomena of consciousness), for instance, I don’t know how many times a day, there will suddenly come the awareness of a disorder, a pain or suffering somewhere – somewhere in some part, but not a part … shut in here (Mother points to her own body): like a spot in an immense body; and after a while, or a few hours later, I’ll be told that someone or other has had such and such a pain, which was felt as being part of that immense body…. It has become very odd. It has considerably increased with this cold. You see, I’ve been seeing fewer people, doing less work, resting more – I am putting it that way out of habit, but it doesn’t quite correspond to the state … When I say “I,” it’s as if I were putting myself in people’s thought and speaking of what corresponds in it to all that; but it’s not felt that way at all.
Ah, I’m going to tire you….
No! While you were meditating, I’ve rarely had such a physical
impression, such a physical experience, in my body.
Oh?
Yes, I felt it very strongly: something that wasn’t at all happen
ing up above, but here.
(Mother nods and remains silent)
Yes, basically like a consciousness here, in the body.[[ Satprem was beginning to climb down from his "heights." It was none too soon. ]]
Yes, yes.
(silence)
The extraordinary thing is that with such a … fantastic
torrent of force as the one near you, or on you, or in you, it
doesn’t find a more physical expression than that!
But more and more (through news people bring or things that happen), I have more and more the sense of such an awesome torrent that … Yes, I think it’s like this: I think everything is changing, and
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changing with fantastic speed, but we don’t notice it and we’ll only become aware of it … afterwards. Because there are hundreds of occasions to note details, and the overall impression is rather stupendous. For instance, if the consciousness is concentrated, if for some reason it’s concentrated here in the body, then everything seems as if it’s bursting – boiling and bursting – to such a point that I have asked several times, "Do I have a fever?" – I don’t have a fever at all! And as soon as there is stillness, inactivity, and a concentration with the consciousness, then it’s something so awesome, immense, you know, and … Then there is Peace, Serenity. A peace … something inexpressible – in an awesome action. And then …
(Mother goes into a contemplation)
* * *
As Satprem is about to leave
There remains the question of Msgr. R., who wrote to you – I
read you his letter last time.
Is he asking for a reply?
He is expecting something.
I answered abundantly, very concretely – very concretely, with great concentration…. I don’t know if he is sensitive.
The contact lasted a long time, it was very complete, the work was very precise. I answered in a much truer way than words can do.
I thought of certain things I might say, but everything is so shallow. High-sounding sentences are useless, I detest them. Everything is so shallow and so petty.
I’ll see if something comes.
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