Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-40_May 24_1969.htm

May 24, 1969

It’s difficult …. The English would say, it’s not a joke …. Everything, everything is getting disorganized, everything is disorganized.

It’s easy to see that it’s getting disorganized TOWARDS a higher organization, that is, a broadening, a liberation – that’s true … but nothing, nothing at all is working in the ordinary way any longer. So the body can no longer eat, can no longer … Sleep, of course, for a long time there hasn’t been any ordinary sleep (I don’t regret it), but everything, just everything is like this (gesture of upheaval).

(long silence)

It’s a very strange sensation: no relationship remains as it was before. Nothing: neither of the body with itself, nor of the body with others, nor anything; it’s all … like something that has disappeared. Now and then, you know, it’s like a breath of air passing by, a small thing … I can’t say how it is – charming. It’s not a pleasure, not a joy, it’s … a breeze passing by, something quite special – and charming, quite charming. You drink a drop of something, which the minute before was absolutely dull-it’s not intense, not violent, not strong, but … charming. The next minute, it’s gone.

The body suddenly feels a sense of peaceful and luminous rest, something quite … adorable – the next minute, it feels pain all over.

So everything is like that.

A sort of identification with everything, which is far from being too pleasant (it’s not unpleasant either), but … it gives a bizarre impression of life. Everything is like that. One moment, the impression that you don’t depend on anything, that you are an expression … (how could I put it? [Mother smiles]) an expression of the Lord, and that you depend on nothing; the next minute, that you are nothing at all, merely a sort of semiconscious movement in the middle of a general semiconsciousness – very unpleasant. It’s like that, and all the time like that …. At one time, things become so … (what should I say?) repugnant, almost, that you feel like screaming – and in fact, if you don’t keep a check on yourself, you do start screaming. Another time … everything is so peaceful that you feel as if you are entering an eternity So you understand … All that you can do in the middle of all that is to be still!

Then, it comes along with an awareness (not a mental perception:

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 an awareness) of all that people think, all that people feel, all that … it’s all oh, so pitiful! It’s so pitiful …. As I said, one minute, suddenly there’s something absolutely marvelous; and the next minute, it’s … So the body, one can’t say it finds that very amusing, no, but it … It doesn’t rebel in the least, not in the least, it says, "Since it’s like that, it has to be like that." Sometimes, now and then, it aspires to get somewhere.

You see the condition.

As a result, I can no longer, I can no longer even …-for instance, previously, when someone told me he had difficulties or was unhappy or … it was very simple, spontaneously I would say, "But just think of something else, think of the yoga, and you’ll find peace" – I can’t even say that any longer! Because I can’t tell people, "Do as I do and you’ll be in peace"! It’s true that I don’t have a single care – not one care. One day (it was yesterday or the day before, I don’t remember), everything seemed to go haywire-everything everywhere: everybody, all circumstances, all things – every thing, on the scale of the earth. Not on a small scale, on the scale of the earth. On a small scale: complete disorder; on a general scale: complete disorder. But even that the body can still see and smile at. But you see, it can’t eat anymore, or it throws up all that it eats, or … Complete disorder. I can’t say it finds that perfectly all right, but it doesn’t find it unbearable; it says, "It’s like that, so it’s like that." Because there’s always, always this, this which doesn’t budge (gesture above the head, like an unshakable will), there is always the consciousness of … reaching, reaching the Lord, the Supreme Consciousness … reaching the Lord. This is stable. This is durable. And then: "If all this still has to dissolve, it will dissolve; if it can evolve, it will evolve; if it has to go through all these troubles, which really aren’t very pleasant, it will go through them." This doesn’t budge (same gesture above the head). And it even comes – when things begin to be troublesome enough, it comes like this: "To be what the Lord wills …. What You will."

There.

So I’ve stopped speaking – I am speaking just now, but I have stopped speaking because …

And a sort of fluidity (gesture spread all around): either what people have comes here, or what’s here goes out there, or … A fluidity like that … which isn’t particularly pleasant. It’s interesting, even amusing at times-it’s funny, comical. But I can’t say it’s very cheering.

I didn’t even know if I would say anything, because it’s really not

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 … really not pleasant to say … How long is it going to last? I don’t know … There are times when you feel it can’t last, it’s going to end; and there are times when you feel it can go on like that for an eternity. And then, when it’s like that, when there is that feeling … "Why? Why, why all this? Is it really any use to have a manifestation like this, which lasts eternally like this? What’s the use? …" If you have the vision of a Beauty and a Joy, a Harmony, then you say, "All right, let’s go through the difficulty and then we’ll arrive there," but this way, if things must always be as they are … So there.

And then, as I have said, from time to time, for ONE second (not even one second), a joy … something … I can’t say, it’s neither joy nor pleasure nor happiness, nor any of all that, it’s … something adorable-which may be nothing: it may be a taste, or a perfume, or a gesture, and then … it disappears. If the world were constantly like that, it would be a wonderful thing! Wonderful, inexpressibly wonderful, but … But impossible to be all alone like that, it’s not possible. It’s not possible, there is all that comes from outside (gesture like a truckload being dumped) and which … So if we have to wait till everything is changed … phew!

It’s obvious that the creation CAN be a wonderful thing – it seems to be the opposite of that. But how is the one going to change into the other? …

(silence)

The body has reached a state of consciousness in which it knows that death can bring about a change, but isn’t-isn’t a disappearance (disappearance of the consciousness). And then, that idea the vast majority of human beings have: the repose of death … (Mother puts her hand on her mouth, as if before an extraordinary piece of nonsense). Not even that consolation. For most people, it’s the opposite of a repose. So then, there too, but even more acutely and intensely: "The only, the SOLE hope is … You, Lord, to be You. Let there be nothing but You. Let this separation, this difference disappear, it is MONSTROUS!" Let it disappear. Then, let it be as You will: You in full activity, or You in complete repose – it doesn’t matter in the least; whether it is this way or that way, either way it’s completely, completely unimportant; the important thing is that it should be You.

There’s the absolute CERTITUDE (Mother clenches her two fists) that there’s only ONE way out of all that, only ONE – only one, not two, there’s no choice, there aren’t a few possibilities, there’s only one: it’s … the supreme Door. The Marvel of Marvels. All the rest

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 … all the rest is an impossibility.

And all that is the experience of this (Mother points to her body), it’s not mental, but wholly and completely material.

I see, you know, because people’s consciousness is an open book for me (there’s no difference, it’s an open book), and so I see: in the vast majority of people, when things become really difficult, there is that idea (that sort of idea is always there): "Oh, one day, all that will be over." – What a joke!

(silence)

But why? … Why? … Now and then the body worries: "Why? Why, why all this, why? …" When it sees, when it’s in contact with suffering, people, miseries, difficulties, why, why? Why … why?

(Satprem lays his forehead

 on Mother’s feet)

Since this Creation can be a marvel identical with the Supreme Consciousness, why, why did it have to go through all this? (Mother draws a circle that comes back to its starting point)

Now and then that comes to it.

But obviously, it’s idiotic, because it’s useless – it’s like that, so it’s like that. All the whys will not prevent things from being like that. All that we have to do is to find the way for them no longer to be like that, that’s all.

(silence)

I always think of Buddha and all of them: we’ll go and merge with the Lord, and then there’ll be nothing left! (Mother takes her head in her hands)

So then, for their theory to be credible, they say … (laughing) that it’s all an "error." And they don’t see the stupidity of their theory: that the Supreme Lord should have been capable of an error … and then should have repented and withdrawn from it!

These people, all these people, the more convinced they are, the more you feel they are shut up in blinkers.

(silence)

But in fact, your body is a symbol of the whole earth.

It seems to be like that.

So everything comes to you to be purified.

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Yes, but that doesn’t console me, the body couldn’t care less!

Yes, but I feel that once anything has touched you, it can’t go back into the world as it was before.

It seems to be so; there are constantly extraordinary things taking place. Constantly, all the time, every minute, I hear really extraordinary things.

But that doesn’t console the body! … It doesn’t have any selfesteem.

Yes, but that serves some purpose.

Oh, yes!

It purifies – it must purify the world.

The body doesn’t even worry about its purification …. I don’t know how to explain …. It’s night and day, ceaselessly, "What You will, Lord, what You will …." You understand, "what You will" in the future, instead of "what You want" in the present, because it’s not only like this (gesture inward), but also like that (gesture outward, spread out). "What You will, what You want." That’s all. And that’s its perpetual state.

(silence)

Because, of course, one very clearly feels how everything is grating.

(Mother laughs,
silence)

At any rate (this is very clear), the consciousness striving to help the body in the work has made it understand per-fect-ly well that going away isn’t a solution. Even if there was earlier a curiosity to know what the body will be, that curiosity is gone; as for the desire to stay on, that went away long ago; the possible desire to leave when things become a bit … suffocating went away with the idea that it would change nothing at all. So only one thing remains for the body: to perfect acceptance. That’s all.

When it doesn’t talk about it, it’s relatively easier; when it expresses it, it becomes very concrete.

There.

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The only thing that really consoles it (but not for long) is the idea, "What you are doing is useful for all; what you are doing isn’t for you, a stupid little person, it’s for the whole entire creation to profit by it." That’s what gives it patience.

But when there are people with, you know, a great goodwill (with perhaps a little ambition) to do some work too, I tell them, "If it comes, take it, but don’t pull it to you …." A part of the creation had to do the work for the whole (that’s obvious-obvious), and, well, what speaks [i.e., Mother] happens to be at least a part. There had to be someone. That’s good; it’s like that, so it’s like that; there’s no point being … It’s like that, so it’s like that.

Ah, it’s only asking to do the work properly, and that’s all.

The body is aware of a very deep stupidity, and it realizes that because of that stupidity, the whole entire universe is the way it is.

And its perfect incapacity to get out of it … It’s a question of Grace, that’s all …. There are some seconds when everything is so wonderful as to be unbelievable, and then, the next second …

There. It’s better not to talk about it.

(silence)

One would like to help you better.

Mon petit, you are helping me as much as you can. It’s very good …. There’s one thing: you are the only one I can talk to. And that’s good. From a general standpoint, I am very grateful for that -you are the only one I can talk to. The others don’t understand.

The others don’t understand.

I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen. There are times when things become so difficult that I wonder if the body will be able to hold out, but I would like … I would like people not to put me in a box and shove the body … like that, because it will be aware of it, it will feel it, and that will mean adding one more misery to all those it has had. Let them wait till it deteriorates. I am saying this to you, so you will be able to say it to others if necessary.

Yes, certainly. [[ Satprem was still under the illusion that he could "say" something. ]]

 

It doesn’t desire that, it doesn’t fear it – things will be as they will have to be, that’s all. Only, it would really like people to understand … to understand the effort it has made, and not to rush to

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(gesture of getting rid of a burdensome body) shut it in, with a heap of earth above it. Because even long after doctors will have declared it to be dead, it will be conscious: its cells are conscious.

So there, that’s all.

I don’t know … maybe … You know, there’s such a long way to go that it appears … absolutely miraculous. And the other thing ["death"] seems to me more and more idiotic. So I am like this (gesture in between). It’s really a queer condition: you’re not alive, you’re not dead.

Ah, good-bye, petit.

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