July 25, 1970
Years ago, I used to get B.’s notebook, and I would answer him. Then, once, I forgot it. Yesterday he wrote to tell me that he’d like to have his notebook back, and I found it again. And in it, there was a question I had left unanswered.
So I answered…. This morning I "presented" that question [to the Lord], and it was as if it was waiting for the occasion. I received a reply … simple, as always, but explaining the WHOLE, entire functioning. When I saw that, it was such an illumination that… everything became so simple! (I wrote it down, but it’s nothing, it looks like a commonplace.) But it puts an end to all questions. It was absolutely wonderful!
So instead of sending the notebook back to him, I kept it to show it to you, because it looks like nothing at all, but if it gives others the experience it gave me, it’s something!… For several hours I lived in a Peace nothing can disturb…. It’s so simple, so simple!
(Satprem reads the notebook)
Mother,
Does the Divine punish injustice? Is it possible for
Him to ever punish anyone?
(Mother laughs) He always had a very childlike way to ask questions! So I answered:
"After so many years, I find the forgotten notebook
again, and I answer:
"The Divine does not see things the way men do …
That’s intended for B.
"… and does not need to punish and reward. All
actions carry in themselves their fruit along with
their consequences.
"According to its nature, the action brings you
closer to the Divine or takes you away from the
Divine …
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So … you see in the universe the immense Movement drawing closer to the Divine, and how EVERYTHING, everything in it is like that [advancing towards the Divine]…. I’d like to pass on to you my experience, it’s extraordinary!… Simply that.
"… and that is the supreme consequence."
It’s created in such a way, organized in such a way that EVERYTHING is like that, and every second (so then I understand; I understand movements I have felt in the consciousness, which I couldn’t explain to myself), it’s automatic and CONTINUOUS, every second (we divide it into seconds, but it’s continuous). So it’s going forward towards the Divine, towards the conscious identification with the Divine, or else going backward. The body had felt things it didn’t understand, because the consciousness was in a certain way, and some things were wrong (a very slight discomfort suddenly, you don’t know why) – that’s the reason. It explains everything, EVERYTHING. That way, the working of the universe is FULLY explained.
It instantly does away with all notions of sin, of evil….
But all, all human conceptions fall away. It’s so simple! So simple. And this whole huge mental edifice people have built to try and explain falls to the ground.
It [the working] is automatic.
Automatic and universal. And I noticed it wasn’t something vague or imprecise: it’s exact, as if every element had its own destiny…. One day you may take a big step backward, and the next day a big step forward. It explains the whole apparent confusion of the world.
Oh, suddenly I was lighter. As if a weight, a weight of Ignorance had been taken off from me.
(silence)
And you see how things are arranged: I didn’t do it deliberately, I found this notebook again only when I was capable of understanding. At that time. God knows what answer I would have written! It came just when I was capable of replying. It’s marvelous!
Yes, all that is really microscopically precise.
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Yes, yes, exactly! It’s the precision, the exactness – it’s the Supreme Consciousness everywhere. We even have difficulty conceiving it, but its obvious … blindingly obvious.
(silence)
Do you have something to say?
No, I only have a question of spelling!
Oh, mon petit, I make as many spelling errors as possible! (Mother laughs)
It’s about those famous "Aurovillians"….
I write it with a single "I."
Deliberately?
Deliberately. (Laughing) Its not French, it’s Aurovilian!
(silence)
Since this morning, I’ve been in an extraordinary joy, everything has become clear!
And the amusing thing is that we thought we knew – we thought we knew that, it doesn’t look like a revelation … and we didn’t really know it! It’s as if something had been reversed.
(silence)
If we could explain this difference of understanding, it would explain the difference between the mental functioning (even the higher mind, the highest intellectual functioning) and the functioning of the divine Consciousness…. I feel it, but … (Mother tries to explains, then gives up).
The mental functioning explains – it explains. Things are consequences (even my word "consequence" in the notebook, I’m not sure it’s the right one), it "explains," whereas this is spontaneous. It’s not the result of a decision, it’s spontaneous. One might almost say it’s automatic. We always feel ("we," I mean human beings), we think of the divine Action as a supra-human action, that is, which first sees THEN decides – but it’s not that! It’s … yes, an automatism, I don’t know how to put it.
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I must say that two days ago, I had an experience (it was with R. again, she was here), an experience of the whole universe, like a general vision of an Immensity, and then, suddenly the consciousness seemed to become a point taking up no room, and that point was the Eternal Consciousness. But then, it was so strong! So strong … how all this, this whole unfolded universe was the result of this Consciousness (Mother shows a point). You understand, the consciousness here became this Eternal Consciousness (for a few seconds perhaps, I don’t think it lasted even a minute, but time had nothing to do with it), it was the Eternal, it was the Consciousness. And that experience already prepared something [in Mother], because the two were simultaneous; one didn’t abolish the other, the two were simultaneous: this Point that was taking up no room but was eternal, was everything, and at the same time, the unfolding [of the universe]. That was a very intense experience. Then there only remained this vagueness that is the "whole," but it didn’t lose its impression of vagueness, that is to say, of something imprecise. Since that time, there has been something changed [in Mother]. And today, in this consciousness, when the answer came, it wasn’t the knowledge of "that" – it wasn’t the knowledge, it was the working. All of a sudden, I had BECOME the working. So then, I expressed it as best I could in this notebook…. It had such simplicity, you know, a marvelous, all-powerful simplicity!
Words are approximations. I had to use words because I had to write for him, but the experience came like that, the working: the experience of this universal Immensity returning to the Divine Consciousness, how it returns – and innumerably, of course, with all possible experiences, but with a marvelous sim-plic-i-ty.
(long silence)
Words …
It gave me at the same time a sort of bodily experience of the universal movement of the return of the consciousness towards the Divine; and that … a perception that wasn’t mental at all, not at all, as if all the cells felt this movement, you understand, this movement of immense return towards the Consciousness.
It must be the movement of the universe towards the Supreme.
I must say that certain things contributed to the experience: in answer to certain questions, yesterday Z told me about the age of the earth, and how they have now managed to measure it (things that are the mental approach to the problem), and suddenly, when he spoke, suddenly there came this sort of union and … (what
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should I say?) almost a sensation, in the body, of the earth returning to the Divine Consciousness. So the conjunction, combination of all that resulted in this experience.
(silence)
Previously when I used to have experiences (long ago, years ago), it was the mind that benefited more or less, and then it would spread it, use it; now it’s not like that: it’s directly the body, it’s the body that has the experience, and it’s MUCH TRUER. There’s an intellectual attitude that puts a kind of veil or … I don’t know, something … something unreal on the perception of things – an attitude, it’s an attitude. It’s like seeing through a certain veil or a certain … something … a certain atmosphere, whereas the body feels the thing in itself, it BECOMES that. It feels in itself. It’s not as if the thing were taken like this (gesture of absorption in oneself), it’s as if the body itself BECAME that (gesture of bursting or expansion). Instead of shrinking the experience down to the individuals scale, the individual widens to the scale of the experience.
(Mother goes into a contemplation) Do you have anything to say?
Once I had a sort of perception which really was an experience,
very strong, of this whole universal movement of return, and I
had the impression or sensation that everything goes TOWARDS
That, everything is FOR That, that it’s impossible for anything in
all this to be "against," for anything not to go in THAT direction,
even when apparently it is "against" or "twisted" or "dark" or …
Yes, yes.
I had the impression that everything goes, is FOR That, there’s
nothing against – the impossibility of anything against in all
this.
Yes, it’s as if … I don’t know … as if the "against" made it nonexistent, you know, in a way incomprehensible to us. An incomprehension that makes us say "against."
It came to me in this form: even what we call the "wrong path"
is part of the right path.
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Yes.
It looks like a paradox….
Yes, exactly, its a limitation of vision, quite simply.
(silence)
With the perception of space (which must correspond to something), things move away (in what I saw, my experience), they move away as if to follow a vaster curve in order to … That’s it: the move away is to broaden one’s horizon or field of action.
(silence)
But the interesting thing (very interesting for me) is that the body was very preoccupied with all the difficulties of the transformation, and this experience has given it … I can’t call it a "joy" (it’s something infinitely superior and greater, stronger – it’s so immense!…), as if all the cells were dancing with joy. That’s the impression.
These last few days too, I wondered why the body is so absorbed in the difficulties of the transformation, and I received no answer, except to be patient and tranquil and not to fret – as always. But now I understand!… It can only be joyful in a certain atmosphere of truth; then … everything seems to broaden, to relax, and then there’s an extraordinary joy with no equivalent in the ordinary perception, none at all.
(Laughing) It’s a bit as if someone had taken my head and turned it around! (Mother turns her head upward). You know, this (gesture above) is where the Consciousness is, so the head was taken and turned the right way! (laughter)
(silence)
It’s limitations that create the sense of evil, of bad – as soon as you do away with the limitations, it’s gone.
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