April 17, 1971
A. told me he liked your book[[On the Way to Supermanhood. ]] very much.
Oh, yes! Good.
That’s good…. I was happy for him! (laughter)
But you know, from the first reactions that are starting to
come in, the book is creating a sort of schism!
What?
A sort of schism, yes.
How do you mean?
Well, there seems to be one whole group of open and enthu
siastic young people, who see the new Possibility, and then
there’s another “school,” which has done a lot of tapasya
[austerities] and very much believes in the virtue of all sorts of
disciplines, which says, "That can’t be it! It can’t be that way!"
Oh!
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People who believe in the virtue of meditation, tapasya,
disciplines, etc., and then "great effort is needed" — so the more
effort they’ve made, the more shocked they are by the immediacy of the Thing!
(Mother laughs) But it’s much more difficult to do what you describe![ [To throw some light on the nature of the "schism," we include at the end of this conversation the text of a letter written by Satprem to an enthusiastic and erroneous reader. ]]
Yes, quite.
(Mother laughs) Much more difficult…. That means they don’t understand.
That’s exactly it.
They see only the words.
But unfortunately I got that kind of reaction from T. also [the
English translator].
Yes.
So it bothers me because I wonder what kind of translation
she will do.
Did she tell you I wrote to her?
No, Mother.
Oh!… She had written me that there were passages she didn’t like in your book….
Yes, they are “repulsive,” she told me.
So, I told her, “Please write those passages down for me.” And among them was one that was just the one I liked best! (laughter)
So I said, “I am terribly sorry, but I have to tell you that you do not understand the book….” She never replied.
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Yes, she wrote to me also.
Did she mention what I said to her?
No, not at all, Mother! But she told me there was no
"Presence" in the book.
No what?
No Presence.
But it’s not true at all! [[Satprem was even accused of having "betrayed Sri Aurobindo." There was a little clique of "intellectuals" in the Ashram, who after Sri Aurobindo's passing refused for a long time to give recognition to Mother (and even while Sri Aurobindo was there, how many letters did he have to write to defend Mother). So we suspect that this same little clique, very influential today, has never really recognized Mother, except by paying lip service, preferring to hide behind a "philosophical Sri Aurobindo," while Mother was forcing them (or trying to force them) to do a more thorough yoga. This is the essence of the "schism." This first reaction of the English translator thus prefigures what will break out after Mother's passing. One by one all the little waves were beginning to pile up. ]]
Anyway, it bothers me from the standpoint of the translation.
Yes, her translation can’t be good…. It will have to be done over.
You see, she had sent me a passage from your book leaving out part of a sentence, which changed the meaning to the opposite of what was intended…. So I understood that there is a … (gesture of twisting).
Yes, they always cut things out.
Then how can she translate?
Yes, that bothers me. She showed me her translation; of
course I can tell her, "This word is not correct, here is a mis
translation," but that’s all I can do — it’s not enough for the
words to be there, there has to be something else.
Oh, indeed!
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And I don’t know if there is that “something else.”
A. used to know English very well, perhaps he could read it and tell you.
(silence)
And she has not answered [Mother's letter]. She must think I am soft in the head!
Oh, no, I don’t think so, Mother!
They are … three quarters think that way, mon petit.
No, Mother, no.
Because I can’t do things as they do, I no longer see very well and I hear badly, so I must be completely in a daze.
No, no, Mother! I really don’t think there are so many.
It doesn’t matter anyway! (Mother laughs scoffingly)
(silence)
But if there is to be another English translator, it has to be someone who isn’t here.
Not here?
Yes, because it would pain her.
(long silence,
Mother goes within)
Anything else?
Yes, on an entirely different subject … about the current situation.
Oh!…
For this “Agenda” in which we are keeping a record of every
thing that is done, I thought it would be good to keep a record,
if you agree, of exactly what you wrote to Indira. I heard that
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you told her to intervene [in Bangladesh], but…. Exactly what
did you write?
I don’t remember…. I wrote her two notes, one on the third and one on the fourth — I know it was the fourth because that was the day Sri Aurobindo arrived here. But what was in the notes…. Unless a copy was kept?…
(Mother’s assistant looks for the notes)
It looks as if they’re letting that country be crushed without
doing anything.
No. Three or four countries have already recognized it. I don’t remember.
Oh, no, Mother, no one!
They told me so this morning.
No one, Mother! Not a single one.
Well, yes, they told me this morning.
The people of Bangladesh have sent emissaries to try to secure
recognition, but up till now….
Oh, yes. They’ve worked. Three countries have already recognized it.
But not at all, Mother, I can assure you!… Unless the news is secret, no one has recognized Bengal.
But the news we get is not at all complete…. Well, anyway I don’t know anything.
According to the news, Pakistani troops are now recapturing
cities, and not only that, but they are sealing off the border
with India, so that even secret help that might have been given
cannot get through anymore.
Where did you get that news?
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Well, that’s the official news.
(long silence,
the assistant brings Mother’s note)
You wrote: “The urgent recognition of Bangla-Desh is impera
tive."
Yes, “the urgent recognition….” That’s the second note, the one of the fourth. “The urgent recognition of Bangla-Desh is imperative.”[[The first version, the one of the third, read: India must recognize Bangla-Desh. This is urgent. ]]
There you are, they just haven’t listened to you! They’re not
listening to you.
They told me it was done.
No, Mother, it’s not done at all!
And that there was even a government formed and everything.
That, yes! They’ve formed a provisional government in Bangla
desh, but it has not been recognized.
(silence)
And so the longer they delay, the more impossible it becomes
to do anything.
(after a silence)
But the news coming from there is very conflicting. I get news through Surendra Mohan [an advisor to Indira], who is working actively….
Then it must be a secret recognition, because officially it’s not
recognized at all
.[[In fact, again on the 18th, the day after this conversation, the president of India, V.V. Giri, in a press interview in which he was spiritedly asked why he still had not recognized Bangladesh, said, “The central government is studying the question whether recognition should be granted to Bangladesh.” Then he added, “Our sympathy is with the people of Bangladesh. It is up to the Prime Minister [Indira] and the central cabinet to decide the question.” (P.T.I) ]]
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At any rate, the fact is that Pakistani troops are recapturing territory and they’re trying to set up a provisional pseudogovernment under their control. That’s what they’re doing. A government of traitors, you know, like Petain [the head of the Vichy government during World War II which collaborated with the Nazis].
(Mother goes within for a long time,
then raises her hands)
(In a sad tone:) I don’t know.
(Mother goes back within)
The truth must be something else altogether, I am sure — neither what some say nor what the others say. But what is it?…[[One wonders what kind of news Mother was getting from her entourage. ]]
(silence)
In any event, there is something far more dangerous still: there’s going to be famine.
Yes, Mother.
And Surendra Mohan is going to try to get all the necessary supplies from America.
Yes, but Pakistani ships off-shore are confiscating everything.
It should come from India.
But they’re sealing off the borders!… Mother, the fact is that
they have not listened to you and they have missed the chance
– they are missing it!
(Mother goes within,
then takes Satprem’s hands with a weary air)
* * *
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ADDENDUM
“The Schism”
Satprem had received the following letter from an enthusiastic
reader of “On the Way to Supermanhood”:
“Until the year of grace 1969 [the descent of the New Con
sciousness], all philosophies, all religions, all isms, all spiritual
paths were only the refined products of the ‘mental circle’
[according to 'Supermanhood']. All experiences were merely on
the higher planes of the mind.’ Those ‘peaks of the Spirit’ are
but ‘self-paroxysms,’ p. 61; ‘we must cleanse ourselves of the
wisdoms of the past, the ascents of the past, the illuminations
of the past and the whole racket of the old sanctities of the
Spirit,’ p. 29, etc. In other words, everything that took place
before 1969 is a sublimation of the ‘old flesh,’ p. 28. It is quite
clear. Some have touched the Secret: the Rishis, the Egyptians
– the reader understands that they had the intuition of it but
not the experience. The same applies to Sri Aurobindo, who
’announced’ it, but his yoga extended the refinement of the
‘mental bubble’; the reader thus understands that he did not
know about the key to the yoga of the superman and was merely
satisfied in teaching the integral yoga….”
The misconception of this enthusiastic reader is like a demon
stration in reverse of precisely what the “orthodox” reproached
“Supermanhood” for, i.e., of having betrayed Sri Aurobindo.
Behind this so-called schism were hidden, on the one hand, those
who wanted to separate Mother and Sri Aurobindo and found it
more comfortable to philosophize than to do the yoga concretely,
and on the other hand, those who wanted conveniently to dispense
with all spiritual disciplines and live according to their fancy. Two
poles of the same misconception. Here then is the letter Satprem
sent in response to this enthusiastic reader:
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You have a lot of nerve to say that Sri Aurobindo did not have the key to the yoga of the superman and that his integral yoga was a refinement of the mental bubble! And where have I learned what I write, if not from Mother and Sri Aurobindo? You forget that it is thanks to him that the yoga of the superman is possible, that it is he who prepared it, he who brought down the great flood of the New Consciousness so that, instead of seeking for the Divine Truth up above, men can live it down here and walk their every step in it. It is like saying that Sri Aurobindo did not have the key to the door he opened!
His yoga is integral because, instead of confining the quest to the spiritual heights, he has told us repeatedly that our body too must participate and we must bring the Spiritual Truth down into our body and our life. The path of ascent and all the other paths, the other planes of consciousness, are part of an integral development — for those who have the time and the special capacities that are required. But it is no longer the time for those excursions, since everything can be found here — since, in fact, Sri Aurobindo and Mother opened the way HERE. Please recall Mother’s statement: “Sri Aurobindo came to tell us: one need not leave the earth to find the Truth, one need not leave life to find one’s soul, one need not abandon the world or have limited beliefs to enter into relation with the Divine. The Divine is everywhere, in everything, and if he is hidden, it is because we do not take the trouble to find him.” (Questions and Answers, 8.13.1958) And again this: “For many, spiritual life is meditation. As long as that nonsense is not uprooted from human consciousness, the supramental force will always find it very difficult not to be swallowed up in the obscurity of an uncomprehending human mind.” (Questions and Answers, 4.17.1957) And if you know how to read Sri Aurobindo and Mother, you will see that they have completely described this road of here and the sunlit path — On the Way to Supermanhood only puts an intentionally exclusive accent on the “here,” because there is no time to lose, because everyone does not have the special capacities for making large-scale explorations, and finally because we are at the Hour of God — we are right there! It has come. Because there really is something different in the world since 1969.
It is not a change in Sri Aurobindo’s yoga, it is the flowering of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga, I dare say. I do not think that the flower of the flame tree contradicts in any way the flame tree.
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Now, you have completely confused the psychic and the spiritual. The psychic, the soul, the Fire within, Agni, does not belong to the “mental bubble” or to any bubble: it is the Divine in matter. It is that little Fire which opens the door to the great solar Fire of the New Consciousness. It is the instrument of the yoga of the superman (when I speak of turning on the “psychic switch,” I am there taking the word in the vulgar and ridiculous sense of people seeking visionary and occult experiences — not in the true sense). Others in every age have had the experience of the psychic, of the inner Fire, but aside from the Rishis, no one used it to transform matter; the religions have made a purely devotional and “mystical” thing out of it. As for “the spiritual,” that includes all the planes of consciousness above the ordinary mind. It is the path of ascent. And that is where I repeatedly and emphatically, and from experience, say that those great Experiences, which have to be turned into spiritual summits, are part of the mental bubble (including the overmind): they are the rarefied summits on which the being thins out into a marvelous whiteness, immense, royal, without a ripple of trouble, in an eternal peace — which can last for millenniums without its changing the world one iota, by definition. But the spiritual is not the supramental, and when one touches the supramental, it seems to be almost a whole other Spirit, it is so compact, warm, powerful, present, embodied and radiantly solid in broad daylight. That is the Radiance which Sri Aurobindo and Mother came to bring down on earth — they said over and over that their yoga was new, new, new — and it is through the simple little fire inside us that we can enter into direct contact with That, without sitting in the lotus position or leaving life. When one touches That, the “spiritual” heights seem pale. That is all I have to say. So we do not at all need to be superyogis to have this contact, and those who have found Nirvana, or what have you, have not advanced one inch toward That, because the clue to That is not up there at all or outside, but in your own small capacity of flame.
So if instead of splitting hairs, you set out boldly on the road, afire, you would perhaps discover that we are indeed at the Hour of God and that a single spark of sincere effort, at one’s own level, opens doors which have been closed for millenniums.
Satprem
P.S. To help you read Mother, I am enclosing two texts by her.
* * *
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“One could say that it is far more difficult to go from the mental to the supramental life than to go from a certain psychic emotion in life — something that is like a reflection, a luminous emanation of the divine Presence in matter — to the supramental consciousness; it is much easier to go from that into the supramental consciousness than to go from the highest intellectual speculation to any supramental vibration. Perhaps it is the word that misleads us! Perhaps it is because we call it ‘supramental’ that we expect to reach it through a higher intellectual mental activity. But the reality is quite different. With this very high and pure and lofty intellectual activity, one seems to go towards a kind of cold, powerless abstraction, an icy light that is surely very remote from life and still further away from the experience of the supramental reality.
The new substances that is spreading and acting in the world contains a warmth, a power, a joy so intense that all intellectual activity seems cold and dry beside it. And that is why the less one talks about these things, the better it is. A single instant, a single impulse of deep and true love, a single minute of deep communion with the divine Grace brings you much closer to the goal than all possible explanations.” (Questions and Answers, 5.14.1958)
* * *
“In the other hemisphere, there is an intensity and a plenitude which result in a power different from the one here. How can I explain it? One cannot. The quality of the consciousness itself seems to change. It is not something higher than the summit we can attain here, it is not one MORE rung. Here, we have reached the end, the summit, but … it’s the quality that is different. The quality, in the sense that there is a plenitude, a richness, a power (this is all a translation, you see, in our language), but there is a ‘something’ that … that eludes us. It is truly a new reversal of consciousness.
When we begin living the spiritual life, a reversal of consciousness takes place which for us is the proof that we have entered the spiritual life; well, yet another one occurs when we enter the supramental world.
And in fact each time a new world opens up, there will perhaps be a new reversal of this kind.
It’s as if our entire spiritual life were made of silver, whereas the supramental life is made of gold — as if our entire spiritual life
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here were a silvery vibration, not cold but simply a light, a light that goes right to the summit, an absolutely pure light — pure and intense — but in the other, in the supramental world, there is a richness and a power that makes all the difference. This whole spiritual life of the psychic being and of all our present consciousness, which seems so warm, so full, so wonderful, so luminous to the ordinary consciousness, well, all this splendor seems poor in comparison to the splendor of the new world.
I can explain the phenomenon like this: successive reversals will bring about such an EVER-NEW richness of creation from stage to stage, that it will make whatever came before seem very poor in comparison. What to us seems supremely rich compared to our ordinary life appears very poor when compared to this new reversal of consciousness.”
(Agenda I, November 15, 1958, pp. 236-237)
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