March 8, 1972
(Mother holds a "Transformation" flower in her hand)
For whom?
(she looks for another flower
to give Satprem and Sujata one each)
Ten lakhs of rupees have just burned up in Auroville.
Ten lakhs! [[About $100,000. ]]
Yes. A workshop with machines as well as the godown [storeroom] next door which contained the stock of food. Brrff!
That’s how it is, like an imperative Order: Don’t step out of line or else everything will go wrong.
It’s become terrible. Another Auroville child died (a one-and-a-half-year-old baby) because his parents didn’t have the right attitude. He has just died. That’s how it works. It’s getting terrible. Terrible. A kind of Pressure – a frightening Pressure – which compels the necessary progress. I feel it in myself, on my body. But my body isn’t afraid; it says (Mother opens her hands), "Well, if I must be finished, I’ll be finished."
That’s how it is at every instant: the truth … (Mother brings down her fist) or the end.
That’s what seems to have descended – you remember, I said something had descended on the 21st (I wrote it somewhere), and
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one day we would know, we would know soon what it was. [[(Note of February 22) "All day long on the 21st I had a strong feeling that it was everybody's birthday, and I felt an urge to say 'happy birthday' to everyone. A very strong impression that something new was manifesting in the world and that all those who were ready and receptive could incarnate it. In a few days, probably we will know what it was." ]] Do you remember?
Yes, it was the 21st of February.
Well, this is it. Something like: "No half measures, no compromises, no halfways, no…" None – it’s like this (Mother brings down her fist).
And that’s how it is for the body. Every instant is imperative: life or death. No halfways. You know, we have spent centuries being neither too uncomfortable nor too comfortable. Well, that time is over.
The body knows this is necessary for the supramental body to be formed: it must be ENTIRELY under the Influence of the Divine. No compromises, no half measures, no "It will come later." Just like this (Mother brings down her fist): a dreadful Will.
And that’s the only way for things to go fast.
(silence)
There was probably nobody over in the workshop; it wasn’t open yet. But when I was told the news, I had a feeling someone had been burned inside – I didn’t say anything because…. It’s only a vision, of course, but….
All the machines, all the stock of food, everything was burned to cinders.
Due to a wrong attitude over there?
Yes. Oh, they’re all quarreling among themselves! And some even disobey deliberately, they refuse to recognize any authority.
(long silence)
When you begin to understand practically the need for trans
formation, when the understanding dawns and you try to do
something about it, you notice that every time the material
substance receives a blow, the message gets across: for one or
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two days it aspires for something, it searches; and then … it
slackens.
Yes, yes.
It is just incapable of keeping up a tension.
Not incapable.
What is it, then?
Unwillingness. Egoism (what we call egoism), Matter’s egoism.
Matter’s egoism….
… Which refuses to surrender.
I know it very well. I keep catching my body doing that all the time, in one part or another. It simply wants to putter along in the same old way.
It’s like a slackening of aspiration, of tension.
Yes, exactly.
But what to do, then? Should one try each time to recapture it,
or what?
Yes. Because it can’t be stable unless it is POSITIVELY anchored to the Divine. When you are like this (gesture, fists clenched in the air as if clinging to a rope), then, automatically, all the critical moments take the right turn. The right turn. It’s like a constant feeling of hovering between life and death, and the minute you take the right attitude – the minute the PART CONCERNED takes the right attitude – all is well. All is well, quite naturally and easily. Really extraordinary. But it’s also terrible because it means perpetual danger. I don’t know, perhaps a hundred times a day, a sensation like: life or … dissolution (I mean a sensation in the cells). And if they become tense as is their wont, it gets awful. But they’re learning to … (Mother opens her hands in a gesture of surrender). Then things are fine.
It’s as if the body were being practically obliged to learn eternity. It’s truly interesting. And then I see external circumstances becoming DREADFUL (from an ordinary standpoint).
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(Mother goes into contemplation)
What would you like to say?
Well, that was it; what I was finding difficult was to keep that
stability.
Yes.
I find it very difficult. You try to catch hold of yourself once,
twice, ten times, but you get the feeling that it’s not the right
way, that something else is needed, and … really, if some
higher Power doesn’t do it FOR YOU, it’s simply hopeless.
Yes, exactly. But I have had experiences – hundreds of experiences – showing that the minute you take the true attitude, it is DONE.
It is WE who prevent it from getting done. As though our personal control over things prevented the action of the Force (something of the sort). We must … (Mother opens her hands).
(silence)
I think – I think it’s the subconscient which is convinced that if it doesn’t keep control, everything will go wrong. That’s the impression I have, it’s the subconscient which says, "Oh, I must watch over this, I must be careful about that…."
(Mother opens her hands
and plunges in)
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