ISBN 2-902776-33-0
You remember what I had said? That it would be an improved physical body that would make the transition between the human body and the supramental body?...[[ See conversation of April 17, 1965. ]] Last night Sri Aurobindo told me in his own way that it was correct, that it was true. It was very interesting.
Very interesting.
Last night, for a long time, we went to all sorts of places unknown to me: towns, countrysides, forests, etc. It lasted a very long time. And once, we were there, near a forest (near a road that crossed the forest) and we were busy and "talking" when all of a sudden, he leaped to his feet.... You know, he never wears any clothes, so to speak; when I saw him the first time in his house (his supramental house), in the subtle physical, he was without clothes; but it's a kind of vibrant matter: it's very material, very concrete, and it has a sort of color that isn't a color, which is a bit golden and radiant - it doesn't send out rays, but it vibrates with a radiant light. And at least nine times out of ten he is that way; generally, when we are together for some work, he is that way. Last night he was that way. So then I was busy (we had arranged something and I was busy) when, suddenly, I see him leap to his feet and run a hundred-meter sprint. At first I was shocked, I said to myself, "What's this?!" And with great ease, you know: he darted off, then stopped a few minutes, and then ran back. Then he stopped again, and went off a third time on a sprint: like the 100-meter race they run. But the third time, he had grown tall, with a slim body. Grown tall as if to demonstrate to me: this is the way the body will be transformed. He had grown very tall, very strong.
It was very interesting and absolutely unexpected.
The second time, he was stronger than the first; and the third time, he was magnificent: a tall, superb being with that vibrant, radiant substance. And what a sprint! What leaps! It was fantastic. The last time, it was fantastic, as if he skimmed over the ground.
We "speak" very, very rarely. Sometimes he tells me something, but it's with a special import and a special aim - we understand each other without words. There he didn't say anything, but I understood.
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It was part of a very long activity, but that thing struck me very much because it was like the answer [to what I said some time ago]. He said, "Yes, it's true, you are right, it is like that." And that change in his body over the three times: the first time he was as I knew him, but younger and more agile; the second time, he was already stronger; and the third time, he was magnificent.
I wanted to tell you this.
That's all.
Now, what do YOU have to tell me?
(silence)
Very well, I am not saying anything more!
There still remains the question I asked you on the same subject: I find it hard to see how the supramental body, which is made of a very material but nevertheless different matter...[[Satprem meant that he found it hard to see how the new substance, nevertheless very different from Matter, could be prepared through gymnastics for the physical body. ]]
Ah, I had another experience about that a few days ago.... You know that they are speaking of a substance "denser" than physical substance.... What do they call it?... (Mother cannot remember) Théon had already spoken about it, but I thought it was his imagination. But I have been told that it has been scientifically discovered and that the amount of that "denser matter" seems to be INCREASING.
What do they call it? There is a name. I don't remember now, but some time ago, a month or two, someone who came from France told me that in scientific circles they now seem to be saying that matter denser than physical matter appears to be increasing in amount on earth - this would be extremely interesting. [[Mother is perhaps referring to "ionized matter"? ]]
As for Théon, he used to say that the glorified body would be made of a matter denser than physical matter, but with qualities that physical matter doesn't have. And this substance does have qualities, they say, that Matter doesn't have, like for instance elasticity. Well, a few nights ago (I don't remember when), I was in a place in which a sort of pale gray substance had been collected, which looked like diluted clay (a paste, that is). And elastic, (laughing) glutinous! It was like diluted cement, but very pale, a really lovely pearl gray, and sticky: it could be stretched like chewing gum!
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And then there were a number of people who had gathered there to bathe in that substance. Some were crawling in it with delight! They were smearing themselves all over with it, and it was sticky! And I myself ... Once you were there, you were inevitably plunged in it to some extent: it seemed to be there even in the air; you couldn't avoid it. But there was a lady who took great care of me so it wouldn't be too inconvenient: I remember that I had a sort of luminous dress, white and red (white with red decorations) in which I wrapped myself so that substance wouldn't stick to me. But I watched the whole thing, and I saw, for instance, our Purani[[ Purani passed away a few months later, on December 11, 1965. ]] wallowing in it, sliding with delight, dripping with that mud all over! And everybody was in that mud. Only, it was a mud of a very lovely pearl gray, but was it sticky! And in the morning when I woke up, I said to myself it must be the new substance in preparation - it's not yet fully ready but it's in preparation.
There were some highly amusing details: it was arranged like the establishments, you know, in those big stylish spas. It was like that. And people came there to take baths in that substance.
What do they call it?... Pavitra would know the name. I used to know it: Théon had given it the name they give it today. But I don't remember. A matter denser than physical Matter. But elastic.
And probably a matter that will undergo some transformations, I don't know. That cloak I put on was perhaps the symbol of ... It was white with golden threads and red embroidery designs (it was very beautiful), and I wrapped myself in it so that the mud wasn't bothersome.
What was it the symbol of?
Of the force that will transform that into an acceptable substance.
(silence)
The consciousness that will learn to use that substance (just as there was a consciousness that learned to use the body's substance) will probably know how to turn it into something that can be used. Because we have grown accustomed to it, but obviously it's a sort of superchemistry that made this corporeal substance. We find it perfectly natural, but it hasn't always been this way - there is a long way from the jellyfish, for example, to this body.
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I had the impression of a substance that has to undergo a work of adaptation, transformation, utilization, and that would serve as an outer form for the supramental being.
My impression is that Sri Aurobindo already has his subtle supramental form. For instance, when he has to move, he doesn't give the impression of being subject to the same laws as we are; but as it's subtle, it doesn't appear surprising. And also a sort of ubiquity: he is in several places at the same time. And a plasticity, an adaptability according to the work he wants to do, the people he meets. In those activities I am quite aware that I see him in a certain way, but I think others don't see him the same way - they see him differently, probably wearing clothes. When he ran in the forest, we were all alone, and it was a large forest without anyone there; then a few minutes later, we were somewhere else and there were people, other people to whom he spoke, and I didn't at all feel that the others were seeing him without clothes: they were certainly seeing him wearing clothes.
I saw him once, rather long ago: I told you the story of his boat, made also of clay.
Of pink clay. [[See conversation of June 29, 1963, Agenda IV, p. 194. ]]
Yes, it was a sort of clay, it was pink clay. Well, at the time he seemed to be wearing clothes. You see, it doesn't have the fixity of our matter.
It was like that vision of the "supramental ship,"[[See Agenda I, February 3, 1958, p. 137 ff. ]] in which everyone was dressed by his own will.
But in my night activities, it's perfectly natural, I don't give it a thought - I don't stand there, observing with the petty idiotic understanding of habit: it's all perfectly natural.
There, we've chatted long enough!
(Sujata:) You, too, are tall at night.
I can't hear, mon petit, I am in a cloud!
(Sujata repeats:) At night, when one sees you, you look tall.
Of course! Oh, but I know that! All the people look small to me, and that's the only thing that makes me notice - I am not aware of being tall, but they look small to me.
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I am tall.
(Sujata:) You are at least this tall [Sujata points to the ceiling, about fifteen feet high].
Yes, I have noticed: I often look at people like this (Mother leans over her armchair). But it's perfectly natural, I don't have a feeling of being tall.
(silence)
Last night, at one point we prepared a certain number of things that were at the same time like food, medicine, and a way to transform Matter. It had different colors, it was in test tubes, and he explained it all to me. But that wasn't the first time: it has happened very often. But then, the best part of it is that when I wake up, all the precise details are immediately swept away! I seem to feel a hand that comes and takes it all away - on purpose.
But I remember, I still have the image in which he is demonstrating things with his test tubes. There was a man ... who looked like a scientist (a man about forty years old, between forty and fifty, young but not very young) and very thoughtful-looking. He was sitting. I don't know what his nationality was, I don't remember, but he was modern; he was modern, with modern clothes, and Sri Aurobindo showed him his test tubes with things in them and the effect on a totality of matter. I was there, looking on (I was looking with great interest), and I understood everything then. And I still see the image, but the mental knowledge, the mental translation that would have enabled me to say, "Now I know," prrt! taken away. It's the same thing every time.
Which means it must be given to people other than me for them to use it, because they have a brain better prepared than mine, and better conditions of research.
It's clear that the work is getting done.
(silence)
Another thing, yesterday ... Something being prepared.... In the past, when Sri Aurobindo was there and I lived in that house which is now the "dormitory annex," there was a large verandah,
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and I used to walk up and down on the verandah (Sri Aurobindo was in his room, working), and I would walk alone; but I was never alone: Krishna was always there - Krishna, the god Krishna as he is known, but taller, more beautiful, and not with that ridiculous blue, you know, that slate blue! Not like that. And always, we always walked up and down together - we would walk together. He was just a little behind (gesture behind, almost against the nape of the neck and the shoulders); I was a little in front, as if my head was on his shoulder, and he would walk (I didn't have the feeling of my head resting on his shoulder, but that's how it was), and we would walk, we would communicate. That lasted more than a year, you know, every day. Then it ended. Afterwards I saw him from time to time (when we moved to the new house I saw him); sometimes at night when I was very tired, he would come and I would sleep on his shoulder. But I knew very well that it was a way Sri Aurobindo had of showing himself. Then when I came here [to Mother's present room], Sri Aurobindo had left, and I began walking up and down while reciting my mantra. Sri Aurobindo came, and he was at exactly the same place as Krishna was (same gesture, just behind the head); I would walk, and he was there, and we would walk together day after day, day after day. And it was becoming so concrete, so marvelous that I started thinking, "Why look after people and things, I want to remain like this for ever!" He caught my thought, and he said, "I am not coming anymore." And he stopped. I said, "Very well," and I started my mantra to the supreme Lord, and I tried a lot to have Him come and walk with me, but in no other form but Himself. And the Force, the Presence, everything was there, and I would feel Him more and more clearly, staying like that, just behind me, impersonal. For a few days, I've had a sort of feeling that I was close to something; and yesterday, for half an hour: THE Presence - a Presence ... An absolutely concrete presence. And it is He who told me, "First Krishna, then Sri Aurobindo, then I."
Only (laughing), He doesn't want the effect to be the same and me to say, "Now I am fed up with people!"
***
(The important digression that follows was set off by a
banal question: Mother asks Sujata if her new
typewriter is working well.)
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(Sujata:) They have adjusted the keyboard in such a way that it's very hard to use the typewriter.
But it's international, isn't it?
Yes, but they have tried to "improve" on it.
Ah! ... It was the same thing when I was in Japan, all that they were taught they would "improve" on - it would become absolutely unworkable! After the American occupation, they understood.
(silence)
"One" is wondering if, really, it won't be necessary to have an American occupation here, which would have the double effect of converting the Americans and making the Indians make some progress.... Practical progress is what they would make, as the Japanese did. And the Americans are now the disciples of the Japanese: from the point of view of Beauty they have made wonderful and absolutely unexpected progress. If the Americans came here, they would be converted, they would become ... oh, they would understand spiritual life. Only, of course, it wouldn't be too pleasant (!) But it's the surest method - it's always the dominator that learns the lesson from the dominated. The Americans might become the most militant spiritualists in the world if they occupied India. Only, the Indians would have a bad time.... But they would become very practical, they would learn to put order in what they do - which they quite lack (just see, I didn't make you say that for that typewriter).
It's troublesome. It's something in suspense [the American occupation]. In my active consciousness, I don't want it. First, it would take a long time - it always takes a long time. A lot of time wasted, a lot of suffering, a lot of humiliation. But it's a very radical method.
At any rate, if a new domination is indispensable, it would be INFINITELY better for it to be by the Americans than by the Russians because what would be learned from the Russians is an UNNECESSARY lesson: it's community, the truth of community - the Indians knew it before the Russians (the Sannyasins were the ideal community); they knew it before the Russians, so they have nothing to learn there, it would be perfectly unnecessary. And to tell the truth, I am completely indifferent as to whether or not the Russians
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become spiritualists, because the Russians, in their soul, are mystics - they are AT LEAST (at least) as mystical as the Indians. So all their community and Communism is pretentiousness. It would be no use - no use at all.
An American occupation is a drastic method, but ... Oh, when I see here the extent to which they can be imbued with the English spirit, oh, it's hideous - I don't like the English. And the English ... the English have learned the maximum from the Indians, but for them the maximum is nothing much. The Americans want to learn. They are young and they want to learn; the English are old, stale, hardened and ... oh, so conceited - they know everything better than everyone else. So they learned very little. They benefited the maximum, but that's very little; their maximum is very little. The English ... (gesture of sinking) they are destined to sink underwater.[[Mother had already told Satprem many years earlier that the island of Great Britain was destined to disappear underwater. It is indeed remarkable that English experts made the following observation, as reported in India's Sunday Standard of January 20, 1974: "London has become more vulnerable to floods owing to the fact that England is slowly tilting over: the southeast is gradually sinking while Scotland's north-west is rising." ]]
Oh, I hope you're not recording this!
It seems more likely that the Chinese would be the ones to come here, not the others.
Oh, but the Chinese ... The Chinese come from the moon, what are they doing on earth! The origin of the Chinese isn't earthly: it is lunar.
Yes, but still, it seems they would be the ones to come here rather than the Americans or Russians?
Than the Americans ...
Circumstances seem rather...
No, the Americans can come here to "save" India from China.
(silence)
To be under Chinese domination ... it's better to die first. They are ... from the point of view of sensitivity, they are monsters.
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They are monsters.
They are lunar - lunar, that is, cold, icy.
No, there's no wavering between the two. The Chinese, the Chinese domination over the earth is ... it means the earth hardening, the earth growing cold like the moon. Oh, that would be dreadful.
Ah, good-bye, my children.
We don't want catastrophes.
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