by Satprem and Luc Venet
Translated from the French
MOTHER
SATPREM
The world is about to change -- but perhaps not as we may imagine. In fact, somewhere, the change is already accomplished. There only remains to implement it fully, in broad daylight. The goal of this short book is to try to explain the specific conditions of this change, how it can take place and is already taking place. In it will not be found any methods, formulas or speculations on the state of the future world, only certain patent human truths that each one can use as he pleases.
The change in question here is not external, mechanical or scientific, but internal and human. It is the human world that must change -- or perhaps simply the way we see and feel and manipulate our world. It is a question of implementing another way of living on earth, a being after man as radically different from us as we may be from our ancestor, the ape. If such a being is to see the light of day on this earth, the evolutionary wisdom and simplicity will produce it from us, from what we are today, and not out of some mystical and misty heaven, or out of a proliferation of computers -- there must exist a link between it and us. Thus, if we observe and study what we are without human complacency, with scientific honesty, we could say, we ought to be able to find in ourselves a key, a means for making that transition, or at least for taking a few steps on the road that leads to the future of our species.
This great adventure into the unknown future was begun by Sri Aurobindo more than seventy years ago. Methodically, using himself as a subject of experiment, he went down one by one through the various levels of his being, of his own human substance, what we usually call "ourselves" in such a simple and natural way that we never really pay attention to it. Sri Aurobindo paid a lot of attention, studied minutely, going down farther and farther, to the extreme limit, to the body's material foundation, what sets the cells in motion, in order to understand how a human being really functions. "I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane," he would say. And what does set the human cells in motion? What is the real mechanism? Later, Mother, his companion, followed him there. She, too, went all the way down into the dangerous and fantastic realm that holds the secrets of the functioning of the human body. That "descent" into one's own being is the whole difficulty and the key to the transition we are seeking. Their experiential observations, their discoveries are of considerable interest for whoever is concerned with the future. Indeed, they found the link, the connection in us that can open the door to the next being. Alas, man's nature is such that for the most part he wants easy formulas, "gimmicks" to ameliorate everyday life. The few disciples that Sri Aurobindo had gathered around himself in order to spread the fruit of his discoveries in humanity at large found it more convenient to make him into a god, then, after his departure in 1950, to inflict the same fate on Mother. "Why do men want to worship!" exclaimed Mother. "It is far better to become than to worship. It's laziness that makes one worship." Thus, hardly anyone around Mother and Sri Aurobindo really understood that their discovery in the cellular consciousness of a human body was the key to an effective change to another state. One had, naturally, to be willing to question one's own makeup, to be willing to leave an old, uncomfortable skin for another that one did not know -- one cannot reasonably expect to go toward the new while prudently clinging to the old. Failing to use Sri Aurobindo's wonderful discoveries on oneself, as an evolutionary leaven, it was no doubt easier to empty them of their universal content by reducing them to a dogma, and trying to make a new religion out of them.
Fortunately, there was a grace that did not let this happen. Indeed, we scarcely need another religion. What we need is to give meaning to our present life on earth, to comprehend our real position and where we are going as a species. We do not need more incense but more sense. If we could open, however slightly, the true door of our future, our present world would appear singularly lighter; we would perhaps understand what we are going through and the meaning of the disconcerting chaos that seems to rule over present life on earth.
Thus, by sheer luck, Mother was able to find a man who understood her, what she was trying to do. To "understand," in this case, did not just mean adhering in principle to the idea of a terrestrial transformation, not just raising it to the status of a personal ideal that one wears everywhere like a necktie, the way disciples tend to do; to understand meant to begin to feel in one's own flesh the first tremors of something new and rather frightening; it meant bringing to light certain deep-seated quirks buried in one's depths, not always pleasant or "divine"; it meant accepting, every minute of the day, to leave a solid and concrete present for a mysterious and intangible future -- it meant going against all common sense. One had to be a little crazy -- or truly athirst for something else. Years later, Mother said to Satprem, "When I first saw you, it was . . . you know, like something saying, 'That one.'" With Mother there was no need for many words or explanations; it was mainly facts that interested her.
At any rate, that one being understood and was ready to embark on the unknown with her is invaluable to us, left as we are with the human burden. Perhaps the secrets that Mother discovered in the depths of the cells of her body can be of use to us, in our daily life, and perhaps they can also be useful to the collective life of the planet? After Mother left her body in 1973, these secrets had to live somewhere, to be active somewhere -- and not just sterilely consigned to some new Tables of the Law. One man had to open his heart and flesh to keep the little flame alive. A human body was needed to house that Fire. Let us rejoice, for the Fire is burning somewhere on this earth; nothing is lost. Whether that man is registered at City Hall under one name or another, whether he was born in France (like Mother) and dresses in Western clothes or not is rather unimportant. He is the Keeper of the Flame; that is the important point -- the following pages will show it abundantly. When he can share the secrets that drive him with his fellow human beings, the face of this earth will change; it will be a brand-new earth -- or perhaps simply the liberation of the old one. But that depends a little on us, too.
Let us again emphasize that there can be no ready-made answers or formulas when it comes to what impels human life on earth. Each life is different and unique -- and it is good that it should be so. The following texts evoke the extraordinary experience begun by Sri Aurobindo, continued and enlarged by Mother, and embodied by a human brother named Satprem. These texts do not pretend to set forth the human Truth once and for all; the vocabulary and words used could be entirely different without the experience's being in the least affected. What matters is the experience itself and its inherent power to change life on earth. Each person therefore can draw from these texts as he wishes -- and maybe uncover a clue for his own life. After all, the human cell is identical in each human being. Through it, the Catholic peasant of the Andes is unknowingly in communion with the Hindu intellectual from Banaras. And since we do not always speak the same language, our cells will perhaps be able to sort things out more easily and simply than our heads. Finally, it is entirely possible that similar experiences are taking place in other points of the globe, in other climates and other languages, for, as we shall see, what matters is not so much our "belief" in this or that as our CRY.
L. V.
SRI AUROBINDO
The Door Is Open
Sri Aurobindo's life was in many respects exemplary. The first part -- until he was about forty -- was filled with all that an ordinary human life can be filled with, and somewhat more.1 The second part -- from 1910 to 1950 -- was spent entirely in Pondicherry and disappears into a deep well of silence of which nothing can apparently be fathomed. Yet it is this second part of Sri Aurobindo's life that is of interest to us, what took place in that silent room on the second floor of the Ashram building, as he sat alone in his big armchair with imposing armrests, gazing at the wall in front of him. What battles was he waging in an invisible reality which yet molds our lives? What depths was he probing in a being that had long ceased to incarnate a small individual periphery? What Hope of new life was his love drawing down here?
If we understand what he was doing, understand that everything in this material world is set in motion by its invisible, "subtle" counterpart -- its archetype on the other side of the mirror, we could say -- then we understand that it is enough to act on that other side, in that other "dimension," in order to produce an effective result here; and, above all, we understand that no material action here can ever be effective and lasting unless the other one, "elsewhere," has occurred -- nothing really changes unless it changes there.
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1. See biographical notes at the end of this book.
(Sri Aurobindo:) When I speak of the resistance of the material world, I do not mean the external material world but the subtle material. There is the subtle and the external material, and when I say that Matter is impenetrable, I mean that the subtle-material has not accepted the Truth. (33:508)
Thus, Sri Aurobindo's "withdrawal" was hardly a withdrawal at all. He was merely working in the only substance that really matters, the one that holds the power to change life. Therefore, we will constantly need to "adjust" ourselves to this entirely different perception of reality in order to follow Sri Aurobindo; we will have to use intuition as a first step toward a fuller and more concrete understanding, jump over our fine reason, whose range of action is all too limited. After all, if our goal is to change things in their foundation, we must use the appropriate means. The reason and its rigid laws have their usefulness for manipulating and operating on our external world, but if we want to change the laws, we must go down to the root of the laws.
The danger of these "invisible" worlds, of course, is that they are extremely attractive. They are much vaster and richer than the superficial world we live in, made of an infinitely supple substance, and, above all, they hold a real power of action when we know how to act there. In and for themselves, therefore, they exert a powerful attraction to which many have succumbed. In their infinite and eternal perspective, our poor, temporal, and clumsy earth cuts a rather diminutive figure. Let this small and imperfect sphere drift wherever it may -- what does it matter! -- we are anchored in a boundless and eternal substance, forever free of earthly upheavals.
Unfortunately, this attitude inevitably leads to one small contradiction: Why be born in a body made of earthly matter if it is simply to forsake the earth and live in the clouds? There may be a reason for our birth in a body made of material atoms and material cells. And maybe nothing will ever be really fulfilled, happy and one -- even "up above" -- so long as this question has not found an integral and harmonious and material answer?
Thus, from the start, Sri Aurobindo puts us on notice:
I am concerned with the earth, not with worlds beyond for their own sake; it is a terrestrial realisation that I seek and not a flight to distant summits. (26:124)
And so does Mother:
That's always a possibility -- to escape by going elsewhere. Many people have done it. They have gone elsewhere, into another, more or less subtle world. You see, there are millions of ways of escaping; there's only one way of staying, which is to have real courage and endurance, to accept all the appearance of infirmity, powerlessness, incomprehension -- the appearance of, yes, a negation of the Truth. But if one does not accept that, things will never change! As for those who want to remain great, luminous, strong, powerful, and so on and so forth, well, let them -- they can do nothing for the earth. (9/25/65)1
And this:
(Mother:) At times, one gets the feeling that there is an extraordinary secret to discover, and it's right here, almost at one's fingertips, and one is about to catch the Thing, to know. . . . Sometimes, for a second, one catches a glimpse of the Secret; there's an opening, and then it closes up again. Then, again, the veil is removed for a second, and one knows a little more. Yesterday the Secret was right there, completely clear, completely open. . . . And, well, I saw that secret; I saw that it is in earthly matter, on earth, that the Supreme becomes perfect. (6/5/60)
Reason
Hence the earth is our real focus of interest. It is a physical solution to the problem of the world that we seek. But our means of attaining it will be spiritual, directed inwardly, for they alone can touch the deeper causes of things, the true springs of the mechanism of life.
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1. Mother's quotations in this book are drawn from MOTHER'S AGENDA in 13 volumes. The reference indicates the date of Mother's particular conversation with Satprem (September 25, 1965, in the present case). Sri Aurobindo's quotations are taken mostly from the Centenary Edition. The reference indicates the volume and the page number (see list of volumes at the end of the book).
(Sri Aurobindo:) The error of the practical reason is an excessive subjection to the apparent fact which it can immediately feel as real and an insufficient courage in carrying profounder facts of potentiality to their logical conclusion. What is, is the realisation of an anterior potentiality; present potentiality is a clue to future realisation. And here potentiality exists; for the mastery of phenomena depends upon a knowledge of their causes and processes and if we know the causes of error, sorrow, pain, death, we may labour with some hope towards their elimination. For knowledge is power and mastery. In fact, we do pursue as an ideal, so far as we may, the elimination of all these negative or adverse phenomena. We seek constantly to minimise the causes of error, pain and suffering. Science, as its knowledge increases, dreams of regulating birth and of indefinitely prolonging life, if not of effecting the entire conquest of death. But because we envisage only external or secondary causes, we can only think of removing them to a distance and not of eliminating the actual roots of that against which we struggle. And we are thus limited because we strive towards secondary perceptions and not towards root-knowledge, because we know processes of things, but not their essence. We thus arrive at a more powerful manipulation of circumstances, but not at essential control. But if we could grasp the essential nature and the essential cause of error, suffering and death, we might hope to arrive at a mastery over them which should be not relative but entire. We might hope even to eliminate them altogether and justify the dominant instinct of our nature by the conquest of that absolute good, bliss, knowledge and immortality which our intuitions perceive as the true and ultimate condition of the human being. (18:56)
It is hardly necessary, today, to dwell on the ambiguity of science's "blessings," which always seem to embody the very opposite of their quality, like a seed of death at the core. Perhaps the real problem of science is its awesome effectiveness -- if it were not so extraordinarily effective, the human race would have toppled it long ago and discovered the Reality it conceals so well.
(Sri Aurobindo:) Everybody knows that Science is not a statement of the truth of things, but only a language expressing a certain experience of objects, their structure, their mathematics, a coordinated and utilisable impression of their processes -- it is nothing more. Matter itself is something (a formation of energy perhaps?) of which we know superficially the structure as it appears to our mind and senses and to certain examining instruments (about which it is now suspected that they largely determine their own results, Nature adapting its replies to the instrument used) but more than that no scientist knows and can know. (22:368)
Let us therefore embark with Sri Aurobindo and Mother, leaving all our reasonable baggage behind. A new species on earth is not something reasonable. And why not? Are we so foolish to envision a being after man? Has not Darwin shown that species evolve, that one species is born from another? Why should it be different for man?
(Sri Aurobindo:) Because man is a mental being, he naturally imagines that mind is the one great leader and actor and creator or the indispensable agent in the universe. But this is an error; even for knowledge mind is not the only or the greatest possible instrument, the one aspirant and discoverer. Mind is a clumsy interlude between Nature's vast and precise subconscient action and the vaster infallible superconscient action of the Godhead. There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness. (17:11)
The truth is that man is nothing, or not much, but he can become -- a great destiny is his if he only consents to have a fairer idea of himself and of the true place he occupies in the universe.
(Sri Aurobindo:) Man in himself is little more than an ambitious nothing. He is a littleness that reaches to a wideness and a grandeur that are beyond him, a dwarf enamoured of the heights. His mind is a dark ray in the splendours of the universal Mind. His life is a striving, exulting, suffering, an eager passion-tossed and sorrow-stricken or a blindly and dumbly longing petty moment of the universal Life. His body is a labouring perishable speck in the material universe. This cannot be the end of the mysterious upward surge of Nature. There is something beyond, something that mankind shall be; it is seen now only in broken glimpses through rifts in the great wall of limitations that deny its possibility and existence. An immortal soul is somewhere within him and gives out some sparks of its presence; above an eternal spirit overshadows him and upholds the soul-continuity of his nature. But this greater spirit is obstructed from descent by the hard lid of his constructed personality; and that inner luminous soul is wrapped, stifled, oppressed in dense outer coatings. . . .
Man's greatness is not in what he is, but in what he makes possible. His glory is that he is the closed space and secret workshop of a living labour in which supermanhood is being made ready by a divine Craftsman. But he is admitted too to a yet greater greatness and it is this that, allowed to be unlike the lower creation, he is partly an artisan of this divine change; his conscious assent, his consecrated will and participation are needed that into his body may descend the glory that will replace him. (17:8)
And Sri Aurobindo adds:
Man is a transitional being; he is not final. . . . The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth's evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner Spirit and the logic of Nature's process. (17:7)
This new principle of consciousness that is to use the human receptacle to incarnate itself was called the Supermind or Supramental by Sri Aurobindo. It is the supramental consciousness that is to replace the mental consciousness of present man. And as this new principle of consciousness becomes active within the earthly body (that is, as it actually touches earthly matter), it will devise its own means of expression, its own forms and organs from the ones that exist at present -- it will perform evolution, much as the introduction of the mental principle a few million years ago determined the form and conditions of the man we know today. Sri Aurobindo's fantastic labor was to open the door to the possibility of this new consciousness, to "draw" it down here.
(Sri Aurobindo:) I am at present engaged in bringing the Supermind into the physical consciousness, down even to the sub-material. The physical is by nature inert and does not want to be rendered conscient. It offers much greater resistance as it is unwilling to change. One feels as if "digging the earth," as the Veda says. It is literally digging from Supermind above to Supermind below. (33:298)
The descent of the supramental means only that the Power will be there in the earth-consciousness as a living force just as the thinking mental and higher mental are already there. (26:146)
If I feel practically certain of the supramental Descent (I do not fix a date), it is because I have my grounds for the belief, not a faith in the air. I know that the supramental Descent is inevitable -- I have faith in view of my experience that the time can be and should be now and not in a later age. (26:469)
Everything is, of course, always "there," since the beginning of time, in a state of potentiality; if it were not already there as a principle, it could never become reality. Things cannot spring from nothing -- but they do have to accept to show their face. How does one make the Supermind, a new principle of consciousness, show its face on earth? To give it a name is not enough. How does one "activate" a principle still dormant, a new, supra-mental determinism on an earth entirely dominated by a self-contained mental determinism? One is at a loss to contemplate what it means really to open a door that does not exist anywhere as a reality. This is nothing short of creation.
But clearly, the first step is for that mental determinism to cease being. In order for the new principle to take its place, the old one must stop being wholly determinant on earth. Sri Aurobindo, therefore, set out in a methodical and conscientious search, in himself at first, of everything that was "determined" or conditioned by the mental activity in our human nature.
Man's usual conception on this subject is that his entire mental activity is limited to his thinking intelligence -- his capacity to think things out -- and to a few automatic (hence unimportant) nervous reactions and "reflexes" that drive his heart, lungs, digestive functions, etc., and constitute the rest of his sentient and nervous self. Based on this very scanty picture, the spiritual teachings of all ages have urged us to strive for "mental silence" -- to stop the higher mental activity, the thought process -- so we may enter the "Kingdom of God," "Liberation," "Nirvana," or God knows what. And that is absolutely true, those teachings are absolutely right: to stop thoughts is a wonderful, refreshing bath, a kind of "liberation" indeed; to be able to stop at will the racket that goes on upstairs night and day is an immense -- if partial -- liberation.
Unfortunately, that does not really solve the problem. Once this first result has been achieved, we begin to perceive, with dizzying precision, a whole unruly mass of "mentally coated" activities in ourselves: emotions, sentiments, reactions to the stimuli of daily life, and even bodily reflexes, such as sensations of cold, heat, hunger, pain, joy, attraction, revulsion, fatigue, restlessness -- a whole teeming world with its own laws, its own life, upon which thought (or the stopping of thoughts) has no effect whatsoever. In short, although we may like to think otherwise, mastery of the thought process does not qualify us for leaving the good, everyday humanity. To leave it, or simply to get to the bottom of it, we must obviously go further -- or deeper.
Confronted by this major obstacle, which constantly threatened the solidity and permanence of a painfully acquired realization, the spiritualists found only one answer: to protect their realization behind high walls, to cut themselves off from a life rather too prone to arouse in man the kind of reactions contrary to the ideal pursued. In a monastery, in the Himalayas, one can "devote oneself to God" to one's heart's content, give oneself exclusively to the object of one's search without the constant nagging and embarrassment of ordinary life.
(Mother:) Of course, one understands why the saints, the sages, those who wanted to feel themselves constantly in that divine atmosphere, had removed all material things from their life -- because they were not transformed, and so they kept slipping back into the other way of being, and that can become quite . . . unpleasant at times. But to transform this material life . . . is INCOMPARABLY, immensely superior, in the sense that it gives an extraordinary STABILITY, consciousness and REALITY. (9/30/67)
(Sri Aurobindo:) The spiritual change begins by an influence of the inner being and the higher spiritual mind, an action felt and accepted on the surface; but this by itself can lead only to an illumined mental idealism or to the growth of a religious mind, a religious temperament and some devotion in the heart and piety in the conduct; it is a first approach of mind to spirit, but it cannot make a radical change: more has to be done, we have to live deeper within, we have to exceed our present consciousness and surpass our present status of Nature. (19:722)
The earth-law has to be changed and a new atmosphere has to be created. The question is not merely to have knowledge, power, etc., but to bring it down, the whole difficulty is to make it flow down. (33:148)
(Mother:) When you are on the ascending path, the work is relatively easy. I had already covered that path at the beginning of the century and established a conscious relationship with the Supreme -- with "That" which is beyond the Personal and the gods and all external expressions of the Divine, but also beyond the Absolute Impersonal. It is something one cannot speak of; one must experience it. And "that" is what must be brought down into matter. This is the descending path, the one I began with Sri Aurobindo, and there the work is immense. (5/19/59)
Life can only change if we concern ourselves with life. The animal body can only change if we resolve to probe it. When do we stop, even for a minute, to ask our body how it is doing, or simply give a little sign of friendly recognition? We walk with it, sleep with it, cut firewood with it -- well, it's so natural, you see; it just works!
(Sri Aurobindo:) In the past the body was regarded by spiritual seekers rather as an obstacle, as something to be overcome and discarded, than as an instrument of spiritual perfection and a field of the spiritual change. It has been condemned as a grossness of Matter, as an insuperable impediment and the limitations of the body as something unchangeable making transformation impossible. This is because the human body even at its best seems only to be driven by an energy of life which has its own limits and is debased in its smaller physical activities by much that is petty or coarse or evil, the body in itself is burdened with the inertia and inconscience of Matter, only partly awake and, although quickened and animated by a nervous activity, subconscient in the fundamental action of its constituent cells and tissues and their secret workings. (16:7)
The importance of the body is obvious; it is because he has developed or been given a body and brain capable of receiving and serving a progressive mental illumination that man has risen above the animal. Equally, it can only be by developing a body or at least a functioning of the physical instrument capable of receiving and serving a still higher illumination that he will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of Life is canceled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda [the Eternal] by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there is a destined limit to the consciously progressive power which distinguishes him from all other terrestrial existences and as he has replaced them in the front of things, so another must eventually replace him and assume his heritage. (18:231)
Let us therefore get out of our monasteries and privileged islands to seize total life where it is: in the street, at the office, and wherever our body lives, walks, and breathes. Life is not contradictory; it just is. It is up to us to understand and integrate it. The body, our body, is the site of the battle of the next species. It is the evolutionary crucible in which God wants to work out Man. Sri Aurobindo tells us -- proves through his own example -- that we can participate in and even hasten the movement. We are invited to participate in our own future.
(Sri Aurobindo:) Man as he is cannot be the last term of that evolution: he is too imperfect an expression of the Spirit, mind itself a too limited form and instrumentation, mind is only a middle term of consciousness, the mental being can only be a transitional being. If, then, man is incapable of exceeding mentality, he must be surpassed and Supermind and superman must manifest and take the lead of the creation. But if his mind is capable of opening to what exceeds it, then there is no more reason why man himself should not arrive at Supermind and supermanhood or at least lend his mentality, life and body to an evolution of that greater term of the Spirit manifesting in Nature. (19:846)
Will we decline the invitation? It would be a pity, especially for us, for everything moves on and progresses constantly in this universe; what stands still must die and fall back to dust.
(Sri Aurobindo:) Otherwise what will be ultimately accomplished is an achievement by the few initiating a new order of beings, while humanity will have passed sentence of unfitness on itself and may fall back into an evolutionary decline or a stationary immobility; for it is the constant upward effort that has kept humanity alive and maintained for it its place in the front of creation. (19:724)
But because the burden which is being laid on mankind is too great for the present littleness of the human personality and its petty mind and small life-instincts, because it cannot operate the needed change, because it is using this new apparatus and organisation to serve the old infraspiritual life-self of humanity, the destiny of the race seems to be heading dangerously, as if impatiently and in spite of itself, under the drive of the vital ego seized by colossal forces which are on the same scale as the huge mechanical organisation of life and scientific knowledge which it has evolved, a scale too large for its reason and will to handle, into a prolonged confusion and perilous crisis and darkness of violent shifting incertitude. Even if it turns out to be a passing phase or appearance and a tolerable structural accommodation is found which will enable mankind to proceed less catastrophically on its uncertain journey, this can only be a respite. For the problem is fundamental and in putting it evolutionary Nature in man is confronting herself with a critical choice which must one day be solved in the true sense if the race is to arrive or even to survive. (19:1055)
Fabulous possibilities are open before us. A marvelous future, full of surprises and joy, is awaiting us if we know how to grasp the right thread of our evolution and have the courage to look at ourselves objectively.
To begin with, our own matter, our body, already contains every miracle and every marvel in a dormant state, as it were -- we must "awaken" or un-cover them, put them in contact with their solar counterpart above: we must join the Divine below with the Divine above.
(Sri Aurobindo:) Matter, the medium of all this evolution, is seemingly inconscient and inanimate; but it appears to us so only because we are unable to sense consciousness outside a certain limited range, a fixed scale or gamut to which we have access. Below us there are lower ranges to which we are insensible and these we call subconscience or inconscience. Above us are higher ranges which are, to our inferior nature, an unseizable superconscience. The difficulty of Matter is not an absolute inconscience, but an obscured consciousness limited by its own movement -- vaguely, dumbly, blindly self-aware, not really responsive to anything outside its own form and forces. At its worst it can be called not so much inconscience as nescience. The awakening of a greater and yet greater consciousness in this Nescience is the miracle of the universe of Matter. . . . In every particle, atom, molecule, cell of Matter there lives hidden and works unknown all the omniscience of the Eternal and all the omnipotence of the Infinite. (17:14)
Involution of a superconscient Spirit in inconscient Matter is the secret of this visible and apparent world and the evolution of this Superconscient out of inconscient Nature is the keyword of the earth's riddle. Earth-life is the self-chosen habitation of a great Divinity and his aeonic will is to change it from a blind prison into his splendid mansion and high heaven-reaching temple.
. . . The long process of terrestrial formation and creation, the ambiguous miracle of life, the struggle of mind to appear and grow in an apparent vast Ignorance and to reign there as interpreter and creator and master, the intimations of a greater something that passes beyond the finite marvel of Mind to the infinite marvels of the Spirit, are not a meaningless and fortuitous passing result of some cosmic Chance with its huge combination of coincidences; they are not the lucky play of some blind material Force. These things are and can be only because of something eternal and divine that concealed itself in energy and form of Matter. The secret of the terrestrial evolution is the slow and progressive liberation of this latent indwelling spirit, the difficult appearance of Something or Someone already involved with all its potential forces in a first formal basis of supporting substance, its greater slowly emerging movements locked up in an initial expressive power of Matter.
. . . Because this infinite Spirit and eternal Divinity is here concealed in the process of material Nature, the evolution of a power beyond Mind is not only possible, but inevitable. If all were result of cosmic Chance there need by no necessity of its appearance, even as there was no necessity for any embarrassing emergence of a stumbling and striving vital consciousness in the mechanical whirl of Matter. And if all were the works of a mechanical Force, then too mind need not have unexpectedly appeared as a superior mechanism labouring to deal with Nature's grosser first machine and supermind would be still more a superfluity and a luminous insolence. Or, if a limited experimenting external Creator were the inventor of this universe, there would be no reason why he should not stop short at mind, content with the ingenuity of his labour. But since the Divinity is involved here and is emerging, it is inevitable that all his powers or degrees of power should emerge one after the other till the whole glory is embodied and visible. (17:17-20)
Hence, the work of the pioneer is to start "digging" in the various layers of his being in order to put them in contact one by one with Peace, Light, Joy -- the pure air of the surface. First, he "digs" in everything that is intellectual mental activity in himself; then, in the emotional layers, the desires and emotional reactions of all kinds (what Mother and Sri Aurobindo called the vital); then, in an unbelievable throng of tiny corporeal reactions, which are so "natural" and automatic that we never pay attention to them, despite the fact that they are the very stuff of our daily physical existence: "I must go down the stairs slowly or I may fall." "See this crease in the carpet there right in front of me? Just perfect to trip and break a leg!" "If I climb the hill too fast, I'll be out of breath; if I make too many appointments, I'll get tired; if I stay more than an hour in the sun, I'll resemble a lobster." And on and on, ad nauseam. Almost nothing in our life is spontaneous; everything is as if perceived in advance and "authorized" or not by a fear-ridden and droning dwarf, hidden somewhere inside our being. Its action is so polished, so "natural," that we end up making no distinction between it and us. Whether we like it or not, it becomes our mouthpiece and the trusted guide for every action in our life. Even catching it in the act is not enough to challenge its authority. This dwarf is what Mother called "the physical mind."
(Mother:) All these last few days, I have been confronting a problem as old as the world and which has become extremely acute. It was, in the most material physical consciousness, what Sri Aurobindo calls "disbelief" -- it isn't doubt (doubt belongs mostly to the mind). It's almost the refusal to accept what is obvious the moment it isn't part of the little everyday routine of ordinary sensations and reactions: a sort of incapacity to accept and acknowledge the exceptional. This disbelief is the basis of our consciousness. And it comes with . . . (we call it "thought," but that's a big word for quite an ordinary thing) a physical-mental activity that produces a "thought" and always foresees, imagines or concludes (depending on the case) in a way that I personally call defeatist. That is to say, it automatically brings in the idea of all the bad things that can happen. And this in the most commonplace domain, the most ordinary, narrow and banal life, such as eating, moving, etc. Really the most vulgar things. Where thought is concerned, it is fairly easy to resolve and control, but those reactions which come from all the way down . . . It's so tiny one can hardly express it to oneself. (12/13/60)
Then the pioneer enters a dark zone, full of dangers and risks and as vast as an ocean, a bottomless swamp, the real difficulty of the physical transformation to another species: the subconscious.
(Sri Aurobindo:) You have to go on working and working year after year, point after point, till you come to a central point in the subconscient which has to be conquered and it is the crux of the whole problem, hence exceedingly difficult. . . . This point in the subconscient is the seed and it goes on sprouting and sprouting till you have cut out the seed. (36:180)
There are no lights there, no higher illuminations, no Divine. Everybody is equal, without noticeable difference -- the Christian and the Buddhist and the man without religion -- both feet firmly stuck in mud. It is an indescribable place because it contains everything. It is our base, the ground on which the human species has grown millennium after millennium. It is millions of years old and we all have the dubious privilege of plunging our roots into it, adding our personal contribution to it life after life. Twenty-four hours a day it meticulously records, in its own language, our every gesture and action, conscious or unconscious. We visit there almost every night, during our sleep, and do not retain any recollection of our visits.
(Sri Aurobindo:) It contains all the reactions to life which struggle out as a slowly evolving and self-formulating consciousness, but it contains them not as ideas or perceptions or conscious reactions but as the blind substance of these things. Also all that is consciously experienced sinks down into the subconscient not as experience but as obscure and obstinate impressions of experience and can come up at any time as dreams, as mechanical repetitions of past thought, feeling, action, etc., as "complexes" exploding into action and event etc., etc. The subconscient is the main cause why all things get changed except in appearances. It is the cause why, people say, character cannot be changed, also of the constant return of things one hoped to have got rid of. All seeds are there and all the sanskaras [imprints] of the mind and vital and body, -- it is the main support of death and disease and the last fortress (seemingly impregnable) of the Ignorance. All that is suppressed without being wholly got rid of sinks down there and remains in seed ready to surge up or sprout up at any moment. (32:247)
(Mother:) I am right in the subconscious -- a subconscious, oh, hopelessly riddled with weakness, dullness and . . . (what shall I say?) enslaved by a host of things -- enslaved by EVERYTHING. Oh, night after night, night after night, it unfolds before me, to show me. Last night it was indescribable! And it goes on and on; it seems limitless. So, naturally, the body feels the effects, poor thing! That's its subconscious, not personal -- it's personal and not personal: it becomes personal when it enters the body. You can't imagine the accumulations of impressions that are recorded and stored there, one on top of another. Outwardly, you haven't even noticed anything -- the waking consciousness doesn't even notice them, but they keep entering, piling up on top of one another -- horrible! (2/18/61)
No real freedom is possible so long as "that" exists and controls life, no divine species on earth and no hope of transformation. A new man means new roots and a new base. It is a complete illusion -- the illusion of all spiritual teachings -- to call for a New Earth and a New Man while modestly averting one's eyes from that impossible quagmire. (One can understand the reluctance of these spiritual teachings, but then one can also understand why nothing has ever really changed on earth and in man since the advent of the great human religions: They have always prudently skirted the real issue.)
(Sri Aurobindo It is a Herculean labour, for, when one enters there, it is a sort of unexplored continent. Previous Yogis came down to the vital. If I had been made to see it before, probably I would have been less enthusiastic. (31:196)
The truth is, we have to go down there, too, and overcome. That is the true labor and the marvel of Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
(Sri Aurobindo:) As for the Mother and myself, we have had to try all ways, follow all methods, to surmount mountains of difficulties, a far heavier burden to bear than you or anybody else in the Ashram or outside, far more difficult conditions, battles to fight, wounds to endure, ways to cleave through impenetrable morass and desert and forest, hostile masses to conquer -- a work such as, I am certain, none else had to do before us. (26:464)
I have had my full share of these things and the Mother has had ten times her full share. But that was because the finders of the Way had to face these things in order to conquer. No difficulty that can come on the Sadhak [disciple] but has faced us on the path; against many we have had to struggle hundreds of times (in fact, that is an understatement) before we could overcome; many still remain protesting that they have a right until the perfect perfection is there. But we have never consented to admit their inevitable necessity for others. It is, in fact, to ensure an easier path to others hereafter that we have borne that burden. (26:465)
And he added:
But it is not necessary nor tolerable that all that should be repeated over again to the full in the experience of others. It is because we have the complete experience that we can show a straighter and easier road to others -- if they will consent to take it. (26:464)
Mother too, indomitably, descended into the pit:
What I am made to see every night is horrible. Horrible. It's as if one were trying to thoroughly disgust me with my work. That subconscious is truly a mass of horrors. . . . The impression is that it's bottomless and limitless, that there always will be new combinations, always as horrible. But that is not true. It does change. It does change . . . but, oh, what a difficult task! And so intractable. Intractable in that you think you've come to the end of something (you don't think so, you know better than that, but you hope!), and it comes right back in another form, which seems even worse than the previous one! (11/3/62)
I don't know if it's the last battle, but these last few days it has gone down very deep, into the least enlightened part of the cells: what still belongs the most to the world of Unconsciousness and Inertia, what is the most foreign to the divine Presence. You could say it's the original substance used by Life, with a sort of incapacity to respond, to feel any reason for that life. . . . This is an identification with the world at large, with the earth as a whole. An absolutely dreadful and hopeless condition, something that has neither meaning nor goal nor purpose, that lacks any joy of its own and . . . that is worse than unpleasant -- meaningless and totally devoid of feeling. Something that has no reason for being, and yet which is. It was . . . it is a dreadful situation.
I have the feeling it's quite close to the bottom. . . . And this is the base, the foundation of all materialism. (8/21/63)
The "bottom" has to be cleaned in order for the "top" to accept to come down and materialize in it.
(Sri Aurobindo:) No, it is not with the Empyrean that I am busy: I wish it were. It is rather with the opposite end of things; it is in the Abyss that I have to plunge to build a bridge between the two. But that too is necessary for my work and one has to face it. (26:153)
But the joining of the two can also be explosive. For the Light does not tolerate the least speck of dust in its path. Everything it touches must be in the image of its own nature -- pure. The least obstacle (or imperfectly purified element) reacts violently, as if violated under the pressure of the unaccustomed Ray. The result in the being, or the beings around -- or even in the world around -- may take the form of a fine catastrophe.
(Sri Aurobindo:) The attempt to bring a great general descent having only produced a great ascent of subconscient mud, I had given up that. . . . At present I am only trying to prevent people from making hysterical, subconscient asses of themselves, so that I may not be too much disturbed in my operations -- not yet with too much success. (32:389)
(Mother:) It is as though that Force I mentioned were penetrating like a power drill, deeper and deeper toward the subconscious. There are unbelievable things in the subconscious -- unbelievable. And it keeps going deeper and deeper . . . IMPERATIVELY. So the human subconscious cries out: "Oh, not yet! Please, not yet! Not so fast!" This is what you are up against. It's a general subconscious. (4/12/72)
Perhaps it is what we see everywhere around us?
(Sri Aurobindo:) Things are bad, are growing worse and may at any time grow worst or worse than worst if that is possible -- and anything, however paradoxical, seems possible in the present perturbed world. The best thing for them is to realise that all this was necessary because certain possibilities had to emerge and be got rid of, if a new and better world was at all to come into being: it would not have done to postpone them for a later time. It is, as in yoga, where things active or latent in the being have to be put into action in the light so that they may be grappled with and thrown out or to emerge from latency in the depths for the same purificatory purpose. Also they can remember the adage that night is darkest before dawn and that the coming of dawn is inevitable. But they must remember too that the new world whose coming we envisage is not to be made of the same texture as the old and different only in pattern, and that it must come by other means -- from within and not from without; so the best way is not to be too much preoccupied with the lamentable things that are happening outside, but themselves to grow within so that they may be ready for the new world, whatever the form it may take. [Letter written in July 1948] (26:1611)
But why, we might ask, is it necessary to confront that horrible subconscious directly? Why can't we keep a "yogic" smile before those base and vulgar things, look at them benignly -- from above -- and manipulate them with the pincers of a "higher" consciousness and power? Why must we stick our necks out? It is a question that Satprem did not fail to ask Mother.
(Satprem:) But is it necessary to go down to the level of all these subconscious things? Can one not act on them from above?
(Mother:) Act on them from above? . . . I have been acting on them from above for more than thirty years, my child! But it changes nothing -- it changes something, but it doesn't transform.
(Satprem:) So one must go down to that level?
(Mother:) Yes. Acting from above may hold things back, keep them under control, prevent them from taking unpleasant initiatives, but that's not -- to transform is to transform.
As long as we talk of even mastery, it can be done -- it can be done very well from above. But, to transform, you must go down, and that's the terrible part. . . . Otherwise things will never be transformed; they'll remain as they are.
You see, you can even pose as a superman! (Mother laughs) But it's still like this (gesture in midair). It isn't the true thing; it isn't the new creation, not the next step of terrestrial evolution. (2/18/61)
Finally, in the subconscious one encounters the ever-present Enemy, the one that has thwarted all our human attempts since the beginning of time, that clips our wings and our dreams in mid-flight despite all our prayers -- death. Death, to be sure, does not dream -- we will come back to this.
(Sri Aurobindo:) On life was laid the haunting finger of Death. (28:208)
Death is the question Nature puts continually to Life and her reminder to it that it has not yet found itself. (16:386)
(Mother:) Because of physical death, the subconscious is defeatist. You see, whatever progress has been achieved, whatever effort has been exerted, the subconscious has a feeling that things will always end that way, because they have always ended that way until now. (12/22/71)
Actually, as long as there is death, things will always end badly. (11/13/63)
It's almost as if it were the question given me to resolve. (9/28/63)
The problem is thus set forth: it is global. Nothing can be left out, nothing can remain in the dark, not even a speck of dust. Everything must be dealt with, the total world question, otherwise nothing is achieved and nothing is transformed.
Mother and Sri Aurobindo saw the problem very well. They perfectly understood its magnitude and where it plunged its roots. But would they be capable of changing the world alone, of hastening the mutation of the species by going down symbolically into their own body, since everything is one at bottom? What "catastrophes" would they trigger by trying to bring order into an old unrepentant disorder? What subterranean eruptions would the supramental light, which Sri Aurobindo was drawing down day after day into his body, produce? One cannot disturb life's foundations with impunity. Were they not going too fast? Was the world ready for such a drastic change? But, in truth, the world is never ready to change! A minimum of willingness is needed on our part, a minimum of blind faith in the future. We have to take the plunge, come what may. The choice is between a long-drawn-out decomposition we know all too well and an unknown future, which can be full of pleasant surprises if we are careful, at each step, to put our endeavour under the protection of the Godhead that guides this universe. At any rate, there seems to be an abundance of signs everywhere: the time for change has come. It is up to each of us to read the signs and quietly set to work, wherever we may be.
Mother and Sri Aurobindo, too, were going to set to work. That "plunge" into the body, into the material consciousness, the consciousness of the cells of the body (the cells have a "consciousness," their own mode of being, otherwise they would not exist), was going to occupy all the time that the disciples were willing to leave them. The disciples were, of course, also part of the "problem" -- everything was connected.
(Sri Aurobindo:) I feel a great longing that the Sadhaks [disciples] should be free of all these strifes and doubts; for so long as the present state of things continues with fires of this kind raging all around and the atmosphere in turmoil, the work I am trying to do (certainly not for my own sake or for any personal reason) will always remain under the stroke of jeopardy and I do not know how the descent I am labouring for is to fulfill itself. In fact, the Mother and I have to give nine-tenths of our energy to smoothing down things, to keeping the Sadhaks tolerably contented etc. etc. etc. One-tenth and in the Mother's case not even that can go to the real work; it is not enough. (26:489)
Sri Aurobindo, soon followed by Mother, was going to go down into the body. It is hard to imagine what a "sacrifice" this represented for him. All the lights painstakingly conquered "above," all the bliss and "higher powers" are automatically annulled, canceled by the still uncultivated ground one goes down into. Everything has to be learned again. There are no more visions, no more spiritual flights, no more interiorization: the laws of matter can only be changed if they are fully assumed.
(Sri Aurobindo:) Working on the physical is like digging the ground; the physical is absolutely inert, dead like stone. When the work began there, all former energies disappeared, experiences stopped; if they came, they didn't last. The process is exceedingly slow. One rises, falls, rises again and falls again, constantly meeting with the suggestions of the Vedic Asuras [devils]: "You can't do anything, you are bound to fail." (34:179)
Mother and Sri Aurobindo had everything to lose by immolating themselves in a substance so contrary to what they were -- and they did lose everything . . . to gain everything for the human species.
(Mother:) This is a very humble work in its appearance, very quiet. There are no illuminations filling you with joy. All that is all right for people looking for spiritual joys -- that belongs to the past.
. . . All the powers, the siddhis, the realizations, all those things are -- they are a big show, a big spiritual show. That's not it! It is very modest -- very modest, unassuming, humble, undemonstrative. To get something visible, a tangible result, takes years and years of work, silently, quietly, with great precautions. (8/28/62)
I know perfectly well, because I've had experiences, that when you are satisfied with being a saint or a sage, the whole time you keep the right attitude, everything is fine. The body is not sick, and even if there are attacks, it recovers very easily. Everything is fine . . . SO LONG AS THAT WILL FOR TRANSFORMATION DOES NOT EXIST. It's the protest against the will for transformation. Whereas if you say, "All right, fine. Let things be as they are. I don't care, I'm perfectly happy and in a blissful state," the body starts to be happy again! That's it. It's the introduction of something completely new into this matter, and the body protests. (7/15/61)
It isn't a joke, you know, transformation! Yesterday I had such a feeling that ALL the constructions, ALL the habits, the ways of looking at things, the ordinary reactions, all of that was falling to pieces -- -completely. The impression of being suspended in something . . . completely different, something . . . I don't know. And really the feeling that EVERYTHING one has lived, everything one has known, everything one has done, is a complete illusion. That's what I experienced yesterday evening.
It's one thing to have the spiritual experience that material life is an illusion (some people find it painful, but I found it so extraordinarily beautiful and happy that it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life), but here it's the whole spiritual construction as one has lived it that . . . becomes a complete illusion! -- not the same illusion, but a far more serious illusion. And I am not exactly a baby -- I've been here 47 years! And I have been doing a conscious yoga for something like . . . yes, certainly 60 years, with all that memories -- the memories of an immortal life -- can bring you. And look where I am! (3/27/61)
It is a slow, meticulous work in which each cell, each atom must be dealt with and conquered individually.
(Sri Aurobindo:) The physical layer is a very obstinate thing and it requires to be worked out in detail. You work out one thing and think it is done; something else arises and you have again to go over the same ground. It is not like the mind or the vital where it is easier for the Higher Power to work. Besides, there -- in the mind and in the vital -- you can establish a general law, leaving out the details; the physical is not so; it requires constant patience and minutie [attention to details]. (33:309)
(Mother:) From the purely psychological point of view, it is a relatively easy and swift task, but when you come to this (Mother touches her body), to the external form and so-called matter, oh, it's a world! . . . It's like lessons being given to you -- it's so interesting! Lessons with all the consequences and explanations. You spend one day, two days, on a tiny, tiny little discovery. Then you see, in the body-consciousness, after that day or those hours of work, that the light is there, that something is changed -- it's changed, the reactions are no longer the same, but . . . (Mother makes a gesture as if to express the enormous magnitude of the task). (8/30/67)
There remains to learn how one goes down into a body: what does it mean practically? What discoveries were Sri Aurobindo and Mother going to make there? And how can that mysterious Supermind change our present life in matter and that of the human species in general?
MOTHER
The Plunge into the Body
Mother and Sri Aurobindo have opened the way to a new species. It is accomplished. For whoever wants to set out, there now exist paths blazed in the horrible subconscious swamp. Matter's terrible inertia has given way; it has been touched and illumined by the higher light. It is the first time that counts. There just remains to follow the signposts and to undergo the experience oneself: to put one's own matter, layer after layer, in contact with "That," as Satprem did after Sri Aurobindo and Mother. It can be done -- he has done it. This is not another "spiritual" dream, a nice little meditation on the heights that leaves us physically unchanged; it is a concrete and tangible and transforming reality (and quite formidable, says Satprem). Who wants to try? Do we have that much to lose anyway in leaving the increasingly precarious human groove?
Practically, whoever is interested would simply have to lose himself body and soul in The Agenda, the log of Mother's own experience, which she recounted day after day to Satprem during their private conversations. Everything is there for one who knows how to read; the secrets are wide open -- it's just a matter of taking the plunge.
To give an idea of this Agenda, let us listen to Mother describe one of her very first experiences with the supramental force, when the connection was made between the heights and the depths. It took place in 1961:
At midnight I was in my bed. And from midnight to 1 o'clock -- I was completely awake in my bed; I don't know if my eyes were open or closed, but I was fully awake, NOT IN TRANCE; I could hear every sound, the clocks, etc. Suddenly the whole body (but a slightly larger body, which exceeded the purely physical form) became ONE single vibration, extremely rapid and intense, but immobile. I don't know how you can explain that, because it did not move in space, and yet it was a vibration (that is, it wasn't immobile), but it was immobile in space. It was IN the body, as if there were a vibration in EACH cell and everything were one single vibratory mass. . . . I was absolutely still in my bed. Then, WITHOUT MOVING, without any movement, it began to rise consciously -- without moving at all. I was like this (Mother clasps her hands together and holds them at the level of the forehead as if her whole body were rising like a prayer). Consciously, like an ascent of this [body-]consciousness toward the supreme Consciousness.
And it kept rising like that, without moving, for a quarter of an hour. The consciousness rose and rose and rose and rose -- rose until . . . the junction took place. A completely awake, conscious junction -- NOT IN TRANCE. And the consciousness became the ONE, perfect, eternal consciousness, beyond time, beyond space, beyond movement, beyond . . . beyond everything -- with, I don't know, an ecstasy, a bliss, something ineffable.
And it was the consciousness of the BODY.
I had had that experience while being exteriorized and in trance, but this time it was THE BODY, the consciousness of the body. It remained like that for some time (I knew it was a quarter of an hour because the clock chimed), but it was absolutely beyond time, you know. It was an eternity. Then, with the same precision, the same calm, the same deliberate, clear and concentrated consciousness (absolutely NOTHING MENTAL), I started to come back down. And as I was coming down, I noticed that all the difficulties I was struggling with the other day, which caused that ailment, were ab-so-lute-ly gone, ANNULLED -- mastery. Not even mastery, in fact: the nonexistence of anything whatsoever to master; just THE vibration from top to bottom. And there was no more top or bottom or anything of the sort. (1/24/61)
Such is the first revelation, the first "miracle" of that supramental force: it annuls all our difficulties and human problems -- our "ailments" -- as though they DID NOT EXIST AND HAD NEVER EXISTED. (Yet the illness Mother had been struggling with for some days was a physical illness.) It is not a "power" that must battle the disorder or illness in order to impose itself. There is no battle, no effort; it appears and the illness no longer exists (Mother said it was "un-realized," removed from reality.)
A phenomenon that gives pause.
Mother would experience that "miracle" hundreds of times, in all sorts of circumstances, for the myriad ills that constantly afflict us: One drop of Supramental on the wound and everything would vanish.
(Mother:) This very morning I was following the movement. I was watching how that vibration of Truth works on certain disorders in the body (tiny bodily problems, you know: discomforts, disorders, and the like). I was watching how that vibration of Truth abolishes those discomforts and disorders. It was very clear, very obvious, and COMPLETELY SEPARATE from any spiritual, religious, or psychological notion, in the sense that, clearly, somebody having that knowledge of opposing one vibration to another wouldn't need to be a "disciple" at all or a man with a philosophical knowledge or anything of the sort; he would just need to master that in order to live a perfectly harmonious existence. It was absolutely concrete and irrefutable. (3/28/64)
The Supramental does not belong to any school. It is not a way of thinking or even praying; it is a terrestrial, massive and irrefutable fact.
(Mother:) You know how it is to be really uncomfortable, miserable, to feel nauseous, powerless, to be even incapable of moving, thinking, or anything. Really in a bad way, you know. And all of a sudden -- Consciousness, the bodily consciousness of the vibration of Love, which is the very essence of creation. Just one second, and everything is illumined -- pftt! Gone. Everything is gone! So you look at yourself in disbelief -- it's all gone. You were feeling really miserable. It's gone. (11/23/65)
At the beginning Mother was quite surprised. She had been fighting all her life against the world's darkness in all its forms. She had given her life to it. It had been a nonstop battle, day and night, to bring a little harmony and simple joy to the many wounds of the world, to the men and women around her as well as to more remote events and difficulties. But here, suddenly, there was no more struggle. It is as if the illness or problem vanished into a nonexistence from which it had perhaps only come out accidentally? In other words, every time Mother was able to establish the contact with the Supramental IN HER BODY, the "miracle" happened again. The world's horror and falsehood disappeared -- and not just in the imagination, but quite concretely and physically (a raging toothache is something quite "concrete"!).
As the years passed, Mother experienced the phenomenon in herself (when she suffered a physical discomfort or even a more serious functional disorder, of the heart, for instance), but she also noticed that the same "miracle" could occur outside herself, in the people or circumstances surrounding her, and even at a greater distance on the earth. She "cured" unwittingly and without moving a finger, simply by putting the sore point in contact with "that" -- and whether that point was inside her or outside did not seem to make any difference in the result. The corporeal boundaries had vanished, far and near had vanished, and even time acted strangely. But let us hear Mother give us a few concrete examples of the behavior of that strange Supramental:
The experience is repeated in every detail, every kind of situation, like a live demonstration. And it isn't a "long process" of transformation; it's like something suddenly being turned inside out (Mother twists two of her fingers). And instead of seeing ugliness, falsehood, horror, suffering, and all that -- suddenly the body lives in bliss. Yet everything is the same; nothing has changed, except consciousness.
The only unknown is how this experience will be translated materially. For this body, it is quite clear: for, say, one or two or three hours, it was in terrible pain; it felt quite miserable (not a moral pain, mind you, a very physical pain), and suddenly, brrff -- all gone! . . . But that is for one body. What is the effect on others? The body is beginning to perceive the possibility in other consciousnesses as well. From the moral standpoint -- that is, attitude, character, reactions -- it is quite visible. Sometimes even from the physical standpoint, too: all of a sudden, something disappears -- like what we experienced when Sri Aurobindo removed a pain (Mother makes a gesture showing a hand from the subtle physical taking away the pain); we would wonder and . . ., well, it was gone, vanished! But it isn't yet constant, not established. It's just a proof that it can be like that, since it happens in some instances -- it can be like that. (12/21/68)
Time is interminable in the old consciousness, and it no longer exists in this one. I don't know how to describe it. If I used big words, I would say: that old consciousness is . . . like death, as though you were going to die at each instant: you're in pain, you -- it's the consciousness leading to death. While the other . . . (vast, immutable, smiling gesture) is life, peaceful life, eternal life. (11/17/71)
There is a strange state of transition in the most material consciousness, the consciousness of the body. A transition from that state of subjugation, powerlessness, in which you are constantly at the mercy of forces, vibrations, unexpected movements, all sorts of stray impulses -- and Power. Power asserting itself and realizing itself. It's a transition between the two, with all sorts of experiences, from the most mental part of that consciousness to the most obscure, the most material. It's a transition between almost total powerlessness -- a kind of Fate, the imposition of a whole set of determinisms against which you can do nothing, which crush you -- and a clear, defined Will, which is all-powerful as soon as it expresses itself. (1/15/64)
It's -- yes, I think the only word to describe the sensation one has is absolute -- an absolute. That's the sensation: to experience the Absolute. The Absolute -- absolute Knowledge, absolute Will, absolute Power. Nothing, absolutely nothing can resist. And it's an absolute that is so merciful! It's something next to which everything we consider kind and merciful is -- oof, nothing whatsoever! It is Mercy together with absolute power. It is not Wisdom, not Knowledge, it's -- it has nothing to do with our ways. For several hours, never has this body, in the ninety-one years it has been on this earth, felt such a happiness: freedom, absolute power, and no limits (gesture here and there and everywhere), no limits, no impossibility, nothing. (2/15/69)
And absolutely everything, every circumstance, is as catastrophic as can be: problems, complications, difficulties, everything is raging furiously like wild animals -- but it's over. The body KNOWS it's over. It may take centuries, but it's over. It may take centuries to disappear, but it is now over. It is now sure, absolutely sure and certain (Mother lowers a finger), that the very concrete and absolute realization one could only have when one left matter will be possible RIGHT HERE. (3/14/70)
Mother's only work (if one may say so!) was to put more and more material substance in contact with that supramental light.
(Mother:) The education of the physical consciousness (not the body's global consciousness, but the consciousness of the cells) consists in teaching them, first, that there is a choice (it appears as a choice): to choose the divine Presence, the divine Consciousness, the divine Power (all this without words), the "something that we define as the absolute Master. It is a choice of every second between Nature's old laws, together with some mental influence and the whole life such as it is organized -- a choice between that, the rule of that, and the rule of the supreme Consciousness. And it's every second of the day (it's infinitely interesting), with practical examples -- for instance, the nerves: If a nerve obeys this or that law of Nature, together with the mental conclusions and all that -- all that machinery -- then the pain starts up; but if it obeys the influence of the supreme Consciousness, then a curious thing happens: it isn't like something getting "cured"; rather, it's as if it disappeared as a sort of unreality. (6/26/68)
The cells must learn to seek their support only in the Divine, until such time as they can feel they are the expression of the Divine. . . . This is what I am experiencing now. I do have the experience of changing the effect of things, but it isn't materialized, so I can't express it in words. But, truly, what is important is that the cells should feel, first, that they are entirely governed by the Divine (which is translated by the state of "what You will, what You will . . ."), then a sort of receptivity (what shall I say? . . .), not immobile, but . . . one could probably call it a passive receptivity. (Mother opens her hands in a smile) I don't know how to explain. All words are wrong, but one could say: "You alone exist." The cells should feel: "You alone exist." Like that. But all this seems so hard -- the words harden the experience. It's a sort of plasticity or suppleness (a trusting, very trusting suppleness): what You will, what You will. . . . (10/16/71)
The work, you see, consists in changing the conscious base of all the cells -- but not all at once! That would be impossible. Even little by little, it's very difficult. The moment the conscious base changes, it's -- there's almost like a panic in the cells and the feeling: "Oh, what's going to happen to me?" So from time to time, it's difficult. They are taken in groups, almost by faculty or part of faculty, and for some it's a little difficult. Sometimes there is almost an anguish, you know. You're suspended in nothing. It may last a few seconds, but those few seconds are terrible. (2/19/69)
She kept cleaning and cleaning the "intermediate layers" that prevent total contact, all the sediment that human habit has deposited in our bodies and that seems to encase us in a deadly matrix in which everything is catastrophic, everything can become an accident or an illness, everything can go wrong -- truly as if we were enclosed, locked up in an unreal world and we had only to remove that matrix, to let a little light penetrate into the cells, for everything to change (that is, for us to leave the unreality of a world we call real).
(Mother:) It's like something sticky all around you, touching you everywhere. You cannot take one step, cannot do anything without encountering the black and sticky fingers of Falsehood. (12/31/63)
And what is this creation? Well, separation and malice, cruelty (a thirst to hurt, one could say), disease and decomposition and death -- destruction. All this is part of the same thing. What has happened?! . . . And the experience I had was the UNREALITY of those things, as if we had entered an unreal falsehood and everything disappears when we get out of it -- it no longer exists, no longer is. This is what is so frightening! That it should be, for us, so real, so concrete, so dreadful -- and none of it exists. It's only -- we've entered Falsehood. Why? How? What? (5/31/69)
Why, all sensations are false, my child! It's something I've experienced dozens of times a day, in every detail. You feel you need this, need that, you hurt here, hurt there -- but it's all false. In fact, you have left the state of Harmony, that Harmony which is always present -- but you've left it, and you need this, need that, hurt here, hurt there. Something is missing, and That is what is missing. (7/10/65)
This is really something! Why didn't we think of it before! All our ills are false, our pain is false, our ignorance and weaknesses are false, and even our "laws" are false. We are merely shut inside a "room" of unreality, which exists solely by the recognition we lend to it. We just have to get out -- or stop believing in it -- and that'll be it. However, one does not get out in one's head, or through transcendental meditation; one gets out in one's cells. Unless we go down to that level, we will keep building castles in the air.
(Mother:) From the negative standpoint -- I am talking of the difficulties to be overcome -- one of the most serious obstacles is the legitimacy that the ignorant and false external consciousness, the ordinary consciousness, gives to all the so-called physical laws, causes, effects and consequences -- to all that science has discovered in the material and physical realm. All that is indisputable reality for the consciousness, a reality that stands independent and absolute in the face of the eternal divine Reality. And it is so automatic that it's unconscious. (5/10/58)
The moment the body becomes conscious, it becomes conscious of its own falsehood! It becomes conscious of this law, that law, that third law, that fourth law, that tenth law -- everything is "laws." "We are ruled by the physical laws: such a thing will produce such a result, and if you do this, such and such will happen, etc." Why, it oozes from every pore! I know it. I know it very well. It exudes falsehood. In the body, we have no faith in the divine Grace -- none, none, none whatsoever! If we have not undergone tapasya [yogic discipline] the way I have, we say, "Well, all the inner, moral things, all the feelings and psychology are all very well; we want the Divine and we are ready to do anything; but, nonetheless, material facts are material facts; they are concrete and real: an illness is an illness, food is food, and the consequence of all we do is a consequence, and if -- blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!"
We have to understand that this isn't true -- it isn't true. It's a lie. It's nothing but a big lie. It isn't true -- it is NOT true! (5/10/58)
All the constraints, all the attachments to external things, all that is finished, completely over with, completely over -- absolute freedom. I mean, there's only That left, the Supreme Master, who is master. From that standpoint, it can only be a gain. It is such a radical realization. . . . It seems like an absolute of freedom, something considered impossible to realize while living a normal life on earth. It's equivalent to the experience of absolute freedom one has in the higher parts of the being when the dependence on the body has been removed. But what's remarkable (I want to emphasize this) is that it's the consciousness of the body that experiences all this -- and a body that is visibly still here! (3/9/66)
So she went constantly from one world to another, from this one, so compellingly real and true for us, to the other, no less real, but of a . . . smiling reality.
(Mother:) It's quite extraordinary. There is something happening to me all the time, at least fifty times a day (it's especially clear at night): outwardly, it's as if you moved from one room to another, or from one house to another, but you cross the threshold, or go through the wall, without being aware of it, automatically. Being in one room is translated outwardly by a very comfortable condition, completely free of any pain anywhere, and by a great peace -- a joyous, perfectly quiet peace -- in a word, an ideal state that last sometimes a long, long time. . . . Then, all of a sudden, for no perceptible or apparent reason (I still haven't been able to figure out why or how), you -- it's as if you fell into the other room, or other house, as if you tripped; and you start feeling a pain here, a pain there; you're uncomfortable. (5/31/62)
There's a curious sensation, a peculiar perception of the two functionings -- which are not even . . . you can't even say they are "superimposed" -- the true functioning and the functioning distorted by the individual sense of an individual body. They are almost simultaneous, which is what makes it so difficult to explain. . . . There are a lot of things not functioning properly in the body (I don't know if you would call them illnesses -- maybe doctors would, I don't know, but at any rate, it's something not functioning properly), organs not functioning properly: heart, stomach, intestines, lungs, etc.; and at the same time (you can't really call it a "functioning"), the true state. Which means that certain disorders appear only when the consciousness is -- it's as though the consciousness were pulled or pushed, or placed, in a certain position, and then those improper functionings appear instantly, but not as a consequence (I mean, the consciousness just becomes aware of their existence). And if the consciousness remains long enough in that position, there are what we usually call consequences: the improper functioning has consequences. . . . But if the consciousness regains its true position, it stops instantly. And sometimes it's like this (Mother places the fingers of her open right hand between those of her open left hand to show overlapping or interpenetration), I mean, like this and that, like this and that (Mother moves the fingers of her right hand back and forth between those of her left hand to show a sort of coming and going of consciousness between two states), this position and that position, this one and that one. It goes from one to the other in a matter of a few seconds, so you can almost perceive the two functionings simultaneously. That's how I was able to understand what was happening to me, otherwise I wouldn't have understood. I would only have thought I was in a particular state, then slipped into another state. It isn't so; it's -- everything, all the substance, all the vibrations must follow their normal course, you see -- it's just the perception of the consciousness that is altered.
Which means that if we push this knowledge to its limit, that is, if we generalize, life (what we generally call "life," physical life, the life of the body) and death ARE ONE AND THE SAME THING. They are simultaneous. . . . It's only consciousness doing this and doing that, moving this way or that way (same coming and going gesture of the fingers). I don't know if I am making sense, but it's fantastic. (9/8/62)
What is becoming very clear is that, although everything remains the same and the position of the consciousness remains the same, there occurs a reversal from this way to that way (Mother turns her hand from one side to the other). I don't know how to explain. In one case, I mean for the ordinary human consciousness (not ordinary, but present), the pain is almost unbearable; and while everything remains exactly the same, with that little reversal (I don't know how to describe it, perhaps you could call it "contact with the Divine," I don't know), while everything remains the same (it's phenomenon of consciousness) -- a marvelous bliss, with every physical circumstance IDENTICAL, you understand. . . . And I experience this all the time. Unfortunately (Mother laughs), the painful side is the longer of the two! When I am quiet, still, then naturally the other takes over.
Even a toothache and all that, which, externally, for the material consciousness, is so real(!) -- even that is no longer . . . When the true consciousness takes over it no longer has the same character. I don't know how to explain it. There must be what we would call a "cure" in our ordinary consciousness, but it isn't a cure; the nature of it changes. (7/11/70)
What Sri Aurobindo says here about illnesses is exactly what I am experiencing: the force of habit and all the mental constructions, all that seems "inevitable" and "irrevocable" in illnesses. It's as if examples were multiplying in order to demonstrate . . . so we can learn that it's only a question of attitude -- of attitude -- a question of going beyond . . . beyond that mental prison in which humanity has locked itself up, and . . . of breathing above.
And that's what the body is experiencing. Before, those who had inner experiences would say, "True, it's that way up above, but here . . ." Now the "but here" will soon no longer apply. That's the conquest we are in the process of making, the momentous change: that physical life should be ruled by the higher consciousness and not by the mental world. It's the "change of government." . . . It's difficult, laborious, painful; there's some breakage, naturally, but . . . But, truly, there's a change -- a visible change. And that's the true change; it's what will enable the new Consciousness to express itself. The body is learning. It is learning its lesson -- all bodies, all bodies. (3/14/70)
(Mother:) Every time the rule or domination of Nature's ordinary laws is replaced at one point or another (or must be replaced or is about to be replaced at any point) by the authority of the divine Consciousness, that creates a state of transition that has every appearance of a frightful disorder and a very great danger. And so long as the body does not know, as long as it is in its state of ignorance, it is thrown into a panic and thinks it's a serious illness -- and sometimes, with the help of the imagination, it does become a serious illness. Yet, originally, it isn't that; it's just the withdrawal of the rule of ordinary Nature, with its auxiliary of personal vital and mental laws. (2/3/68)
It is very difficult for the body to change, because it lives only out of habit. So every time something of the new way of living slips in, free of thought, free or reasoning, free of anything resembling an idea, almost free of sensation -- almost automatically -- the newness of it throws the cells into a panic. So EVERYTHING has to be changed, you see. It's no longer the heart that must pump the blood or receive the Force; it's no longer all that -- it must function in another way. The base of it all must be changed, the functioning completely modified -- while every single one of these cells tries to make sure that everything should work as usual!
Terrible. A strange difficulty.
If the inner being -- the true being -- is in control, the body does things automatically, through the power of the true being; but then, it doesn't become conscious of its own change; it doesn't collaborate in the change; and it might take . . . maybe thousands of years for the change to occur. The true being must remain like this (gesture of stepping back, of remaining in the background), and the body must do things by itself. That is, it must hold the Lord, receive the Lord, offer itself to the Lord, BE the Lord. It does have the aspiration, oh, quite intense -- it's blazing -- that part is all right. But the Lord (smiling) doesn't work in the usual way! And the moment He simply tries to take control of one function or another, even partially (not totally), all the relations, all the movements are instantly altered -- panic. Panic at that particular point. The result: you faint, or you are on the verge of fainting, or you are seized with horrible pain, or at any rate something apparently becomes extremely upset. So what is to be done? . . . Wait patiently until that small number or large number of cells, that little corner of consciousness, has learned its lesson. It takes one day, two days, three days, and that "great" traumatic event quiets down, becomes clarified, and those particular cells say to themselves (they begin to), "God, how stupid we are! . . . " It takes a little while. Now they've understood.
But there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them! (1/9/63)
All of a sudden the body finds itself . . . outside of all habits, all actions, reactions, consequences, etc., and that's . . . (Mother opens her eyes in wonder), then it goes away. It's so new for the material consciousness that, every time, you feel on the verge of mental derangement (or rather, derangement of consciousness, not mental derangement; happily, it has nothing to do with the mind!). But for a minute the consciousness panics. . . . The body has enough sense to -- it knows it isn't ill -- it knows it isn't an illness; it's just an attempt at transformation. It knows it full well, but . . . there are all those centuries of habit. (5/20/70)
Mother was really the focal point of an impossible contradiction. Through a body constituted and formed in the ordinary way, she was in touch with a world totally contrary to the ordinary way, a world where our good and evil no longer had the same meaning, where the fixity of our laws, the sense of finiteness, distance, and even time, became something different, . . . which Mother liked to call "the Lord," that is, a "something" one still cannot name without using circumlocutions, yet which seemed endowed with a very concrete reality since "He" directed everything in the body at every second of life.
(Mother:) I say "the Divine" -- what is the "Divine"? Well, I don't know -- and I can't say that I don't know, either. And even saying that is wrong. That's not it. Everything is NOT IT. (10/13/71)
But the body has learned that, even without ego, it is what it is; for it is that by the divine Will and not at all by the ego -- we exist by the divine Will and not by the ego. The ego has been a means -- a centuries-old means. Now it is worthless; its time is over. It has had its time, its usefulness -- it's over, it's the past, far back in the past. Now . . . (Mother lowers her fist) it's consciousness, it's the Divine -- individuality is the Divine.
And this body has clearly understood, felt, "realized," as they say in English, that the sense of being a separate personality is totally unnecessary, TOTALLY unnecessary, not in the least indispensable to its existence. It exists by another power and another will, which is not individual or personal -- the divine Will. And it will become what it is supposed to be only when it feels there's no difference between it and the Divine. That's all. Everything else is falsehood -- false, false, false -- and a falsehood that must go. There's only one reality, only one life, only one consciousness (Mother lowers her fist) -- the Divine. (6/9/71)
There was such a sense of warmth, of intimacy, of . . . sweetness, and such a power at the same time, oh, so concrete! The whole atmosphere, the whole atmosphere had become concrete: everything, but everything tasted like the Lord. I don't know how to explain that. It was completely material, as if I had a mouthful of it! It was everywhere, in everything. And so PHYSICAL! Like -- you could compare it to the most delicious taste you can experience (it had a very, very material feel and taste to it). It's as if you could feel something solid in your hand when you closed it -- such a warm and sweet and powerful vibration, so powerful, so concrete! (5/19/61)
Nonetheless, there still remained the fundamental question of a body made in an old, outmoded way, which had to respond and function in the new way. . . .
(Sri Aurobindo:) It might be that a psychological change, a mastery of the nature by the soul, a transformation of the mind into a principle of light, of the life-force into power and purity would be the first approach, the first attempt to solve the problem, to escape beyond the merely human formula and establish something that could be called a divine life upon earth, a first sketch of supermanhood, of a supramental being living in the circumstances of the earth-nature. But this could not be the complete and radical change needed; it would not be the total transformation, the fullness of a divine life in a divine body. There would be a body still human and indeed animal in its origin and fundamental character and this would impose its own inevitable limitations on the higher parts of the embodied being. As limitation by ignorance and error is the fundamental defect of an untransformed mind, as limitation by the imperfect impulses and strainings and wants of desire are the defects of an untransformed life-force, so also imperfection, a limitation in the response of its half-consciousness to the demands made upon it and the grossness and stains of its original animality would be the defect of an untransformed or imperfectly transformed body. These could not but hamper and even pull down towards themselves the action of the higher parts of the Nature. A transformation of the body must be the condition for a total transformation of the nature. (16:21)
(Mother:) Take the change in the functioning of the organs, for example. What is the procedure? And both [ways] are already starting to exist side by side. . . . What is required for one to disappear and for the other to stay all by itself, changed? Changed, because as it is now, it would not be sufficient to make the body function; there are all those functions the body must still perform which it couldn't perform. It would stay in a blissful state, would enjoy its condition -- but it couldn't enjoy it for long, for all its needs would still be there! This is the difficulty. Those who come later, in a hundred years, two hundred years, won't have these difficulties. They will just have to choose: no longer to belong to the old system or to belong to the new. But at present? . . . A stomach must digest, you see! There has to be a new way of adapting oneself to the forces of Nature, a new functioning. (2/13/62)
When you think about it, it's easy enough to understand: if the question were merely to stop something and begin something ELSE, it could be done rather swiftly. But to keep the body alive (to keep it working, that is) while, at the same time, introducing a new functioning adequate enough to keep the body alive, and a transformation -- that makes for a kind of very difficult combination to realize. . . . Especially, you see, as regards the heart. The heart replaced by the center of Power, a formidable dynamic power! At what moment do you suppress the circulation and throw in the Force?? (10/6/62)
It's a hundred times more wonderful than we can ever imagine. The problem is to know whether this (pointing to the body) will be able to follow. . . . To follow means not only to last, but to acquire new strength and a new life. That I don't know. (10/30/71)
The contradiction, the tension in that body was tremendous. Things could not last that way -- something had to give or . . . Or what?
(Mother:) It [the body] says, "Actually, it's especially for others that it would make a difference [if it died]! For me, it's . . . " Because, you see, they are still in that sort of illusion that one dies when the body dies. But even this [Mother's body] is not sure which is true anymore! . . . For the body, it should be matter that is the truth -- but then, even it is not too sure (laughing) what matter is anymore! There is the other, the other way of looking at things and feeling and being -- another way of being. So the body is beginning to wonder. . . . It knows the old way is finished, but it's beginning to wonder what it will be like, that is, the way of perceiving, of relating to things: "What sort of relation will the new consciousness have with the old consciousness of those who are still human? . . . " All things will remain as they are, but there will be a new way of perceiving them, a new relationship. . . . It comes -- it's strange, it comes like a breath and then goes away again. Like a breath of a new way of looking at things, a new way of feeling, of hearing. It's like something getting closer and then being veiled. And then, the appearance [of Mother's body] is . . . (Mother makes a chaotic gesture). Yet, quite visibly, I am not sick, but there are moments when . . . it's very difficult. Very difficult. And several times, I have experienced both [ways] at the same time. . . . So (laughing) the body says to itself, "Well, if they only knew what you're going through, they'd say you are mad as a hatter!" (4/29/70)
You know, that whole base -- from automatism to all the movements we make out of habit (there's an enormous quantity of things we do automatically) -- is gone. And so it's . . . difficult. . . . Especially -- especially eating, because for a very long time now (many, many years), I've had no interest in food, none whatever. I take it only . . . I take it with a certain knowledge of what's necessary, and that's it. But now it's . . . almost difficult to swallow. That's the main problem: a great difficulty swallowing. . . . I have some trouble breathing, too. I am short-winded. What is going to happen? I have no idea. (Mother laughs) (4/8/70)
As it undergoes its transfer of authority (what I call the transfer of authority), the body goes through difficult moments, truly difficult moments. And by normal standards it doesn't make any sense because the difficulties seem to increase with what could be called the "conversion" -- but . . . for the true vision (when you are in the true vision), it's the rest of the Falsehood that causes all the problems. (1/31/70)
Mother was full of questions. The future seemed so mysterious. She had to take each step in the dark, in total unknowingness. (If one knew beforehand the fate of the new species, it would be there already.)
(Mother:) These last few days, I have been looking. . . . This path has never been followed by anyone! Sri Aurobindo was the first one and he left before telling us what he was doing. I am absolutely blazing a trail in a jungle -- worse than a jungle. For the last two days, the feeling of knowing absolutely nothing -- nothing. (7/15/61)
The first time I saw Sri Aurobindo, he told me, "Others came to prepare the way and they left, but this time, it's to DO." And he, too, left.
He left. He did tell me, "You will do it." But he said it "like that," the way he used to say things, you know. It was not a statement that gives you an absolute certitude. . . .
I can't say that I am raising the question, because I am not -- I am not raising it -- but both possibilities are there (suspended gesture), and neither gets answered. There are times when I have the vision of the things I need to do) -- it comes but against a backdrop of complete uncertainty.
And the next minute comes the possibility to go through to the end of the transformation, with a clear vision of what needs to be done, but the background is . . . there's no Assurance in the background that it WILL BE SO. Neither in one case nor in the other. And I know it's deliberate, because it's necessary for the work in the cells. If, for example, I received the Command of the Supreme (I do receive it sometimes, clear, as clear as . . .), if I received from Him the certitude that, whatever the appearances of the path, this body will go through to the end of the transformation, well, there would be some slackening somewhere, and that would be very detrimental. (9/25/65)
The only solution was to go on, to continue to incarnate that new way of being on earth in the minutest details of life. And perhaps the Supramental had more than one surprise up its sleeve? What seems impossible and contradictory today might not be so tomorrow? All the same, that transition from one way to another, from one body to another preoccupied Mother very much. . . .
Sometimes, I wonder if it isn't sheer madness to want to attempt this. . . . Shouldn't I simply let this body dissolve and let other, better-adapted bodies be prepared? I don't know. I don't know, you see! No one has done it before, so there's nobody to tell me. (2/13/62)
When you have someone who has gone through the experience and has naturally Wisdom, it's so simple! Before, for the least thing, I didn't even have to say anything to Sri Aurobindo and it was taken care of. Now, it's I who am doing the work, and I have nobody to turn to; nobody has done it! So that, too, is a source of tension. (8/26/64)
I hope this body is capable. There's that doubt, you see.
(Satprem:) Of course you're capable, Mother. This is the time to do it, otherwise you wouldn't be here. If you are here, in this condition, it's precisely because the time has come.
(Mother:) Yes, naturally! I know -- of course, I know this is the time when . . . This is the time to make the Attempt, but is it going to succeed? I don't know. . . . Is it -- to put things more clearly, if you will -- is it destined to succeed? There lies the doubt. Is it destined to succeed?
(Satprem:) To me, it just seems impossible not to -- it's impossible for it not to succeed.
(Mother:) Why?
(Satprem:) Because you're the body of the world!
Because this is really the Hope.
(Mother:) Isn't that poetry?
(Satprem:) Of course not, Mother! That's really how it is. One just has to look around: the world is more and more hellish.
(Mother:) Oh, yes. Quite true.
(Satprem:) Well, that's what is in your body. (9/12/70)
I have the feeling that if I last till I am a hundred (which means another six years), much will be accomplished -- much. Something important and decisive will be accomplished. I am not saying that the body will be capable of transformation itself (I have no indication of that), but the consciousness -- the physical, material consciousness becoming . . . "supramentalized." That's it; that's the work being done now. And that's what's important. (4/26/72)
On the positive side, if we may say so, there were two factors that, sooner or later, seemed to guarantee the success of the undertaking.
The first was that new way of being on earth was clearly contagious from one body to another. Fortunately, our bodies are not shut in separate little boxes the way our heads are! Made from the same mold, our cells have their own means of communication, and whatever is acquired by one is sooner or later passed on to another. Thus, there was "contagion" around Mother.
(Satprem:) I well understand that certain things are happening in you, but . . .
(Mother:) Look, if they are happening in one body, they can happen in all bodies! I am not made of anything different from others. The difference is consciousness. That's all. This body is made exactly the same way, with the same things. I eat the same things, and it was formed in the same way, absolutely. And it was as stupid, as obscure, as unconscious, as stubborn as all the other bodies in the world.
It all began when the doctors declared that I was very ill -- that was the beginning [in April 1962]. Because the body was then completely drained of its habits and strength, which allowed the cells slowly, very slowly to awaken to a new receptivity and open themselves directly to the divine Influence. Each cell is vibrating.
Otherwise, it would be hopeless! If this substance, which began as -- even a stone has already some form of organization -- it was certainly worse than a stone: absolute, inert unconsciousness. Then it slowly, very slowly, awakens. . . . For the animal to become a man, it took nothing but the infusion of a consciousness -- a mental consciousness -- and what's happening now is the awakening of the consciousness that was in the depths, all the way down in the depths. The mind was withdrawn, the vital was withdrawn, everything was withdrawn -- when I was supposedly ill, the mind was gone, the vital was gone, and the body was left on its own -- on purpose. And it's just because the mind and vital were gone that there was that impression of a serious illness. But in the body left on its own, the cells slowly began to awaken to consciousness (ascending gesture of aspiration). After both the mind and vital were gone, the consciousness that had been infused into the body BY the vital (from the mind into the vital and from the vital into the body) slowly began to emerge. It began with that explosion of Love all the way up above, at the extreme supreme altitude, and it slowly, very slowly came down into the body. And that sort of physical mind -- something really quite stupid that used to go round and round, forever repeating the same thing, the same thing a hundred times -- gradually became enlightened, conscious, organized, and fell silent. And from that silence rose an aspiration expressed by prayers.
This is the complete denial of all past spiritual assertions: "If you want to live a fully conscious divine life, you must leave your body; the body cannot follow." Well, Sri Aurobindo came and said, "Not only can the body follow, but it can be the basis for manifesting the Divine."
The work remains to be done. . . .
But it's all ONE SINGLE substance, exactly the same everywhere, which was unconscious everywhere. And what's remarkable is that, automatically, some very unexpected experiences are happening here and there (gesture indicating scattered points throughout the world), in people who don't even know anything. (11/22/67)
I'll soon become dangerously contagious, you know! (4/4/70)
But once it is done -- that's what Sri Aurobindo had said -- once one body has done it, it becomes capable of passing it on to others. And, as I mentioned, there is now (I am not speaking of a total and detailed phenomenon, certainly not), but there is here and there (gesture showing scattered points on the earth) one experience or another suddenly happening in people. It's contagious. I know it! And that's the only hope, because if everybody had to go through the same experience. . . . (11/22/67)
The second factor comes to light through experience: When the body was in the harmonious position, the erosion of time no longer existed. There was no more friction with life's circumstance, no "jagged edges" anywhere; everything became a vast and harmonious -- "divine" -- unfolding, like great undulating waves, from morning breakfast to the swarm of disciples who still had to be seen every day. The body thus seemed to be able to last an eternity.
(Mother:) The conditions for prolonging the body almost indefinitely are known or almost known (they are more than just an inkling; they are known). And they are learned through the work necessary to counteract the EXTREME FRAGILITY of the physical balance of the body in transformation. It's a study of each minute, as it were, almost of each second. (4/17/65)
You see, my body is beginning -- beginning -- to understand that the divine side means a life that is . . . (Mother opens her arms in an immense gesture) progressive and luminous. But there's the accumulation of past experiences that says, "Oh, this isn't possible!" That's it. And that stupid "not possible" is what delays and spoils things.
It's based on the fact that the minute the body leaves the true attitude it becomes painful: everything starts to hurt, to be laborious -- you have the feeling of death and dissolution in everything. And this is what strengthens . . . matter's stupidity. (8/30/72)
Sri Aurobindo had said, "The intermediate stage will be prolongation of life at will." And my impression is that it's possible. But on the condition that . . . the body itself have only one idea: transformation. It has to be quiet, concentrated . . . I can stay for hours like that, in a sort of receptive contemplation, and it seems like a second. Time, yes, is curious. There is a certain receptive contemplation in which . . . (suspended gesture with a smile) time ceases to exist. (9/14/71)
But every time I ask my body what it would like, all the cells say, "No, no! We are immortal; we want to be immortal. We are not tired; we are ready to fight for centuries if necessary. We have been created for immortality and we want immortality." I am realizing that the nearer you get to the cell, the more the cell says, "But I am immortal!" (10/16/62)
Thus, one could hope that the contagion would spread, first in the human bodies around Mother, then perhaps at greater distances around the earth. And since the body could in principle last indefinitely, one could look forward to a constant progression, a "densification" of the new Possibility, which would gradually, at its own rhythm, carry out the necessary bodily mutations and change our human world into an entirely supramental world in a continuous and harmonious fashion.
But this is perhaps too human and "logical" a way to envision the transformation of the world into a world of harmony. The Supramental has its own laws, which are infinitely flexible and wise. The Supramental is also infinite compassion; it takes the present conditions of the earth into account in all its operations. It does not destroy, does not break; it simply puts things before their content of truth . . . until they have had enough of their current falsehood. It is not in a hurry, for it is supreme. It is at the heart of all things, their springs and intimate hope. If evolution cannot follow this path, well, it will follow another! We are all going there anyway, for everything is going there.
(Sri Aurobindo:) The obscuration of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit to conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must to that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation. (1:20)
What the supramental will do the mind cannot foresee or lay down. The mind is ignorance seeking for the Truth, the supramental by its very definition is the Truth-Consciousness, Truth in possession of itself and fulfilling itself by its own power. In a supramental world imperfection and disharmony are bound to disappear. . . . But what, how, by what degrees it will do it, is a thing that ought not to be said now -- when the Light is there, the Light will itself do its work -- when the supramental Will stand on earth, that Will will decide. It will establish a perfection, a harmony, a Truth-creation -- for the rest, well, it will be the rest -- that is all. (22:12)
(Mother:) I have here all the examples, a small sampling of all the attitudes, and I clearly see the reactions; I see the same Force, the same unique Force, acting in that sampling and producing naturally different results, but for a more profound vision those "differences" are very superficial: it's only "they like to think that way, so let them think that way." But the actual inner progress, the inner development, the essential vibration, is not affected -- not in the least. One person aspires with all his heart for Nirvana, another aspires with all his might for the supramental manifestation, and in both the vibratory result is about the same. It's all one single mass of vibrations getting more and more prepared to . . . receive what has to be. (5/19/65)
We consider this appearance (Mother points to her body) as . . . for the ordinary consciousness, it seems to be the most important -- it's obviously the last thing that will change. For the ordinary consciousness, it's the last thing that will change because it's the most important: that will be the surest sign. But it isn't that way at all! Not at all. It's the changes IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS -- which has taken place -- that is the important thing. All the rest is consequences. But here, in this world, this material world, it seems the most important because it's -- it's completely upside down. For us, when the body can be visibly other than it is now, we will say, "Ah now the thing is done." Not so -- the thing IS done. This [the body] is a secondary consequence. (4/29/70)
In any case, very practically, Mother's body was the site of a gigantic battle extending far beyond the limits of a small human body. In her body was being played out something like the future of the world.
(Mother:) It's really interesting. It's as though my body were the site of a battle between what wants obstinately to hang on and what wants to take its place. There are truly marvelous moments -- glorious moments -- and the next second or next minute such a violent attack! That's the situation. And my body is . . . For food, for example, there are times when I eat without even noticing that I am eating, except that everything tastes delicious; and the next second, I can't swallow a thing! It's like this (gesture of being pulled from one side to the other). So my only solution is to be as quiet as possible. As soon as I am quiet, it calms down. Suddenly, you get the feeling you're about to die, and the next minute it's . . . eternity. It's truly an extraordinary experience. Extraordinary. There comes a moment when everything, absolutely everything seems to be full of confusion and darkness -- there's no hope, no chance of seeing things clearly -- and the next minute, everything is crystal clear. (11/13/71)
You see, the little body . . . the little body is like a point, but it feels like the expression of a tremendous power, and yet it is rather . . .: no capacity, no expression, nothing -- and rather . . . miserable. And yet . . . it is like a condensation -- the condensation of a TREMENDOUS power! Sometimes it's even difficult to bear. (9/2/70)
I am absolutely convinced (because I have had experiences to prove it) that the life of this body -- what makes it move, evolve -- can be replaced by a force. I mean, it's possible to achieve a sort of immortality, and the wear and tear can also disappear. These are the two things possible: the force of life can come and the wear and tear can disappear. And it can come psychologically, through complete obedience to the divine Impulsion, which means that at each instant you have the force that is necessary, you do the thing that is necessary -- all these are certitudes. Absolute certitudes. It is not hope, not imagination; it's a certitude. It's just a question of education and slow transformation, of changing the habits. It's possible -- all this is possible. The only thing is, how long will it take to eliminate the necessity of a skeleton (to take only this example)? That seems to me to be still very far ahead. I mean, it will still require many intermediate stages. Sri Aurobindo said that one can prolong life indefinitely. That part is clear. But we are not yet built with a substance that completely escapes dissolution, the necessity of dissolution. The bones last a long time; in favorable conditions, they can even last a thousand years, but that doesn't mean immortality in principle. . . . I can conceive of a perpetual change; I could even conceive of a flower that would not wither. But this principle of immortality . . . That is, a life basically escaping the necessity of renewal, a life in which the eternal Force manifests itself directly and eternally, and yet in a body that is physical (Mother touches the skin of her hands). I can readily accept a progressive change that would make this substance into something capable of eternally renewing itself from inside out -- and that would be immortality -- but it seems to me that many steps would be necessary between