The Mother

Agenda

Volume 3

August 8, 1962

(Mother listens to Satprem read a passage from his manuscript.)

It's very good.

It's really excellent.

Oh, it's dull, it's lifeless....

What gives you that impression? Do you happen to have one of those criticizers in you? Sri Aurobindo says we always carry with us someone who criticizes everything we do. He classifies the gentleman as an adverse force, one with an individual form. Yes, you're always saying it won't do, it's no good....

Because I feel that things should be said with another kind of force. It seems like all these sentences could just as well be put one way as another, you understand – it's not inevitable at all.... I could say things this way, but I could just as well say them differently.

Mon petit, I have told you twenty times and I will tell you again: if it were “inevitable,” nobody would understand!

I don't know. To me, this is no way to express anything.

Yes, yes, I know what you mean... there is Revelation; but the world isn't ready for Revelation – that will come later, in ten years.

Ten years?

Yes, ten years.

(long silence)

I am making some interesting discoveries. They aren't really discoveries, but nowadays none of these things are theoretical, not the least bit mental (the mind is in a quiet ease) – they're essentially practical. And they take unexpected forms.... The other day as I was walking, an old formation suddenly popped up, some. thing that had already tried to materialize when Sri Aurobindo was still here, but which he had stopped. It was one possibility among innumerable others, trying to manifest in this body's existence – I won't say what it is.

It was one of the very saddest things that could manifest physically in association with a spiritual life.

It came and tried to descend. I said absolutely nothing, but Sri Aurobindo knew (though he never mentioned anything to me, he had seen it), and he simply... (sweeping gesture) did what had to be done, brushed it aside. I hadn't thought about it for more than ten years: with that gesture of his, it had vanished.

Now it has come back.

“Well, well – why has that returned?” I wondered. And then I saw that this body has been built in such a way that it instinctively ATTRACTS ordeals, painful experiences. And in the face of such formations, it is always passive, consenting, accepting, and totally confident in the ultimate outcome, with such an ingrained certitude that even at the moment of greatest difficulty, it will be helped and saved, and that the purpose behind all those ordeals is to speed up, to gain time, and to exhaust all the... I can't say the evil possibilities, but all the hindrances – things that hamper, block the way and seem to negate the goal – so that they are pushed back into the past and no longer hinder progress.

Once I saw that, the formation went away. It had come just to show me that. And once again the body gave its eternal assent: no matter what it's burdened with, it will always be ready to receive and to bear it.

I never thought this would have any consequences, but it did!¹ Something probably needed to be exhausted. So physically speaking, yesterday was a pretty bad day – oh, only quite externally! In fact, the body was luminously conscious, profoundly happy and joyous, to the point where all suffering becomes negligible – you don't notice it. And so it was a real opportunity for the whole entourage to make progress. That helps.

Superficially, it [the body's characteristic of attracting ordeals] could be called a sort of karma, but that's not what it is. It's actually like one of the pivots – not a central one, but one of the pivots of the body's invisible action, of its consciousness. And it is expressed by attracting certain circumstances. A whole range of things having to do with the physical body has thus become very clear and precise to me – and that's what the body was made for: to go full speed ahead.

Intellectually, I don't at all believe in taking others' misfortunes upon oneself – that's childish. But certain vibrations in the world must be accepted, exhausted and transformed. Inwardly, that's the work I have been doing all my life – consciously, gloriously. But now it's on a purely physical level, independent of all the realities of other worlds: it's in the body, you see. And this has given me a key, one of the necessary keys to the Work.

Maybe there will be something else another time.

It has been very revealing, like a door that has opened.

And there's always that same Solicitude dosing the experience out – that's always here.

And I have noticed that now.... You see, the body used to be like a little child, complaining when things weren't right; it wouldn't revolt, but it moaned. But this time its only reaction was, “Why am I not transformed? Why am I not transformed? I want to be transformed, I want to be transformed....” Not with words, because there was nothing mental about it, but simply with a kind of tension – the tension you feel when the door to the psychic being is shut and you push, push, push to get to the other side. The same thing, the same kind of tension: pushing, pushing, pushing... towards what? I don't know. We call it “the transformation” because we don't know what it is – if we did know, it would mean we had already begun to realize it.... There's a faint impression of what that state could be (but it's very, very faint). And there's this feeling of tension, of pushing – pleading and imploring. That was the body's only reaction this time, nothing else, not even any sorrow. Because at one time – something like fifty years ago – it used to say, “Why do I deserve this?” and similar stupidities; that's been gone for more than fifty years. Then for a long while after, something disordered, unharmonious or nasty could bring me sorrow; that's gone too. But that's recent, it disappeared with the experience of April 13. And now: transformation, transformation, transformation; that's the only idea left, the only will.

(silence)

For several days before that incident, something else had been coming, a kind of imaginative and creative vision of the most material physical possibilities for the future.

I've had this great formative power ever since my earliest childhood, but I had channeled it and stopped it because I considered it useless. But it came back recently, along with the sure sign that it was coming from the very highest origin: “This is it, this is how things will be.” But that's for later, of course. To our external reason, those things seem totally unrealizable, but they will be realizable in... perhaps a few hundred years, I don't know – it's the future being prepared. And indeed, that vision has a tremendous power of creation and realization, and it is always felt physically (the rest is very still), it's always physical. But it triggered a kind of very rapid movement of the physical consciousness (within the most material substance), and caused a dislocation. And so² the day before yesterday, that old formation suddenly returned and made me understand one aspect of the body's nature, the way the body is CONSTRUCTED and the usefulness of that construction. So now things are all right. It has been one more step.

But when you receive those bad vibrations affecting your body,³ are they exhausted by your accepting them?

It's not that I “receive” bad vibrations, but that the physical substance is not entirely... (how can I explain?) in the proper movement or rhythm. For instance, between the vision of that old formation I spoke of and this... (I can't call it a toothache, but anyway, something went wrong) there was no visible connection to speak of. The toothache wasn't caused by a particular vibration, it's rather... as if one thing or another provided the opportunity for absorbing a certain quantity or type of vibration (it's more a quantity than a type – probably both), a vibratory MODE, in order to put it in contact with THE vibratory mode – the divine one.

But I understand your question. You want to know if this has an effect on all identical vibratory modes in the world.... In principle, yes. But the effects may not be immediately visible; in the first place, our field of observation is nothing – materially, what do we know?... Only our immediate surroundings – that's nothing. In 1920, for example, I had an experience of that type, which resulted in a symbolic but terrestrial action. It was a vision (I don't remember enough details to make it interesting) where each nation was represented by a symbolic entity, and there was a certain type of horror – of terror, rather. A certain “will of terror” was trying to manifest in that gathering of all nations. And I was witness to the whole thing. I remember it being a very conscious and rather long and detailed vision with a more intense reality than physical things have (it was in the subtle physical). And after it was over and I had done what needed to be done (I am not saying what because I don't remember all the details, and without accuracy it loses its value), when I came out of it I could say with TOTAL conviction: “Terror has been overcome in the world.” Of course, it's not literally true, plenty of people still feel terror, but a certain type of terror was as if UNDERMINED at the foundations. What had already manifested kept on and is gradually being exhausted, but the terror that was trying to increase and dominate the life of nations was stopped cold.

I have had other similar experiences – on Durga's day, for instance, when Sri Aurobindo was still here (you know, that's the day when Durga masters an asura; she doesn't kill him, she masters him). Well, each year one particular type of thing was undermined (and my experiences were never mental: the experience would suddenly come, and AFTERWARDS I would realize it was Durga's day), and each time I used to tell Sri Aurobindo, “Look – today this (or that) thing has been cut off at the roots.” That's how it works with the adverse forces – yes, like something being uprooted from the world. Whatever has already spread out keeps going and follows its karma, but the SOURCE is dried up. That's also what happened (it was in 1904, I believe) when the Asura of Consciousness and Darkness made his surrender and was converted; he told me, “I have millions and millions of emanations, and these will keep on living, but their source has now run dry.” ⁴ How much time will it take to exhaust it all?... We can't say, but the source has dried up and that is something extremely important. In 1920, that terror was trying to spread all over the world and to become really catastrophic; and then in my inner vision I could see that a whole movement had dried up at its source. This means that little by little, little by little, little by little... the karma is being exhausted.

The same goes for these little physical movements. Things don't seem to be “initiated” any more, I mean they're no longer being generated. But everything that's already present in the world has to be exhausted.

I can see more rapid methods, but they are essentially part of the supramental world.

To change a karma, to stop a karma, to withdraw a certain number of vibrations from circulation, as it were, requires yet another movement, another movement altogether – and that Power isn't yet at hand. That's what will yield visible, tangible results. The other movement has very tangible and concrete results, but they're invisible (to human observation, that is, which is much too limited and superficial). But it obviously does have results. That vision of terror clearly diverted the course of events that nations were being pushed into. But only someone with inner vision can see it.

(silence)

Is it eleven o'clock?

All right then, keep on with your book. It's good, much better than you think! (gesture of denial from Satprem) Yes, yes, I know what you mean, “definitive things” – it's like me and my definitive transformations! We must learn how to wait. Later on, it will come.

It should be something like a mantra....

I understand. I understand full well. But you must learn how to wait. Were you to write in that way now, it would be perfectly useless to the reading public – they wouldn't understand a thing.

What you read to me is very good – very good, very useful.

Au revoir, mon petit.

¹ Mother's cheek is swollen from an abscessed tooth.... Note that Satprem had assumed that “I never thought this would have any consequences” referred to the visit from the old formation. Mother corrected: “It is subtler than that! I didn't think THAT EXPERIENCE would have any consequences, because the old formation is meaningless now – it was connected with Sri Aurobindo (I didn't want to say it, but it was connected with Sri Aurobindo's physical presence), so now it has no more meaning, it cannot be realized. He did what was necessary to make its realization utterly impossible. But this experience is like a REMINDER of what was. I didn't think it would have any consequences, but it did!” (Mother touches her cheek.)

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² Later, Satprem asked if this “and so” was connected to what precedes it – if the old formation was connected to the vision of the future. Mother answered: “I think it is connected. I am not sure, but I think it is. I have the feeling that this curve of future realization is what put me in contact with the old formations that used to come to me [formations of creative imagination], and this put me in contact with one of the body's habits, and so on; and that habit of the body triggered this kind of toothache.”

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³ The abscessed tooth.

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⁴ This seems to refer to the being Mother endowed with a body (in 1906, at Tlemcen), and who went to set up the revolution in China.

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