The Mother

Agenda

Volume 3

November 14, 1962

(Satprem reads a passage from his manuscript describing the relation between the subconscient and the supraconscient, in which he says: “One cannot be healed unless one goes down to the very bottom; and one cannot go down to the very bottom unless one goes up to the very heights.”)

It's getting interesting.... It's the formulation – not the theory, not the explanation (it's more than intellectual), but the literary expression of what I've been experiencing all these nights. Not only at night, in the daytime too.

It's as if I were touching the dregs of things.

No later than yesterday night, I had this feeling: “My god, there's always farther down to go! It's always lower, ever lower.” And at the same time, my identity with the Supreme keeps growing while I simultaneously seem to be going down into the most incredible dark dregs of... yes, of mud, ever possible in life. Look, you speak of Sri Aurobindo's experience – well, I never knew he'd had the vision of all sorts of torture,¹ but I have just had it myself in detail, bit by bit... and what things! Incredible, incredible. And I was wondering, “But why! Why am I seeing all this? Am I losing my contact?” On the contrary, it felt closer and closer, stronger and stronger, more and more conscious, luminous, and at the same time... this (gesture below).

You have formulated it very, very well. Do you unwittingly feel my experience and write it, or do I.... I don't know, it's all bound up together. But it's most interesting.

Because my impression was that the higher I rise, the more I notice things below. I wasn't making a doctrine or theory of it, of course – I got rid of that habit a long time ago. But I was looking at it, merely taking note of the fact, without telling myself it was for this or that reason (as you explain here in your book). I observed the phenomenon and was able to say: the more I feel this constant, luminous Presence, the more I see those things. So it has become very clear to me that it is impossible to manifest THAT integrally without everything below being offered up to the Light.

My method is essentially very simple: for each thing that comes, I say, “Here, Lord, it's for You; change it, transform it.” A work of offering and dedication (gesture of presenting something to the Light). And this morning there was a sort of reply – not exactly to a question, but as though I were wondering “How do I do it?” (because the Lord tells me I am here for His work), “How do I do His work? What's the new way of doing the Work? We know all the old ways, but what's the new way?” And the reply came, very concrete, without words: “By bringing the two extremes together. Everything you see, everything that comes to you or that you discover is automatically put in the presence of the Most High, of the Supreme. You join the two extremes. Your whole work is to make the junction.”

And now you read me all this! It's as if you were explaining it – don't you find that interesting! (Mother laughs) I find it VERY interesting.

And what's more, this morning Sri Aurobindo said to me, “Today he will tell you something that will explain your experiences to you.” So that's what has happened. It's not a mental explanation, you understand – these things are SEEN.

He was here again just now and told me (how shall I put it?)... something like: he receives well, as though he were dictating a lot of things to you.

It's very good, I am quite pleased! (Mother laughs)

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A little later:

If I could tell all I've seen when I remember it in the morning, it would fill hundreds and hundreds of volumes. And in fact, it would shed some light.

I have never stopped seeing things. Now I see both day and night, it makes no difference, although I don't see the same things or do the same work at night as during the day. But all the work is always expressed through visions (I also hear and remember words, but that's secondary): ideas are expressed as images, and wills are expressed as actions. And it all makes a sort of life – a life in other worlds, different worlds.

¹ In the Alipore jail: “I was mentally subjected to all sorts of torture for fifteen days. I had to look upon scenes of all sorts of suffering....” (See A.B. Purani, Life of Sri Aurobindo, p. 122.)

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