The Mother

Agenda

Volume 5

January 22, 1964

(Mother looks tired and seems to have a cold. First she quotes from memory a note she has written in English:)

The true purpose of life: to live for the Divine or to live for the Truth, or at least to live for one's soul....

That's the minimum.

And then:

And the true sincerity: to live for the Divine without expecting any benefit from Him in return.

I said this yesterday or the day before, because I was very angry with the Ashram people!... We are going through a very difficult period financially, and so, you know, people... they respect you only as long as you have money; when you have no more money, they don't respect you anymore – and they find it so self-evident, so natural! They don't even feel ill at ease, not at all: it's perfectly obvious that you respect someone only when he has money and holds you in his grip.

I wasn't happy, so I wrote this note.

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*   *

Then Mother shows another handwritten note:

It's prayers that come out from here (gesture to the heart center), like this, all of a sudden, unexpectedly – they come out all the time, but I found this one interesting. It was again after my bath (!). It often happens at that time....

“To be what You want me to be,
to do what You want me to do...

That was the beginning; then came the sensation, “What's this ridiculous ‘me’?” (It doesn't come from the vital or the mind, though, not at all: it comes from the body, it's the body's cells that suddenly ask themselves, “But what's this ‘me’?”) So the experience came, and it was very intense:

“To be You,
at every moment
the supreme Spontaneity.”

(silence)

Human beings always do a thing FOR something, with a goal, for a reason, from a motive; even spiritual life, even spiritual effort are FOR the progress of consciousness, FOR reaching the Truth, for... it's a vibration that always has a tail – a tail in front. And these cells have realized that if you can have the vibration without the tail, the power increases tenfold – “tenfold” is nothing! At times the difference is fantastic. And actually, when they said, “To be what You want ...,” it was a way of expressing a need they felt for that; but once it was expressed, they said, “What's this platitude! What's this ‘me’ poking its nose in!” Then, all of a sudden, came the True Vibration – the True Vibration, without cause and effect, which at every moment of the universe is total and absolute. And it was translated into: “To be You, Lord, at every moment the supreme Spontaneity.”

There was an extraordinarily dazzling light – which didn't last.

(silence)

So the conclusion (afterwards, naturally, when the whole thing had been seen and studied carefully), the conclusion is that the Lord has neither cause nor effect; and all that is is like those pulsations in my experience two years ago (or a year and a half ago, I don't remember – it was in April), the pulsations of Love bursting forth and creating the word, which followed one another but had neither cause nor effect: one pulsation wasn't the result of the one before or the cause of the one after – not at all – each one was a whole in itself.

Each moment of the Supreme is a whole in itself.

And “moment,” what does it mean? What does it correspond to in the truth of the Supreme? I don't know – for us, that's how it is translated, because everything is translated that way for us. All change is translated for us as the sense of time – ONE sense of time, a certain sense of time, which may be infinite and eternal, but is a time all the time. And for Him, the change is timeless. What is it? What does it correspond to? I don't know.

Because the consciousness [Mother's] is outside time and space, completely, and yet there is this...

(silence)

*
*   *

(Mother starts coughing)

Someone has given me a present: a head cold – a lavish present!

Who gave it to you?

(Laughing) He didn't do it purposely.

But it's a lesson. I could have been cured immediately (it was yesterday). At first, it met with the true consciousness and the true attitude (even in the body), and for hours it was under control. Then came the people who come every day, some in the morning and some in the afternoon (but it was in the afternoon, yesterday), with their truckloads of work – a truckload, you know, it's dumped as when a truck unloads, meaning they don't wait for one to be unloaded before bringing another: they throw it all together. So, all of a sudden, my nose started running, it was over – there was a tension. The Force that was there couldn't withstand it. In the night and this morning, it was brought under control again and could have gone away; then came the usual people with their usual truckloads (each his truckload, there are four of them); so, right in the middle of the work, again my nose started running. It's stupid, but anyway....

And always the same thing (the first vision was quite correct, I mean the vision of the cells was quite correct): it isn't something coming from outside, it's the impulse that comes from outside, it's the wrong vibration that comes from outside, and the difficulty is that you are unable to replace this wrong vibration or, rather, CANCEL it, with the True Vibration. That's what I had already said: the “proportion” isn't sufficient, so it takes time. I can understand that with a sufficient proportion of cells remaining in the True Vibration, the cure should be instantaneous, that is, the effect of the wrong vibrations should be canceled automatically. But I had seen the thing and spent almost an hour, three quarters of an hour [in concentration], and the little bit that had been affected (it was in the throat) was canceled – it didn't return. It was canceled. But after those three quarters of an hour, I had to resume my activities, see people, do things, take my bath, too (although the bath is always beneficial), and a sort of memory lingered.... And then, from three o'clock, a quarter to three, the invasion started: first one, then another, then two more, then a third, then... So all at once, because my attention had been DIVERTED to what I had to do (scores of answers to be written, of blessings to be sent, of problems to be resolved – all of it dumped on me), as my attention was diverted to that, naturally all at once I started sneezing and so forth – there was nothing to do but... go through it.

Still, for actions in this domain, actions of transformation, I don't say solitude because that's silly – there is no such thing as solitude – but peace is necessary, that is, the perfect control over the activity: the activity must be kept on a level where it doesn't interfere with the inner work – that's the point. That was why, in fact, I was forced (apparently) to remain upstairs, because downstairs it had become... it was infernal – infernal, no one can imagine! It's always the same principle: “Why not me?” And there are 1,300 of them, you understand... let alone the visitors who come in their hundreds (some days, there are more than 200 or 300 of them at one time); they hear that there is “someone worth seeing,” and when I was downstairs and one of the “circus showmen” ([laughing] excuse me!) came, he would bring a troop along.

Now, it's a little better, but it has become “Why not me?” Mother has seen such and such a category of people, therefore the entire category has a right to be seen!... The birthdays¹ too, it depends on the ages and occupations: if I see people of a certain age and occupation on their birthdays, all those of about the same age and similar occupation have a RIGHT to come – they have the right – and it is my DUTY to see them. And when I say that I don't have the time... they're upset.

It's a farce, you know! And that farce has been going on since 1929.

But when Sri Aurobindo was here, I only had to mention something to him and he would send word telling people they should keep quiet. (I found all that in his correspondence, I didn't know; how many times he wrote to people!) But afterwards... afterwards they all gloried in their “faithfulness,” because they stayed on at the Ashram and kept some sort of consideration for me! So naturally, I was supposed to be infinitely grateful to them – “We have been faithful to the Mother.”

At the time, I had all the money (as I did in Sri Aurobindo's time: he never took care of the money, he would hand everything over to me, and afterwards it went on as it was), and that keeps them a little quiet. But when I say, “I don't have any money, I can't pay,” then... That's “spiritual life” for you!

Now, according to what I have seen and tested (with “little tests” done casually), there are certainly – oh, being EXTREMELY generous, patient and (what shall I say?) merciful – there are a good third who are here only because they are comfortable: you work if you want to, you don't work if you don't want to, you always eat, you always have shelter and clothes, and, ultimately, you sort of do as you please (you must pretend to obey, that's all). And if you're denied a convenience, you start grumbling – Yoga is simply out of the picture! It's a hundred thousand miles away from their consciousness (their mouths are full of words, but it's only lip service). Sometimes you have a little scruple in order to appear to be doing some work. And some have grown very old or come here because they have become unfit for life outside... so we can't send them away! (It was wrong to accept them – I must say I have little to do with that acceptance: I'll say no, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they'll pretend they heard yes, but anyway... that's life.) So I can't send them away. But I am going to make life ascetic for them: one won't be here to be comfortable anymore – then for what?

Well, we'll see. We have started restrictions – oh, they're not very serious, but anyway...

¹ Mother receives certain disciples on their birthdays.

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