The Mother

Agenda

Volume 5

February 5, 1964

Something strange has happened – very, very strange, it's the first time such a thing has happened to me.

G. brought back from Paris a book, an album – an album of photographs. On one side of the book there is a photograph, and on the other a facsimile of the handwriting probably of well-known authors, poets, writers, and so on – I didn't read that. A facsimile and a photograph. They call it Dream Paris!... (Mother raises her eyes heavenwards)

The photos attempt to be very artistic. They are taken from quite unusual angles and some are very fine. On the whole, a little vulgar: too many people kissing, socks hanging in the sun – they confuse the artistic with the uncommon, the unconventional. To be unconventional is very good, but still it could be directed towards the Beautiful rather than... Anyway. I was looking at the book, turning the pages, and while looking I thought, “Well, really, someone who doesn't know Paris at all would get a queer idea of it!” There isn't one single picture that makes you say, “Oh, that's beautiful,” except a view of the Seine and also... a few trees, which could as well be in the countryside. And I kept turning and turning the pages. Suddenly I saw (I had my magnifying glass to see better) a view of the banks of the Seine with the boxes of those... what are they called?

The bouquinistes.¹

Bouquinistes, that's right. A bouquiniste.

The album was big and the photo also was this big (gesture).

That photograph was clearer than the others, less confused – it was clearer. And I looked at all the details, thinking, “A pity the boxes weren't open, the books could have been seen, it would have looked better.” In other words, I looked at the photo attentively and saw all the details, the different intensities of shade and light: it wasn't just a passing glance. Then I went on looking up to the end of the book and gave it to someone to look at. Naturally, the first thing that someone said to me was, “You don't quite get an impression of Paris.” I said, “True, but there was one photo that gave a very good impression of Paris: that of the bouquinistes on the banks of the Seine.” He looked surprised; so I said, “Of course!” I took the book and started turning the pages. I turned all the pages – my photo wasn't there! So I thought, “I've missed it” (I was looking without my magnifying glass), “I must have missed it.” I took my magnifying glass, turned all the pages starting from the other end, very carefully – nothing! No bouquinistes. I turned the pages a third time (Mother laughs), still no bouquinistes! I said to myself, “There's an aberration somewhere... something that makes me turn two pages at a time or that veils my sight.” So I said, “All right, I'll look tomorrow morning,” and I put the book aside.

The next morning I was alone, concentrating – I concentrated a lot, saying to myself, “I do not want to be under an illusion, I do not want to be fooled by something....” I had seen the photo as clearly as... I saw it, I looked at it for several MINUTES. Which is to say that I am absolutely sure of what I saw.

I looked through the book one, two, three times – nothing. So I thought, “It's not possible, a spell has been cast!” A. was coming that morning. “When A. comes, I'll ask him to look for it.” So I told him, “Look for it.” He did find bouquinistes, but not like in my photograph, and then I had seen it on this side of the book, while his was on the other side; and I knew his photo quite well (I knew my album by heart, you understand!), it wasn't the same at all, there weren't any bouquinistes, only closed boxes. So it didn't look like much, and moreover it was on the other side of the book.

And it wasn't an “animated view,” it wasn't a vision: it was a PHOTO, just like the other photos, the same color as the other photos – a photo which I even studied critically as a photo for the way it was taken. It doesn't exist!

It must exist somewhere.

Maybe they intended to include it in the book but didn't? Maybe the photo is with the book's publisher? But the photo exists, I saw it materially with these eyes (Mother touches her eyes) and a magnifying glass. Anyway... But it isn't in the book.²

(silence)

Some time ago, I was saying to myself, “Some people see physical things at a distance, but I have never seen anything of the sort.” I have seen things in the subtle physical (very close to the physical, with a very small difference), but that wasn't a physical vision: it was a vision in the subtle physical. Some time ago I said to myself, “That's odd, physically I have no special capacities, I have never observed interesting phenomena!” (Mother laughs) But that was in passing. And now this story! But, mon petit, it took me forty-eight hours to be convinced that it wasn't in the book! I haven't yet got over it! Because my eyes have the eyes' memory, a very precise memory; they were educated by painting and they see things very exactly as they are (well, as they pretend to be materially). You know, I could have sworn that it was in the book. And clearly it isn't. Four people, apart from me, have seen the book, and it's not there!

I found that interesting, it's new.

They intended to publish it.

Possibly.

And then, probably, the photo was found to be one too many and they left it out – something like that. But the photo certainly EXISTS somewhere.

And it exists in connection with this book.

I wasn't in a special state when I saw it. But the second time, in the morning, when I looked at it, I was in a very special state: there was a tension in all the physical cells to know the truth, the truth, the truth... no illusions, and a call to the Lord, and a will for all this world of illusions to disappear – the Truth, we want the Truth. And when I opened the book, there was a great call to the Lord for things to be exactly as they are – not “as they are,” but as they are according to the Truth. But the photo wasn't there!

It gave me an extraordinary intensity of aspiration in the body. I spent a part of the night in that tension: may all those illusions disappear, may there be only something wholly true, true, true... ESSENTIALLY true, not what people are in the habit of calling “true” – one shouldn't confuse the real with the true (in this regard the body has made great progress!). But the photo isn't there.

I thought it was perhaps the beginning of a new series of experiences.

There is an experience I have more or less constantly, it is to know exactly when someone is going to enter (the person and the minute when he enters), and to know exactly when the clock is going to strike, BEFORE the sound comes out. It began long ago, months ago, but it's growing more and more established, constant... and total.

But that's nothing! It's convenient, but it's nothing.

I'll have to find the way to organize this new type of experience and make use of it – but I need to know how it comes about! Because when I was looking at those pictures, I wasn't at all in a special state, I was looking at them somewhat superficially – I was finding them... hm!... I saw their effort to be “artistic” and I found the perspectives from which the photos were taken interesting, but that's all. The subjects... except for the angler (there were more than four anglers in the book, mon petit!) and people sleeping in the street, things of that sort. And then people kissing everywhere: on chairs, on the banks of the Seine, on benches, in swings in amusement parks. And rather vulgar. But the photos, the patches of light and shade – well taken. I didn't want to tire my eyes reading those people's literature, but it must be very “modern” probably – there were some authors' signatures...! The signature alone was the portrait of the individual: pretentious, affected....

The atmosphere of Paris is unbreathable. When I returned to France, first I fell sick, and then that atmosphere...

Horrible.

Unbreathable. You need to be armor-plated to be able to live there.

Yes, so as not to feel. A great corruption. And spinelessness, cynicism....

It's plain that they can live only thanks to their nonreceptivity. If they were receptive, they couldn't stay there!

Exactly.

That's right! That angler... you need to be an enthusiast to fish in the Seine! (Mother laughs) You see boats passing by in black smoke and the chap unruffled with his fishing rod.... That's it: shut up in his dream – “Dream Paris”!... He must be thinking he is sitting by a little brook in the middle of the countryside.

*
*   *

(A little later, Mother again takes up Sri Aurobindo's aphorisms for the next “Bulletin”:)

96 – Experience in thy soul the truth of the scripture; afterwards, if thou wilt, reason and state thy experience intellectually and even then distrust thy statement; but distrust never thy experience.

It doesn't require any explanations.

That is to say, to children you should explain that WHATEVER the statement, WHATEVER the Scripture, they are always a step-down from the experience, they are always inferior to the experience.

Some people need to know this!

97 – When thou affirmest thy soul-experience and deniest the different soul-experience of another, know that God is making a fool of thee. Dost thou not hear His self-delighted laughter behind thy soul's curtains?

Oh, it's charming!

You can only comment with a smile: “Never doubt your experience, for your experience is the truth of your being, but do not imagine that truth to be universal; and basing yourself on that truth, do not deny the truth of another, for everyone's experience is the truth of his being. A total Truth could only be the totality of all those individual truths... plus the experience of the Lord Himself!”

98 – Revelation is the direct sight, the direct hearing or inspired memory of Truth, drishti, shruti, smriti; it is the highest experience and always accessible to renewed experience. Not because God spoke it, but because the soul saw it, is the word of the Scriptures our supreme authority.

I presume this is in reply to the biblical belief in “God's Commandments” received by Moses, which the Lord is supposed to have uttered Himself and Moses is supposed to have heard – it's a roundabout way... (Mother laughs) to say it's not possible!

“The supreme authority because the soul saw it,” but it can be a supreme authority ONLY for the soul that saw it, not for all souls. For the soul that had that experience and saw it, it's a supreme authority – but not for other souls.

That's one of the things that made me think when I was quite a small child, those twelve “commandments,” which, besides, are extraordinarily banal: “Love thy father and mother.... Thou shalt not kill....” Sickeningly banal. And Moses climbed up Sinai to hear that....

Much ado about nothing!

Yes, that's always the feeling it gave me.

Now, I don't know if Sri Aurobindo had in mind the Indian Scriptures.... The Upanishads, then? Or the Vedas – but no, the Vedas were oral.

They BECAME Scriptures.

With God knows what distortion....

Not too much, since they were repeated with all the intonations. Among all the Scriptures, they're probably the least distorted.

There were Chinese Scriptures, too....

But more and more, my experience is that revelation (it comes, of course), revelation is a thing that can be applied universally, but which, in its form, is always personal – always personal.

It's as if you saw the Truth from one ANGLE. The minute it's put into words, it is necessarily, inevitably one angle.

You have the experience, without words or thoughts, of a sort of vibration that gives you a sense of absolute truth, and then if you stay very still, without trying to know anything, after a time it seems to go through a filter and is translated into a kind of idea. Then that idea (which is still somewhat hazy, that is to say, quite general), if you remain very still, attentive and silent, goes through another filter, but then a sort of condensation occurs, like drops, and it turns into words.

But when you have the experience perfectly sincerely, that is, when you don't kid yourself, it's necessarily one single point, ONE WAY of putting it, that's all. And it can only be that. There is, besides, the very obvious observation that when you habitually use a certain language, the experience expresses itself in that language: for me, it always comes either in English or in French; it doesn't come in Chinese or Japanese! The words are necessarily English or French, with sometimes a Sanskrit word, but that's because physically I learned Sanskrit. Otherwise, I heard (not physically) Sanskrit uttered by another being, but it doesn't crystallize, it remains hazy, and when I return to a completely material consciousness, I remember a certain vague sound, but not a precise word. Therefore, the minute it is formulated, it's ALWAYS an individual angle.

It takes a sort of VERY AUSTERE sincerity. You are carried away by enthusiasm because the experience brings an extraordinary power, the Power is there – it's there before the words, it diminishes with the words – the Power is there, and with that Power you feel very universal, you feel, “It's a universal Revelation.” True, it is a universal revelation, but once you say it with words, it's no longer universal: it's only applicable to those brains built to understand that particular way of saying it. The Force is behind, but one has to go beyond the words.

(silence)

They come more and more often, those things that I scribble on a slip of paper, and they always follow the same process: first, always a sort of explosion – like the explosion of a power of truth; it makes great dazzling white fireworks... (Mother smiles), much more than fireworks! Then it rolls and rolls (gesture above the head), it works and works; and then comes the impression of an idea (but the idea is lower down, it's like clothing), and the idea contains its sensation, it brings the sensation along with it – the sensation was there before, but without any idea, so you couldn't define it. There is only one thing: it's always the explosion of a luminous Power. Then, afterwards, if you look at it while remaining very still, while above all the head keeps quiet – everything keeps quiet (gesture of a stillness turned upward) – then, all of a sudden, somebody speaks in your head (!), somebody speaks. It's the explosion that speaks. Then I take a pencil and my paper, and I write. But between what speaks and what writes, there is still a difficult little passage, with the result that when I have written, something above isn't satisfied. So I again keep still: “Ah, no, not that word – this one” – sometimes it takes two days for the thing to be really definitive. But those who are satisfied with the power of the experience skimp it all and send you off into the world of sensational revelations, which are distortions of the Truth.

One must be very level-headed, very still, very critical – especially very still, silent, silent, silent, without trying to grab at the experience: “Ah, is it this? Ah, is it that?” Then one spoils it all. But one must look – look at it very attentively. And in the words, there is a remnant, something left of the original vibration (so little), something remains, something which makes you smile, which is pleasant, it bubbles... like a sparkling wine, and then here (Mother shows a word or a passage in an imaginary note), it's lackluster; so you look at it with your knowledge of the language or sense of the rhythm of the words, and you notice: “Here, a pebble” – the pebble must be removed; so then you wait, until suddenly it comes – plop! – it falls into place: the true word. If you are patient, after a day or two it becomes quite exact.

I have the feeling it has always been this way, but now it's a very normal, very common state; the difference is that, before, one was satisfied with an approximation (when I see again certain things written in that way, I realize that there is an approximation, that one was satisfied with an approximation), while now one is more level-headed, more reasonable – more patient, too. One waits until it has taken form.

In this connection, I have noticed another thing, that I no longer know in the same way the languages I know! It's very peculiar, especially for English.... There is a sort of instinct based on the rhythm of the words (I don't know where it comes from, maybe from the superconscient of the language) that lets you know whether a sentence is correct or not – it's not at all a mental knowledge, not at all (that's all gone, even the knowledge of spelling is completely gone!), but it's a sort of sense or feeling of the inner rhythm. I noticed this a few days ago: in the birthday cards, we put quotations (someone types the quotations, sometimes he makes mistakes), and there was a quotation from me (I didn't at all remember having written it or having thought it either). I saw it – it was in English – I saw it, and in one place it was as if you tripped: it wasn't correct. Then there came to me clearly, “Put this way and that way, the sentence would be correct.” (To say this mentalizes it too much: it's a sort of sensation, not a thought, but a sensation, like a sensation of the sound.) With the sentence written this way, the sound is correct; with the sentence written that other way, using the same words but reversing their order (as was the case), the sentence isn't correct, and to correct that sentence where the order of the words had been reversed, it was necessary to add a little word (in that case it was it), and then, with the sound it, the sentence became correct.... All sorts of things – if I were asked mentally, I would say, “I haven't the faintest idea!” It doesn't correspond to any knowledge. But so precise!... Extraordinary.

And I understood that this is the way of knowing a language. I always had it in French when I wrote – in the past it was less precise, more hazy, but there was the sense of the rhythm of a sentence: if the sentence has this rhythm, it's correct; if it's incorrect, the rhythm is missing. It was very vague, I had never tried to go deeper into it or make it more precise, but these last few days it has become very accurate. In English I find it more interesting, because, of course, English is less subconscious in my brain than French is (not much less, but a little less), and now it's instantaneous! And then so obvious, you know, that if the greatest scholar were to tell me, “No,” I would answer him, “You are wrong, it's like this.”

That's the remarkable thing, this knowledge is completely independent of outer, scholarly knowledge, completely, and it is ABSOLUTE, it doesn't tolerate discussion: “You may say whatever you like, you may tell me about grammar and dictionaries and usage.... This is the true way, and that's that.”

¹ Secondhand booksellers; on the banks of the Seine in Paris, their stalls consist of big wooden boxes.

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² See the end of this story in Agenda IX, May 22, 1968.

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