The Mother

Agenda

Volume 5

October 21, 1964

On the 18th, I had an interesting experience. It was the doctor's birthday and I gave him a meditation, and after the meditation, he asked me to write for him what I had seen during the meditation. I had no intention of doing so, but an hour later, that is, at lunch time...

To be clear, I should tell the whole story from the beginning.

Before the meditation, I told him, “You will let me know when you have finished – I don't want to let you know.” So I finished what I had to do, then I took a look and said to myself, “Let's see now, let's try.” And I simply made a formation and put it on him, saying, “Now, it's over.” Then I didn't move, I stayed very quiet. It took about half a minute, even less; he opened his eyes, and then it was over. But when I saw him again at lunchtime, I asked him, “When you indicated to me it was over, what did you feel?” He told me, “I felt (Mother laughs) the Force was going, so I thought it was over...” Well, his answer showed me the exact difference.... He should hew felt. “Mother is calling me, Mother is telling me it's over,” but he felt the Force was going.

Then, as he saw I was talking to him, he took the opportunity to ask me, “I would really like to have visions.” I answered him all that had to be answered, and I told him that, in the last analysis, it's only the Lord who decides when we should have visions, when we shouldn't have them, when we are making progress, when we aren't, and so on. Then, in the most hypocritical tone (laughing), like someone who says something to be polite but doesn't believe a word of it, he said, “Oh, then we are indeed fortunate, because we have the Lord among us.” I pretended to believe he was sincere, and I answered him, “No, no, no! You can't say that, it's not possible – I AM NOT the Lord!” And I explained a little the consciousness I have of the Lord, I said, “You shouldn't think I am the Lord...” (in my thought, it was: “I am not the Lord as YOU imagine Him”), “because if I were the Lord (Mother smiles, amused), you would have visions and you would be cured.”

This took place around 11:30. In the afternoon, usually I take my bath and stretch out a little, a good while, over there. I said to the Lord, “And after all, why (laughing) can't I do something for people like this who are really nice? Why can't I work miracles?” I asked Him this half seriously, half in jest. Then all of a sudden, it became very serious. All of a sudden, the Presence was very intense and it was very serious. Then I felt something that said in an absolutely positive way (it was translated into words), “You MUST NOT have powers.” And the total understanding.

You must not have powers.

And it was a world of... Incidents of this kind bring about a world of parallels, of experiences and so on. So I began writing (it came, as always, through successive “sedimentations”). The first sedimentation gave this:

If you approach me in the hope of obtaining favours, you will be frustrated, because I have no powers at my disposal.

It came in French too:

“Ceux qui s'approchent de moi avec l'intention d'obtenir des faveurs seront déçus, parce que je ne dispose pas de pouvoirs.”

But the true version is this one (I replaced s'approchent with viennent and dispose with détiens, and I put the present tense), it's from the last sedimentation:

“Ceux qui viennent a moi avec l'intention d'obtenir des faveurs sont déçus, parce que je ne détiens pas de pouvoirs.”¹

And what's almost fantastic is that a whole ARMY OF ADVERSE FORCES WERE REDUCED TO SILENCE – immediately. And the atmosphere was clarified, relieved.

Then, taking a good look, I understood that it is that mixture in people's thoughts, in people's feelings, in their approach to spiritual life, which is catastrophic – they always “want” something, they always “demand” something, they always “expect” something. In fact, it's a perpetual bargaining. It's not the need to give yourself, not the need to melt into the Divine, to disappear into the Divine – no: they try to take, to obtain what they want.

And for several hours (it lasted several hours, from that moment till night) the atmosphere was clear, light, luminous – and my body, my body was in such joy! As if it were floating in the air.

Afterwards, everything came back – not “everything”: something didn't come back, which was definitely settled, but one part of the attacks was clarified.

It was so concrete! I have never felt it so concretely, something seemed to have been completely swept away.

But how is your renouncing or your having no powers sufficient to sweep the adverse forces away?

No, it's the fact that I ANNOUNCED it.

That you announced it?

No powers – I knew very well I had no powers! And I couldn't have cared less because I understood perfectly well that what is being attempted now isn't miraculous events at all, but the LOGICAL and normal and inevitable CONSEQUENCE of the supramental transformation – that is the whole point. That I know and knew, and that's why I didn't even bother about powers; anyway it hadn't even remotely occurred to me that I might work a miracle for the doctor or for this or that other person who approaches me – I didn't think about it, it didn't enter my consciousness. Only, on the 18th, through that occasion it entered my consciousness, and so I asked the question to find out why I never thought about it: “Why?” And I was positively told: “You MUST NOT wield powers, because that's not the way things should be done.”

I do understand, but...

But there was a whole mass of adverse forces (I saw all sorts of things, I don't want to go into details) that were trying to PREVENT me from declaring it. And I had to make an effort (Mother makes a gesture of driving back an obstructing mass)... not an effort to fight, but an effort to overcome something, as when you are hemmed in, an effort to break a shell so as to be able to proclaim it. And the minute I did that, the minute I took my paper and started writing – pfft! it all went, as if swept away!... That, yes, that I understand! That's the Lord's Power. No intermediate power can do that – it was a splendor, you know! As if all of a sudden the physical world had become a solar world, splendid and radiant, and so light, so harmonious! It was a marvel. For hours.

And it made me understand that one of the most considerable obstacles is that deviation of aspiration into a thirst for something. But who doesn't deviate?... You see, I always start by looking at myself and at all that I know of this being's conscious life (that's my first observation), and all the images come; well, the self-offering, the perfectly pure aspiration that doesn't expect any result – absolutely free from the slightest idea of result – the aspiration in its essential purity... that's not frequent. It's not frequent.

Now the conditions are totally different, but I see the mass of aspirations, of approaches, and I always compare with my attitude towards Sri Aurobindo at that time, when it was he who, to me, represented the Intermediary; well, I understand... I understand that the absolutely pure thing, that is, free of all mixture with the ego consciousness (it's the ego consciousness), free of all mixture with the ego consciousness, is... it's still rare.

And it's this mixture with the ego consciousness (I am speaking here not from the personal, but from the general standpoint) that, when the words were written, was swept away by something as powerful as a hurricane, without the violence of a hurricane – scattered, dissolved, swept away! All those things that were pressing, against which I constantly had to strive in order to move on – swept away! And they didn't come back completely.

That state didn't remain (that state was a state of Victory). But things haven't come back as they were, and they will never come back as they were. Something has really been clarified. And it isn't a personal, individual question: it's something general.

(Mother starts making a fair copy of the last “sedimentation”:)

You understand, the word “favor” is deliberate. It's quite deliberate, it really means a favor – to be helped in making the necessary progress is all very well, but what they want is the result WITHOUT HAVING TO WALK THE PATH, and that's what is impossible, that's what must not be.

Basically, that's always what men ask of religions; the “God” of religion is a god who must do them favors: “I believe in You, therefore You must do this for me” (it isn't formulated so bluntly, but it is like that), It isn't the aspiration to be guided on the path in order to do exactly what should be done for the Transformation to take place. And that's what I was clearly told: “It MUST NOT be miraculous powers.” The power of the Help is there, fully, of course, but the miraculous power that does things without their being the result of a progress achieved, that must not be.

(Mother goes on copying her note)

And I replaced the future tense with the present, deliberately too, because it isn't something new: it has always been that way; it isn't that I now announce they will be disappointed – they have always been disappointed. And asserting this fact is what had the power of dispelling a whole mass of formations: not only formations of beings of the vital or hostile beings, but the false mental formations of human beings.

And here, I wrote: Je ne détiens pas de pouvoirs [“I possess no powers”], which is better than Je ne dispose pas de pouvoirs [“I have no powers at my disposal”]. I had chosen the word dispose in French (chosen, I mean, not mentally), but the word dispose came along with the meaning that the power wasn't at my disposal – there is a nuance. I mean that if, by some aberration (it would really be an aberration), if by some aberration I had the desire to work a miracle, I wouldn't be able to – it would be contrary to the supreme Will. It isn't that I am deliberately making the choice, “No, I won't work miracles” – I can't, that's not the way, it MUST NOT be like that.

You'll have a lot of difficulty driving that into people's heads!

Oh, but there has been a dreadful revolt in the Ashram's atmosphere! Not in their conscious mind, but in the subconscient – a terrible revolt. In order to write down my declaration, in order to formulate it, I had to overcome a whole mass of things, it was extraordinary! There have even been individual reactions: “Then I am going away.” I said, “Very well, here is the exact proof.”

It was interesting.

The doctor himself received it as a blow – he was trembling inside.

No, what should be asked, since we're always asking for something, is for the substance to become conscious enough to receive the Force and itself work its own “miracle,” get cured, or this or that, anyway do the work.

Yes, it mustn't be a “favor.” “Give me the Force to be what I should be,” that, yes.

What triggered the whole experience (I forgot to tell you this), when I asked the Lord, “Why? Why couldn't I do something for these people who are really nice?” is that that story of the past came back, when Sri Aurobindo told me, “You are doing a work of the Overmind, you will work miracles that will fill the world with admiration...” and so on, I told you the story. It came back massively, exactly the same thing: “That is not the truth we want....” And that's also why I stopped all those pujas of the Mother in October-November, because they all used to come with the idea of getting something: miracles, miracles, miracles – never for the True Thing. And that's what they expect of God, of course, miracles or favors, illogical and unreasonable things, instead of wanting the Divine's progressive advance.

Obviously, that's more difficult.

¹ A literal translation into English of these two French versions gives: “Those who approach me with the intention of obtaining favors will be disappointed, because I have no powers at my disposal.” “Those who come to me with the intention of obtaining favors are disappointed, because I possess no powers.”

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