The Mother

Agenda

Volume 6

December 31, 1965

(About Satprem's recent letter to Mother:)

Have you received my answer? (Mother makes a gesture of mental communication) No? I talked to you a great deal, a very great deal.

I have a feeling of having seen you several times these last two nights, but... I was always trying to set up the tape recorder to record what you were telling me, but it wasn't working!

(Mother laughs, then after a silence) Don't you really feel where your difficulty is?... It's a lack of satisfaction, no? What's called in English frustration, something that's disappointed.

Yes, but that's just one way of putting it. Another way would be, “Something unaccomplished.”

Yes, but “something unaccomplished” is a feeling one has and must have till the realization, till the transformation. It's not only natural but indispensable, because those who feel accomplished or satisfied, it's over for them, they will never move on again.

Yes, of course.

This sort of longing, this feeling of something lacking – something you want, which is lacking – the farther you go, the more it increases.

Yes, but that's not exactly the point.... I don't know where I stand, I don't know on which road I am. I don't know, I know nothing at all!

But that's wonderful, mon petit! It means you have emerged from mental formations.

It's mental formations that say, “You are on this road” or “You are at that point of the realization” or... For me, that's deplorable! When one is in that, one is still buried in mentality.

Yes, but insofar as one is going somewhere...

But do you know exactly where you are going?

No, of course not, but...

No one, mon petit! No one, not me either. And it's good not to know.

I understand very well, I'm not asking to know where I am going, but what I am asking, what I'd like to know, is that I AM going, that I am making headway. There's no sign, you understand, not a single sign. It's like going somewhere in a train in which all the curtains had been pulled down – the train might be going along or might not, there's no telling, but there's no sign to show that you ARE going towards this somewhere, which I am not defining.... That's why I haven't the faintest idea of where I stand, of what I am doing.

You know (shall I be frank?), it's purely a vital dissatisfaction. And I know that, because it has been (how can I put it?) my great difficulty with you. It was a hundred, a thousand times more violent formerly; now it's beginning to calm down. It's a vital that's very intense in its desires (which may not be ordinary desires at all), but with a sort of almost aggressive intensity, and... essentially dissatisfied. It was very, very strong before, years ago; now it has quieted down. But every time the vital comes into play (and one is obliged to let the vital play because of the physical health; one can't “calm” it down totally because that would make the physical body suffer), it's like that.... It gives me, if you like, the impression of a cat's vital! Cats have a wonderful vital (laughing), far, far more clever and intense than human beings have, but the cat claws, you know, and the feeling is: “I'm not happy, that's that. I'm not happy”! (Mother laughs)

No, but for instance, the first years when I was here, almost every night I had a sort of sign that I was moving along,¹ making headway – trifling signs, nothing to speak of: a car taking me along, a walk in a mountain, mere nothings, but they were telling me, “Oh, good, I'm getting on. It's all right, I'm moving along.” But for years now, not only have I had no sign, but all I see is negative things: I see pits, I see accidents, I see infernos, I see... But I never see a sign telling me, “Oh, yes, I'm making headway. It's all right, I'm getting along” – not that, never. So am I making headway? I don't know. What I am asking for is an encouragement, just a little gesture telling me, “Yes, you're getting along, it's all right. You're getting along, don't fret.”

But what do you call a “gesture”?

A sign.

And what do you call a “sign”?... Well, I think you have some trust in me, and if I tell you that you're not only progressing but progressing very fast, does it have no effect on you? You'll tell me, “Prove it.” – I can't prove it to you, it's something I see, it's what I know.

But I'd like to have some GLIMPSE of my progress. I am not asking for much, just something once in a while telling me, “Well, don't fret, you're moving along,” whereas I always see the darker side, I always see pits, infernos, sewers. So why shouldn't there be from time to time a little light, a pretty landscape?

(Mother laughs) But are you sure you never see any?

Well, I have no trace of it, at any rate. I have traces of infernos all the time, yes, but never the other side, not a trace.

Do you mean night activities?

Yes, I'm talking about night activities. I'm not going so far as to ask for activities with open eyes, I am asking for at least a sign at night. In daytime, there's nothing, that's been understood for a long time.... And it's not dissatisfaction, it's... yes, a need to know that one is making headway, that's all!

But I am telling you you're making headway and it's not enough for you! You are talking of a “need to know,” but what you're asking me for is proof.

It's not proof. When you tell me, “You're making headway,” my mind understands, but...

Then it's your vital. That's what I am telling you. And I insist on this point: your vital has had to be kept under control, because... well, because of its nature. And as for it, of course, it will say, “All that isn't what I want, I have no proof of any progress.”

Haven't you any sign of a psychic presence in you?

[After a silence] For years I've had a feeling (it's a feeling, not a vision), the feeling of a great expanse of light, there, and that when I remain silent long enough, I am peaceful, tranquil, there, and it's for eternity. Well, all right, that's there, always.

But mon petit, that's wonderful!

But it's always been there, it's nothing new!

Yes, but there are people who have that for one minute in their life and consider it a wonderful realization.

And it's always there – I know very well it's always there! I know it, to me it's a palpable fact.

Yes.

No, I assure you, you can believe me (Mother laughs), I have a little experience: it's done. To put it poetically, “Your head is in the Light.” But your vital doesn't want this manifestation; your vital wanted a vital manifestation, as for instance when it was in the virgin forest, chopping trees down: it wanted to have the sense of the power of life. And that has been denied to it (for yogic AND material reasons, both extremes, because the body wasn't made for that, and because [laughing] the yoga has no time to waste with that), so Mister Vital is furious! It has been told, “Calm down, be at peace, quite at peace, it's all right, you too will have your joy, but... once you are transformed.” And it may be less pugnacious or rebellious or aggressive than before, but it's dissatisfied, so it's what gives you the feeling, “But I have no sign that I'm making headway! I have no sign that I am progressing. Quite the contrary! Quite the contrary, it's more and more dull, more and more morose, more and more ordinary, that is to say, less and less consonant with my ideal, and my ideal...”

That's not exactly the point.... Yes, when it's in one of its fits, it's like that, but...

(Mother takes Satprem's hands) To me, you are still very small and very young, you know.

So tell me what you want to say.

To say?

You started saying something, you said, “That's not quite the point...” (laughing) naturally!

I don't know. It always revolves around this problem of vision. If I had a beautiful vision from time to time... Once – look, once, in Ceylon (it was the only time in my life), I heard Music, it was... marvelous, it was truly divine. Well, to me, that's a sign (it happened once in my life), I say to myself, “Oh, good, I'm not far, there's something.” To me that's a sign. Or if I see a beautiful light or... Then I am encouraged, I think, “All right, it's going well.” I can descend into hell after that. After that I may do all sorts of absurd things, but I tell myself, “At least I know I am moving towards that.” Well, no! You see, it happens once in ten years. Of course, the vital seizes on it and turns it into dissatisfaction, but otherwise, in my normal reason, I simply say, “What's going on? I don't know.” I am nowhere, I am waiting.

But so am I, mon petit, I am waiting – I am millions of years old and I am waiting.

All these last days I have been precisely in the state you are describing, in which one says, “But where, where is the concrete proof that all this is going to change?” Things are really not pretty to look at – where is it, the concrete proof? And what comes to me is always this, the most severe test I could have been given: Sri Aurobindo's departure. Because Sri Aurobindo used to speak as if he wasn't going to go. And it's something that comes and says, “See, it's all dreams for thousands of years hence.” And it comes back again and again and again (hammering gesture); so then it's like a sword of Light, inviolable: a Certitude.

Then you no longer ask – you no longer say, no longer ask anything. You have the patience of faith: “When You want it, well, it will be.” But as for me, I don't budge, I stay like this (gesture turned to the heights): the inviolable light.

Of course, all the outward events come and belie this. In spite of the inner transformation (which is a sure fact, one has proof of it every second), yet the body keeps its habit of deterioration. And just when you think that things are improving (to give you, as you say, proof that you are making progress), something comes along as if to prove to you that it's all an illusion! And it's growing more and more acute, more and more acute. There is always a Voice (which I know very well, it's the voice of the adverse forces tempting you), which comes and tells you (same hammering gesture), “See, see how mistaken you are, see how you delude yourself, see what a mirage it all is, see...” And then if you listen, you're done for. It's very simple: everything is done for.

You just have to put your fingers in your ears, shut your eyes and keep holding tight up above.

Well, since Sri Aurobindo left, that's what has been coming again and again (same hammering gesture), and, you know, more cruel than all human tortures and all the cruelty ever imagined. It's something frightfully cruel, and with all the viciousness of cruelty, and back it comes (same gesture). Every time the being opens out in a joy of certitude (same gesture) - “Calm down....”

That's where, of course, I say that this realization isn't meant for weak beings – it's meant for the stronger. And then, you are ashamed of what's weak in yourself, and you offer it, saying, “Free me from my weakness.” One has to be terribly strong to do that – the strength of endurance untroubled by anything. It's like a perfection of malice which is there, forever saying (same gesture), “You are mistaken, it's not possible, you are mistaken, it's not possible....” And then, “Look, here is proof of the truth of what I am telling you: Sri Aurobindo, he who knew, left.” And if you listen and believe in it, you're absolutely done for. You're quite simply done for. And that's what they want. Only... they must not succeed, we must hold on. For how many years now (hammering gesture)?... Fifteen years, mon petit – for fifteen years (same gesture). Not a single day passes without attacks of that sort, not a single night passes without... You say you see horrors – mon petit, your horrors must be something quite charming in comparison with the horrors I have seen! I don't think one human being can bear the sight of what I have seen. And it's shown to me as if to tell me that all my “ambitions,” all of them, are mad. So then, I have only one answer, “Lord, You are everywhere, You are in everything, and it's for us to see You through everything.”

Then... it calms down.

I told you, and I told you neither to make you happy nor to comfort you, I told you because it's a fact I have myself observed with curiosity and interest: we are extremely close up above in the profound intellectual understanding and in the Great Light. And this is expressed by an identity of experience in the intellectual consciousness. I am aware of your difficulties, I know them, I've known them since the first day I saw you (and even before you came here); from that point of view there has been great progress, but it has shaken your physical health, because of that struggle. I know that you can be completely cured, but in order for you to be completely cured, your vital must be converted, and what I call “to be converted” isn't to surrender – to be converted is to understand. To be converted is to adhere.

(Satprem lays his head on Mother's knees)

¹ The “surprising fact” is that in the first years Satprem did have many experiences of all kinds, with quite conscious nights from the point of leaving his body. Then all those experiences suddenly stopped, as if he had been deliberately shut in his body, with no way out. It took him a long time to accept that this was a “yoga in the body.”

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