They've asked me for a “message to the stars.” Then, “Do you have a message for the Christmas
issue1 on the new man?”The Mother
Agenda
Volume 7
August 10, 1966
They've asked me for a “message to the stars.” Then, “Do you have a message for the Christmas
issue1 on the new man?”
They asked me, “What message can we send? It will take two hundred years to reach its destination”: the message sent from here reaches the star two hundred years later. But, of course, there's nothing to say that they'll understand French or English on the star! It's actually clear that they won't understand it.... They want to send signals such as “= 1,” and they say they will understand – they'll understand that we are intelligent beings! (Mother laughs ironically)
I don't remember the message I gave them.
But a message for the new man... What am I going to tell them?... Whatever is the new man? Do YOU know what the new man is?... Man is always new!
It won't be an intelligent man.
Well, so much the better!
So much the better.
We could say: the return to instinct and impulses, but they will be divine impulses.
Then another progress (which would be a true progress) would be the silent communication of consciousnesses, wordless. That would be lovely: a little silence.
(silence)
Last time2 I realized that I hadn't had such a silent contemplation for months, maybe, I am so overwhelmed with work – work which consists in writing birthday cards, signing, seeing people.... On Monday, in the afternoon, I saw thirteen “birthdays”; yesterday there were twelve of them; tomorrow, there will be another twelve.... You understand, the number of people is increasing, and they come from everywhere; some even come from Africa for their birthdays.... That makes about two thousand a year, which is how many a day?
A Polytechnician3 came here with R. [the architect of the future Auroville]. There were nine who came with R.; among them is a Polytechnician who sent me a note asking, “Are you God?”
I had seen the man two days earlier: he is very fine. If I hadn't seen him I wouldn't have answered, but as I saw him and he happens to be fine, I suspected from the way he asked the question that he must be a-gentleman-born-in-a-Catholic-family. So I answered, “This question may be asked of EVERY human being, and the answer is, yes, potentially.” And out of consideration for his goodwill, I added (I don't remember the exact words): “This is the task everyone must accomplish.”
Since then, he has been quite silent.
Another one is Communist. He is a Russian who lives in Paris. He asked me if all the Auroville workers shouldn't meet and “talk over” (Mother laughs) the necessity of a “moral conduct”! (I have heard he keeps them all talking away till 3 in the morning.) So I answered him (laughing) that morality has only a very relative value from the standpoint of the Truth; that it changes with countries, climates and ages! I also told him that discussions were generally sterile and nonproductive. And so as not to be only critical, I answered him that if everyone made an effort to be perfectly sincere, straightforward and goodwilled, that would be enough to create quite a sufficient base to work on.... The poor fellow!...
How about you, how are you?... What do we do?... Like last time [= meditation]? But that's dangerous! I no longer knew what the time was or anything at all.
What did you feel, last time?
I always feel a great, quiet immensity – it's the country of origin.
Yes, it was... Nothing existed anymore, except a luminous, limitless immensity; but peculiarly it was glittering: there was a diamondlike twinkling, like millions of bright, very bright little diamonds, oh, sparkling! They were in an immensity of dazzling light, and yet they were sparkling. And then a peace, a rest... a sort of peaceful bliss, and the feeling that that way, you can live.
No time: the notion of time had disappeared.
I hadn't had that in a long time.
(Mother goes into contemplation)
It's very amusing: you have here (gesture to chest level), like this, a big lotus bud bowing down (gesture turned downward), and surrounded by a sparkle of golden light, then by another row of light; there are three, four, five rows of light of different colors. It's here (same gesture), like this, bowing down.
(Mother resumes her contemplation)
Plenty of people (I think it's those who are usually called intellectuals) cannot distinguish thought from consciousness: if they don't think, they are unconscious! (That's the sequel to what I told you just before about the new man.) To them, consciousness always means words. That's odd....
It's still a long, long way to the new man.4
1 Of the magazine called “= 1.”
2 During the last conversation, Mother went into a deep trance, quite oblivious of the time.
3 An engineer from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.
4 After Satprem had left, Mother remained silent for a long time, then turned to Sujata and told her, “Strange, very strange, I've never seen a lotus bud bowing down.” Then, as Sujata looked at her without understanding, Mother added, “The heart lotus is always turned upward; it's the aspiration. Here, it bows down towards the earth.”