January 18, 1967The Mother
Agenda
Volume 8
January 18, 1967
(Satprem asks Mother what he should do with the text of the “instructions” of January 14 which Mother gave in the event of her going into a long period of trance.)
I am going to keep it. When I receive the command to circulate it, I'll circulate it.
(silence)
I have seen rather clearly that that trance depended on the ratio between two aspects, the proportion between two aspects: that of the individual transformation (that is, the transformation of this body), and that of the general, collective and impersonal work.
If a certain balance is kept, that state [of prolonged trance] may be dispensed with, but then the same work which would have been done in a few weeks or months (I don't know) will extend over years
– years and years. So it's a question of patience – patience isn't lacking. But it's not only a question of patience, it's a question of proportion: there must be a certain balance between the two, between the outside pressure of the external work (not “external,” the collective work), and the pressure on the body for its transformation. If wisdom is still there, that is, if the instrument is constantly and infallibly capable of doing exactly what is expected of it (to put it into words: the supreme Lord's precise will), then the trance might not be necessary. It would only be if out of ignorance there is a resistance in the execution.
That's how I feel.
This possibility of transformation in trance was announced to the body some... yes, about sixty years ago now, and periodically afterwards. And there has always been a prayer: “No, may it not be necessary: it's the method of laziness.” It's the method of inertia. Now all those preferences, all that is gone. There is only an increasingly alerted, awakened consciousness, but awakened to the point of being alerted to the possibility of unconscious resistances, with the will for them to disappear. All depends on the plasticity, the receptivity.
You understand, even if this body is told, “You will have to last a hundred or two hundred years for the work to be done without trance,” it says, “It's all the same to me.” All it wants is to be conscious. All it wants is, “Lord, to be conscious of Your consciousness,” nothing else. That's its sole, exclusive will: “To be conscious of Your consciousness,” that is, to consciously become You in another mode. But it isn't in a hurry, because it has no reason to be in a hurry.
You said just before (if I understood right) that that “state” may last for years. Were you referring to the state of trance?
No, that's not possible.
It's not possible.
No, it isn't.
The duration of that trance doesn't depend on outward conditions, on the preparation of the world, for instance?
I don't think so.
That's another possibility that came up in the past (but it's part of the vision of all possibilities – there are all kinds of possibilities). Once, there was that vision (I had it when Sri Aurobindo was here) of the whole town [of Pondicherry] engulfed by bombs, I think (I don't remember
now,1 but it wasn't lived: it was known as something that had happened), and the engulfing had caused a sort of burial very deep underground, in a grotto with a radiant atmosphere, so that the body had been preserved. Then I woke up two thousand years later. The experience started after those two thousand years: I saw how I had learned where I was and how I had come out of that grotto, how I had found out the number of years that had elapsed, and so on. All that happened one day and I told it to Sri Aurobindo. He said to me, “It's one of the innumerable possibilities that offers itself up in order to be manifested.” He didn't attach more importance to it than that.
All kinds of things come up as possibilities.
So you don't envisage the possibility of a long duration – that trance can't be very long?
I don't think that's materially possible.
And the purpose of that trance would basically be to fix the supramental vibration in the body?
To transform what's not receptive.
There are billions of elements in the body, so it's a mixture of receptivity and nonreceptivity. It's still mixed. And that mixture is why the appearance [Mother's physical appearance] remains what it is. So making everything receptive, in every element, is a work, you understand, a formidable work. If it had to be done in detail, it would be impossible, but through the pressure of the Force it can be done. So then, the trance would be made necessary precisely so it's done fast (relatively fast). This work is BEING DONE (I am myself conscious of it), but, you understand (laughing), it may stretch over hundreds of years! That's what Sri Aurobindo said: a state of consciousness has to be established in which the collective life of the cells can be preserved for as long as desired; in other words, the Lord's Will must be sufficiently active for the balance between all those elements to be kept for as long as necessary
for all of them to change. And always, it has always been said that the most external form would be the last to change; that the whole internal, organic functioning would be changed before the external form, the appearance (it's only an appearance, of course); that the appearance would be the last to change.
It seems to me to be the legacy of primordial habits – the habits of Matter. This Matter, of course, comes from total unconsciousness, and throughout the ages and all the ways of being, it returns to total consciousness – it goes from one extreme to the other; well, what gives that need for trance is the habits of static immobility. It shouldn't be necessary. Only (how can I explain?...), logically, as things are, it depends on the balance between the body's capacity of receptivity and its external activity: it's obviously far more receptive when it is immobile, because its energies are turned to the transformation.
There is another thing that could help to change the course of events: it's that the vital is growing increasingly receptive and collaborative. This whole vital zone, which was the zone of revolt and deliberate opposition to the divine transformation, is growing increasingly collaborative, and with its collaboration (because this vital zone is the zone of movement, action, energy put to use), with its conscious collaboration, the methods of transformation may become different (it's something I have been studying these last few days). It may change the methods. But that's a whole world to be learned.
One should grow increasingly not only attentive but receptive, with a precision in details which would every second give one the knowledge of what should be done and how it should be done (not outwardly: inwardly). These cells should learn to have every second the attitude necessary for everything to unfold smoothly, keeping pace with the supreme Consciousness.
To replace the need for immobility and immobile rest by the power of inner concentration and peace – that peace which is perfectly independent of action, which can be there, unchanging, even in the midst of the most frantic actions.
Is that where you envisage the vital's intervention?
Yes.
I often wonder what the best possible attitude is for us. Is it better to be simply in a state of silence, open to the heights, a wide silence, or...
I think that's it.
But what's the alternative?
Or should one have, I don't know, a special concentration in the activity?
No, because the transformation is the only thing that doesn't call for the mind's intervention: the mind befuddles everything.
I clearly see what its use will be – why there has been the mind, why it exists, what its use will be – but that will come afterwards.
The mind will be transformed quite naturally, effortlessly; it's not the same as with this body. But for the moment, it can't be used as yet. It can be used only through aspiration, like this (gesture opened to the heights), a constant aspiration – the constancy of aspiration and receptivity to let the forces and the light come through.
There. So we'll meet again on Saturday.
I'll bring you the text of those “instructions.”
Yes. There's no hurry – I don't think there is. It's better if it's ready, but... The higher part of the consciousness is clearly in favor of the trance being unnecessary. And if the lower part becomes receptive enough in time, it won't be necessary. Or else, it will amount to very little. Just keep the text, that's all, keep it ready (Mother laughs).2
1 See Agenda III, November 20, 1962, p. 428.
2 These “instructions” were distributed a few days later.