The Mother

Agenda

Volume 8

September 20, 1967

Someone has taken it into his head to print a brochure for February 21 next year [when Mother will be ninety], so they sent me the brochure and asked me to write a message on the first page. And for that brochure they have solicited (!) the opinion of all prominent people: there is Indira Gandhi, India's president, and what have you. And everyone says what has always been said millions of times over: “A great personality, this and that....” All the usual ineptitudes. So I wrote this:

There is no other consciousness than the Supreme Consciousness.

There is no other will than the Supreme Will.

There is no other life than the Supreme Life.

There is no other personality than the Supreme Personality, the One and the All.

All the usual platitudes they do all over again!

I thought it would teach them a lesson.

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Soon afterwards

I had many things to say, but now I don't remember.

Only an observation, which is really very interesting: it's that everyone has said the same thing, all those who had the Experience have said the same thing... but everyone in his own way, so it looks like something different. Yesterday it was so clear, and again early this morning, the whole morning: this way, that way, this one here, that one there (Mother shows different facets), the philosophers, founders of religions, sages of all countries – they have always said the same thing. For instance, Buddha's teaching and, say, the Christian teaching, seem to be so different, but it's always the same thing. Which means there is ONE state (if you catch hold of it), ONE state in which you are conscious of the divine Consciousness (not “conscious of”: “conscious through” or “conscious with,” I don't know how to explain... it's the divine Consciousness which is conscious, that is, the Consciousness in its essence), and there are no more problems there, no more complications, no more explanations, nothing anymore – everything is as clear as can be. So then, everyone has tried to explain that, and naturally it has become confused, incomplete, incorrect, with one explanation clashing with another – while everyone is talking about the same thing!

It came yesterday in relation to a boy who sent me the letter from one of his friends, in which he said the usual nonsense: “I don't believe in God because I can't see him.” The usual little stupidity. And in that connection, I saw (I looked, like that, looked for a long time), I saw that the one who rejects, the one who asserts, the one... all that, all of it is (how could I put it?) variations on the same theme, even when it appears to be saying the contrary.

Yesterday it was interesting, because the observation was the same for the materialists who feel that the only truth is a “concrete” truth, the truth that can, according to them, be seen or heard or touched.... And it's the same thing, the same state – the same state reflected in different mirrors. But the difference in mirrors is not an essential and radical difference, it's only... (gesture showing facets in movement), yes, that's what some have called the “play,” but it's not even a play; I might almost say it's a difference of position.

Everything you can say about it is nothing, it's part of that huge chattering that tries to express the inexpressible “something.” But when you are IN it, it's so clear, so obvious – simple, without problems. And the world is no longer a problem.

Even that apparently rather fundamental difference between those who regard the Manifestation as divine and essential and those who consider that in order to reach the essential Divine you must leave the Manifestation (because it's an “error” – that is, an error that took place in the Consciousness), even those two positions are the same thing! But how can you explain it? When you say that, it seems foolish, yet up above it's true. It's true – true and full. It's full, not hollow – here everything rings hollow, so hollow; the hollowness of inadequacy. But up above...

It's almost like a kaleidoscope: you turn it and get one picture, turn it again and get another picture, turn it again... yet it's always the same thing!

But now, it's the body that has the experience. In a certain state, the state which corresponds to That, the essential state, everything is harmonious, with a living, smiling, happy peace; then as soon as there is... a nothing, you know, a mere trifle, simply the coming into the atmosphere of something clashing – a mere nothing – it's felt like something extremely acute and painful. But not in the way of the pain of Ignorance, it's more like... you could call it a discomfort, but it's not even that.... Everyone has explained it in his own way: some have called it “falling from the Truth into Falsehood,” others “falling from the Light into Darkness,” others “falling from Ananda into suffering,” yet others... Everyone has given his explanation, but it's something else.... As for me, I have no words for it, but the body feels it, feels it very acutely, and it sees that at the end of it, the consequence of it, is disintegration. And its whole effort is to strive to reestablish that inner harmony, that harmonic state in which everything becomes harmonious, everything – and in their appearance things haven't changed! Yet in one way they are marvelous, and in the other detestable.

The opposition between the two things is growing sharper every minute: one moment everything is divine, the next moment everything is detestable – yet it's the same thing.

Since the 15th of August, since that experience at the balcony,¹ it has become very clear.

But then, it has nothing to do with thought, or even with sensation: it's purely material (Mother touches the skin of her hands), and it's the difference between a progressive and unbroken harmony that has no reason to stop and grows more and more conscious, more and more harmonious, and also more and more... we say blissful, happy and all that – but it's not that! It's “something”... something so NATURAL, so natural and... with the rhythm of eternity. So there is THAT, and then suddenly (gesture of reversal) you fall back into... exactly the SAME THING, everything is the same, yet everything is the opposite!

To such a point that you have a perception, a material perception inexpressible because it's hardly mentalized, of a perfect Harmony which can, in the consciousness, turn into a serious disease! Things of that sort.

There is also the vision, an extremely complex and at the same time complete vision, that those, for instance, who have tried to explain the power of imagination, of thought or will or faith (all those things: the direct action on matter), the vision that each of those things has caught hold of one little aspect of the Thing, but in the Thing, there are no divisions; it's something which, when you perceive or conceive it, is divided into scores of little things, but it's essentially... (how should I put it?) a way of being, a way of consciousness – it's a WAY OF BEING, not even a “way of consciousness” because that implies “being conscious OF something” and it's not that: it's a way of being. And that way of being is what, in the human consciousness, translates as “Ah, the Divine!” – by opposition, you understand. It's a PERFECTLY NATURAL and spontaneous way of being – but how, how does That become this [the mechanism of the passage from one state to the other]? How does That become distorted?... You constantly, constantly (gesture as of tiny reversals) switch from one to the other, back and forth, over and over again, as if to learn – to learn how That eludes. To us it looks like (to us, to all this poor consciousness that has gone through innumerable woeful experiences), it looks like a “relapse” into the old state; so it's not that. But what's the mechanism?...

In the end, we would have the solution only if we found the how and the why.

Constantly, constantly ... (same gesture of tiny reversals).

All the explanations people give are nothing but explanations. They are not THAT.

Knowing the why or the how probably implies the power to change everything....

In that case, it will come one day.

¹ The “golden peace.”

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