The Mother

Agenda

Volume 9

December 21, 1968

There have been a lot, a whole lot of things these last few days.... But that's enough! (Mother has just listened to a conversation to be published in the next Bulletin).

Do you have something to say?... what?

Someone (not me) has asked a question. It seems it's “typical” of the questions people ask after reading your “Notes”.... Would you like to know?

It must again be something...

I'll read it to you: “While describing her experiences of last August and September, the Mother refers to the ‘exclusion of the mind and vital.’ Why do they have to be eliminated for a rapid and effective transformation of the body? Doesn't the supramental consciousness act on them too?”

Certainly it acts! It's ALREADY been acting, for a long time. It's because the body is used (was used) to obeying the vital and especially the mind, so it's to change its habit, to make it obey the higher Consciousness alone. That's why. It's to make things go faster. In people, That acts through the mind and vital – and as I said, it's safer that way. As an experience it's rather risky, but it makes things move considerably faster, because normally you must act on the body through those two, whereas in that way, with them absent, That acts directly. That's all.

As questions go, this one is innocent.

The process isn't to be recommended! Every time I have an opportunity, I say so: people mustn't imagine they should try to do that (they couldn't, but that doesn't matter), it's not recommended. One should take the time needed. But that was because of the number of years... to make things go faster.

(silence)

The strange thing is that there are kinds of demonstrations of the body's natural tendency (I suppose it's not the same thing for all bodies: it depends on the way it was built, that is, father, mother, antecedents, and so on), a demonstration of the body left to itself. This one, for instance, has a sort of imagination (it's something odd), a dramatic imagination: it constantly feels it's living catastrophes; and then, with its faith, which remains there, the catastrophe is turned into a realization; things of that sort, absurd. So for a while it's left to that imagination (that's what happened these last few days), and when it's sufficiently tired of that idiotic activity, it prays, you know, with all its intensity it prays for it to cease! Instantly, hup! the thing just goes like this (gesture of reversal), it turns around at one stroke, and the body is in a contemplation (not a faraway one, very close) of this wonderful Presence which is everywhere.

It goes like this, and like that (Mother abruptly turns over two fingers): it takes no time, there's no preparation or anything, it goes hup! hup! like this (same gesture), as if to show the body's stupidity. It's something perfectly idiotic, like a factual demonstration of the stupidity of the body left to itself, and then of this wonderful Consciousness which comes and in which all that vanishes like... something that has no consistency, no reality – it vanishes. And like a demonstration that it's not just in imagination but in the FACT: a demonstration of the Power at work for all this... vain dream of life as it is (which, for the consciousness of this body, has become something so frightful), for it to be turned into a marvel, like that, simply through the turning around of the consciousness.

The experience is repeated in every detail, every field, like a demonstration through fact. And it's not a “long process” of transformation: it's like something turning around all at once (Mother turns over two fingers), and instead of seeing ugliness, falsehood, horror, suffering and all that, the body suddenly lives in bliss. And all things have remained the same, nothing has changed, except the consciousness.

So there remains the question (this is something ahead, it's probably coming): how is the experience to express itself materially?... For the body itself, it's perfectly obvious: for, say, an hour, or two, or three, it suffered a lot, very miserable (not a moral suffering: a wholly physical suffering), then all of a sudden, brrff! all gone.... The body has apparently remained the same (Mother looks at her hands), in its appearance, but instead of an inner disorder that makes it suffer, everything is fine, and there's a great peace, a great tranquillity – everything is fine. But that's for ONE body – how does that act on others?... It's beginning to perceive the possibility in other consciousnesses. On the moral level (that is to say, the level of attitudes, character, reactions), it's very visible; even sometimes on the physical level: something suddenly disappears – as we had the experience when Sri Aurobindo would remove a pain (Mother shows a hand of the subtle physical coming and taking away the pain), we would wonder... “Ah!” Gone, vanished, like that. But it's not constant, not general, it's only to show it can be like that through the fact that it happens in one case or another – to show that things CAN be like that.

We might put it this way: the body has the sense of being shut inside something – shut in, yes – shut as if inside a box, but it can see through; it sees and can also have an action (though limited) THROUGH something that's still there and which must disappear. That “something” gives a sense of imprisonment. How is it to disappear?... That I don't know yet.

There must be found the relationship between the consciousness in ONE body and the consciousness of the whole. And the extent of the dependence, and the extent of the independence; that is, how far the body can be transformed in its consciousness (and, necessarily as a result, in its appearance), how it can be transformed without... without the transformation of the whole – how far? And to what extent is the transformation of the whole necessary to the transformation of the body? That remains to be discovered.

(silence)

If I had to tell everything, it would take hours....

But this “box” you're referring to is a universal box.

Yes!

I've often had an impression that all those so-called human or “natural” laws are only an immense morbid imagination that has been collectively fixed – that's the box.

Yes, that's it! That's right.

So then, how...?

Yes, to what extent can an individual light act on that?... There's the problem.... I don't know.

(silence)

The vision is very clear of the collective progress (our field of experience is the earth) which has taken place on earth; but if we go by the past, a tremendous length of time would still seem to be necessary for the whole to be ready to change.... Yet there is almost a promise that... there is going to be an abrupt change – what, in our consciousness, is expressed as a “descent,” an action “taking place”: something that wasn't acting until now and which is beginning to act (that's how it's expressed in our consciousness).

We'll see.

As for the body itself, there is a growing experience, that is, increasingly precise, AT THE SAME TIME of its fragility (extreme fragility: a tiny little movement may put an end to its present existence), and at the same time – both at once, simultaneously – the sense of an eternity! the sense of having eternal existence. Both at the same time.

It's really a transitional period!

(silence)

Once or twice, when its... what we might call its “anguish of knowing” was very intense, when it had the full sense of the Presence – the sense of the Presence everywhere, within, everywhere (Mother touches her face and hands) – it wondered how (not even why, no such curiosity), HOW COME the present disorder? Well, when that was very intense, very intense, once or twice it got the impression: once that is found, it means immortality.

So it's constantly pushing, pushing like that to catch hold of the secret; you feel you're about to find it, and then... Then there's a sort of lull in the aspiration: peace, peace, peace.... You know, once or twice, the impression: “Ah! It's going to be understood” (“understood,” that is, LIVED; it's not “understood” with the thought – lived), and then... (gesture of eluding). And a Peace coming down.

But the impression: “It will be for tomorrow.” But “tomorrow”... what tomorrow? – Not tomorrow on our scale.

We'll see.

But the experiences are innumerable, with all aspects. It would take hours to tell – even then, you always feel that speaking, yes, warps something. It's no longer as simple, no longer as beautiful, no longer as clear. It becomes complicated.

The body has absolutely wonderful moments – and HOURS of anguish. And all of a sudden, a wonderful moment. But that moment can't be expressed.... If we are to judge the degree of development from the proportion of time, well... the wonderful moment lasts for a few minutes, and there are hours of anguish. There are even hours of suffering. So if, from that, you judge the proportion, there's still a very, very long, extremely long way to go....

But what can we do? We can only keep going, that's all.