The Mother

Agenda

Volume 10

April 30, 1969

This Consciousness is truly extraordinary, and with such a sense of humor, you know!... It's educating this body, beginning with sweeping away all moral notions. The body is spontaneously in a sort of adoration, and all of a sudden this Consciousness showed it a big, huge serpent, with two formidable fangs, which was like this (gesture erect in front of Mother). And at the same time it gave the explanation: “The poisoned fangs... It's the Supreme Goodness that invented them, of course....” You know, it was so... It's irresistible. And this poor body remained like that, a little flabbergasted .... It realized it had never thought of that! It had taken things as they are, the world as it is, it had never thought about that: “How can this exist? How can it?...”

(Laughing) It needed a good fifteen minutes to find its poise again.

It's constantly like that. It's a relentless struggle against ALL possible conventions. At the same time, this consciousness seems to inculcate the sense of an irresistible power. Which isn't a personal power, not at all, it has nothing to do with the person; only one must be in accord with the Consciousness that rules the world, and this Consciousness has irresistible power. But it sweeps away all notions – ALL notions – and makes you see the stupidity of the notions you hold together [within the same consciousness], naturally in contradiction with one another. All that. And then, as soon as you are tranquil (after an experience like that serpent: it lasts for one minute, or two, or ten minutes, five minutes-it depends on the case), but once you remain like that, peaceful, there comes a sort of sense of limitless immensity, of... in English they say ease, that is, something extremely peaceful, and at the same time vibrant, in which you feel that everything, but everything, is harmonious, like that-everything. And it's like that in a great intensity of light which tends to be golden (it's not golden, I don't know what that color is, but it tends to be like that), a light like that. Then, if you remain there, everything is fine – EVERYTHING is fine: the body is fine, everything is fine. And as soon as you go out of that state and get into other movements, you see that all, but all is... a world of contradictions, everything is a contradiction: chaos and contradiction. But there, everything is perfectly harmonious.

This poor body, it takes its lessons like that.

So it no longer tries to understand anything. it has understood that it cannot understand; it says, “Very well, let That use me as it likes.”

That serpent, you know... Why this vision suddenly? I don't know .... I was in a state in which I was trying to establish a general harmony – probably it was too limited or incomplete or... And then that serpent came.¹ You understand, the universe is the Lord manifested, and so for this body, anyhow, it's perfection, but of course it's unable to understand; and all of a sudden this serpent came, and came in such a way that the body said to itself, “Well! I'd never thought of that” (which isn't true, of course). There are all the theories that explain evil as the action of adverse forces in the universe, but that seems quite childish. And as always it showed something VERY subtle in the play of forces (and how, to try and make it [evil] understood, the notion was born of a “succession in time,” which is absurd – in other words, successive creations). And there was something very subtle to show that those poisoned fangs are a defense, not an attack; this consciousness gave proof that the poisoned fangs are a defense, because they existed AFTER the attack – but how to explain that I don't know.

(Mother seems to gaze at a world of simultaneous things, and gropes for words)

At any rate, it was one more decisive turning point in this body's development. It once again felt that all it knew, all it thought it knew, all that was... rubbish, as they say in English, and that unless you are in this absolutely luminous and tranquil and allcontaining Consciousness... [you cannot understand]. “Containing” still gives the impression of a limit; it's not “all-containing,” it's vaster than anything existing. This Consciousness is vaster than the manifested world; there's almost a sort of sensation that there's a vaster Consciousness: the manifested world takes up a certain “place” in this Consciousness (how can I explain?), it's not the WHOLE Consciousness .... (That's probably the body's difficulty in being completely receptive, yet it's for IT to understand ....) And that seems to be the attitude to be kept. Is it an attitude?... – It's a way of being. A way of being. First, there are no limits (but that's an old experience the body has had for a long time), no limits: there's a sort of capacity to identify with things; but that's a consequence, as it were, of the impelling Will (this “central” Will, if I may say so, which impels to action).  And the body is like that... (outspread gesture). It's become so acute, this impression of... The two things (two absolutely contradictory things) have become so intense: one is an absolute incapacity to understand anything about anything, the realization that the thing anyhow eludes understanding; and at the same time, the experience that the limits of power are progressively lessening, fading, receding. This Power... it has become fantastic! Fantastic, this Power.

At the same time, it showed (oh, it's constantly, constantly teaching something), it showed how with people who still have the sense of ego, when they receive a little bit of this Power (that is, when this Power uses them), that causes a sort of panic, and it showed why: the ego becomes tremendous. And that was to show, to make the body clearly understand the necessity of its present state: it has almost no more sense of its existence, as little as possible; that mostly comes back with things that still grate quite materially. But if, at such times, the body can, or has the time to, or knows how to go into this state of... then the difficulty vanishes as if by miracle, in a trice. There was even something to show how, this way (Mother presses her two index fingers together, then slightly lowers the index finger of her right hand), there is suffering – this way, there's suffering – and when it's like that (Mother raises slightly the index finger of her left hand), it no longer exists. (Mother does the same gesture again:) This way, suffering; that way, it no longer exists. So the body may know exactly in which position suffering no longer exists.

That goes on all the time, all the time, night and day, constantly, continuously – one thing after another, one thing after another. I would have to spend hours to narrate it all.

This morning I saw someone, and for ten minutes it was a continuous experience of the manner of working: how the Action takes place .... Someone will be talking to me, and I'll see at the same time the thing as it actually is, and the contrast with what the person is saying – the two things. And none of that is mental: it's a concrete experience .... I'll be given some news (of something that took place somewhere, for instance), I'll be told some words, and at the same time, the thing ITSELF is HERE, and I see the difference between what I am told and what took place. And that's ceaseless, constant .... People come (I see swarms of them, it's frightful, there have never been so many), I see people: I see in front what they think they are and how they want to be seen, and behind, what they really are – effortlessly, without seeking, automatically. And it's all an effect of this Consciousness .... And then, when I speak, while I speak and try to explain, there's at the same time the difference between what I am saying and what IS .... (Smiling) So that makes speaking a bit difficult!

(silence)

Also, there's a kind of demonstration from the general point of view. Man gives a great importance to life and death-for him there's a great difference, death is a rather capital event (!). And I am shown to what extent the disequilibrium which, in circumstances, results in what people call “death” (which is death only quite apparently), how the two things, so to speak, are constantly there: this all- containing Harmony which is the very essence of Life, and this... division (it's a sort of division, yes, of fragmentation), this fragmentation, this APPARENT, UNREAL division, which has an ARTIFICIAL existence, and which is the cause of death – how the two are interwoven in such a way that you can go from one to the other at any time and on any occasion. And it's not at all as people think, that there needs to be something “serious” – it's not that, it can happen with the most futile thing! It's simply being here or being there (with the edge of her hand, Mother very slightly tilts to one side and to the other), and that's all. So you are here (slight tilt to the left) and remain here: it's over; you are here, and then you are there (gesture in between the two), you are here one second, then you are there: it makes for a life with sufferings and troubles -all kinds of things. And being there (slight tilt to the right) is perpetual Life, absolute Power and... you can't even call it “peace,” it's... something immutable. And at the same time, everything is there: this state and that state are both there. And man makes a more or less clumsy mixture of the two things.

But a few seconds of the true state in its purity and there's... an awesome power. Only... it's still far, far away.

But I remember the time when, if there was one minute or a moment in this State, the body would get afraid-not “afraid,” but alarmed. That goes back to about... I don't know, a little more than ten years ago. There has been a whole curve. Now, it's the other way around: when the body is in this State, it feels normal-it feels that's the normal state. But the whole makeup of the world still seems to act as a brake, there still seems to be something... And that “something” is what this Consciousness is working on. For it to be established, a change in the earth consciousness must take place.

But the Action is constant.

(silence)

Maybe I had something else to tell you, I don't remember... (Mother looks around and finds a piece of paper) It may be this.

Why do men want to worship?...

(Mother laughs) It's this Consciousness again!

It is much better to become than to worship!

(Mother repeats vigorously) Better to become! Why do men want to worship the Divine? Better to become!²

It's quite like this Consciousness! It's just like it.

It has an answer for everything, all the time. Now it's become quite active .... I got a letter from Y. describing the activities of all those young people who have come for Auroville (they have a place of their own now, it's the office of =1, somewhere at the back or in front of the Library). They have an apartment where they do all kinds of things, including “improvised dances”; Y. wrote about that (with much praise, besides), and she asked, “But the important thing is to know what Sri Aurobindo and you too think about it?” (Mother smiles ironically) Then this Consciousness (laughing) made me answer her, “Just see to it that it doesn't degenerate....” And it added (I don't remember exactly because it wasn't I who wrote), “See that it remains...” – I forget the words. But mon petit, the irony of it was priceless! And I sent it to her.

Constantly, constantly it says or answers something. It obliges me to write: “Answer this .... Say this....” It has taken the place of the mind, you understand.

It's most interesting.

¹ Mother may mean that the “poison” is a weapon not to cause “harm,” but to break the “harmonious” limits within which one was going to shut oneself.

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² Later Mother added: “It's out of laziness to change that people worship.”

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