May 21, 1969The Mother
Agenda
Volume 10
May 21, 1969
(Regarding a photograph that was taken just before Pavitra's coffin was closed and lowered into the ground. Satprem was standing near the coffin, to Pavitra's right.)
No news? Nothing from P.L.?
No, Mother... There's this [Satprem holds out an envelope].
What is it?
The pension... [such and such an amount].
Oh!... Doesn't your mother need anything?
(silence)
I saw the photos – have you seen them? Have you been shown the photos? They took some there. I am telling you about it because there was something interesting .... There was a photo with you there (there was A., there was the governor, there was...), just when you were all lowering the coffin. And then... (you know, this presence of Pavitra hasn't merged with the rest [of Mother]: it has remained there very peacefully, he is very peaceful-it hasn't merged), and then, just as I looked at the photo and saw you, there was something like this within (gesture to the heart, like an emotion), I don't know, it was almost like a tenderness, and he was almost happy I can't explain what it is, he was like this: “Oh! Satprem...”
He was really very pleased.
It's curious. I wasn't expecting it: I was given the photos and
started looking at them, when I suddenly felt something (same gesture to the heart)... It struck me very much. Because you had asked me, “Is he going to merge?” So even that, even that contact he has kept. Now and then, when someone says something regarding the work, he has his remark to make (I've noticed that), but there, it was very strong, almost like an “Oh!” of joy, you understand: “Oh! Satprem.” So I thought, “It's good, since it really pleased him.”
I am wondering whether the consciousness [of Pavitra] has been especially preserved intact because it entered here [into Mother], or whether it's always like that?... Where does someone conscious go? Does he remain here?...1 I told you, with Amrita, it's a sort of not too precise form; it's always there, now resting, now waking up, but he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in material things. While Pavitra, from what I see, seems to be conscious of them. It's something rather remarkable, I think.
I have seen cases of people who took interest and continued to take interest in what goes on [here], but then they have an independent form. While with Pavitra, it's something else.
It struck me because it was strong, like this (same gesture to the heart).
All these last few weeks, there has been a sort of constant... I can't call it “preoccupation,” but a sort of need to know: to what extent and how do those who have left remain conscious of the things they used to do, for instance, take interest in them, look after them (supposing they have the means to do so)?
A case such as Sri Aurobindo's is quite different: it's as if he had been multiplied. He has a constant presence in the subtle physical: he goes about, visits a number of people, and he is conscious of a lot of things, he intervenes in a lot of things, but a considerable number – it has multiplied his action. But that's exceptional.
(silence)
I have often wondered about the same thing. I've often asked myself whether on the other side I'll be as unconscious of this side as I am here unconscious of the other side!
(Mother laughs heartily)
Most people – the vast majority of people – go into a sort of assimilative sleep: all the experiences they had in their lives, all
they learned, the consciousness seems to ruminate over that. In the beginning... (Théon knew a lot of things – I don't know how he came to know them, but I verified them and found them to be correct), in the beginning, the span of time between two lives is very long, and it's a sort of assimilative sleep in which the consequences of what one has learned develop inwardly. Then, as the psychic being is formed and as one grows more conscious, rebirths take place more and more closely, until the time when rebirth becomes the result of a choice: at a precise place, for a specific length of time. And then, depending on what the psychic being wants to do, depending on the action it has to do, the new birth may be near or distant. There, we have all possible differences. But in the formative stage, that's how it is: very distant rebirths. So then, I've often wondered... You see, Théon says there is a psychic STATE in which those beings rest (it's true, there is such a place, I know it), but many people, especially at the beginning of their evolution, are quite tied down to the earth; I have seen quite a few people in trees, for instance. Very often I saw them in trees; often, while following someone [with the inner vision], I saw him enter into a tree; and often, while looking at a tree, I saw someone in it. I saw others who were... oh, people clinging to a place they were interested in: for instance, I saw a man who was interested in nothing but his money, which he had hidden somewhere, and as soon as he left his body, he went there, settled there, and refused to budge from there!... Incidentally (laughing), it had a curious result: it led people to discover the place! You see, it caused movements of forces, and some people felt it and thought, “Oh, there must be something here.”
There was a time when I concerned myself with that a good deal, and I made a good number of discoveries (following Théon's indications); later on, it no longer interested me. And now, quite lately, I have been reviewing all kinds of things, all kinds of things ....
But Pavitra's case, I really believe it's exceptional. It's the first time it has happened to me – with nobody, nobody else before. I told you, when Sri Aurobindo left, for hours he passed on to me the whole supramental force and consciousness he had concentrated in his body. It was immediately after he left. I felt he had called me; I stood there, near his bed, looking at him, and... I saw it, you understand: he passed on to me the force, the whole supramental force he had concentrated in his body, and I felt him everywhere enter like that, with a friction. It lasted for hours. But that's quite an exceptional case, as I told you. But what took place with Pavitra is
really... it's really... It's not the same thing: he simply came out of his body deliberately (and not his psychic being: it was as material as he could), and I felt him, felt it enter and enter everywhere, all over my body... And now, if I look within, I can't say I see a form, but... it's not completely fused. And for certain things – certain things that have to do with people, or the
School2 – there's a very clear personal reaction. And then, those photos... I think that's quite exceptional.
I felt something in the brain. You know that since Sri Aurobindo gave me mental silence, it has been absolutely still; it never started up again as before, and the consciousness has been there (gesture above Mother), working from there. But then after Pavitra came here, something (gesture to the forehead) impelled me to ask (I asked what's here, within), “Could I get the mathematical knowledge you had?” I asked him that. And his answer was, “Of course, it would be easy if you set this in motion again!” But that I don't want to do. Anyway...
Anyway, that's how it is, as if I were talking to someone within!
How happy he was! I think he loved you very much. He never spoke a word about all that. It has pleased him a lot.
I always used to keep back from Pavitra, because he had two sides: the luminous side that I liked, and then a whole other side... that resembled my father: a somewhat rigid mental side. So I used to keep back, it prevented the contact.
Yes, he was rigid.
He had ONE side like that.
(long silence)
But the strange thing is that it has given a sense of the complete unreality of death – instantly. And then, this body (laughing) is funny (!), now and then it asked, “Am I alive or am I dead?!” Like that. “Am I alive or... I'm not sure!” It had a very high fever,3 it was quite in a bad state, and it wasn't too sure whether it was the one involved!... That didn't last. And, I don't know... all that seemed to be a demonstration to make us understand the secrets of existence. It's strange.
(Mother goes into a contemplation)
Something has changed in the nights too. That is, the last two nights have been extremely active; I went to some places (if I went there before, I didn't stay long) where there were lots of people, but mingled, that is, the so-called living and the so-called dead together. Quite together, and used to being together, and finding it quite natural-but CROWDS of people! Last night, I noticed Nolini there – he was there, he was used to being there – and we arranged things, organized, made decisions .... It seems to me to be in the subtle physical.
I remember that in both cases, yesterday and today, when I got up, I thought, “Well! I told this and that person that I didn't use to see them at night, but I see them regularly!” And to one of those people (in fact it was... who was it?) I said, “Of course, I see you constantly, and we constantly do things together.” It seems to have opened in me the memory of a new activity – not “new”: a new memory of an old activity.4
There is increasingly an impression that our head and our way of seeing are what makes clear-cut limits like that [between life and death, between the ones and the “others” ] – but it's not like that! It's all mingled, it's consciousness... (gesture of stirring and mixing) interdeveloping, I don't know. And all that is together.
It's far more interdependent than we think.
(silence)
At any rate, with this departure of Pavitra, one thing has been categorical: if there was in the body the least fear of death, or anxiety, it's com-plete-ly gone. With Pavitra's case, it's completely gone, completely. The impression is: “But... but why do people make such a fuss about that!”
There. it's strange.
1 Mother means “here, conscious of the things of the earth.”
2 Pavitra was the School's director and the Ashram's general secretary.
3 Pavitra had a very high fever before leaving his body. Might that be what Mother felt in her body?
4 Mother already has spoken several times of this place where the “dead” and the “living” are together, without difference: see Agenda III of 12 October 1962 and Agenda VIII of 6 December 1967.