The Mother

Agenda

Volume 10

November 29, 1969

I have news of the healer – not from him, indirectly First, N.S.'s husband said that A.R. went to see her several times, and he writes, “She is completely cured, free from pain anywhere.” He said she would write (she was very busy – they're terribly busy there at this time). We'll wait for her letter to see whether it's continuing.

The second thing is T. from Calcutta: he said A.R. was coming to Calcutta and had asked him to put him up along with HIS GURU!... It seems he's found a guru ....

Good!

So T. didn't like it much, he told me, “The guru, I don't feel like receiving him.” I said, “Receive him and tell us who he is” – so as to know who this famous guru is, what he is like.

It's strange, he has a complete absence of discernment.

Yes, that's my impression, he has no discernment.

Between his body and above, there's nothing-nothing between the two.

Yes, it's the intermediary levels that are missing. He has no discernment. So it may simply be someone with a considerable vital force which he felt .... That's just why I'd like to know who it is. I told T. to see and write what this famous guru is like.

But you know, I had a very strange dream with A.R. some two or three weeks ago. One night I met him, and I went to him very affectionately; it seemed to me he was affectionate towards me too, and I was as if pressed against him, or he had pressed himself against me. Then at one point I felt he was uttering a sort of mantra, which had an increasingly powerful rhythm .... It was very odd, the vibration of that mantra, it was like something being hammered with an increasingly powerful pace. And as I felt that, I was at the same time conscious that it was a mantra to “exorcize demons....” The second I felt that, I called the Force. I called the Force and said OM .... And then I became much taller than him and made this gesture [Abhay]:¹ let him be in peace. And everything stopped.

(Mother remains silent)

Exorcize demons ...

That's what he's taken into his head. He wrote (I don't exactly remember through whom or how or what), anyway there was a letter from him (I think it was addressed to me, but I don't remember) which was read out to me, in which he expressed regret at what took place between him and you, and in that letter he said (those are the few words he used), “Now I know who he is...” That's all.

Who Satprem is?

Who you are. I didn't ask, that didn't interest me in the least! But with your dream, it becomes amusing!

Exorcize a demon .... It's on me he was doing it!

Yes, that's right.

On me!

(Mother laughs)

[Slightly worried:] Is there a demon?

(Mother laughs more and more)

A demon, that's what got into his head. It didn't interest me to find out who he thought you were – I felt it was some nonsense from someone who only sees the surface of things. That's all. It didn't bother me, I didn't insist. But with your dream, it becomes interesting!

But as soon as I became aware of it (I became aware of it as of something serious), I immediately called the Force and instantly became taller than he.

Yes, of course – of course! But it was a piece of nonsense, naturally, a stupidity... Someone tells you something unpleasant, so that someone is a “Hostile.” I remember the time when everyone used to become “Hostiles”!

So that's why, with what I saw, his complete incapacity of discernment towards people (an absolutely complete incapacity), that's why, when I was told he had a “guru,” I said to myself, “What trap has he fallen into, poor man!” Because there's no lack of tricksters with those little powers of the vital that greatly impress people.

So he's going to Calcutta and I've asked I to write and tell me right away who that gentleman is and give me his name.

But you know, in the end, the impression I get from A.R. is that the man has a Christian atmosphere.

Quite possible.

He's outside religion, but he's more Christian than Christians. He's haunted by Christ, the idea of doing good to others, of working miracles, healing people – the man has a Christian atmosphere. And of all atmospheres, for me that's the most unyielding. They're untouchable, these people.

At any rate, my impression is that he is absolutely ignorant – IGNORANT – and with the simplistic mind of someone undeveloped. So that prevents him from making a distinction between quite an ordinary vital power and the true Power.

We'll see .... But in a case like N.S.'s, I know it's because I told N.S. to see him, that's what did the whole thing [N.S.'s cure].

I know that every time I saw him... It was a strange thing: I saw him three times, and every time the parts of the body that weren't yet sufficiently... (how should I put it?) permeated with Force, and which therefore were capable of going awry, with him those parts always did go awry. I would see him, and they would start going like this (grating gesture). So it would take me a few hours of concentration to have them keep quiet; I had managed to have everything keep quiet until the gradual transformation, but there, it was beginning to do silly things, to want to express itself. So I said no.

All three times.

The first time, it was much stronger because I wasn't on my guard; the other two times, it was very little because I was on my guard and I observed – but I saw that the tendency [to disorder] was there.

It isn't a very good sign.

We'll see (Mother laughs) if the poor fellow has fallen into the clutches of... Anyway, it'll be a lesson to him.

Ah, he does make us understand the need for an integral yoga.

Oh, yes.

*
*   *

(Mother searches among her papers.)

I have something here:

To listen is good but not sufficient,

You must understand.

To understand is good but not yet sufficient,

You must act!

(Laughing) I sent that to America.

Then they brought me extracts from Sri Aurobindo for the next Bulletin.

(Satprem reads aloud)

“Knowledge, when it goes to the root of our troubles, has in itself a marvellous healing-power as it were. As soon as you touch the quick of the trouble, as soon as you, diving down and down, get at what really ails you, the pain disappears as though by a miracle. Unflinching courage to reach true knowledge is therefore the very essence of yoga. No lasting superstructure can be erected except on a solid basis of true Knowledge ....

That's just for A.R.! (Laughing) You'd think it was written for him!

... The feet must be sure of their ground before the head can hope to kiss the skies.”

(Letters on Yoga, 24.1394)

(Satprem reads another extract)

“The supramental eye can see a hundred meeting and diverging motions in one glance and envelop in the largeness of its harmonious vision of Truth all that to our minds is clash and opposition and collision and interlocked strife of numberless contending truths and powers. Truth to the supramental sight is at once single and infinite and the complexities of its play serve to bring out with an abundant ease the rich significance of the Eternal's many-sided oneness.”

(The Hour of God, 17.35)

That's my experience now.

(Mother goes into a contemplation)

A.R.'s example is a very clear demonstration of... why there was a mental development in the world – indispensable.

Once you have had the full mental development, you can say, “Yes, I no longer need it” – but not before.

There's a small humorous detail: in “The Adventure of Consciousness” (which he read), regarding mental silence, I wrote somewhere (I even put it in a footnote): “Obviously, we wouldn't recommend mental silence to a peasant of Brittany, for instance”! Because mental silence is quite fine once one has come to the end of the curve.

Yes, that's right!

(long silence)

A rather interesting phenomenon has taken place .... The vital and the mind had gone away, and when the Consciousness worked in the body, it reconstituted a vital and a mind WITHIN the body itself. And that's very interesting, because the body has taken extreme interest in learning lots of things: it has asked questions about external things, mathematical things, all those things that specifically belong to the mind. And it has learned them very easily – the PRINCIPLE of those things has been learned very easily. It immediately felt it needed to learn them.

It's interesting.

Only, its approach isn't the same. It's as if-curiously, as if the Force were from above downward and not from below upward, in the sense that the direction in the body is the same as when the Energy or Force descends into the body to use the organs; it's the same thing: it's the Force, the Consciousness that uses a certain power of understanding. It's like this (gesture from above downward), the origin isn't in the brain. Always, the Consciousness is always there (gesture above the head), even the consciousness that makes the body function. Only, the body felt it needed that, the power of mental analysis.

But it came as an IMPERSONAL activity, quite impersonal, there is no sense whatsoever of even an individualization of thought, you understand? That's not there. It's... like an instrument being used. An instrument of organization, that's really it.

Yes, that's it, it's exactly that: it's not at all an instrument of knowledge, not at all (Knowledge is up above, constantly), it's an instrument of organization and work-organization, the body has grown very conscious of the lack of organization in things and people. And that's very interesting: how an activity ought to be organized, how thoughts ought to be organized in the brain, how... everything, everything. Especially in that line, and that's very interesting.

Ultimately, mental power is really a power of organization: each thing in its own place, and the TRUE relationship between things.

(silence)

Life is really something very interesting.

(silence)

But I think the world is moving fast, because at the start of the century, the union of religions (that is to say, the perception and understanding that all religions are an aspect and expression of a higher truth), that was an almost new thing to get accepted; now... it's old, it's past. Now it's an extra- and supra-religious perception that imposes itself as being indispensable. The religious spirit is below; at that time, it was still above. Which means things are moving fast.

For instance, I am quite certain that if Sri Aurobindo wrote those Aphorisms now, he wouldn't put the word God where he used it (he used the word God almost everywhere). He wouldn't use THAT word. God, for man, really means religion .... I don't know how to explain, it's a sort of sensitivity somewhere that rebels-the word is false, as it were. It has almost become the symbol of an incomprehension.

Still now, I am giving explanations for these Aphorisms, and in almost all of them, he uses the word God – he wouldn't put it now.

(long silence)

Do you have anything?

I do feel a bit burdened by all mental activities .... In a way I don't complain because it's my work, it's what I have to do. But on the other hand, I clearly feel it's something that comes in the way.

But you can be silent, can't you?

Oh, yes, quite so.

So then, that's all you need.

Yes, but in practice, the whole day long I'm taken up with mental things.

Well, what about me with people? It's far worse! (Mother laughs) I CONSTANTLY feel as if I were almost... buried under prayers, entreaties, requests – ALL of them for personal things.

It's like that, it's like a mass around me.

And everyone is there, comes... I no longer feel this (Mother points to her body), I no longer feel it, but I SEE, I see it like this (enveloping gesture), and I see the difficulty for everyone to pierce through that in order to... get to something true. That's what they expect of me, of course. So then, when they're here (it's uniform and general), it's as if I were clinging to the Supreme Consciousness and... pulling it like that, onto the person who's there, without uttering a word. And then, the interesting thing is that this Consciousness is there and it sees, it sees the reactions, and from the reactions of the people, I know the way they are: in which state, at which level.

But in your case... it's your mission, you understand. I don't know how to explain. I always, always see you in direct and constant contact with... with this Consciousness expressing itself; so when it reaches the mental level, you're as if... arranging pawns on a chessboard. I've looked very, very often: it's indispensable, it's an indispensable work, and extremely useful. Naturally, my body, too, might say, “If instead of seeing all these people I were all the time like this (gesture huddled in the Lord), working to hasten the transformation, it would be very pleasant!” For you too, it's like that, but we're here to do something. That's it. And it's a certainty, a certainty because several times when things became critical, I have told the Lord, “There, it's for You to decide – whether to stay on or to go... and rest blissfully.” And the answer has ALWAYS, always been the same: There's work to be done.

We are here because we were sent to do the work, and as long as work is necessary, we must do it. When it's time for the work to stop, we will be free to go... and rest blissfully

It's IN THE WORK ITSELF – I see that – it's in the work itself that the other work, the individual work of the body's transformation, is done; if we were concentrated on this [the body], we would probably upset many things. It's better to... It's by doing the work as we should that the body is put in the condition necessary for it to benefit from the...

As for me, my impression was that mental activity acted as a “buffer,” if you like, and prevented ...

No, no! No. This mental activity is what the Supreme Lord is expecting of you. That's it. That's it. So then, instead of being an obstacle, it's THROUGH this activity that the work on the body is getting done. You understand, the only truly individual work is the work of the body; well, for you, it is done through your work, just as for me it's done through my work. The whole thing is simply to be like that, aware that it's not a hindrance – this work is what is expected of this body, that's all.

I am sure of it because for you I've looked several times: it has always been the same identical answer. I am sure of it.

In the eternity... it's just one moment! (Mother laughs)

(Satprem lays his forehead on Mother's knees)

It's always that, the same answer: a YES, you understand; ALL is well, all is well, all is well... as it must be, as soon as one is in that. All is well as it must be. There. All the time. That's all.

¹ Abhay: ritual gesture meaning, “Be without fear.”

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