April 29, 1970The Mother
Agenda
Volume 11
April 29, 1970
(Mother has had several heart attacks since the April 24 darshan. Satprem could not see her on the preceding Saturday.)
The darshan day was chosen for the transfer of the heart. I thought I would be unable to go to the balcony. But I went just the same. So then, the day after... (Mother looks quite shaken). And it's not over.
Interesting.
Nothing pleasant to tell.
What about you, do you have questions?
I wonder, when those transfers take place in one part of the being or another, it's not just the consciousness that changes, something in the substance changes too, doesn't it?
It's almost in the functioning.
*
* *
(Then Mother sorts out old papers, and finds Satprem's letters from Ceylon, as he was about to become a Sannyasin. Those same letters disappeared again after Mother's departure.)
I had some papers which have disappeared too since I came upstairs: a birth certificate... I don't know whether the papers were burned in France (some town halls burned their records during the War). It was in the 9th [district of Paris].
I think the house no longer exists. It was 60 or 61 boulevard Haussmann,1 and it was in the 9th.
(silence)
We're going to have to give Auroville people some identity object. Yes, it has happened that some people came and settled on Auroville s lands without asking for anyone's permission, and suddenly we find ourselves faced with a man or a family.... So it's beginning to be troublesome. Because it's very scattered.
(silence, Mother asks for a glass of water)
I am so thirsty! Terribly thirsty all the time... There is something in the throat.... I told you it's the difficult spot – it remains so. It's given me quite a bit of trouble.
(silence)
*
* *
There are things... really interesting things.
Strangely, you might say there are numbers of miracles, that is, things that contradict all habits, but they hide, they veil themselves – but as for me, I see them.
You know that in the night that followed the darshan, they found
Rishabhchand...2 For almost a year he had asked me to leave. So,
when he asked me to leave (he asked quite in earnest: he was suffering a lot, quite miserable), I did what I always do: I presented his request to the Supreme Lord and said to Him... And then, he didn't leave. He recovered. He recovered and for some time he was much better. But his will to go remained. So then, on the day of darshan (I think he saw me, I don't know), he disappeared from his room, and they found his body partly on the shore, partly in the water. As it was a public place, the police asked for an autopsy, and it was done: there wasn't a drop of water in his stomach, which means he didn't drown. And it does seem, according to what people say, that he didn't drown (but I didn't see the body, so I am not absolutely sure), but one thing is sure, it's that he left his body, and another thing is sure, it's that he did not kill himself.... He went out before 4 in the morning (they don't know at what time – sometime in the night). At 4 they realized he had gone out. No one heard him leave. And he died, obviously but he did not kill himself. So what happened?... He had a bump at the forehead: he fell down.
There was a kind of hole. He must have fallen down and hit a rock.
But were there rocks there?
Yes, Mother, in front of the Distillery they are piling up tons of rocks.
Oh, it was in front of the Distillery!
It's not clear, because he was found on the sand, a little farther. But the face had been hit.
But he didn't drown, I am sure of that. It's a so-called “accident,” which means he left... You understand, he was really imploring to go, and he went out – he must have been guided where he had to go.
But then, I should tell you that some people are telling very stupid stories on Rishabhchand's departure.
Oh, what do they say?
Well, they say he committed suicide.
But that's not true!
And then people like C., for instance, in their ignorant goodwill, say, “Well, some yogis do have a fall like that, at the end of their lives....” It's stupid!
Yes. But they told me too, that's how they broke the news to me! They told me that Rishabhchand had “committed suicide.” There was in me a categorical NO.... I didn't say it. I didn't say, I waited; because if I had said something, they would have... I didn't say anything, I waited. Then they told me that the police had demanded the body, and later on they said, “Well, the police found there wasn't a drop of water in his stomach.” So he didn't throw himself into the water. And it was the only thing he could have done.
But Mother, they went to the extent of going to find little Astha3 in her sports group, and they told her, “Aren't you ashamed, your grandfather committed suicide, aren't you ashamed!”
Oh!...
And then, in the Ashram, people say... They're stupid. And C. in the lead, Mother!... All that is ignorant.
I comforted the little one (because they came), and Munnu [the elder granddaughter] asked me... no, she didn't ask me anything, but there was a question in her eyes, so I told her, “He's all right, my child, don't worry.” Then she questioned me, and I said, “He's quite all right, he didn't kill himself” – I'm sure of that.
But I found it was... it was all guided so wonderfully! It was... (how can I put it?), to make myself understood, I prayed: I prayed that if it were really possible, well, let him be helped to leave. And that's what was done (but I had done it the previous time).
It came just at the right time.
He had completed his work; you see, the first time when he asked to leave, he hadn't completed his Life of Sri Aurobindo, while this time he had completed it – he had nothing more to say.
And also he had seen you.
He had seen me on the darshan day. He didn't choose any other day.
(Sujata:) Has he come to you [after his departure]?
Not in a form. I had an impression... Just when he left, I had... (I didn't know anything about it, I was in my bed – I don't sleep, of course), but I had a strange vision. I was someone (and afterwards I thought it was he, I was with him – I say “I” because that's how it presented itself in the night, but I knew it wasn't me: I knew it was someone else). The Lord had asked me to come and meet Him atop a mountain; so I went there, but I didn't want others to know... (let me add one thing: it was in the night, just when the thing was taking place, which means that even physically, materially I didn't know anything). I went to the meeting place, but I didn't want others to see me, so I went to the top of the mountain and... I couldn't see the Lord. I said, “How? He is there and I don't see Him, how? He is hiding well.” And finally: “Now it's time, I can no longer see Him....” And I went back down – I went back down, I met people and didn't want them to stop me; then I had some difficulties, I saw people, and then I felt as if those people, the mountain and everything... were fading away, fading away more and more.4 And then, when the thing had faded away, it was time for me to get up, which means it was 4:30.
I was very preoccupied by that vision. Preoccupied, I wondered, “What can it be? What can it be, someone whom the Lord had asked to come and meet Him but who could not see Him?...” Then a few hours later, they told me (told me with the usual brutality),
“Rishabhchand killed himself last night.”
“What?”
Then they explained: “His servant came, entered his room, and found Rishabhchand wasn't there. No one had seen him go out, and the servant found him drowned on the seaside....”
I didn't say anything, I strongly felt, IT'S NOT TRUE. Then afterwards – long afterwards – they told me about the police and how, finally, he was half in the water, half on the shore, and with a blow to the head. Then I understood. I understood that the Lord had asked him to come and meet Him... (Mother gestures as if taking Rishabhchand by the hand), had him leave his house. But in his consciousness (my “dream” must have stopped at the point where he physically lost consciousness), in his PHYSICAL consciousness, he could not see Him. Then it became clear!
You know, I found that so marvelous! Because the experiences
I have now... I never had such precise and concrete experiences, because these are experiences of the body. I had that experience, and when I got up in the morning, I wondered, “What on earth can this mean?...” I knew it wasn't me, but I couldn't know who it was. I knew it wasn't me. “The Lord asked me to come and meet Him, I went to meet Him, and I could not see Him...” – his body left, and he saw Him.
Very interesting! I haven't told anyone, I am only telling you.
I found it... You know, when I had the material proof that it was true, that he didn't drown himself but died of an accident... but an accident that wasn't an accident: he was led by the hand, “one” led him to the place where he banged his head.
It's a magnificent thing.
The Lord asked him to come and meet Him, and he got up – he got up, feeling it was the Lord calling him; he left his room and went to bang his head on the rocks – the Lord led him.... It's pretty, no?
And as I was identified with his physical consciousness, I felt the anguish he must have felt: “The Lord asked me to come and meet Him, but I cannot see Him....” And he didn't want to be seen: “People must not see me, people must not see me....”
And then (this is something I haven't said to anyone), on the darshan day, at ten o'clock, I gave the meditation lying on my bed. I did the meditation, but lying down, because... the doctor had come and (laughing) he looked rather frightened, he said, “Oh, the heart is weak, the heart is very weak” and fanciful! So it was he who told me, “You must lie down and keep still.” So I lay down and gave the meditation. But after meditation... brrr! there were a few very, very difficult hours. Only, I asked, I wondered, “Why just today, when I have to go to the balcony [for darshan]?” And it was like this: “But you'll go! You'll go.” Just when I was to go, it was... the thing [the attack] was so strong that the sight too was blurred and I no longer knew whether I was standing or where I was (it wasn't too great). Then I went to the balcony: I stayed for ten minutes – I didn't even know it! I didn't even know I had stayed for ten minutes, I thought I had just gone and come back. So there.
That too is miraculous.
But I know that this body's life... (what can I say?) yes, this body's life is a miracle. Which means that if it weren't what it is and the way it is,
and arranged as it is, anyone else would be dead.... But then, if you knew (smiling) how it becomes... The body is conscious (and things aren't hidden from it: it's not led up the garden path, it's allowed to see things as they are), so then this is the way it is, it says, “After all, it would make a difference mainly for others! For me...” Only, you understand, they are still in this kind of illusion of death because this [the body] disappears; and even this [Mother's body] no longer quite knows which of the two is [true]!... For it, the truth should be Matter – well, even about that, it isn't quite sure (laughing) what that is! There is the other, the other way of seeing and feeling and being – another way of being. And this [the body] is beginning to wonder... It knows that the old way is no longer that, but it's beginning to wonder what it [the new way] will be like, that is to say, the way of perceiving, the relationship with things: “How will the new consciousness relate with the old consciousness of those who will still be humans?...” All these things will remain what they are, but there will be a way of perceiving them, a relationship... It comes... it's strange, it comes like a breath of air – a breath of air – and then it disappears again. Like a breath of another way of seeing, another way of feeling, another way of listening. And that's something drawing near, as it were, and then getting veiled. But then in the appearance [of Mother's body], in the appearance it's... (Mother makes a chaotic gesture). Yet, quite visibly, I am not ill, but at times it's... very difficult. Very difficult. And then, several times I've had both [ways of being] at the same time.... So (laughing) the body says to itself, “Well, if people knew the way you are, they'd say you're quite insane!” (Mother laughs) And it laughs.
It's not afraid. It's not afraid....
It suffers; sometimes it suffers with a very... a strange kind of suffering! A very strange kind of suffering. But then, how everything is wonderfully
arranged! In the Aphorisms, there are all those things of Sri Aurobindo about the unreality of suffering, and it has come just at the right
time!5 I said to myself, “But how wonderfully arranged it is!” It just came to tell my body, “Don't worry!...” The duality [suffering and bliss] is so, so concrete that my body is... it groans, literally groans as if it were suffering terribly, and at the same time it says to itself, “Ah, this is bliss!” And it groans! You understand, the two are like this... (fused gesture).
It depends on a little something that looks like an act of will – but that's not it. That's not it. I really don't know... it's something new.
The body groans, and it says, it says to itself it's suffering, then a little something occurs (but I don't exactly know what it is; it looks more like an act of will, but that's not it), and there's no more suffering, yet it's not at all what we call “bliss” – we don't know what it is... it's something else. It's something else. But extraordinary. New, completely new – completely new. So all this is blurred, as it were, imprecise, it's like... something taking place in a nebula, which is not this and not yet that.
(silence)
It's no longer, no longer... visibly no longer the body consciousness as it was. No longer: the relationships are no longer the same, the way of hearing, of speaking... (speaking is very difficult, it takes a considerable effort). And it isn't yet... oh, it's on the way to something, but it's not there yet.
(long silence)
But the presence of the Grace is an absolutely marvelous thing! Because as I see things, the experience as it is... if I were not given at the same time the true meaning of what's taking place, it would be endless agony – it's the old way of being which is dying.
Naturally, there is the whole yogic preparation, but the body is... you know, it's a constant miracle! People couldn't bear it for more than a few minutes, and it goes on and on and on....
It began exactly on the day of darshan.
Once or twice, the body was offered to go back to the previous condition – it refused. It said, “No, it's EITHER this, or else leaving.”
That's why it's going on.... How many days is it since the darshan? 24, 25, 26... today is?
The 29th: six days.
It didn't seem so long! That's another miracle: I thought it was three days.
(long silence; then Mother looks at something with a smile and shakes her head several times)
It's... it's FAR MORE marvelous than we can imagine – everything, everything...
(long silence)
It's difficult... difficult to say precisely. We think that this, this appearance (Mother points to her body) is... to the ordinary consciousness it seems to be the most important thing – it's obviously the last thing that will change. And to the ordinary consciousness, it seems to be the last thing that will change because its the most important: that will be the surest sign. But it's not that at all!... It's not that at all.
The important thing is this change in the CONSCIOUSNESS – which has taken place. All the rest is a consequence. And here, in this material world, it appears the most important to us because it's... everything is upside down. I don't know how to explain.
For us, when this [the body] is able to visibly be something different from what it is, we'll say, “Ah, now the thing is done.” – That's not true: the thing IS DONE. This [the body] is a secondary consequence.
What time is it?
Eleven thirty-five, Mother.
Oh!... Is the doctor here?
Yes.
Oh!...
1 It was 62 boulevard Haussmann.
2 An old and very faithful disciple whose body was found on the beach. This is the continuation of the series that began with Bharatidi, then Amrita, Pavitra.... Rishabhchand was the author of Sri Aurobindo – His Life Unique.
3 Astha is nine year old.
4 Rishabhchand must have left his body at that point.
5 On April 23, Mother received aphorism 494:
“I used to hate and avoid pain and resent its infliction; but now I find that had I not so suffered, I would not now possess, trained and perfected, this infinitely and multitudinously sensible capacity of delight in my mind, heart and body. God justifies himself in the end even when He has masked Himself as a bully and a tyrant.”
Mother commented it thus:
“This is the very lesson the Supreme Lord is trying to teach the body He is transforming.”
Then on April 28, Mother received aphorism 500:
“Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the other play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude.”