The Mother

Agenda

Volume 11

May 9, 1970

(These last few days, Mother's physical condition was serious.)

Did you get yesterday's aphorism?

No, they didn't give it to me.

Oh?... It was like this... (Mother tries to remember): “The strangest experience of the soul...” I don't remember.

Yes, it's this one:

507 – The strangest of the soul's experiences is this, that it finds, when it ceases to care for the image and threat of troubles, then the troubles themselves are nowhere to be found in one's neighbourhood. It is then that we hear from behind those unreal clouds God laughing at us.

So then, yesterday I wrote (I forget the words), “But when You want to transform the IMAGE into Your likeness, what happens?”¹ Something like that. And I got the answer last night!... Two activities of the subtle physical.

Oh, I'll tell the first (laughing): I killed someone point-blank!...

Oh!

The second vision was more personal. Then I understood: it's because the very body, the very consciousness (physical consciousness) is full of all those falsehoods and all those illusions and all those preconceived ideas, and when that is gone, then the Lord can manifest in there.

It was... it was LIVED, and it was a stunning realization, mon petit!

This [the body] isn't quite well yet – there's a lot to be done, but... I felt I had tipped over to the right side.

It was simply wonderful!... Wonderful.

And you know, it's simply a movement like this (gesture of slight reversal or tipping over) and... I was really miserable, you might say (I mean on the purely physical level: nausea and everything imaginable, CONSTANT, constant), and then it went like this (same gesture of slight reversal): a bliss... For the BODY.

That experience which one has, or used to have in the consciousness (vitally, mentally, all that), when you have that experience once, it's over, you are free... but there remained the body: miserable, you know, it suffered frightfully (it wasn't violent but worse than that, constant), and then, just this (same gesture): bliss.

I have difficulty keeping that, because... all contacts bring back the old consciousness – I don't know anyone in this condition. When I am very quiet...

But it wasn't like last night, it wasn't so complete, so total. There is still the memory, and then the impression... that the body has tipped over to the right side. You understand, it was... it was doing what they all do – disintegrating and getting disorganized. The impression that that seems to be over.² But it's not THAT yet, it's only... But it was wonderful.

You know, ordinary sight – gone; ordinary hearing – gone; capacity to work (Mother makes a gesture of writing) – gone. And it can ONLY come back in the true way, when... But I've had the proof that EVERYTHING can come back WONDERFULLY. The question is...

I have understood, the body has understood – it has understood, it has had the experience. What will come next? We'll see.

I wanted to tell you that.

That's the thing, you understand, that's the thing, and the body is capable. Yesterday when I read that aphorism, I said to Sri Aurobindo, “But you said that the body, too, would change; here [in the aphorism] its the ‘image’ that one sheds when one goes back towards the Truth, but you said the true Truth is that things would change HERE....” — I challenged [him], yes! And I had that answer. Two... what we might call two “dreams,” but I don't dream anymore. Those were two activities of the subtle physical (laughing), extraordinary!

But whom did you kill?

I don't know, it was... it was someone I liked very much! I liked him very much (Mother laughs)! I don't even know whether I knew who he was. And there was no reason! There was no reason, it was... I think I shot him with a pistol (it didn't matter at all, the man didn't look unhappy!), what mattered was the GESTURE, the ACT, it was the ACT that mattered.... I was full of affection and tenderness for him, and then I killed him. I didn't know that man, but he was young – maybe he was a symbolic type, I don't know. I don't know. And the impression on the old consciousness was... You see, I knew it was night, I knew it was an activity of the night (all of it FULLY conscious), and I even said to myself (laughing), “Still, that's something I wouldn't do awake (!)” Then I very clearly heard Sri Aurobindo's voice answering, “It's not necessary!” (Mother laughs) The whole thing could have been quite comical.

(a disciple comes in to repair the tape recorder which is malfunctioning)

What's wrong?

They're repairing the machine, we've had some trouble with it.

Oh... (laughing) maybe it didn't want it to be recorded!... It doesn't matter, it's just the same to me! Just the same.

(silence)

How can I explain it to you?... I had the same objectivity we have when awake: I was fully awake, I didn't sleep, it wasn't a dream. Objectivity: I saw the fact and then I reasoned over it – a completely, completely new consciousness.

Now I know what this new consciousness is, and I say so positively (I mean it's the body that speaks, and it knows it positively – yesterday it was asking). So its attitude is like this: “Now I know, and it's for You to decide whether... whether I am capable of having it, or if it's only to show me.” We'll see....

One thing must change materially, that is this body's consciousness. Something must change... (can it change? I don't know), something must change in the constitution – can it be done? I don't know.

(silence)

For the ordinary consciousness, it looks like another vibratory mode – it's not that.... Obviously it's the CONSCIOUSNESS, but... So it's something that must change in the vibration for the Consciousness to manifest WITHOUT DISTORTION.

And then, distortion is what creates... a misery, you know, which now the body finds frightful. When that disappears, it gets transformed: it's a bliss.... All that in this, here [the body]: nothing, not a thought, not even a... I might say no sensation on the vital level – it's only the kind of sensation in this [the body].

What has the Lord decided will be? I don't know.... The body doesn't know.... It will be as He wants.

(Mother goes into a contemplation)

There were two activities. The first I can't recount, because, naturally, it can't be used. But the second vision was like this: I was walking around naked, but DELIBERATELY naked from here to there (gesture from the top of the chest to the thighs); here (above), there may have been clothes. I was DELIBERATELY showing myself to certain people, and I had near me someone, always the same person: the physical Mother. She is the physical Mother, the image or the symbol of the physical Mother. She was with me, and I was wearing, except on the exposed part...³ (Mother breaks off) Ah, and that part I was showing was sexless, that is to say, neither man nor woman: there was nothing; and its color was... a little like Auroville's color [orange], like that, but vibrant, that is, as if... not luminous, but with a sort of luminosity. So then, the Mother wore a large cloak, like a large veil over her whole being, with that same color, and she told me, “See, I have put it on because I've accepted it – to tell you that I've accepted it.”

That was the second “dream.”

The rest of my body also wore a fabric... not a fabric: it was something like that [like the cloak]. But that [nakedness] was DELIBERATE; you understand, it was an act of GREAT importance. So those two persons [to whom Mother was showing her body], I don't know who they are, but they seemed to be men. I don't know who they are (at night I knew them very well, but awake I don't know who they are). And it was as if to tell them, “Here, this is how it is; look, THIS IS HOW IT IS.” They were taking it very scientifically, besides.

But the main thing was this Nature.... A little taller than my body.... For years, every time I have seen Nature, it's this person I've seen; to me, for years she has been Nature. And it's not a “relationship,” but like my mother who might be my sister, or my sister who might be my mother, like that (things aren't quite clear-cut, words are worthless). She is tall, a beautiful woman, and she is very, very simple, very simple, and quite awesome. But with me, like a little child. She went around with me, and she said, “See, I've put on your dress, I've put it on to tell you that it's accepted – I've put on your dress.” And its color was the same as that of the skin [of Mothers exposed part], it was something like skin, and the dress was exactly the same color. It also had a slight luminosity like that, something as if “efflorescent.”⁴ The skin too was “efflorescent.” And that was the point: no sex, neither man nor woman – no sex. It was a form like this (Mother draws a svelte figure in space), a form resembling our body, but sexless: the two legs joined together.

It was pretty.

Those two “dreams” were evidently the representation of the two big difficulties of the human consciousness – but completely overcome, they no longer existed. So then, all those human feelings (the feeling of horror, of fear...), all that was absolutely nonexistent, it was all bliss.... In the first “dream,” as I said, there was an intense love, and in the second a dignity, you know, a superior dignity.

It's interesting.

Death was the first, and the other was the second.

That was the true consciousness.

And it was my BODY that had it, not the psychic being or the higher beings (there, those things have been quite familiar for a long time), but the BODY, the very body, THIS, this, this.

That gave it such a peace!...

Those are the two things that must be mastered. What we call death, which is... – it doesn't exist. Yes, I must add to the first dream that I killed him, but he was still moving! I had killed him point-blank, but he kept on stirring.... I think I shot him with a pistol (though it made no noise and there was no...), but he kept on stirring very well. And he didn't in the least hold it against me!... You understand, it was the image of the unreality of the falsehood of all those things.

But the second thing, I had always asked, “How is it, the supra-mental body? I'd like to see it.” Well, I saw it, I saw my body, how it will be. It's fine! (Laughing) It's fine!... It's a body... not very different, but so refined! So... such a refined thing! None of all those movements – those crude movements – none of those simply ordinary human movements can exist there: the two can't be together; when there is the one, there can't be the other. That's the whole point, it has to be... done, clarified – nothing should remain, except... except the divine bliss.

(silence)

I see her, I still see Nature.... Her hair is... I don't know, its color isn't the same as that of our hair: it's like all colors together. And she has her hair as I do, always (Mother shows the bun at the back of her head); always, she has always had her hair as I do, and always hair with no... I don't know, it has all colors together. And she has a long, tranquil face.... Ageless, neither young nor old; I don't know, ageless. And an extraordinary power in the face.

(silence)

It's the MATERIAL Nature, the physical Nature, the material physical Nature, and she said, “I've put on the dress, I've put on YOUR dress – I've put on your dress to tell you that I've adopted it.”

It means that material Nature has adopted the new creation.

¹ “Lord, when You want the image to change into your likeness, what do You do?” The next day, the disciple to whom Mother had sent this reply wrote back: “I did not understand what you wrote yesterday.” Mother replied again (on the 9th): “What Sri Aurobindo calls ‘image’ is the physical body. So I asked the Lord what He does when He wants to transform the physical body, and last night He answered me by giving me two visions. The one was about the liberation of the body consciousness from all conventions regarding death; and in the other. He showed me what the supramental body will be. As you can see, I did well to ask Him!”

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² Still, in the afternoon, the doctor did a checkup which showed a blood pressure of 120 and a pulse rate of 70.

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³ Except there, Mother was wearing a cloak, as she will mention later.

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⁴ Mother probably meant to say “luminescent,” although “efflorescent” has its own tonality.

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