The Mother

Agenda

Volume 11

July 4, 1970

I wondered if we couldn't add to the “Notes” what you said last time about this psychic being that will become the supramental being?

What do you say?

I say it's important!

Yes!...

I mean about the effect [on people].... I am afraid everyone will suddenly... have a psychic being! (general laughter)

Oh, Mother, you're priceless!

(Mother laughs) Never mind!... It's all right.... It'll cause a stir.

*
*   *

(Then Mother listens to a few extracts from Sri Aurobindo for the August Bulletin.)

The conception of the Divine as an external omnipotent Power who has “created” the world and governs it like an absolute and arbitrary monarch – the Christian or Semitic conception – has never been mine; it contradicts too much my seeing and experience during thirty years of sadhana. It is against this conception that the atheistic objection is aimed, – for atheism in Europe has been a shallow and rather childish reaction against a shallow and childish exoteric religionism and its popular inadequate and crudely dogmatic notions. But when I speak of the Divine Will, I mean something different, – something that has descended here into an evolutionary world of Ignorance, standing at the back of things, pressing on the Darkness with its Light, leading things presently towards the best possible in the conditions of a world of Ignorance and leading it eventually towards a descent of a greater power of the Divine, which will be not an omnipotence held back and conditioned by the law of the world as it is, but in full action and therefore bringing the reign of light, peace, harmony, joy, love, beauty and Ananda, for these are the Divine Nature. The Divine Grace is there ready to act at every moment, but it manifests as one grows out of the Law of Ignorance into the Law of Light, and it is meant, not as an arbitrary caprice, however miraculous often its intervention, but as a help in that growth and a Light that leads and eventually delivers. If we take the facts of the world as they are and the facts of spiritual experience as a whole, neither of which can be denied or neglected, then I do not see what other Divine there can be. This Divine may lead us often through darkness, because the darkness is there in us and around us, but it is to the Light he is leading and not to anything else.

Letters on Yoga, 22.174

One cannot say whether the conquest is near or not – one has to go on steadily with the process of the sadhana without thinking of near and far, fixed on the aim, not elated if it seems to come close, not depressed if it still seems to be far.

Letters on Yoga, 24.1677
23 June 1936

In life all sorts of things offer themselves. One cannot take anything that comes with the idea that it is sent by the Divine. There is a choice and a wrong choice produces its consequences.

Letters on Yoga, 22.475

Ah, that's a good thing to say.

(To Sujata:) Type it for me, I want to give it to Nava.

Human life and mind are neither in tune with Nature like the animals nor with Spirit – it is disturbed, incoherent, conflicting with itself, without harmony and balance. We can then regard it as diseased, if not itself a disease.

Letters on Yoga, 22.499

*
*   *

Later

No questions?... And Sujata?...

There's something I've observed for myself.... The other day, for instance, you told me that the Force is very actively working in my body, and you asked me, “But don't you feel it?” Well, then, one thing I observe, it's the impression I have of constantly living with a sort of very solid and strong consciousness of the Force which is there, and I feel that's what veils all perceptions for me: everything is as though absorbed in that.¹ And that prevents me from perceiving all the rest.

With me too! (Mother laughs) It's like that! I was just observing, its like that.

Just before, you spoke of the psychic, but I can't speak of the psychic, I can't speak of material or vital things, because as soon as I stop for a second, that Consciousness is there, solid ...

Yes, yes....

... and all the rest, I just don't know.

Exactly the condition here [in Mother].

When I had that experience of the psychic [with R.], I said to myself, “But where is my psychic?...” It's constantly active, mingled with everything, it's what speaks; when people ask questions, I answer through it.... But I don't have the “sensation” of its presence.

I think that's when the identification is made: it's no longer a separate being, you understand.

Yes, it worried me, I wondered, “Is there something that veils?”

No! I think that's when the identification with the physical consciousness is made. Because with me it's always been like that: the minute there was union, it was over, there was no “psychic being and the rest”.... What lived was the psychic.

Yet I don't feel I've reached that point.... Though to tell the truth, I don't know where I've reached.... Because as soon as I stop a little, it's there, powerful, solid, and...

Yes, yes.

And then there's nothing but “that.”

Yes, that's right, there's nothing but that.

But, you know, the more the identification with the true being takes place, the less you have the sense of existing, of being someone.

Yes.

The body has itself reached that point, it finds it very difficult to feel a separate existence for itself, and (laughing) curiously that's only (Mother touches her cheek), only when it's in pain. For instance, I constantly have a toothache, here (this area as I told you [Mother points to her mouth and throat]), and that's it, it's the only thing that gives me the sense of being “my body” It doesn't feel separate. So I think that's the natural condition for the normal development.

You understand, the impression of “feeling” in a certain way, of “thinking” in a certain way, all that has completely vanished: you receive indications – sometimes of the way this person feels or that one reacts – but that's when a work needs to be done: it's an indication, and it's something taking place there, like this (gesture around, some distance away), it's not within.

No, I looked several times: I've always had the impression that things are fine (I mean for you), that the progress is quite fine. You're on the way. It's all right. And I find a great change.... There's only one corner, maybe of the speculative mind, that still has an attitude of its own – high enough in the mind, not an ordinary mind, a mind... (gesture above). But that's nothing.

(silence)

But it's rather strange, I could put it this way: it's about the only part (gesture from the cheek to the chin) that's conscious of the way people are and of what comes from them, and which still has reactions we could call “personal.” That is to say, if the atmosphere is troubled, well, there's disorder [in that part in Mother], it's subject [to the outside disorder] and that seems to be the only part. Otherwise, all the rest is... as if bathed, constantly bathed in the Divine, and automatically everything goes to the Divine. The divine Will goes through (gesture of descent and diffusion through Mother) and causes it to act – automatically. So then, at certain times, for some reason or other, the body calls (the mantra I told you), and as a result... (gesture of dilation) suddenly the cells go into a bliss – it only lasts a minute (not even a minute, a few seconds), but the simple fact of saying that, and it's bliss. Afterwards, everything starts up again (gesture indicating the normal rhythm).

It's very interesting.

I think (the other day you told me something was wrong in your body), I think that on those spots that aren't yet on the way to transformation, there's an increase, as though a concentration of the difficulty: one feels more ill at such spots.

The only possible thing is... (Mother opens her hands) the peace of total surrender, like this (absolutely flat gesture, vast, immutable): come what may. There. Then things are fine.

I noticed that if, on the trouble spot, one can establish that peace – a total peace, you know, the peace of perfect surrender: abdicate all preoccupation, all aspiration, all, all like this (same vast, immutable gesture), then it helps restore order.

(Mother takes Satprem's hands)

It's fine. It's fine.

Only, for people who don't know that, appearances are misleading: they feel more ill, they have attacks, things of that sort. So they don't understand anymore.

(long silence)

I had, countless times, the experience that when the body can catch hold of that attitude (completely, I mean, even beyond the aspiration to union or to transformation: THIS WAY [same vast gesture]), it's almost miraculous, instantaneous. But with a wrong movement it comes back. It's not established permanently – how do you manage to do that? I don't know.... Probably there should no longer be anywhere the presence of the possibility of a wrong movement. But that's difficult....

You breathe, you eat, you... and it's the Divine.

If I were to tell in detail what goes on, it's absolutely wonderful!... For instance, while eating, when the body keeps its true attitude and the perception of the Divine presence in all things, and naturally in what it absorbs, and when it absorbs it automatically with that attitude, without any contradiction, everything takes place without any difficulty. To such a point that if the attitude “deteriorates” (whatever), things can go to... (gesture of choking) swallowing the wrong way, like that, in the space of a few seconds.

It's clearly a transitional period, but how long will it last? I don't know.... The harmony of the functioning is becoming... miraculous – miraculous. Only, it's not automatic, it still depends on the attitude. It's not something that imposes itself, it's a consequence.

(long silence)

Mother, there's a curious phenomenon happening with Sujata: all at once she'll faint.

Oh!

She'll fall to the ground.... Without any reason, just like that, the contact is suddenly broken and she falls.

(after a long concentration)

Only, it's troublesome because one can injure oneself in a fall.

It happened twice when I was there, so I caught her. I wonder what it's due to?

Isn't she forewarned in any way?

No, she'll fall all of a sudden. But I noticed it happens before noon, after she s remained standing and working for a long time. That's also there.

But materially, it's the blood that doesn't reach the brain.

I am afraid she doesn't eat enough.

Yes, I also think so. She doesn't eat properly.

Isn't there something you'd like to eat?

(Sujata shakes her head)

¹ One might say, coagulated in that.

Back