October 31, 1970The Mother
Agenda
Volume 11
October 31, 1970
(Mother tries to read with difficulty a few lines from “Savitri” specially written for her in large characters.)
It's a curious phenomenon: it's F. who writes this, and she doesn't understand well: for her it's just words – and I can't read!
Yes, I understand. It's the consciousness she put into it.
*
* *
(Then Mother listens to a few letters of Sri Aurobindo.)
[Question:] X asked me if in the course of rebirths a woman can become a man, and a man a woman. He thought of certain feminine traits in him that could be explained thus. I would also like to know if there is in the psychic being itself something like sex?
[Answer:] Not sex exactly, but what might be called the masculine and feminine principle. It is a difficult question [whether sex is altered in rebirth]. There are certain lines the reincarnation follows and so far as my experience goes and general experience goes, one follows usually a single line. But the alteration of sex cannot be declared impossible. There may be some who do alternate. The presence of feminine traits in a male does not necessarily indicate a past feminine birth – they may come in the general play of forces and their formations. There are besides qualities common to both sexes. Also a fragment of the psychological personality may have been associated with a birth not ones own. One can say of a certain person of the past, “that was not myself, but a fragment of my psychological personality was present in him.” Rebirth is a complex affair and not so simple in its mechanism as in the popular idea.
11 January 1936
Letters on Yoga, 22.447-448
He says it's “fragments”?
Yes, that there may be fragments.
That's my experience. For instance, I have a fragment from Murat. And I found again the whole experience of that fragment1 – but that was all, there was only that.
It [Sri Aurobindo's explanation] must be correct, it fits with my own experience.
The psychic, that's true, has masculine and feminine tendencies, but it's not “man” or “woman”: the psychic is sexless.
And as he says, it's quite a complex affair; there are all possibilities. There's nothing one can declare to be impossible.
(silence)
Now I want to hear your chapter.
(Satprem starts reading half a dozen pages of the sixth chapter: “The Tearing of Limits,” then must stop as he still has a sore throat.)
Mother, I can't go on, it's too long for me.
You're tired. The next time.
Its very good... very good.
It makes me go out completely.... I lose all contact, it's strange. It's the second time it has done this to me. Everything disappears: I go into a formation of that, and it's the only thing left. A very odd phenomenon. The whole world disappears. And when you stopped, it was as if I suddenly FELL from somewhere. It's strange.
Very interesting.
I feel I am entering what will replace the mind. An atmosphere that will replace the mind, the atmosphere of the new creation.... I had it very strongly last time, but it was the first time – I was utterly nonplused, I thought it depended on my condition. But today I listened quite as usual, and all of a sudden, without my even noticing it, I was transported into an atmosphere... an atmosphere of comprehension. And when you stopped ([laughing] gesture of falling to the ground)... Strange.
It's like a world being built.
It's very interesting.
I understand ELSEWHERE, you understand? It's no longer the same thing. I understand elsewhere. And “understand,” it's wonderfully clear and expressive. Strange! It's interesting. I had forgotten it had happened last time, and exactly the same thing recurred. It's very interesting.
Is it half of the chapter?
Hardly: a third.
Oh, it's quite, quite an experience.
Because the mind isn't there, it's... In reality, it's the psychic understanding of things.
Oh, it's interesting.
(Laughing) When you stopped, I seemed to fall back into something – something usual – and to come from another world. It belongs to another world.
It's very, very interesting.
(long silence Mother's breathing is hoarse2)
Do you think it will be finished for February?
I think I'll have finished next month.
Oh!
It's going very fast. But maybe I'll have to revise afterwards just the same.
Why? Oh, NO!
What I read you here is just as I wrote it.3
I for one find it perfectly fine, perfectly fine. Ah no, you mustn't change it.
I mustn't?
No, it's something exceptional. It's something that seems to come like this (gesture of descent as a whole).
Ah, that's true, I feel it's given me.
Yes, yes, it's ready-made. You mustn't touch it.
Yes, I tend to feel it's “ready-made,” that's true.
(Mother remains silent, shaking her head)
Ah, no, that would humanize it – you mustn't.
Yes.
It's not human. You mustn't humanize it, even, even if the outward being thinks certain things... [need to be modified or clarified or developed]. Because I know, I know where I go. No.
At night, I go there, and sometimes some things happen that are as if reflected on all that goes on during the [following] day.
It's very strong, it's really a new world under preparation.
It's very strong.
(silence)
I'll be very interested to see the end, your last chapter.
(Mother remains “gazing” for a long time)
1 Murat's victory, galloping at the head of armies. See Agenda III of 30 June 1962 and Agenda VII of 3 November 1966.
2 Curiously, while Satprem read, Mothers breathing was normal throughout.
3 Satprem actually reads his manuscript for the first time when he reads it out to Mother.