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25 September 1968
I have found some old papers, I do not know what they are. There is an envelope from you.
It is a question on Aphorisms. “When I hear of a righteous wrath, I wonder at man's capacity for self-deception.'' Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Aphorisms It is wonderful!
There was a question: “It is always ‘in good faith' that one deceives oneself: it is always for the good of others that one acts or in the interest of humanity and for serving you, it goes without saying. How does one come to deceive oneself and how to know it truly?'' ¹
It is terribly true. Even yesterday, without even reading it, I had a long vision on the subject; it is astonishing. But it was on such a different plane.... Yes, when you take the higher part of your mind as judge of your action, then you can “deceive yourself in good faith''. That is to say, the mind is incapable of seeing the truth and it judges by its own capacity, which is limited – not only limited but unconscious of the truth; so for the mind, it is in good faith, it does as well as it can. It is this. Naturally, for those who are fully conscious of their psychic, it is not possible to deceive themselves, for if they refer their problem to the psychic, they can from there have the divine answer. But even for those who are in relation with their
¹ Mother's answer to this question is published in On Thoughts and Aphorisms, Cent. Vol. 10, pp. 80-82. Page - 128 psychic, the answer has not the same character as the mind's, which is precise, categorical, absolute, asserting itself; it is something more of a tendency than an assertion, something which can still have different interpretations in the mind. I come back to my experience of yesterday. After having looked at it, I came to the conclusion that it is impossible to reproach a human being who does as well as he can according to his consciousness, for how can he go beyond his consciousness?... This is just the error that the majority of people make: they judge one another according to their own consciousness, but the other has not their consciousness! Therefore they cannot judge (I speak only of people of goodwill, naturally). According to the vision of a more total or higher consciousness, another person deceives himself, but according to the person himself, he does to the utmost whatever he believes he must do. This amounts to saying that it is absolutely impossible to lay the blame upon anyone who acts sincerely according to his own limited consciousness. And in fact, if we come to that, everyone in the world has a limited consciousness, excepting the Consciousness. It is only the Consciousness which is not limited. But every manifestation is necessarily limited, unless it comes out of itself and unites itself with the supreme Consciousness, then there... In what conditions can that be done? It is the problem of identification with the Supreme, which is the Supreme One – One which is All.
(Silence)
There is a whole side of human thought that has the conception that identification with the supreme Consciousness can come only by annulling the individual creation, but Sri Aurobindo precisely has said that it is possible without abolishing the creation. They have this notion that creation must be abolished, for they limit the creation to the human level – it is impossible for man, but it is possible for the supramental being. Page - 129 And it is this that will make the supramental being essentially different: he will be able, without losing a limited form, to unite his consciousness with the supreme Consciousness. But for man, it is impossible. That I know. As I have said, you have it, you have the experience, but as soon as you want to express it, it is gone, it becomes again... (gesture of being closed). That is to say, the substance of which we are built up is not sufficiently purified, enlightened, transformed (it does not matter what word) to express the supreme Consciousness without deforming it. (Silence. Mother enters into an experience.)
It is a certain opacity in Matter, in the substance that makes it unable to manifest the Consciousness... and it is this same (I do not know how to say it) opacity that gives it the sense of existing. This is part of the experience of these last days. I have lived for... I do not know, for weeks, in a kind of fluidity – transparent fluidity – and as this transparent fluidity is replaced by this something that I call now “opacity'', there comes a kind of concretisation of the existence of the body. So, the direct contact of the psychic being with the substance of the body, without any intermediary, gives the sensation... is it a “sensation''? I do not know; it is not a sensation, it is not a perception; it is a kind of “felt vision'' (and this vision is very precise, very precise) of the value of vibrations in relation to a higher vibration which is (all that I can say about it) more directly the expression of the supreme Vibration. It is very difficult to express, but the body is going through an experience which it never had; it is as though passing from an imprecision to a precision, from a kind of fluidity to... it is not a concrete thing, but from a thing fluid – fluid and imprecise – to a thing precise. All the happenings (no matter how small), which vary, are the occasion for a new perception. Before, Page - 130 everything was fluid and imprecise; now it is beginning to be more precise – more precise, more exact. But it loses a little of its fluidity. It is very difficult to express. I had never thought of it. It is strange, it is not willed. Just now I have had the experience. So it is not yet very clear. Indeed, the mind gives a precision that is lacking when it is not there. Its role in creation is just to give precision, to explain, and at the same time to limit.
An ordinary mind could ask: “But what is the advantage of this imprecision?”
There is no advantage! It is altogether certain that when the Supramental manifests, it will replace the mental precision (how to say it?) that diminishes – the precision that limits and therefore falsifies things in part – by a clarity of vision, another kind of vision that does not diminish. It is that which is being built up. Indeed, it can be said (it is not exactly this): in order to give precision, the mind limits and separates; and evidently there is a precision that can come from a more exact vision, without division and without separation. And it is that precision which will be the precision of the supramental vision. With the precision will come, at the same time, the vision of the relation of all things to one another, without separating them. But that is something in preparation. It comes as a flash, for a minute, and then lapses back into its old way. The same can be said of the vital. The vital gives an intensity which nothing else seems capable of giving; well, this same intensity exists in the Supramental, but without division. It is an intensity that does not separate. These two experiences I have had, but very momentarily. These are things that are being worked out just at present. Page – 131
I have had an interesting experience.... Not last night, but the night before, someone, whom I shall not name, told me, “I am wholly down in the physical consciousness: no more meditation, and the Divine has become something up there, so far away.'' Then immediately, as he was speaking, the whole room got filled with the divine Presence. I told him, “Not up there: here, here itself.'' And at that moment, everything, the whole atmosphere... it was as though the air had changed into the divine Presence (Mother touches her hands, her face, her body), well, everything was touched, touched, pervaded, but with... the thing that was particularly there was a dazzling Light, a Peace like this (gesture of massiveness), a Power, and then a Sweetness... something... one had the feeling that it could melt a rock. And it did not go away. It stayed. It came in that way, and then it stayed. And so the whole night it was like that – everything. Even now, the two are there: a little of the ordinary consciousness, as if in a mechanical way, but I have only to be quiet or concentrated for a moment and it is there. And it is the experience of the body, you understand, physical, material, the experience of the body: everything, everything is full, full; there is only That, and we are like... everything is as though shrivelled, a dried up rind, something like that, dried up. One has the feeling that things are (not entirely, but superficially) hardened, dried up, and that is why you do not feel That. That is why you do not feel Him; otherwise, all is That, That, there is nothing but That. You cannot breathe without breathing Him in; you move, it is within Him that you move; you are... everything, everything, the whole universe is within Him – but materially, physically, physically. It is the cure for this “drying up'' that I am now looking for. Page - 132 I feel it is something fantastic, do you understand? And then when I listen, He tells me things also. I said to Him, “But then why do people always go up there?'' And with the most extraordinarily unusual humour the answer comes: “Because they want me to be very far from their consciousness!'' Things like that, but not formulated in such a precise manner: impressions only. Many a time – many – I had heard: “Why do they go so far in search of what is'' – of course there are tenets that said: It is within you “what is everywhere?'' I did not say it to this person, first because the experience was not, as it is now, a continuous thing. And then there was this particularly: no new religions, no dogmas, no fixed teachings. One must avoid – one must avoid at all cost the thing becoming a new religion. Because as soon as it is formulated in a way that is elegant and imposing and has a force, it would be the end. You have the feeling that He is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere; there is nothing else. And we do not know it because we are... shrunken, I do not know how to say it, dried up. We have made great efforts (Mother laughs) to separate ourselves – and succeeded ! Succeeded, but succeeded only in our consciousness, not in fact. In fact, It is there. It is there. There is nothing but That. Whatever we know, whatever we see, whatever we touch, it is as though bathing, floating in That; but it is penetrable; it is penetrable, quite penetrable: That passes through it. The sense of separation comes from this (Mother touches her forehead, indicating the mind). The experience came, perhaps, because for several days there was a very great concentration to find out, not exactly the why or the how, but the fact, the fact of the separation, everything appearing so stupid, so ugly.... I was assailed, assailed by various living memories of all kinds of experiences (all kinds: books, pictures, cinemas, and life, people, things), memories of this body, all the memories that might be called “anti-divine'', Page - 133 in which the body had the sensation of something that was repulsive or evil, like negations of the divine Presence. It began in that way; for two days I was like that, so much so that the body almost sank into despair. And then the experience came and after that it did not move. It did not budge. It came: brrff ! finished, and it did not budge. Well, the experiences come and then they withdraw: it did not move. At this moment it is there. And then the body tries to be fluid (Mother makes a gesture of pouring herself out), it tries to melt; it tries, it understands what it is. It tries – it does not succeed, evidently ! (Mother looks at her hands), but its consciousness knows. Only, the experience has its effects: people have felt relief all of a sudden; one or two were completely cured. And when something goes wrong in the body, it need not ask: quite naturally it is set right. And that has not even given to the body the need to do nothing and be wholly concentrated upon its experience: no, there is no desire, nothing at all. Like this, to float in a luminous immensity... which is within ! It is not only outside: it is within. It is within. That (Mother touches her hands), that which appears as separate, truly the feeling is that it is... I do not know how to say it, but it is real only in the distortion of the consciousness, but not the human consciousness: something has happened, something has happened in the consciousness.... (Mother shakes her head) I do not understand.
(Silence)
All the theories and explanations and stories that lie at the base of each religion, all that seems to me... an amusement. And then one wonders, one wonders... I will tell you one thing: might it not be a comedy that the Lord has played to Himself? But it is difficult to say. I have had days when I have lived truly all the horrors of creation (and in the consciousness of their horror), and then that has brought this experience, and... Page - 134 all the horror has disappeared. And these were not at all psychological things, but rather physical sufferings, yes, particularly physical suffering. I have seen it – a physical suffering that lasts, that does not stop, that lasts day and night. And then all of a sudden, instead of being in this state of consciousness, you are in that of this exclusive divine Presence. Pain gone ! And it was physical, altogether physical, with a physical reason. Yes, the doctors would say, “It is because of this, because of that and that'', quite a material thing, altogether physical; and pouf ! it goes away.... The consciousness changes and back it comes. If one remains sufficiently long in the true consciousness, the appearance, that is to say, what we call physical “fact'', that itself disappears, not merely the pain.... I feel as though I had touched (there is no mind which understands, thank God !), I had touched the central experience. Only, it is just a small beginning. One would have the feeling, one would be certain of having touched the supreme Secret only if the physical were transformed.... According to the experience (just the little experience of a detail), it must be like that. And then, will it be at first one body in which this Consciousness will express itself, or should all, all be transformed?... A phenomenon of consciousness. But it is so concrete, yes, it is that ! (Silence)
Only, the other consciousness is still there.... Now this morning, I saw a considerable number of people. As each one came, I was looking at him (there was no “I'' that was looking: for him it was so, I was looking at him), the eyes were fixed and then it was the perception and the vision (but not the vision as one understands it: it is altogether a phenomenon of consciousness), the consciousness of the Presence, the Presence that Page - 135 penetrates this kind of shell, the hard thing; it penetrates, it penetrates, it is everywhere; and then when I am looking, when the eyes are fixed, that becomes something like a concentration.¹ But this is certainly an altogether temporary and intermediary state, because the other consciousness (the consciousness which sees things and deals with them, which is busy with them as usual, only with the perception of what is happening in the individual, what he is thinking – not so much what he is thinking, but what he is feeling, how he is), that is there. Evidently this too is necessary in order to maintain the contact, but... Obviously, it is still an experience, it is not an established fact. What I mean by “established fact'' is the consciousness established in such a way that nothing else exists, that that alone is present it is – not yet so. (Long silence) And you? What have you got to tell me?
I felt a change in the atmosphere. Ah!
Oh, yes. It is now five or six days that I had the feeling of something overwhelming (Mother laughs), overwhelming. And last night, it was rather bizarre, at one moment I saw you, you were lying fully stretched upon the ground, flat. Then I came near you and asked, “Don't you want a cushion under your head?'' You told me, “No, nothing.'' And you were lying flat on the ground... What does that mean?
(Mother remains silent for a long time and does not answer.)
¹ A concentration of the Presence. Page – 136 But this notion of the Supramental “coming down'', and a Consciousness “having entered'', is our translation.... The experience came as the experience of an eternal fact, not at all as a thing that was happening. All that must be the outcome of states of consciousness, certainly. Whether there is something beyond, I do not know, but in any case, of this I had the positive experience. These are movements of consciousness. Why, how?... I do not know. Only, if one looks from the other side, the fact that something belonging to this earthly domain as it is has become conscious, gives the impression that something has “arrived''.... I do not know if I can make myself understood... I mean to say that this body is absolutely like all the rest of the earth, but it happens that for some reason it has become conscious in the other way: well, that normally must translate itself in earthly consciousness as an “arrival'', a “descent'', a “beginning''.... But is it a beginning? What is it that has “arrived''?... You understand, there is nothing but the Lord (I call it “Lord'' because of the convenience of language, for otherwise…), there is nothing but the Lord, there is nothing else, nothing else exists. All things happen within Him, consciously. And we are like... grains of sand in this Infinity; only we are the Lord with the capacity to be conscious of the Lord's consciousness. That is exactly what it is.
(Silence)
Before this experience, at the time when I was in the consciousness of all the sufferings, the horrors of physical life, at a certain moment something came (which did not “speak''; one is obliged to use words, but all this happens without mentalisation), it was an impression: if I translated, I would say, “Aren't you afraid of going mad?'' You understand? It is only a translation. And then the body answered spontaneously: “We are all mad, we cannot become more mad than we are!'' And forthwith, it became calm. Page - 137 (Long silence)
It is here that this consciousness lies (Mother points to the chest). That (Mother points to the mind and above) is light, light (gesture of wideness). But in this body, it is here that it lies, this consciousness (Mother points again to the chest). I mean the consciousness... that one is in the Lord. I know, the consciousness that is there knows that this way of speaking is altogether childish, but it prefers this childish way to something that would try to be exact and would be mental. Page – 138
It continues.... The body feels that it is beginning to understand. Naturally, for it there is no thought, no thought at all; but these are states of consciousness – states of consciousness that complete each other, replace each other.... And it goes so far as to ask how one can know by thought; for it, the only way to know, to cognise, is consciousness. And this is becoming more and more clear from the general point of view, and it applies it, it applies this to itself; that is to say, a work is being done so that all parts of the body may become conscious, not merely conscious of the forces received, of the forces passing through it, but also of the action of its inner functioning. It is becoming more and more precise. And this above all: everything for it is a phenomenon of consciousness, and when it wants to do something, it almost no longer understands what it means to know how to do it. It is necessary that it be conscious of the way to do it. And not only for itself but for all the people around it. It has become such an evident fact.... So, to learn something from somebody else – for example, to learn the way to do a thing: for it, it is only by doing the thing with the consciousness that it applies that it can learn. And what someone explains, what someone else can explain, it seems... this appears hollow – hollow, empty. And it is becoming more and more so. (Silence)
You did not answer, Mother, my question about the vision I had of you lying flat on the ground ...
(Mother laughs) I suppose it is the symbol of perfect surrender. I lay on my back, isn't it so? Page - 139 On your back, upon the ground.
It is the attitude of perfect receptivity in total abandon. It must be the figurative expression of the attitude of the body. Because truly, I do not know if there are “bits'', organs that have still what may be called the spirit of independence, but truly the body has made its surrender; that is to say, it no longer has its own will – it has no desire, no will of its own, and it is as though all the while “listening'', all the while, to catch the Indication. It is beginning to know exactly the spot or the function that is not... I cannot say “transformed'', because it is a big word, but that is not in harmony with the rest and creates a disorder. This is becoming a perception of every moment. Whenever there occurs something which seems abnormal, there is the understanding, the consciousness of why it happened and where it should lead, of how an apparent disorder can lead to a greater perfection. Yes, it is that. It is a very small beginning. But it has begun. It has begun to be a bit conscious. And not only for itself alone, but for others also, it has begun: to see how, to perceive in what way the Consciousness (with a capital C) acts in others; and sometimes indeed (the words follow long after the experience) there is no longer the perception of division; there is the perception of diversity and this becomes very interesting.... The diversity which, if it were not for what one might call the “hitch'' of separation, would, in the true consciousness, be perfectly harmonious and would make a whole that would be perfection itself (Mother makes the sign of a circle). It is the hitch – what has happened?... What has come to pass?... It remains to be known if for some reason it was necessary or if it is an accident – but how can that be an accident ! For the moment (there is no thought, so it is a little vague), for the moment, there is the impression... one might say simply like this: an acquisition of a formidable consciousness, which was Page - 140 acquired, paid for, at the very great price of every suffering and disorder.... Yesterday or today (I do not remember now), yesterday I think, at a certain moment the problem became very acute, and then it was as though the divine Consciousness told me: “In all this suffering, it is I who am suffering'' the Consciousness, isn't it? – “it is I who am suffering, but in another manner than that of yours.'' I do not know how to say it, it was like this, the impression that the divine Consciousness experienced what for us is suffering; it existed – it existed for the divine Consciousness – but in a different way than for our own consciousness; and then there was an attempt to make one understand the consciousness of all at the same time, simultaneously, everything (one might simply say to express oneself): suffering, the most acute disorder, and Harmony, the most perfect Ananda the two together, experienced together. Naturally that changes the nature of the suffering. But all this is very conscious and this is something like prattling. This is not the translation of what is. There is also the perception that gradually, through all these experiences, each aggregate (which is for us a body) is accustoming itself so that it may have the capacity to bear the true Consciousness. That does need a movement of adaptation.
But Sri Aurobindo has written also, in Thoughts and Glimpses, I believe, that suffering was the preparation for Ananda.¹
Yes. I must say that there are many things in Sri Aurobindo which I am now beginning to understand in a very different way.
¹ “Pain that travails towards the touch of an unimaginable ecstasy.'' (Cent. Vol. 16, p. 384) Sri Aurobindo also wrote in Thoughts and Aphorisms: ``Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us how to bear and grow in rapture. She has three stages of her schooling, endurance first, next equality of soul, last ecstasy.'' (Cent. Vol. 17, p. 89) Page - 141 (Silence)
The feeling of being on the point of touching something and then... it escapes. Something is missing. Still a long, long, long way to go. Page – 142
A question has been put. I translate it: “While describing her experiences of last August and September, the Mother spoke of the exclusion of the mind and the vital. Why must they be eliminated for a rapid and effective transformation of the body? Does not the supramental consciousness act upon them also?''
Certainly it acts, it has already acted for a long time. It is because the body is accustomed – was accustomed – to obeying the vital and particularly the mind, and therefore this was in order to change its habit, so that it would obey only the higher consciousness. It is for that, so that the thing would go faster. In people it is through the mind and the vital that That acts, but I have said it was also more sure. As an experience this is rather risky. But it increases the tempo considerably, for normally one has to act upon the body through the other two, whereas in this way, when the two are not there, That acts directly. That's all. The procedure is not recommended ! Each time the occasion arises, I repeat it; people should not imagine that they should try it (they would not be able to do so, but that does not matter), it is not recommended. One must take the necessary time. It was only because of the mounting years... so that it would go quicker.
(Silence)
What is curious is that there are, as it were, demonstrations of the natural tendency of the body (I suppose it is not the same for all bodies: it depends upon how the body has been built, that is to say, father, mother, antecedents, etc.) a demonstration of the body left to itself. For example, this one has a kind of Page - 143 imagination (it is something queer), a dramatic imagination: all the time it has the feeling that it is living through catastrophes; and then, with the faith it always has, the catastrophe is transformed into a realization – absurd things like that. So for a time, it is left to this imagination (this is what has happened these days) and when it is completely tired of this stupid activity, it prays, yes, with all its intensity, so that the thing may stop. Immediately, just that, hop! it does this (gesture), it turns around straightaway and goes into a contemplation not distant, but quite close of this wonderful Presence that is everywhere. It is like this, like this (Mother quickly turns two fingers), it does not take time, there is no preparation or anything; it is hop! hop! in this way (same gesture), as though to show the stupidity of the body. It is something altogether idiotic, like a demonstration through evidence of the stupidity of the body left to itself, and then of this wonderful Consciousness that comes, in which all that vanishes... like something which has no consistency, no reality, and which vanishes. And like a proof that it is not merely in the imagination, but that it is in the fact: proof of the power so that all this... vain dream of life as it is (which has become for the consciousness of this body something so frightful) can be changed into a wonder, like this, simply by the reversal of the consciousness. The experience is repeated in all the details, in all the domains, as a demonstration through fact. And it is not a “long process'' of transformation, it is as though something is reversed all of a sudden (Mother turns two fingers), and instead of seeing ugliness, falsehood, suffering and all that, suddenly it lives in bliss. And all the things are the same, nothing has moved, except the consciousness. And so there remains (it is what lies in front, what is probably coming): how is the experience to be translated materially?... For the body itself, it is quite evident: during, say, one hour, or two or three, it suffered much, it was quite miserable Page - 144 (not a moral suffering, an altogether physical suffering), and then all of a sudden, brrff ! all gone !... The body apparently has remained the same (Mother looks at her hands) in its appearance, but in place of an inner disorder which makes it suffer, everything is going well and there is a great peace, a great calm, and everything is going well. But this, it is for one body – how does it act upon others? It begins to notice the possibility in other consciousnesses. From the moral point of view (that is to say, in respect to attitudes and character and reactions), it is quite visible; even from the physical point of view sometimes: all of a sudden something disappears – as we had the experience when Sri Aurobindo removed a pain (gesture as if a hand comes and takes away the pain): one wondered ... “Ah! gone, vanished, like that.'' But it is not constant, not general, it is only to show that it can be so, by the fact that it is so in one case or another, to show that it can be like that. One might say it in this way: the body has the feeling that it is imprisoned within something – yes, imprisoned – imprisoned as though in a box, but it sees through; it sees and it can also act (in a limited way) through something which is still there and which must disappear. This “something'' gives the feeling of an imprisonment. How is it to disappear? That I do not know yet. One has to find the relation between the consciousness in one body and the consciousness of all. And to what extent there is dependence and to what extent there is independence, that is to say, up to what point the body can be transformed in its consciousness (and as a result, necessarily, in its appearance) without... without the transformation of all – up to what point? And to what extent the transformation of all is necessary for the transformation of one body. This remains to be discovered. (Silence) If one were to tell everything, it would take hours.... Page - 145 But this “box'' you spoke of, it is a universal box ... Yes!
I have often had the feeling that all these so-called human laws or “natural” laws are merely an immense morbid imagination collectively fixed – that is the box.
Yes, exactly so, exactly so.
Then, how...
Yes, to what extent can an individual light act upon that?... There is the problem.... I do not know.
(Silence)
The vision is very clear, of the collective progress (our field of experience is the earth) that has taken place upon earth; but considering the past, it would seem that a formidable time is still needed for all to be ready to change.... And yet, it is almost a promise that... there is going to be a sudden change (which is translated in our consciousness as a “descent'', an action that “happens'', something that was not acting till now and which has begun to act – in our consciousness, it is translated in that way) . We shall see. For the body itself, there is a growing experience, that is to say, a more and more precise experience at the same time of its fragility (extreme fragility: just a little movement could stop the present existence), and at the same time, at the same time, simultaneously, the sense of an eternity ! – that there is an eternal existence. The two at the same time. It is truly a period of transition ! Page - 146 (Silence)
Once or twice, when the body's... what one might call its agony to know, was very intense, when it had the full sense of the Presence, this sense of the Presence everywhere, inside, everywhere (Mother touches her face, her hands), it asked how (not even why, it had no such curiosity), how could there be the present disorder? Well, when it was very intense, very intense, once or twice it had the feeling: Once this is found out, it is immortality. Then it begins thus to push, to push in order to catch the secret, it has the feeling that it is going to be found.... And then there is a kind of lull in the aspiration: “Peace, peace, peace...” Yes, once or twice the impression: “Oh! It is about to be understood'' (“understood'', that is to say, lived; it is not “understood'' with the thought: lived) and then... (gesture of escape). And a Peace which comes down. But the feeling: it will be tomorrow. But tomorrow, which tomorrow? Not tomorrow according to our measure. We shall see. But the experiences are innumerable, with all the aspects. It would take hours and still one always has the feeling that the word, well, falsifies something. It is no longer so simple, no longer so beautiful, and no longer so clear. It becomes complicated. The body has absolutely wonderful moments; it has hours of agony. And all of a sudden, a wonderful moment. But that moment cannot be explained.... If one is to judge the degree of growth by the proportion of time, well... the wonderful moment lasts a few minutes, and there are hours of agony. There are even hours of suffering. And then if one judged the proportion accordingly, it is still very, very, very, extremely far away ... But what is to be done? One has to go on, that is all. Page - 147 |