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17 May 1969
Is it possible that the individuality gets dissolved after death?
These notions about individuality... they are very much changed for me, very much. Even the whole of this morning... But for a long time, for at least a month, it has been different. When people speak of individuality, there is always as though... at least in the background, some separation, that is to say, something existing independently and having its own destiny. But now, as the consciousness in this body knows it, it is almost like a pulsation of “something'' which for the moment has a separate action, but is at bottom, in essence always one; as something which is projected like this (gesture of expansion) for the moment with a form, and then which can (gesture of contraction), can at will annul this form. It is very difficult to explain, but in any case the feeling of the permanence of the separation has disappeared altogether. The universe is an exteriorisation (same gesture of pulsation) of the Supreme Consciousness; it is our incapacity for a total vision which gives us the sense of fixity; it is not there, it is something like pulsations or... in fact, it is a play of forms – there is only one Being. There is only one Being, only one, only one Consciousness, only one Being. The separation, it is truly... I do not know what has happened. And it is this that has done all the mischief – all the unhappiness, all the misery.... This body has just passed, for some days, through a series of experiences (too long to narrate), through all the states of consciousness that one can pass through, starting from the sense of the sole reality of that (Mother pinches her skin with her hand), of the substance, with all the miseries, all the suffering resulting from the belief that Matter is the sole reality; from that up to the liberation. It has been, hour after hour, a labour. Page - 165 But even before this, the consciousness of the cells had realised the unity, the true essential unity, which could become total if this sort of illusion disappeared. Indeed, the illusion that created this misery was lived so intensely that it became almost unbearable, with all the horrors and frightfulnesses created by it in the human consciousness and upon earth.... There had been things... frightful. And just after – just after – the liberation. What still remains to be lived, that is to say, the experience still to be realised is... the next forward move of creation, of Matter – the next step to return to the true Consciousness. That, it is... It seems decided that something like a beginning, or a trial experience, is about to be gone through (Mother touches her body). It is a question of the intensity of faith and of the power to bear which this faith gives. All depends on the capacity of passing through the necessary experiences. In any case, all the old notions, the old ways of understanding things, all that is gone, gone for good, has passed away. And all that necessarily is the way of return; one had to go through that, one has still to go through that – but not the same thing, but always moving forward until one can... until that is capable of living the Truth. I do not know, the feeling is that it is moving as fast as it is possible to go; truly the Consciousness is at work making us move as fast as it is possible. It is no longer the hour of a lingering somnolence.
(Long silence)
But by individuality I do not mean an ego; I mean the something which remains the same through all lives, the same thing which progresses through all lives, following up its growth.
That, it is the Supreme. Page - 166 Yes, but there is something which...
It is the Supreme conscious of Himself...
Yes.
...partially.
Yes, that's it, there is something...
The Supreme conscious of Himself partially.
That follows a path of growth.
Yes, that is the process. It is the process which has been used for the evolution.
Yes, it is that which I call individuality.
That is understood. That is the process, that has been the process of the creation. Because it was the process of the creation, men confused it with...
Separation.
Separation, ego. But that,¹ it is evident. That remains, that cannot disappear. (Silence) What is going to happen, I do not know. The body is not concerned at all with itself; it is like this (Mother opens out her hands), it is all the time: “What Thou
¹ This “something'' which persists. Page - 167 willest, Lord, what Thou willest''... and with a smile and a perfect joy – like this, like this, like this (Mother makes a gesture indicating this side of the world or the other side or all kinds of other sides). Very strangely, it has been given a consciousness having nothing to do with time; you understand, there is no more “when it was not'', no more “when it will not be'', no more... it is not like that, it is wholly something moving. But truly this is very interesting. And all, all these reactions, sensations, feelings, all this has changed altogether, changed even in appearance. It is a different thing. Well, the states in which one could be when one is in the highest consciousness, those that united, those that were automatically one with the Supreme Consciousness, that possessed the consciousness of all – that state has become the natural state of the body. Effortless, spontaneous: it cannot be otherwise. So what is going to happen, how is that going to be translated? I do not know. It is contrary to all habits. Does this consciousness know what has to be done materially?... I do not know. But the body does not concern itself with it; it goes on doing from second to second what it has got to do, without putting questions. No complications, no planning, nothing, nothing. There you are. We shall see; it is interesting. Page - 168
It is difficult... in English one would say: it's not a joke.... Everything, everything is getting disorganised, everything is getting disorganised. One sees very well, however, that the disorganisation is moving towards a higher organisation, that is to say, a widening, a liberation – that is true.... But nothing, nothing is going the ordinary way. (Silence)
The body has reached a state of consciousness in which it knows that death may make a change, but not – it is not a disappearance (not a disappearance of the consciousness). And then, this idea that the vast majority of people have: the repose of death (Mother places her hand upon her mouth, as if before a mighty stupidity). Not even this consolation. For the majority of people it is the contrary of repose. And so there also, but in a way still more acute and intense: “The only, only, one hope is... Lord, Thou. To be Thou, may there be nothing but Thee, and may this separation, this difference disappear; it is monstrous! May it disappear, so that it be as Thou willest: Thyself in full activity, or Thyself in complete repose, it has no importance of any kind; either this way or that, it has no importance at all, no importance at all. What is important is to be Thou.'' This is the absolute certitude (Mother closes both her fists) that there is only one door of exit from all that, one only – only one, there are no two; there is no choice, not several possibilities but only one: it is... the supreme Door, the Marvel of Marvels. All the rest... all the rest, it is not possible. And all that, it is the experience of this (Mother points to her body); it is not mental, it is altogether, altogether material. I am seeing, for the consciousness of people is open to me (there is no difference, it is altogether open), so I am seeing: Page - 169 in the vast majority, the vast majority, the idea, when things become truly painful: “Oh!'' – there is always this sort of idea – “Oh, one day, it will all end.'' What nonsense! (Silence)
But why? Why?... From time to time the body becomes anxious: Why? Why, why all this, why? When it sees, when it is in contact with suffering, with people, with miseries and difficulties, why, why? Why... why? Since this creation can become a wonder, one with the supreme Consciousness, why, why then was there the need of all that (Mother describes a circle coming back to the starting-point)? From time to time, this happens to it. In fact, evidently it is meaningless, for it serves no purpose – it is like that, it is like that. All the “why's'' will not prevent it from being like that. All that one has to do is to find out the means that it may no longer be so, that's all. (Silence)
I think always of Buddha and of all of them: they go to get dissolved in the Lord and then there will be nothing ! (Mother holds her head within her hands.) And then, in order to make their theory appear something like truth, they say (Mother laughs) that it is an “error''; they do not see the absurdity of their theory, as if the Supreme Lord could commit an error... and had only to repent and withdraw ! These people, all these people, the more they are convinced, the more one has the feeling that they have closed themselves off with blinkers.
(Silence) Page - 170 But, in fact, your body is a symbol of the whole earth.
It looks like that. So everything comes to you to get purified. Yes, but that does not console me.
Yes, but I have the feeling that once a thing, whatever it is, has touched you, it cannot go back into the world the same as it was before.
It looks like that. Extraordinary things are happening all the time. All the time, all the time, at every minute I hear of things really extraordinary. But that does not console it... it has no amour-propre.
Yes, but it serves some purpose. Ah! Yes. It purifies – it must purify the world.
It does not worry even about its purification... I do not know how to explain.... It is day and night, without break: “What Thou willest, O Lord, what Thou willest''... Yes, “willest'', not “wantest'', because it is not merely like this (gesture turned inward), it is also like this (gesture turned outward, spread out). “What Thou willest, what Thou wantest'', that's all. Such is its perpetual status.
(Silence) In any case (this, it is quite clear), the Consciousness which Page - 171 is at work to help it in its labour, has made it per-fect-ly understand that to go away is not a solution. Even if before, it had a curiosity to know what it will be, this curiosity has gone; then the desire to stay on, that also has gone away long ago. The possible desire to go away, when that becomes a little... suffocating, that also has gone with the idea that it will change nothing at all. So, there is left only one thing for it, to perfect the acceptance. That's all. Page - 172
There is only one solution, it is the direct contact of the physical with the Supreme. That is the only thing. There you are. But the cells of the body... (I do not know if it is particular to this body, I cannot believe that this body is so exceptional), but they are absolutely convinced, and they try, they try, they try all the while, all the while, all the while, with every misery, with every difficulty, with every... there is only one solution – only one thing: ``Thou, Thou alone, to Thee alone-Thou alone existest.'' It is this which is translated in the consciousness of people like the Buddhists and others, as world-illusion, but it is only a half-translation. But the true solution is this: “Thou alone existest, Thou alone.” All the rest... all the rest is misery: misery, suffering... obscurity. Perhaps – perhaps it is... Evidently in the conception of Sri Aurobindo, the Supramental escapes from all this misery. There is only That. Otherwise, it is difficult. Perhaps the half-measures now no longer suffice... I do not know. Perhaps it is time to take one's stand definitely. As for this body, it has taken its stand. But I felt... one must be very, very enduring – very enduring – so I did not urge others to do it, but all that amounts to saying that perhaps it is time. I do not know. Page – 173
The night before last, I spent more than three hours with Sri Aurobindo and I was showing him all that was about to come down for Auroville. It was quite interesting. There were games, there was art, there was even cooking! But all that was very symbolic. And I was explaining to him as though on a table, in front of a vast landscape. I was explaining to him the principle on which physical exercises and games were going to be organised. It was very clear, very precise, I was giving as though a demonstration, and it was as though I was showing on a very small scale a miniature representation of what was going to be done. I was moving people and things (gesture, as though on a chess-board). But it was very interesting, and he was very much interested: he was laying down the broad laws of organisation (I do not know how to explain). There was art and it was beautiful, it was good. And how to make the houses pleasant and pretty, upon what principle of construction. And then even the kitchen; it was so amusing, each one brought forward his invention.... This went on for three hours – three hours of the night, it is a lot ! Very interesting.
Yet conditions upon earth seem to be very far from all that ...
(After some hesitation) No... it was right there, it did not seem to be “foreign'' to earth. It was a harmony: a conscious harmony behind things; a conscious harmony behind the physical exercises and the games; a conscious harmony behind the decoration, the art; a conscious harmony behind the food...
I mean that all this seems to be at the opposite pole of what is now upon earth. Not... Page -174 No?
I saw X today and I was telling him that the whole organisation of the arts and sports, even of food and all the rest, was ready in the subtle physical – ready to come down and embody itself – and I told him, “What is needed is just a handful of earth (gesture of cupping the hands), a handful of earth where one could grow the plant.... One must find a handful of earth to let it grow.'' (Silence)
I do not know whether it is a correct perception, but it is now months that I have been having the feeling that the earth has never been in such darkness. I feel it is a formidable darkness.
Yes, yes. But the two are there. It is true. The confusion – it is a confusion, a dark confusion, yes. A dark confusion, but it is what Sri Aurobindo was always saying: the confusion becomes all the more intense and dark at the time the light is about to dawn. It is so. It appears as a dark chaos. And the Chinese...
Mother, do you know that in the West the books that have influence (not only influence, but are read and devoured by young people) are the books of Mao-Tse-Tung?
What does the man say?
He says, “Power springs from the barrel of a gun.'' (Mother remains silent.) That is what is read in the West. And the last great bestseller is a book entitled something like The Wretched, which is an apology Page - 175 for violence: power must be seized by violence. It is this which has success in the West; it is this which all the students swallow.¹
Oh! An apology for violence ...
A gospel of violence.
That is the vital in its fullness.
Yes.
Oh! That explains all the visions I have had. I believed... I was blaming my body, I was saying: this poor body, it has an unfortunate atavism: always horrible, horrible imaginations – and they were not imaginations, it was conscious of what was happening... oh!... It is very interesting, what you have just told me, because yesterday (these days, these three days), in front of the horror of the perception of things, this body (which is the very opposite of being sentimental; it has never, never been sentimental), this body wept.... It was not weeping physically, naturally, but it was... And it said, with an inner intensity, “Oh! Why does this world exist?'' In that way, so it was... it was horrid, sad, miserable... so it was miserable and... so horrible, oh!... But immediately it got the Answer – it was not an answer in words, it was simply... as though a vastness opening into the Light.
¹ The reference is to a book by Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, the central theme of which is: violence alone pays. “The practice of violence binds men together as a whole, since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain, a part of the great organism of violence which has surged upward.'' This book has been prefaced by Jean-Paul Sartre, who says still more clearly: “Irrepressible violence... is man recreating himself.'' It is the “mad fury'' through which “the wretched of the earth'' can “become men''. “To shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone... there remains a dead man and a free man.'' (Quotations from the Indian Express of 30 May 1969) Page - 176 Then, there is nothing to say any more. But how can That, that vastness, become this?... I do not know. The question: “How did That become this?'' It is in that way that it came to me: “How could That, that Marvel, have become this, this hideous, monstrous thing?'' But the procedure for changing this back again into That, I do not know.... The procedure is... abdication (how to say it?), self-giving (it is not that). But everything, everything appeared to it so gruesome. There was a whole day very, very, very difficult. And strangely enough, I knew at that moment that it was the exact repetition of the experience that Siddhartha Buddha had had and that it was while he was in this experience that he had said: “There is only one way out: Nirvana.'' And at the same time I was in the state of true consciousness: his solution and the true one. It was really interesting. How the Buddhist solution is only one step taken – one step. And it is beyond that (not in another way, but beyond that) that the true solution lies. It was a decisive experience.
(Long silence)
But what, after all, is this creation?... Well, separation, and then wickedness, cruelty – the thirst for doing harm, one might say – then suffering, just the joy of inflicting suffering, and then all the illness and decomposition and death – the destruction. All that, forming part of the same thing. What has happened?... And the experience that I had was of the unreality of these things, as though you had entered into an unreal falsehood, and all disappears as you come out of it – it does not exist, it is not. This is what is frightful ! What is for us so real, so concrete, so terrifying, all that does not exist. It is... you have entered into Falsehood. Why? How? What?... But never, never in the whole life-long existence of this body, not for once even, had it felt... such a total, such a deep pain as on that day... oh!... something which... (Mother presses Page -177 her throat). And then at the end of that, the Bliss. And then, pfft! It is wiped away, as though: “not yet, not yet, it is not yet the time.'' As though all that, all that which is so frightful did not exist. In the end, probably – probably – it is only the earth (that I do not know). It does not seem to be so, for the moon is very concretely a desolation. In short, there is still a feeling very strong and very exact that it is something limited that is like that, in this Falsehood. And unreal. And we are all in the Falsehood and Unreality; that is why it is like that. And what was interesting was that this escape into Nirvana was not the solution, was only a remedy, a remedy for a time (how to explain? I do not know), partial. A partial cure, and, one might almost say, momentary. And then that, for a moment it is a paroxysm. Afterwards comes the long way: one must carry on, carry on progressively the work of transformation. And then, the next minute, it is what Sri Aurobindo has called the supramental being. It is as though the passage from the one to the other. But how will all this change? I do not know.
Yes, the other day I had a perception, it was so concrete, that the earth was as though under a dark robe – it is what you call Falsehood, Illusion. It was something that covered the earth.
Yes, yes.
I felt that, but very concretely, a black robe.
Yes, it is that.
Only it must be pulled off for the whole world...
(After a silence) I cannot say, it is inexpressible; it was something Page - 178 that contained horror, fright, pain – and a compassion, oh! so intense.... Never, never had this body felt like that. And besides, it put the body in a condition quite... quite critical for some hours. And afterwards it was as though everything – each and every thing – came with a Smile and a shining Light, as though (translated in a child's image) as though the Lord was saying, “You see, I am everywhere. You see, I am in everything.” And it was incredible – incredible.... But there is no communication between the two. Well, it was at the time when the body was saying: “How is it? Is it going to be necessary to con-ti-nue that? Must one, must one con-ti-nue that? The world, people, the whole creation – to continue that?''... That appeared... I understood all at once: Ah ! It is this which they have translated as “eternal hell''. It is this. It is someone who has had this perception. And all the means – which could be called artificial, including Nirvana – all the means of coming out of that are worth nothing. Beginning with the idiot who kills himself to “put an end'' to his life (this of course is, of all the idiocies, the most idiotic; it makes one's case still worse), starting from there right up to Nirvana (where one imagines one is able to escape), all that, all that is worth nothing. They are all at different levels, but all are worth nothing. And then, after that, at the time when you really have the feeling of an everlasting hell, all of a sudden... (nothing but a state of consciousness, it is nothing else but that), all of a sudden a state of consciousness... in which all is light, splendour, beauty, happiness, goodness... and everything inexpressible. And it is like that: “There, there you are'', and then, pfft ! it appears and then, hop ! off it goes. And then the Consciousness which sees, which asserts itself and says, “Now, next step, the next step.'' So, it is that, it is in the presence of all that that the body had... never, never in all its life had it felt such pain, and even now... Is that, is that the lever?... I do not know. But the salvation is physical – not at all mental, but physical. I mean to say Page - 179 that it is not escape, it is here. This I felt very strongly. But the body had a few very difficult hours. And always, for it, it is all the same; it says, “Well and good''; it is quite ready for the dissolution or... There was no question of that. The question was not that; the question was, to know how to receive the Cure.... And how is it? – with our means, it is inexpressible. But it is not that it is veiled or hidden or whatever: it is there. Why? What is it in the whole that takes away from you the power to live it? I do not know. It is there. It is there. And all the rest, including death and all, becomes truly a falsehood, that is to say, something that does not exist.
Yes, it is a robe that is to be taken off.
If it were only that, it would be nothing.
No, I mean that all this, this Illusion, is like a robe that has to be taken off from the earth.
Yes, it is that. Yes, it is that ! But is it only the earth? I do not know. They are going high up there to see! All that I know, the feeling I have, is that it is concentrated here. Here is the concentration, here is the work. Maybe it is also... the whole solar system, I do not know. (Silence) But one cannot get out of it all alone.
Yes !... Sweet Mother, the other day you said something. You said, “It is time to take one's stand.'' You said, “The body, on its side, has taken its stand,'' but till now you did not dare push others to do the same, and you said, “Now it is time to take one's stand.'' Page - 180 Yes, I believe so.
But what do you mean by ``taking one's stand''.
This, this consciousness in which the body is now, that all this is unreal. The body, if it were asked, would say, “I do not know if I am alive, I do not know if I am dead.'' Because it is truly like that. During some minutes it has altogether the feeling that it is dead; at other moments it has the feeling that it is alive. It is like that. And it feels that that depends exclusively upon... whether one sees the Truth or not. (Silence) Upon what does that depend?... (Silence)
According to what others say or write or experience, I have seen that what the vast majority of mankind fears most is this perception: that it is a Falsehood and all that leads towards it. I know people (they have written to me) who had terrible frights quite lately because all of a sudden they were seized by force; there was something that began to touch them: the perception of the unreality of life. So that shows the vastness of the way to be trod. It means that all hope of a near solution seems to be a childishness. Unless... things take another turn. If it is to follow the movement it has been following till now... there have been centuries and centuries and centuries.... Then the superman would still be only a stage and afterwards there would be many other things...
Each time I think of that, I always have the feeling that the only solution is that you should have a glorious Page - 181 body, visible to everyone; then all could come and see – come and see the Divine, how it is!
(Mother laughs) That would be very convenient indeed!
It would be such an upsetting of all their notion ...
Yes, well certainly! It would be so convenient. Will it be like that?... That, surely I am in full agreement ! And I would be very glad if it were anyone, it does not matter who; I have not the least desire that it should be myself !
Come and see the Divine, how it is !
Yes, how it is ! (Mother remains gazing for a long time.) Page - 182 |