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26 June 1957
“But there is here still the necessity of a resort to the normal means of propagation and the gross method of physical Nature. A purely occult method, a resort to supraphysical processes acting by supraphysical means for a physical result would have to be possible if we are to avoid this necessity: the resort to the sex impulse and its animal process could not be transcended otherwise. If there is some reality in the phenomenon of materialisation and dematerialisation claimed to be possible by occultists and evidenced by occurrences many of us have witnessed,¹ a method of this kind would not be out of the range of possibility. For in the theory of the occultists and in the gradation of the ranges and planes of our being which Yoga-knowledge outlines for us there is not only a subtle physical force but a subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter and to create in this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible. It should be possible and it is believed to be
¹ Sri Aurobindo is probably alluding, among other things, to an incident which took place in 1921 in Pondicherry at the “Guest House” where he lived. A cook who had been dismissed had gone to a local black magician to try to take his revenge, and a shower of stones began to fall into the courtyard of the “Guest House”, regularly for several days. The people on the first floor could see the stones forming in front of their eyes and then falling into the courtyard. These stones were so real that they hurt a young servant, and could be picked up. Strangely enough they were all covered with moss. Finally, when larger and larger stones started falling inside closed rooms, and there was no longer any doubt about their occult origin, Mother intervened with her inner power and the “shower” stopped. A few days later the cook’s wife came running to ask for Sri Aurobindo’s forgiveness: the cook lay dying in the hospital, struck by the “recoil” of his shower of stones. Sri Aurobindo answered, “For this he need not die!” And everything returned to normal. This incident is related in detail in The Life of Sri Aurobindo by A. B. Purani, 1964 Ed., pp. 282-83.] Page – 127 possible for an object formed in this subtle physical substance to make a transit from its subtlety into the state of gross Matter directly by the intervention of an occult force and process whether with or even without the assistance or intervention of some gross material procedure. A soul wishing to enter into a body or form for itself a body and take part in a divine life upon earth might be assisted to do so or even provided with such a form by this method of direct transmutation without passing through birth by the sex process or undergoing any degradation or any of the heavy limitations in the growth and development of its mind and material body inevitable to our present way of existence. It might then assume at once the structure and greater powers and functionings of the truly divine material body which must one day emerge in a progressive evolution to a totally transformed existence both of the life and form in a divinised earth-nature. The Supramental Manifestation, pp. 32-33
Mother, is this method of direct transmutation without passing through birth possible now, since now the Supermind is on earth?
Is it possible? You are asking whether it is possible?… Everything is possible. What do you want to know? Whether this has already been done?
Yes.
Not as far as the most material plane; as far as the perceptible subtle physical – perceptible by the intermediary senses, between the physical senses and those of the subtle physical; for instance, like a breath felt as a gentle breeze, like certain perceptions of smell, like subtle perfumes. Naturally, those who Page – 128 have an inner vision can see, but for the most material senses there is not – how shall I put it? – not the permanence given by the physical body as we know it materially. There are phenomena, yes, that can even be seen, but they are fleeting. There is no stability, the stability in matter, the fixity has not been acquired. I mean there is a contact, there is even the contact of touch, there is a perception, but there isn’t the permanence given by the material body. They are transient phenomena which, naturally, don’t give you the same feeling of an altogether tangible reality. Still, the influence is constant, the intervention is constant, the perception is constant, but there is not the stability of a body which…well, which, when it goes out of the room and returns, it comes back the same as it went out, you understand? Or when you sit down in a certain place, it occupies that place in a very concrete way. I cannot say because I don’t know everything that has happened and is happening on earth, but as far as I know, this has not yet been achieved, this concrete permanence. Yet, it was of matter, for there was sight, touch, hearing. But hearing doesn’t need to be very material: the sounds of the subtle physical life, its vibrations can be heard very well; and quite strangely, it is hearing and smell which seem to be the most permanent in the subtle physical world, more so than the perception of form – and also a certain sense of contact which is very, very concrete. Only, this heavy material presence of a physical body which occupies an absolutely definite and concrete place and prevents any other thing from occupying the same place, this does not yet seem to be possible; therefore, what has so far been achieved has after all to be a little more fluid than the heaviest kind of matter.
Does this progress depend on the human consciousness?
You mean for a more complete materialisation?… It depends on Page - 129. power of manipulating the vibrations of matter. This power of manipulation is necessarily the result of a certain state of consciousness. And all depends on the standpoint that is taken, for no individual progress can come about without what could be called the “authorisation” of the divine Will. Ultimately, nothing in creation can happen without the sanction of the divine Will. So…
Mother, will the first supramental body be like this?
Like what?
A transformation without passing through a terrestrial birth?
Ah! Excuse me, you must not confuse things. There are two things. There is the possibility of a purely supramental creation on one hand, and the possibility of a progressive transformation of a physical body into a supramental body, or rather of a human body into a superhuman body. Then it would be a progressive transformation which could take a certain number of years, probably a considerable number, and would produce a being who would no longer be a “man” in the animal sense of the word, but would not be the supramental being formed fully outside all animality, for its present origin is necessarily an animal one. So, a transmutation may take place, a transformation that’s enough to liberate the being from this origin, but all the same it wouldn’t be a purely and entirely supramental creation. Sri Aurobindo has said that there will be an intermediary race – a race or perhaps some individuals, we don’t know – an intermediary rung which could serve as a passage or could be perpetuated according to the needs and necessities of creation. But if one starts from a body formed in the same way as human bodies are at present, the result will never be the same as a being formed entirely according to the supramental method and Page – 130 process. It will perhaps be more on the superhuman side in the sense that all animal expression may disappear, but it won’t be able to have the absolute perfection of a body that’s purely supramental in its formation.
And in this transformed human body will there be a differentiation between man and woman?
What, what are you saying?
If the Supermind accepts this transformed body…
Accepts? What do you mean, “accepts”?
I mean “descends” in this half-human body – will there be a differentiation?
But it is not like that, it is not a bottle into which one pours some liquid! It’s not that! Are you asking whether the body will keep its masculine or feminine form? Probably this will be left to the choice of the being who enters the house, the occupant.…Does it interest you very much, this difference? (Laughter)
You tell us that there won’t be any difference, but so far there is still a great difference.
From what point of view? If it is the physical appearance, I agree – and yet, not so much as all that, but still…From what point of view?
From the point of view of the idea of sex, that there are two different sexes. That still exists.
The idea! But that’s the fault of the person who thinks! One Page – 131 can very well dispense with thinking. You know, these very petty limits of thought are things which ought to disappear before you can even attempt to transform your body. If you still have these very petty ideas which are purely animal, there is not much hope that you could begin the least process for the transformation of your body. You must first transform your thought.… For that is something which is still crawling far down below. If you are not able to feel that a conscious and living being can be quite free, even in a certain definite form, from all feeling of sex, it…it means that you are still up to your neck in the original animality.
In the inner thought one feels it, but in the actuality of material life…
What about the actuality?
In the outer life I haven’t yet realised that. In the inner…
You spend your time thinking about it?
But one may live twenty-four hours out of twenty-four without giving a single thought to this difference! You must really be hypnotised by this affair. Do you suppose that when I speak to you I think that you are a man and when I speak to Tara I think she is a woman?
Still there is a difference!
Ah! but it is not at all necessary.
In theory I understand.
In theory! What theory? Page – 132 That there is no difference. But when I am in contact with someone, either I am speaking to a man or a woman.
Well, it’s a great pity both for you and for the other person. No, it is just the very opposite of what ought to happen! When you are in contact with someone and speaking with him, it is precisely to what surpasses all animality that you should speak; it is to the soul you must speak, never to the body. Even more is asked of you, for you are asked to address the Divine – not even the soul – the one Divine in every being, and to be conscious of that.
But if only one person is conscious and the other is a brute, what will happen?
If you alone are conscious? And what do you know about it? And how and on what plane do you judge that the other is not conscious?
His way of replying.
But perhaps he thinks the same of you! Well, I tell you that so long as it is not the divine Presence you address when you speak to someone, it means you are not conscious of it in yourself. And then it’s terribly presumptuous to judge what state the other person is in. What do you know about it? If you yourself are not conscious of the Divine in the other being, what right have you to say whether he is conscious of it or not? On what basis? Your small outer intelligence? But it knows nothing! It is quite incapable of perceiving anything whatever. Unless your vision is constantly the vision of the Divine in all things, you have not only no right but no capacity to judge the state which others are in. And to pronounce a judgment on Page – 133 someone without having this vision spontaneously, effortlessly, is precisely an example of the mental presumptuousness of which Sri Aurobindo always spoke.…And it so happens that one who has the vision, the consciousness, who is capable of seeing the truth in all things, never feels the need to judge anything whatever. For he understands everything and knows everything. Therefore, once and for all, you must tell yourselves that the moment you begin to judge things, people, circumstances, you are in the most total human ignorance. In short, one could put it like this: when one understands, one no longer judges and when one judges, it means that one doesn’t know. Judging people is one of the first things which must be totally swept away from the consciousness before you can take even a step on the supramental path, because that is not a material progress or a bodily progress, it is only a very little progress of thought, mental progress. And unless you have swept your mind clean of all its ignorance, you cannot hope to take a step on the supramental path. In fact, you have said something terrible. When you said, “I cannot speak to his soul if he is a brute”, well, you have given yourself away…you have stuck a label on yourself. There you are. All those who have truly and sincerely had the experience of the divine Presence, all those who have truly been in contact with the Divine, have always said the same thing: that sometimes, even often, it is in what is most decried by men, most despised by men, most condemned by human “wisdom”, that one can see the divine light shining. They are not mere words, they are living experiences. All these ideas of good and evil, good and bad, higher, lower, all these notions belong to the ignorance of the human mind, and if one really wants to come into contact with the divine life, one must liberate oneself totally from this ignorance, one must rise to a region of consciousness where these things Page – 134 have no reality. The feeling of superiority and inferiority completely disappears, it is replaced by something else which is of a very different nature – a sort of capacity for filtering appearances, penetrating behind masks, shifting the point of view. And these are not words, it is altogether true that everything changes its appearance, totally, that life and things are completely different from what they appear to be. All this contact, this ordinary perception of the world loses its reality completely. This is what appears unreal, fantastic, illusory, non-existent. There is something – something very material, very concrete, very physical – which becomes the reality of the being, and which has nothing in common with the ordinary way of seeing. When one has this perception – the perception of the work of the divine force, of the movement being worked out behind the appearance, in the appearance, through the appearance – one begins to be ready to live something truer than the ordinary human falsehood. But not before. There is no compromise, you see. It is not like convalescence after an illness: you must change worlds. So long as your mind is real for you, your way of thinking something true for you, real, concrete, it proves that you are not there yet. You must first pass through to the other side. Afterwards you will be able to understand what I am telling you. Pass through to the other side. It is not true that one can understand little by little, it is not like that. This kind of progress is different. What is more true is that one is shut up in a shell, and inside it something is happening, like the chick in the egg. It is getting ready in there. It is in there. One doesn’t see it. Something is happening in the shell, but outside one sees nothing. And it is only when all is ready that there comes the capacity to pierce the shell and to be born into the light of day. It is not that one becomes more and more perceptible or visible: one is shut in – shut in – and for sensitive people there is even that terrible sensation of being compressed, of trying to Page – 135 pass through and then coming up against a wall. And then one knocks and knocks and knocks, and one can’t go through. And so long as one is there, inside, one is in the falsehood. And only on the day when by the Divine Grace one can break the shell and come out into the Light, is one free. This may happen suddenly, spontaneously, quite unexpectedly. I don’t think one can go through gradually. I don’t think it is something which slowly wears and wears away until one can see through it. I haven’t had an instance of this so far. There is rather a kind of accumulation of power inside, an intensification of the need, and an endurance in the effort which becomes free from all fear, all anxiety, all calculation; a need so imperative that one no longer cares for the consequences. One is like an explosive that nothing can resist, and one bursts out from one’s prison in a blaze of light. After that one can no longer fall back again. It is truly a new birth. Page – 136 |