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24 June 1967
Many things to say, but... it is better to come to the end. It is a curve. Better to reach the end. It is too early to speak. (After a silence) The movements of the body almost in their totality are habitual movements. Behind, there is the consciousness of the physical mind (what I call the “cellular mind''), which is itself constantly conscious of the divine Presence and is keen on accepting nothing but That; so a whole work is going on for changing, shifting the origin of the movements. I mean to say that instead of it just being automatically the habit, it should be automatically the divine Presence and Consciousness that causes the movement (Mother makes a gesture of pushing the Consciousness into the body). But it is quite, quite inexpressible; that is to say, as soon as you try to express it, it is mentalised, it is no longer itself. That is why it is very difficult to express it. I cannot speak of it. However, I seem to have told you not long ago of my observation of the habit and the taste for drama in the most material consciousness. That was the starting-point. As soon as it became conscious, that habit became, as it were, foreign, foreign to the true consciousness, and from then on the transfer has been going on. It is a very delicate and difficult work. It means fighting against a habit thousands of years old. It is the automatism of the material consciousness which is, yes, dramatic, almost catastrophic; sometimes dramatic, and dramatic with an imaginative conclusion which undoes the drama. But all that becomes much too concrete as soon as one expresses it. Better not to speak of it. As soon as it is said, it becomes artificial. And it is as though in order to replace this habit there was a kind of effort to create another(!) which is only an approximation. Does this state of consciousness, this way of being, this Page - 69 way of existing, of reacting, of expressing, point to or tend towards the Divine Manifestation? Is it in conformity with the urge towards the Divine Manifestation?... And the thought is silent, immobile, then the imagination does not work (all that, willingly), and the movement tries to be as sincere and as spontaneous as possible, under the influence of the divine Presence.... Words deform everything. From time to time – from time to time, all of a sudden: the concrete experience, like a lightning flash – the experience of the Presence, the identification. But that lasts a few seconds and then it begins again as it was before. It cannot be expressed.
Then Mother turns to the translation of two texts of Sri Aurobindo.
“That is a great secret of sadhana, to know how to get things done by the Power behind or above instead of doing all by the mind's effort.''
It is exactly so.
“The importance of the body is obvious; it is because he has developed or been given a body and brain capable of receiving and serving a progressing mental illumination that man has risen above the animal. Equally, it can only be by developing a body or at least a functioning of the physical instrument capable of receiving and serving a still higher illumination that he will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of life is cancelled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and Page - 70 returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there is a destined limit to the consciously progressive power which distinguishes him from all other terrestrial existences and as he has replaced them in the front of things, so another must eventually replace him and assume his heritage.''
I understand! I was busy with it all the while. (Silence)
But Sri Aurobindo's conclusion is that it is not this (the body) which can change; it will be a new being.
No, he says if it is not able, it will be a new being.
No, I do not mean here in this text; I mean in the things he wrote subsequently. ?... Besides, it is the same thing, because... can a body change?... And even so, it seems to be very difficult. It is not impossible. It is not impossible, but... it is such a tremendous labour that life is too short; and even there, there is something to change, yes – this habit of wearing out is a terrible thing.
Yes, but a “new being'', from where would it come? Will it drop from the sky?
Of course not, just so! The more one looks... It won't come like that (Mother laughs), it will come evidently in the same way as man has come out of the animal. But the stages between the animal and man are missing. We think of it, we imagine it, we have rediscovered things, but to say the truth we were Page - 71 not present ! We do not know how that happened. But that does not matter.... According to some, we can consciously begin to work out within us the transformation, in forming the child. It is possible; I do not say No. It is possible. And then this one must prepare a more transformed one and so on, several stages like that which will disappear even as the stages between the ape and man have disappeared?
Well, yes, it is the whole story of the process of human perfection.
You can call it as you like, yes. But a new being... as for us, we conceive, as you say, a new being as descending ready-made, prefabricated !... That is pure romance.
It is exactly what Sri Aurobindo also says. It must be built.
It would be after two or three – or four or ten or twenty, I do not know – intermediary beings that the new manner, the supramental manner of creating, will come.... But will it be necessary to have children? Will it not do away with the necessity of children to replace those who will be no longer there? For they will continue to exist indefinitely. They will transform themselves sufficiently to adapt to the new needs.
All that is very conceivable at a long distance of time.
Yes, a long distance.
But precisely you are there so that it may be at a short distance !
No, Sri Aurobindo did not view it at a short distance. Page - 72 Well, it must be yourself. At a short or at a long distance, it must be you who does it, in this life and in this body.
But, I see… I am trying to do it – not by an arbitrary will, nothing of the kind; simply there is “Something'' or Someone or a Consciousness or anything (I do not want to speak of it) which is using this (Mother's body) and trying to make something of it. That is to say, at the same time I am doing and I am witnessing, and the “I'', I do not know where it is: it is not within there, it is not up there, it is not... I do not know where it is; it is for the necessity of language. There is “something'' that is doing and it is witnessing at the same time, and at the same time it is the action that does it: the three. Because the body itself now truly collaborates as much as it can – as much as it can – with a goodwill and an increasing power of endurance, and, in fact, the backward turn on oneself is reduced to a minimum (it is there, but like something that just touches from time to time, but it does not stay even for a few seconds). That, this backward turn on oneself, is altogether the atmosphere that is disgusting, repulsive, catastrophic. And it is like that, it is felt like that. And it is becoming more and more impossible, I see it, it is visible.... But there is still the weight of thousands of years of bad habits which may be called pessimistic, that is to say, expecting decline, expecting catastrophe, expecting... in fact, all these things, and it is that which is most difficult, ouf! to purify, to clarify, to throw out of the atmosphere. It is so much inside that it is altogether spontaneous. It is this which is the great, great obstacle, this kind of feeling of the inevitable decline. Naturally, from the mental point of view, the whole earthly atmosphere is like that, but in the mind it has very little importance: a ray of light and it is swept away. But it is there within (Mother points to her body), it is this habit – this catastrophic Page - 73 habit – which is formidable, formidable to counteract. And it is indispensable that it should disappear so that the other may instal itself. So it is a battle of every minute, every minute, all the while, all the while. And then, you know, the being is not isolated, the body is not isolated; it is more or less a multitude, with degrees of proximity; but quite near, there are all those who are here, and it is the same problem – the same problem. Because what is acquired in the consciousness of this body is not acquired at all in the consciousness of others. That increases the labour. The problem of mental and even vital contagion is, so to say, resolved, but the problem of material contagion still remains there. And in this material consciousness, there is the material mind that has so marvellously responded here,¹ but it has not yet the power to assert itself spontaneously against what comes from outside, this perpetual contagion, constant, constant, of every minute.
(Long silence)
When all of a sudden the Contact becomes conscious and the sense of Identity comes, as I say, for a few seconds, but when it comes... it is like a hosanna of all the cells which say: “Oh! Yes, yes, it is true ! So it is true…” This comes perhaps a hundred times a day, but it does not stay.
¹ Mother means within herself Page – 74
Mother begins by commenting upon a question written by a disciple.
“Sweet Mother, it is said that always the good and the true triumph, but we see that often in life it is otherwise. The wicked win, seem somehow to be protected from suffering.''
(Mother laughs, then remains silent.) People always confuse two ideas. It is from the universal and spiritual point of view that, not positively the “good'' as men understand it, but the True, the Truth, will have the last word; it goes without saying. That is to say, finally the Divine will be victorious. That is what is said, what all who have lived a spiritual life have said – it is an absolute fact. Men, in translating it, say, “I am a good boy, I live in accordance with what I think to be true, therefore, all existence should be good for me.'' (Mother laughs) First of all, one's own appreciation of oneself is always doubtful, and then, in the world as it is now, all is mixed, it is not the Law of Truth that openly manifests itself to the half-blind human consciousness – it will not even understand it. I mean, to be more exact, that it is the supreme vision that is realising itself constantly, but its realisation in the mixed material world does not appear to the ignorant human sight as the triumph of good, what men call good and true. But (to say it in a joking way) it is not the fault of the Lord, it is the fault of men ! That is to say, the Lord knows what he is doing, and men do not understand it.
In a world of truth, all would be just as it is now perhaps, but it would be seen differently. Page - 75 Both. There would be a difference. It is the present ignorance and obscurity in the world that give a deforming appearance to the divine Action; and that naturally must tend to disappear; but it is also true that there is a way of seeing things which... one might say, which gives another meaning to their appearance – the two are there, like this (gesture of intermixture). (Silence)
You always come back to this, that man's judgment is wrong – wrong because his vision of things is wrong, is incomplete – and necessarily this judgment must have wrong results. The world is perpetually changing, perpetually; not for a second is it like itself, and the general harmony expresses itself more and more perfectly; therefore nothing can remain as it is and in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the whole is always constantly progressing; the harmony is becoming more and more harmonious, the truth becoming more and more true in the Manifestation. But to see that, one must see the whole, and man sees only... not even the human domain, but only his personal domain, quite small, quite small, microscopic he cannot understand. It is a double thing that is going on completing itself (same gesture of intermixture) and with a mutual action: as the Manifestation becomes more conscious of itself, its expression perfects itself, becomes also more true. The two movements go together.
(Silence)
It was one of the things that was seen very clearly the other day, when there was this Consciousness of Knowledge: when the Manifestation will have sufficiently emerged out of the Inconscient so that all this necessity of struggle, created by the presence of the Inconscient, becomes progressively more and more Page - 76 useless, it will disappear quite naturally, and progress, instead of being made through effort and struggle, will begin to be made harmoniously. That is what the human consciousness foresees as a divine creation upon earth – it will still be only one step. But for the present step, it is a kind of harmonious attainment that will change the universal progress (which is ceaseless) into a progress through joy and harmony instead of a progress through struggle and suffering.... But what was seen is that this feeling of insufficiency, of something that is not complete and is not perfect, that, one must foresee, will exist for a very long time – if the notion of time remains the same, that I do not know. But all change implies time, does it not? It may not be translated by time as we conceive it, but it does imply a succession. All these so-called problems – all the while one receives, in this way, questions and questions and problems of the mind (all problems in the Ignorance, is it not so?) – problems for the earth-worm. As soon as you emerge up there, such problems do not exist any more. There are no more contradictions. Contradictions always come from the inadequacy of vision and the incapacity to see a thing from all points of view at the same time. In any case, to bring the question down to earth, no sage at any time, I think, has ever said: “Be good, and all will go well with you externally'' because it is a stupidity. In a world of disorder, in a world of falsehood, to hope for that is not reasonable. But you can have, if you are sufficiently sincere and whole and entire in your way of being, you can have the inner joy, the full satisfaction, whatever the circumstances, and that nobody and nothing has the power to touch. Page - 77
For the last several nights I have been passing almost the whole night, many hours, in a place which must certainly belong to the subtle physical and where the material life gets reorganised. It is vast – vast – the crowd is innumerable, but these are individualities, not a crowd; that is to say, I have to deal with each one of them. And then, it is as though at the same time there are documents and writing tables but no walls around ! It is a curious place, a very curious place. I have asked myself many a time whether it was the memory of physical forms that made me see this world in that way or whether it is really like that. At times there is no doubt, because it has a character altogether its own, but at other times there is a doubt and I ask myself if it is not in my active memory. Because I am very conscious at that time and everything is extremely natural, and indeed permanent: I find again the same things at the same place, sometimes with slight differences, but differences necessitated by action. That is to say, it is a coherent world, it is not a disorderly imagination. But to what extent are these forms the reflection of natural forms? To what extent are they like that or do we see them like that? I am not yet very sure. I had the same problem when I used to go into the Overmind and see the gods: I had always a kind of hesitation in knowing whether they are truly like that or whether we perceive them like that because of our physical habits.... There, after some time, I came to a conclusion; but here, physically….? It is a curious thing: there are no doors, no windows, neither ceiling nor floor; all this exists in itself, it does not seem to obey the law of gravitation, that is to say, there is no magnetic attraction of the earth, and yet when one writes (Mother laughs) there seems to be a pen ! And when one writes upon something, there seems to be a piece of paper; and when there Page - 78 are documents, they seem to be in dockets.... One feels that the substance is not the same, but the appearance is very close. And it is this appearance, and I am yet again putting the question to myself: “Is it because of our ordinary cerebral working that we put this appearance upon it or is it truly so?'' There I meet almost everybody. I told you, you are there very regularly and we work. You do not remember. There are others who remember, but their memory is (gesture of a slight twisting of the finger) just a little off the line; that is to say, it is not exactly the same as what I saw. So when they tell me about it, I have altogether the feeling that it is the transcription in their brain that made it so.... And the objective reality of the material world comes from this, that if you see the same object ten times, ten times it resembles itself, with differences that are reasonable, which could be differences due to usage, for example; but there also it is like this! And if you study carefully, even in the physical world two persons do not see things exactly in the same way. There, perhaps it is more accentuated, but it seems to be a similar phenomenon.... The explanation becomes very simple, very easy when you enter into the consciousness where the material reality itself becomes an illusion; it is illusory, it is not exact: the inner reality is more true. Then in that case, it is simple. It is perhaps only our mind that is astonished. Take writing, for example. I have not observed in detail, but when one writes there, one seems to write much more easily. I do not know how to explain it, it takes much less time and things are noted down on paper – but is it really paper? It looks like paper, but things are noted down much more directly.... There is perhaps a similarity, as for example when you use a pen or a pencil: it is not exactly a pen or a pencil but something resembling it, which is... (how to say it?) the prototype or the principle of this object. But what I mean to say is that if we were still in the age of the quill or the pen that one dips in a liquid, probably I would see it like that! Page - 79 It is the essence or the principle of the thing that is translated in the memory by a similarity. But it is an action. I know the time only when I come back, for I have made it a habit to notice the time whenever I come back to the material consciousness (I have a watch beside my bed and I look at it) and that is how I can say: “This lasted one hour, that lasted two hours.'' But there, one has not the sense of time, it is not the same sense – it is the content of the action that matters, and during those hours many, many things are done, many. And so I meet you there very regularly, but many others also, and I am at many places at the same time! And when a person tells me, “But I saw you last night, you did this and that'', then up there somewhere, I say, “Yes, it is true'', there is just a little (same gesture of twisting), just a little difference, but the essence of the thing is the same. And I have noticed that these things that are quite near the physical disappear if you wake up all of a sudden, particularly if you stir while waking up, if you make a movement or if you turn on your side. It is only afterwards, if at some time I am very quiet and go within myself, then slowly I can again come in contact with that state. Therefore, it does not surprise me that the majority of people do not remember. Experiences in the vital, in the mental are remembered much more easily, but that which is quite close to the physical... And it has such a character that if one kept the consciousness of it on waking up, one would look somewhat like a mad person. I had the experience of it just two days back and it has taught me a great deal – I looked, studied and studied until I understood. It was during my afternoon rest (I do not at all sleep in the afternoon, but I go like that into the inner consciousness) and I had fixed beforehand that I would wake up at such an hour, that is to say, I would get up. When it was time, I was deep in the midst of my action and the state of consciousness continued with my eyes open; and then, in that state of consciousness, there was... I cannot say “I'', for it was not Page - 80 the same “I'' – no, I am many persons at that moment – but the “I'' of that moment had the habit of carrying a watch, a golden wrist-watch (not here materially, but up there) and had forgotten to put on the watch and looked for it and noticed: “Ah! I forgot to put on my watch. What has become of this watch ? Why did I forget ?'' And when I woke up (I do not carry a watch, you know) and came back to myself, the two consciousnesses were simultaneous and I said loudly, “Where is my watch? I have forgotten to put on my watch'', and it is only when I said that (Mother laughs) that I became aware! So that made me reflect; I studied well, looked quietly, saw closely that at that moment the two consciousnesses are quite (Mother superimposes her two hands closely), quite simultaneous. It is very interesting. Oh! There were all sorts of problems which have been solved by that experience. For example, the problem of many who are taken as mad, but who are simply in this subtle consciousness (same gesture of superimposition) which dominates at a given moment and which makes them say things that have no meaning here but have a very clear meaning there. And the consciousness is like this (gesture of superimposition, of almost melting together). This explains many cases of so-called madness. There are also cases of apparent insincerity that are also of like nature, because the consciousness sees clearly in this domain and it is a domain so near that the same names could be given to things; they seem to have the same or quite similar forms, but it is not what is here known by the name “tangible reality''; materially, externally, things are not quite like that. And so there are cases of so-called insincerity which are simply too close a mixture of the two consciousnesses – too close for active discernment. Oh! A whole domain has been made clear, and not only made clear, but has brought with it the key to healing or to transformation. From an inner psychological point of view, this has explained things to an enormous degree, to an enormous degree. That Page - 81 reduces considerably the number of cases of true mental alienation and cases of real falsehood, that is to say, cases where one says deliberately, consciously, the contrary of what is it cannot be as frequent as one believes. Many say things like that (gesture of floating), things inexact, but which they perceive in a world other than the purely material, in too close a mixture and with not enough discrimination to discover the mixture.... Sri Aurobindo used to say that cases of real ill-will, real hostility and real falsehood are very rare, that is to say, “real'' in its absolute sense, in themselves, and conscious, deliberate – deliberate, absolute, conscious – that is rare; and it is that which is described as the hostile beings. But all the rest is a kind of illusion of consciousness – of consciousnesses that intermingle with each other (Mother passes the fingers of her right hand into those of the left in a to-and-fro movement) and, being without precise discrimination between the different consciousnesses, are like this (same gesture), mixed, the one entering and coming out of the other.
(Silence)
So the result was to see the immensity of the problem to be solved and of the way to follow and the transformation to achieve.... When you look from the purely psychological standpoint, it becomes relatively easy and quick, but when you come to this (Mother touches her body), to the external form, to what is called Matter, oh, it is a world! Each lesson – it is like lessons that are given, it is so interesting ! lessons with all the consequences and explanations; you pass a day, two days to make a small, a very small discovery. And then you see that in the bodily consciousness, after that, after these days or these hours of work, the light is there, it is changed – it is changed, the reactions are no longer the same, but... (gesture indicating a world of work). And the Presence, the Presence becomes more and more intimate, Page - 82 more and more concrete, and at that time there are moments when it is (gesture of swelling up) so concrete that it seems to be absolute, and then (gesture of covering) another state of consciousness comes up and all has to be begun again. It is interesting. And it is precisely to teach you.... The great words, the great attitudes, the great experiences, all that is very good up there, but here... nothing spectacular – everything is very modest, very calm, very effaced – very modest. And this is the condition for progress, the condition for transformation. There, my child. Page - 83
One has the feeling that unless something like a miracle happens, in the sense in which man understands miracles, well, it will take many centuries.
But did you ever expect that it would not take time?
Yes, evidently.
But I never thought – I never thought that it could come quickly. First of all, one has only to try, as I do, on one's own body, see the difference between matter as it is, the constitution as it is, and then... what one may conceive of a divine existence – that is to say, divine, which is not at every second tied to the obscurity of a half inconscient matter... How long will it take? How long has it taken to change the stone into the plant, the plant into the animal, the animal...? We do not know, but in the way things move... Now that they have become so clever in calculating, when do they think the earth was formed? How many millions and millions of years? And all that to arrive at where we are now. Naturally, the more it moves, the more it goes quickly, it is understood, but quickly... quickly?
If the process has to be “natural”, it will take an eternity.
No! It is not a question of being “natural''. Nature has arranged things progressively to manifest the consciousness; that is to say, the whole work has been to prepare the Inconscient in such a way that it may become conscious. Naturally, now the consciousness is there, at least in a large measure; hence it goes much quicker; that is to say, the bulk of the work is done. But Page - 84 still, as I have said, when one sees the degree to which it is tied to inconscience, to a half-vague consciousness, and sees that men who do not know still feel the “fatality'', the “destiny'' – what they call “Nature'' and all that dominates and rules – well, for the last change to be done, all that must become fully conscious, and not only in the mental way – that is not sufficient – but in the divine way! So, much remains to be done. This is just what I see every day with this poor little body, and then, all that surrounds it (gesture of a crowding all around), all this substance as it is, oh !... nothing but illness and misery and disorder. Oh ! All that has nothing in common with the Divine. An unconscious mass. Do you mean to say: Unless something comes down and by force changes it? Yes. But Sri Aurobindo says (I read it two days ago, I do not know where he has written it, for it was only a quotation) that if the divine Consciousness, the divine Power, the divine Love, the Truth manifested itself too rapidly upon the earth, the earth would be dissolved ! She would not be able to bear it... brrf! I am translating, but the idea is that.
But perhaps not the highest divine dose, but a small divine dose!
(Mother laughs) The smaller dose is always there. It is always there, a small dose; there is even a somewhat strong dose, and if one looks at That, one is full of wonder. But it is just because of That that one still sees... how things are. Well, there is not a day when it has not been noticed that one dose, not a full dose but just a little dose, an infinitesimal Page - 85 drop of That, can cure you in a minute – “it can'': it does cure you, not “it can''; you are all the while in that state, poised, and the least failing means disorder and the end; and just one drop of That... it becomes light and progress. The two extremes. The two extremes are side by side. It is an observation that one makes at least several times a day. But naturally, if this instrument was made to observe, to explain, to describe, it could say wonderful things, but, well... I think – I do not know, but it seems to be the first time that the instrument, instead of being made in order to bring the “Good Tidings'', the “Revelation'', to give the signal, has been made to... to try to realise to do the work, the obscure task. And so it observes, but it does not get into an ecstatic joy of observation, and it is compelled at every minute to see, in spite of that, how much work still remains to be done.... And so, as regards itself it can rejoice only when the work has been done – but what does that mean, the “work done”?... Something that is established. This divine Presence, this divine Consciousness, this divine Truth manifests itself like this, in a flash, and then... everything goes on in its usual trot – there is a change, but an imperceptible change. Well, for it (the body), this is all right, and I think it is that which sustains its courage and gives it a kind of smiling peace in spite of all that is so little satisfactory with regard to the result; but this cannot satisfy it, it will be satisfied only... when the thing will be done, that is to say, when what is now a revelation – dazzling but short-lived – will be an established fact, when truly there will be divine bodies, divine beings dealing with the world in a divine way; then, then only it will say, “Yes, that is it'', but not before. Well, that, I do not believe that it can be immediately. Because I see very well, very well what is at work; I have told you, there are things which, yes, if I had to narrate and explain and predict, one could make with it a whole teaching, with only one of these experiences – I have at least several of Page - 86 them in a day. But that serves no purpose, to be sure, I know it. And it is not impatience, it is not even a lack of satisfaction, nothing of the kind; it is a... a Force, a Will that moves forward step by step and that cannot stop in order to tell the story, to rest content with what has been done. (Silence)
Is there anywhere upon earth a being truly divine, that is to say, who is not ruled by any law of inconscience?... One would know, it seems to me. If it existed and I did not know it, then I must say that I must have somewhere in me a very great insincerity for such a thing to happen. To say the truth, I do not ask myself the question. In all, all who are known, all who have taken the position of revelators of the new world or realisers of the new life, every one of them possesses a certain percentage of unconsciousness very much greater than mine, then... But this is all that is known publicly. Is there a being somewhere and nobody knows him?... It would surprise me if there was no communication. I do not know. Well, there are many, many, quite an outburst of new Christs, of Kalkis,¹ of Supermen, oh ! There are very many of them, but generally, in some way there is communication, in any case their existence comes to be known; well, among all of them, all with whom I have come in contact, visible or invisible, there is not a single one who has... (how to say it?) less unconsciousness than there is in this body – but I recognise there is much of it, oh !
The process I do not see, how to get out of this inertia, this unconsciousness.
Process, what process? Of transformation?
¹ The last Avatar according to Hindu tradition. Page - 87 Yes. It is said that the consciousness must act and awaken all that...
But it is doing that!
Yes, it is doing that, but...
It does not stop doing it! The answer is this: all at once there is the perception (oh! all these are subtle, very subtle things, but for the consciousness precisely, it is very concrete), the perception of a kind of disorganisation, like a current of disorganisation; then the substance constituting the body begins at first by feeling, then by noticing the effect, then everything begins to be disorganised. It is this disorganisation that prevents the cohesion necessary for the cells to constitute an individual body; then one knows, ah ! (gesture of dissolution), it is going to be finished. Then the cells aspire, and there is something like a central consciousness of the body which aspires intensely, with a surrender as complete as it can make: “Thy Will, Lord, Thy Will, Thy Will.'' Then there is a kind of not anything bursting aloud, not any dazzling flash, but a kind of... yes, it gives the feeling of a condensation of this current of disorganisation, and then something stops; at first a peace, then a light, then the Harmony and the disorder disappears. And when the disorder has disappeared, at once there is this feeling in the cells that they live the eternity, for the eternity. Well, this, in this way, with all the intensity of concrete reality, is happening not only daily but many times in a day. At times it is very severe, that is to say, like a mass. Sometimes it is only a thing that touches; then in the consciousness of the body it translates itself in this way, as a kind of thanksgiving: a progress in fact over the inconscience. Only, these are not resounding events; the human neighbour does not even know it, he can perhaps notice a kind of cessation in the outward Page - 88 activity, a kind of concentration, but that's all. So one does not speak of the matter, one cannot write books on it, one does not do propaganda about it.... It is this, the work. All, all the mental aspirations are not satisfied with this. It is a work very obscure.
(Mother goes into a long contemplation.)
It is a day or two now, I do not know, there was, as it were, a total vision of this effort of the earth towards its divinisation, and it was as if someone were saying (it is not “someone'', it is the witness consciousness, the consciousness that observes, but it formulates itself in words; very often it formulates itself in English and I have the feeling that it is Sri Aurobindo, the active consciousness of Sri Aurobindo, but sometimes it is translated into words only in my consciousness) and it was something that said, “Yes, the time of proclamations, of revelations is gone – now to action.'' In fact, proclamations, revelations, prophecies, all that is very agreeable, it gives the feeling of something “concrete''; now it is very obscure, the feeling that it is very obscure, invisible (the results will be visible only a long, long time hereafter), not understood. It belongs to a domain which is not yet ready to be explained, to be manifested in words. And indeed, to the extent that it is truly new, it is incomprehensible. What I say does not correspond to any experience lived through by him who reads about it. And I see quite well, I see so well the little work like this (gesture of reversal) which would be needed for it to become a prophetic revelation. A little work, a little reversal in the mind – the experience is altogether outside the mind, and so what is spoken of it (Mother tilts her head)... Precisely because it is not mental, the thing is almost incomprehensible; and for all this (oh! it is visible) for all this to become accessible, just a Page - 89 little reversal (same gesture) in the mind and it becomes a prophecy. And that... that is not possible. It will lose its truth. There you are. Yes, it is on the way. Page - 90 |