October 15, 1961
(During the two preceding meetings, Satprem read to Mother several fragments of his manuscript on Sri Aurobindo.)
You have brought me a very strange experience.
The first time you read your manuscript, I called Sri Aurobindo to hear it. He was in the subtle physical and he listened. Yesterday when I sat down to listen, I thought, ‘It would be much better if he entered my brain because that way In fact, I called him; he
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entered my brain. It took some time; all through the beginning of the reading we were still two; then he came in more and more, more and more, more and more…. My head – my physical head – seemed to be swelling up! There was no longer space for anyone but him. It was the light … that dark blue light of mental power (but true mental power) in the physical – the tantrics use it, you always see it with X’s action, but I’ve never seen it this way before! My head was full, you know – full, full, not an atom of space to spare – I could feel it swelling up!
And this light was absolutely immobile – vibrationless, totally compact and … coherent. When I see X’s light, for example, there are always vibrations in it; it vibrates, vibrates, things are shifting about; out with this, not a single vibration, not one movement: a MASS that seemed eternally immobile but which was (how to put it?) attentive, listening. It was a volume with the form of the head, as if ‘that’ had wholly taken over the head. it was full, so full, yet with no feeling of tension or of anything resisting, none at all; there was only a kind of immobile eternity – and COMPACT, compact, absolutely coherent, no vibrations. And it increased, increased more and more, it became heavy, but with a very particular heaviness – not a weight, the feeling of a mass.
And within all this, I no longer existed. I seemed to vanish into a kind of trance, yet I was conscious – not ‘I’: the consciousness was conscious of what Sri Aurobindo was conscious of. And he was following the reading. But I couldn’t remember anything; at the time, it was impossible to observe. I can only describe it all to you now because the experience remained for at least an hour and a half afterwards; when I left here, I began to objectify it, to see what it was – aside from that, it was merely a STATE I found myself in. But in this state there was an awareness of what he was hearing, and at two or three places in your reading he seemed to be saying (I can’t be exact, I can only give the impression), Not necessary. In fact, that’s what made me call this passage ‘too philosophical’ (although when you first asked my opinion I was in a peculiar condition, nothing was active in me). With him, it was very clear, it was almost as if there were a certain number of words about which he said, That, not necessary. That, not necessary. Not many, not often, but once in a while. Especially at the end (he was still there inside my head while you were talking), when you were saying that it’s necessary ‘to explain’ to people; there he very clearly said, No, not necessary.
But I was incapable of remembering or of registering anything – the only head present there was his.
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It’s the first time this has happened to me.
Receiving his thought (thinking his thought, for instance) happens all the time, all the time, but this was different; it was a PRESENCE – A presence in the skull. And my skull seemed to gradually grow bigger and heavier, heavy with an unaccustomed power. And this stayed with me; oh, it stayed for a long, long time! Never before have I had this physically, never this kind of power, a material power of thought-force – material thought-force in the brain.
One sees glimpses of it. I told you I’ve often seen it with X. I also saw it with another tantric who came here (someone said to be greatly renowned in the North) – this sort of very well organized mental power, a mental-physical power. But it was always vibrating or intermittent or partial, passing flashes or fluctuating formations. Here it wasn’t that; it was a feeling of eternity.
Normally one would have said that my body was in trance; yet it could move, it could speak – since I did speak to you; but nevertheless, it was a peculiar feeling (which I still have somewhat ), like having a head too large for my body. It’s not painful or disagreeable, but I’m not used to it.
After our meeting yesterday, as soon as I saw clearly and could objectify it, I immediately ‘sent’ all this to you (I didn’t write because I had no time, but I ‘told’ it all to you), for I felt that, not knowing what had happened, you might have thought I wasn’t listening, or I don’t know what!
No, no! I felt that what I had written wasn’t ‘it.’
But it was a formidable experience! Formidable. And really proof that this book interests him.
But I have to do all last week’s work over.
Why? Don’t you like it?
The thread is missing. It’s not ‘it.’
You know, he was so pleased the first day you read to me! I was seeing his force, his power inside it, and it was golden; a kind of power of propulsion was there. But of course, I know nothing at all about what you read to me yesterday; I was a bit overwhelmed by this experience! It’s the first time I’ve had it.
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For a long, long time I have been asking for…. When I would say, ‘Lord, take possession of this brain,’ I expected something of the sort, but I was expecting it with the supramental light (which, partially and momentarily, I have had). But this! It was really…. I don’t know what he did with my brain – not brain, my mental power. Probably during that period he absorbed it (I suppose that’s what happened because there was no sense of difference). My impression was that as a result of this the physical cells were going to develop materially and be transformed (I think it will happen – I had a sort of assurance that it will). Because now, as I’m talking to you, I’m looking at it and I see – the effect is still there: no longer with the same overwhelming power, but the effect is there and it gives a sort of … (it can’t be compared to anything physical) … a sort of warmth; it’s not heat, but warmth. Everything is seized by it, both ears (Mother touches her head), everything – here, there, all around! Tremendous. And this immobility! As soon as one stops, it is immor … (Mother cuts off her word), it is eternity.
It is truly bringing THAT down here [into Matter].
Well then, are you going to read the rest to me or not?
No, Mother, I feel I have to do it all over. I don’t have the thread. I just have scraps here and there, bits and pieces – I don’t have the thread.
But is this thread so very necessary? Because the last time you read (I can’t pinpoint exactly where), Sri Aurobindo seemed to intervene each time any of those habitual coherences of reason intruded, things you probably inserted precisely in order to join passages together and make them comprehensible. It was at these junctures (I can’t remember them exactly) where he would occasionally say, Not necessary, not necessary. That can go, that can go.
Afterwards, I tried to understand (I tried to identify enough to be able to understand) and I got the feeling that he finds it will be much more powerful if you don’t follow normal logical lines (I’m elaborating a bit – it wasn’t quite like this); rather, if you like, it is better to be prophetic than didactic – fling abroad the ideas, ploff! Then let people do what they can with them. I felt he was viewing this not only from the essential standpoint, but from the standpoint of the public, and he wanted to ensure that it doesn’t become tiresome – at all costs, don’t let it be tiresome. It can be bewildering, but not tiresome. Let them be hurled right into things … strange
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and unknown things, perhaps, but…. For instance (this is my own style, you can take it for what it’s worth), it would be better for people to say, ‘He’s a madman,’ than to say, ‘He’s a boring sermonizer.’ And all this was coming with his sense of humor, the way he has of saying, for example, that folly is closer to the Divine than reason!
I don’t know, I didn’t hear the beginning, but certainly everything dealing with physical events [of Sri Aurobindo's life] will be expressed in a very reasonable and normal style so that there will be no danger of people saying, ‘He’s a half-cracked visionary!’ I don’t know, the first part of what you read to me was so good! Gusts of golden light kept coming. Perhaps you wanted to explain too much. You don’t know what happened?
Yes, it’s precisely this need to explain.
He seems to find it unnecessary!
Above all, he would like the end to be brief. That’s something I felt from the very first day – let the end surge up and leave you in suspense; above all, don’t try to be reasonable. An upsurge of light like a door bursting open onto a very luminous and unknown future, but with no attempt to make it tangible and approachable. I am sure of this – this impression of a closed door (people live behind doors, you know), and then abruptly the door is flung wide-open on an explosion of light and … you are left there: sit down, look, contemplate – and wait for the moment to be ripe for venturing forth.
Above all, have no ambition to make anyone understand anything whatsoever.
But you have to make people understand the work of Sri Aurobindo – what he came to do, what his work is!
But this really is what he came to do – it’s like … an upside-down volcano.
An eruption, an explosion.
He casts forth the seeds; and then, for those who can gather them up, comes the slow and lengthy labor.
(silence)
When one follows the curve of his last writings, one sees very clearly that after having sown the seeds (yes, it’s like a great seeding of light) and even after having said, ‘This is to be realized
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now,’ well, the further he went on in his work, the more he continued to work towards this realization, the more he saw all the stages that had to be crossed, the more he … saw all that, well, the more he used to say, ‘Don’t imagine this will happen to you all at once. Don’t think this path is an instant miracle.’
After speaking of the descent of the Supermind, he said that an INTERMEDIARY must be prepared between our present mental state (even the most elevated higher mind) and the supramental region, because if one entered directly into Gnosis, well, it would produce such an abrupt change that our physical constitutions would be unable to support it – an intermediary is needed. The experiences I’ve had make me absolutely convinced of it; twice the supramental world took veritable possession of me and both times it was as if the body – truly the physical body – was going to completely disintegrate, due to … what you could almost call the opposition of the two conditions.
And yesterday again I clearly saw … (Mother touches this mass in her head). My eyes are full of it … my eyes are full, you know, and I see that as it works to settle itself in here, it produces this little vibration – a twinkling of vibrations – which seems to be indispensable for it to enter into this Matter.
But what’s interesting is that it produced neither headache, nor malaise, nor anything of the kind; yet neither was there any great joy or satisfaction. It is … the words we use always take on a pejorative tone and spoil it, but the difference between our habitual way of functioning and this new way is something so tremendous and overwhelming that an adaptation is evidently required. And he always said that the adaptation would at first be a diminution, and that only gradually could one regain the original purity. That’s just how it is.
But it’s not the time to say all this, mon petit!
For example, I have nothing for the next Bulletin; I could have given something from those things you’ve transcribed [for the Agenda], but it’s not possible, it CANNOT be done! This can’t be made public, it’s impossible; it’s not the moment, not the moment. People don’t understand even the simplest things I say! I’ve seen that even Nolini sometimes hesitates; he doesn’t get it. So you can imagine, the public! …
(silence)
What he has actually done is this: he seems to have poured over the world – with the power of the Origin – the new Possibility;
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‘The time has come for THIS,’ ploff ! … Now let us be quiet and see how things evolve.
(silence)
Indeed, he is so very much HERE.
Two or three days ago, in one of those moments when you feel a little stupid (‘little’ is an understatement!), I said to myself, ‘Yes, how good it was when I used to feel him with me all the time. In this period now, I no longer feel him.’ Then he told me so clearly, so positively, You don’t feel me because I am you.
And I saw that it was true, that the identification was established in such a … detailed way, one could say, that there is no longer the joy – a joy of feeling like this (gesture of being embraced).
(silence)
Now I understand! He used to tell me, You alone have the endurance, and oh, mon petit, what endurance it takes!
But how to speak of all this to people! How to speak of it? They are a million miles away.
Simply awaken hope in them – the Hope. A hope based on the certainty of an experience. You know, if they could imagine the Supreme Himself coming and saying, ‘Listen now, I’m here to tell you that this is the way it is, get ready.’
Always, always, the first reaction of people on earth has been to say, ‘He’s mad.’
But what of it!
And precisely because a large part of the book is reasonable enough, artistic, well-expressed and well-presented, it can afford a few pages (there need not be many), a few pages that are like a leap into sheer madness!
I SEE, I am looking at all that, sparkling….
So if you want to read something to me, I’m listening – I have come to hear.
No, Mother, I have to catch hold of the thread.
You have to catch hold … yes.
Well then, concentrate, call it! Make an invocation, call it in – it is THERE, contact it. That is the thread to catch – not in the head.
But that’s just it, you see-before working I always become
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completely silent and in that silence there is NOTHING. I could stay like that for hours!
Yes, indeed, mon petit!
But nothing comes!
Well?
Well, after a certain length of time – because after all, time passes – I have to work….
Ah, but perhaps that’s not the way!
Then, obviously, I catch hold of some idea – sometimes it’s the right idea, sometimes it isn’t.
It’s not so much a question of an idea being right or not but of the vibration of the Force.
If I say all this it’s because I see to what extent Sri Aurobindo views this book as an important too] for world-wide work – from the beginning he has taken it seriously. And he is so very much HERE that it seems to me … not at all impossible that he HIMSELF is stimulating the expression.
It’s not so much a question of ideas, because all that is quite fine.
Read your final page to me. I don’t care about the coherence of ideas. Read the final page for me to see whether I feel that same Force in it.
Yes, but I will have to redo all that precedes it.
You are going to do it all over? But it doesn’t matter. You know what the logic of a book means to me!
You see, when I want a TRUE impression of a book, I open it at random; then I look at the first page, the last page – sometimes I read the ending, then I go back to the beginning – it doesn’t matter where. What I want to know is whether the Force is there.
Ordinary logic… Read! Anywhere, the middle of a sentence, it doesn’t matter!
(after the reading)
I would like to go over it all again.
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But isn’t what you call the ‘thread’ going to make the whole thing heavy?
A thread is missing. I don’t know, some people can write in bits and pieces, here and there, but not me. If I don’t feel that everything behind me is completed, I can’t go ahead. I need to have a flow.
Listen, think it over…. Because I’m not so sure. When I see, I see segments: a blank, another segment, a blank (Mother seems to sketch a kind of diagram in space), then an apotheosis at the end – your ending is magnificent.
It’s not necessary for the whole book to proceed in the same way. The most revelatory part can be in segments (you know, just as it comes). The thread is an invisible one – the link of a Presence – otherwise it comes in bursts, and that has a lot of force.
All you’ve read to me now is quite fine, and it would certainly be less fine if something were there connecting it all up.
To me it’s clear that some segments are unsuitable.
Unsuitable or incomplete?
Unsuitable.
Well, then take them out! Why not? It may be contrary to logic, even to higher logic, but what do we care!
I will try to see…. If I catch the thread, it will be all right – but I must catch it.
You have to concretely feel that Sri Aurobindo’s full Power of expression is there (I don’t mean the words, it’s not a question of words), but the power to transmit knowledge (not mental knowledge, experience). it’s constantly there. So … an attentive silence – but be very patient, because as soon as the Force comes, something begins to stir in the mental regions. Then there is also a sort of eagerness to seize hold – and it ruins the thing.
I have noticed that the true inspiration doesn’t come when one is very, very anxious, nor even when you have a very intense aspiration, but (how to put it?) … when you succumb in a smile, and it all goes blank. Then there’s nothing; but if you know how to curb
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impatience (simply delighting in His beatitude, even if ages pass – delighting in His beatitude), then suddenly, when you least expect it – flash! That’s IT!
This has happened to me very, very often – suddenly, poff! And with such certainty!
Mother, give me one single indication. Don’t you think I should cut out what I read to you yesterday? It would be a relief if you told me.
I don’t think so, mon petit! I don’t think so. I can’t tell you for sure because I’m not the one who heard it – you know what I mean? No memory is operating. Were you to ask me to repeat a single word of what you have written, I couldn’t do it – yet I listened to you.
I have a sort of vision in my head of parts of sentences, three or four words where the impression was what I told you: Not necessary. But it was a very minor thing. It was more an attitude, an attitude in the expression. But it wasn’t disturbing.
I keep feeling that Sri Aurobindo wants the conclusion to be swift; and I myself (probably not with his power of comprehension) have a vision, a sort of feeling coming from a great height above, that the most important part of the book should be very abrupt – like breaking through a door, flinging it wide-open, and emerging in a rush of light. That’s all. Now keep quiet and see what happens.
*
(Mother gets up to leave)
We are too much the slaves of time.
It’s not always when you think you’re wasting your time that things go slowest. I have found out that there’s a certain attitude – an attitude of openness towards eternity, to be precise – that makes things happen more quickly. Much more quickly.
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