June 6, 1962
Did you see anything last night? Feel anything?
??
I am asking because last night I tried … it was around four in the morning and I was concentrating on trying to build that bridge [between your waking consciousness and the other consciousness]. You didn’t feel anything?
It’s very vague.
It’s another way of remembering, that’s why.
It must give a sort of woolly effect to someone not used to it…. You know, when you want to draw your consciousness within – what people call “concentrating” – for meditation, for instance, or japa, well, to the sharp-edged surface consciousness the movement of interiorization is like entering something … not exactly “smoky,” because it isn’t dark, but woolly: the feeling of something with no angles, no precise demarcations. Don’t you have that impression when you concentrate?
I don’t see anything when I concentrate.
Not see: feel.
All this belongs to another kind of sense. Not a physical sense, but a sort of sensation. It’s all sensation.
For example, just now I was sitting and waiting for you. When I have nothing to do I can’t stay one second without immediately turning within – instead of the consciousness being turned outside, it’s turned within – and well, I noticed that the body, which was sitting and waiting, had the feeling of going into something woolly, rounded, soft. And in both cases I was motionless. I was simply sitting here waiting. It’s like going from something crisp, clear, precise (forget about thought or vision: this is pure sensation), from something crisp, precise, defined, into something soft, mellow … like a light white smoke – not milky white, but soft, transparent and oh, such peace…. As if nothing in the world could resist that peace.
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It happened in a split second: I was sitting, waiting for you, thinking you were about to come; but the door wasn’t opening, so automatically the body went like this (inward-turning gesture). And since it happened so suddenly, I noticed the difference in the way the body felt…. What it normally feels is a formidable will – very tranquil, very peaceful, free of tension or agitation, yet so direct and clear, concentrated (not concentrated: coagulated) that it is almost hard. And that’s what controls the body, that’s what the body obeys. And when that’s not there, it’s the other state: smooth, mellow, soft, woolly … and what peace! As if nothing in the world could disturb it.
It took maybe a second or a fraction of a second – that’s why I was able to observe both states.
And as far as I remember (because I never remember fully), this sort of “haziness,” as it were, was my constant state at the start of that so-called illness; everything was that way – people, things, life, the universe. That’s how it was, with only that special Vibration, so soft, so enveloping. And it has stayed, it is still here.
It doesn’t take me any time, the time factor doesn’t enter into it at all – it’s a sort of inner resolution: this way or that way (Mother turns the palms of her hands in and out). People say, “Oh, you’ve been waiting! ” No, I never wait; it’s either action or a sort of blissful peace (same in and out gesture). And I am talking about the body, not the spirit – the spirit is elsewhere. Elsewhere. The BODY feels like that.
And what nights I have! … Nights like the one I told you about the other day, with visions and actions; and then I have nights…. All night last night, I didn’t lose consciousness, I don’t feel I slept for a minute; and it was like being in a sort of temporal Infinity (both hands open above the head). From time to time, I look at the clock (all at once I feel something pulling me and I look at the clock): two or two and a half hours have passed – like a second. Did I sleep, you ask? Did the consciousness fall asleep? No, not for a second. But the sense of time completely disappears into … into an inner immobility. But an immobility in motion!
If it keeps on like this, they will put me in a padded cell!
Strange….
I had decided to tell you nothing because I really have nothing to say – it’s something that’s going to need some time to become clear. But then this happened just now as I was waiting for you. So I looked, something above looked at what was happening in the body, as though asking it, “Let’s see, how does this feel to you?” And I have told you how it feels.
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(silence)
I am translating “The Yoga of Self-Perfection”: what the body must be and must become to serve as an instrument. It’s touching….
But one thing has happened practically without my noticing it. In the past, before that experience [April 13], the body used to feel the struggle against the forces of wear and tear (different organs wearing out, losing their endurance, their power of reaction, and certain movements, for instance, becoming less easy to make). That’s what the body felt, although the body-consciousness never sensed any aging, never, none – that simply didn’t exist. But in actual material fact, there was some difficulty…. And now, looking at it in the ordinary way, externally, superficially, you might say there has been a great deterioration; well, the body doesn’t feel that way at all! What it feels is that a particular movement, effort, gesture or action belongs to the world – this world of ignorance – and isn’t being performed in the true way: it’s not the true movement, done in the true way. And its sensation or perception is that the state I was speaking of, soft, with no angles, has to develop along a certain line and produce effects on the body that will make true action possible, action expressing the true will. With no difference on the surface, perhaps (I don’t know about that yet) … but done in another way. And I am not talking about grandiose things, mind you, but of everyday activities: getting up, walking, taking a bath. I no longer have a feeling of incapacity, but a feeling of (what’s the word for it?) … an unwillingness – a bodily unwillingness – to do things in the old way.
There is another way to be found.
But not “found” with the head, it’s not like that…. A way that is somewhere IN THE MAKING.
I am speaking of the smallest things – take brushing the teeth; there’s a difference between the way I brush my teeth now and the way I used to. (In appearance, I suppose it’s the same thing.)
And I have difficulty (it’s almost an unwillingness too) seeing things the way others see them. It’s difficult for me, not spontaneous: it would take an effort I don’t care to make.
As for the head, it has learned to keep still…. I walk in the mornings and afternoons, saying the mantra as I did before; but while before I had to drive thoughts away, concentrate and make an effort, now this state comes and takes over everything – the head, the body, everything – and then I walk in that woolly
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dream (woolly isn’t the right word, but it’s all I can find!). It’s smooth, soft, without angles and supple! No resistance, no resistance…. Oh, that peace!
Very well, petit.
(Mother looks at Satprem) I wonder if I can spread the “contagion” a little!
I tried last night. I’ll try again.
What were you doing at four in the morning? Sleeping?
Yes.
What time do you wake up?
Around six.
We’ll see….
But when I go within I don’t get that hazy, woolly feeling at all.
Don’t you have any sensations?
Nothing at all. Actually, all I get is a sort of crystalline sensation. You once told me I was enclosed in a glass statue, remember? Well, that’s exactly my impression. Something clear, very clear, but with nothing in it.
It is a mental interiorization.
Oh, yes – it’s clear, very clear, very luminous … a bit hard. But everything seems hard to me now! If you only knew…. It has come to the point where as soon as I change states I get the feeling that the body is sitting on jagged chunks of wood … and yet it is very comfortably ensconced on feather cushions!
(silence)
I don’t know, but I had the impression it ought to be a POWER rather than a state of consciousness – a power able to CHANGE things. Rather than changing one’s attitude, there should be a power that could change Matter, make it more….
[[In putting this question, Satprem was thinking in particular about Madame Théon, who, rather than going to get her sandals, made them come to her. ]]
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Everything is a power, mon petit! Life is a power – no power, no life.
Yes, but I mean rather than being something subjective, some thing you “experience,” it should be a power that, for instance, could change this material hardness into a softness.
I haven’t changed.
I haven’t changed, that’s the thing – I haven’t changed. Because were it changed, it wouldn’t come back; but they coexist. They coexist.[[What Mother seems to mean is that the hard state and the state with no angles coexist, like the two rooms or the two rivers. ]]
If matter were changeable, it would have changed LONG ago.
(silence)
I remember reading something by Sri Aurobindo, I think, about certain philosophical or spiritual theories which held that there was only one Soul, or one Purusha (I don’t remember what he called it); this Soul had the entire experience of the distortion of the universe, and this same Soul was also experiencing the Return. And it was pointed out with indisputable logic that if there really is but ONE Soul, then from the moment mastery is attained – regardless of whether it is by an individual or a world, a god or an ant – the moment the power to change the distortion into the Truth exists, it’s all over and done with! The change automatically comes into force.
But then it was noted that some people did accomplish this Return – since they lived it and described it – but all the same, everything else continues to exist, to coexist. Therefore….
It’s something else.
(long silence)
Will there always be a world like the one we know?
(silence)
Because everything changes, but nothing disappears. You know, thinking the way we commonly do, it seems to us that the present state of the world will change and be replaced by something else. And on the other hand, we know from experience that whatever exists, exists eternally…. So then what?
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(long silence)
We can readily imagine a world where you would live in that state I’ve been speaking of, and which would develop according to its own laws. But would the existence of such a world cancel out this one?…
So you see, here we face a problem that has yet to be solved.
Yes, but that different world you conceive of, will it be different subjectively, or in its material properties?… Will that world be different to us only subjectively, in the way we think of it, or….
Power … logically, one has power over things.
I am (how shall I put it?) under way, on the border. But we would need some proof, wouldn’t we? Some evidence. For ONESELF, things are unquestionably changing; I have had two or three or four FLASHES of objective change – a change not only for my consciousness, but perceptible to other consciousnesses too. But it’s like a flash: “Ah!” And it vanishes in the time it takes to say “Ah! ” So it’s nothing you can talk about.
Events can be changed: wherever the state of consciousness comes into play, you can change events. I have had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of examples of that, as I have had the experience of changing a person’s state of consciousness [[This is what Mother calls “shifting the needle of consciousness”: “When people who are depressed or in despair come to see me,” she once told Satprem, “all I have to do is slightly shift the needle of consciousness, and they go away happy. Out of habit, unfortunately, their state returns.” (See Agenda I, February 25, 1958, p. 148.) ]] and the resulting circumstances of that state of consciousness. All that belongs to the realm of psychological life; but what I am speaking of is this (Mother vigorously strikes the table).
There is indeed the case of Madame Théon’s sandals, which came and put themselves on her feet instead of her feet going and putting themselves in the sandals, but that … that belongs to yet another realm. It wasn’t what you would call a “natural” phenomenon: she was applying her will and her action, and the substance of the sandals was becoming receptive. But does that mean the world will be that way? … I don’t know.
Two or three times, like a flash, I have seen something … manifest, change place. But it was over in less time than it takes to tell, so it might be entirely subjective. To make sure, I would have to check it with someone else, wouldn’t I?
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We will see. Patience.
There you are.
So, mon petit, what are you up to? It’s all chatter and no work for you today.
But this is interesting!
Have you started your book?
No. I have to think about it, concentrate. That takes time.
***
(A little later, towards the end of the conversation:)
Petit, before you go to sleep, when you get into bed, simply think of me a little, with the will to receive what I send you – just for the space of a few seconds before you go to sleep, that’s all. Don’t try to concentrate and keep yourself awake, just formulate it, then go to sleep. Because I am really trying!
Of course, I know you’re trying! I’m not accusing anyone – I’m the one that’s blocked.
But it’s neither you nor me nor Tom, Dick or Harry nor the Lord – that’s just the way it is. There’s a reason behind it we’re too obtuse to understand.
Yes, but it’s getting to be a pretty long reason. I have the feeling it’s all going to crack one day.
Yes!
Yes, but maybe it won’t crack in the right way…. One day I’m just going to say the hell with it.
No, that’s just the obstacle, that hardening in you. Oh, mon petit, if you knew how hard some things become in the being! Oh, how much I’ve had to struggle and struggle and
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struggle…. This experience [of April 13] did the job, but otherwise it was a minute-to-minute struggle. Life turns you into something hard as iron (Mother makes a fist).
And that’s what has happened. That’s what has happened. Anyway, we can still try! (Mother laughs.)
Au revoir, mon petit.
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