August 14, 1962
(Satprem did not keep any record of his questions at the beginning of the following conversation, nor does he exactly remember the circumstances that led to it. It seems that he wanted to write a letter to X, his former Tantric guru, or meet him, to explain what had happened and, in fact, to tell X that he still held him in deepest affection, despite external circumstances and Satprem’s outward break with him.)
… One must never go back; one must always go forward.
The curves of life go this way and that (meandering gesture), and only by being the supramental arrow can you go beyond. What happened [with X] was necessary. But there’s a step that goes beyond holding a grudge against someone because you were mistaken about him. That’s such an ordinary human thing – it’s nonsense. That’s how it is, though. He is what he is and has been all along – he has never pretended to be anything else. But (with an ironic smile for Satprem) the imagination has done a lot of gilding where there was nothing to begin with, and then through circumstances (which always result from the influence of consciousness), the gilding disappeared! But whatever you sincerely felt for him that wasn’t the product of an effervescent imagination – all sincere feelings – should remain. [[In fact, Satprem's final break with X will come only two years later, in 1964. ]]
But they do!
Well, that’s all there is to say: “My feelings remain the same.” You needn’t put yourself back under his influence, for it was an influence of your own imagining!
I don’t really know how to tell him….
Why do you want to formulate what you’re going to tell him in advance? Rather than some superficial convention or an illusion you used to live with, keep reality in your consciousness.
Don’t decide anything mentally.
You must learn to be immobile, silent, and let the Lord speak
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through you; it’s much better than deciding in advance, much better…. Personally, the Lord has never failed me. I have found myself hundreds of times in very difficult situations; I wouldn’t do anything, I would say, “All right, let’s see what happens!” And of course, what happened was always for the best. And I had nothing to do with it – it wasn’t me, it was the Lord.
The less one explains, the less one plans, the better – always, always.
***
Later
Just after speaking with you the other day, I looked closely to make absolutely sure, and I saw that even for the body – even for the body – it takes a little effort, it’s an effort to feel like something separate, an individuality. It finds it constricting, as if it were shut up in a box!
The feeling is rather one of vibrations gathered together and coagulated somewhere – and even at that, there’s a very supple inner play, for it spreads out like this (Mother makes a gesture of diffusion or expansion all around her) through a sort of subtilization or etherization. And it’s limitless – how could it have any limits! It goes like this (same radiating gesture) – these same vibrations are everywhere, in all bodies and all things. What people call this body is merely the result of a willed concentration organized in a specific way; that’s how it spontaneously feels, all the time (not that it’s observing itself, but if something forces it to observe itself, that’s what it spontaneously feels). And the delimitation that exists in all beings, and which WAS in this body (was it this body?… Haven’t the cells changed?… I don’t know), which once existed in what people call this body, has completely disappeared. Before (thirty years or so ago), it used to feel like something separate moving among other separate things – that’s all gone.
I have tried several times, telling myself, “Ah, let’s have a good look – is there anything, anywhere, that feels that separation?” (I am looking at the body from above.) “There’s nothing – truly? Are you one hundred percent spontaneously sincere? Nothing at all?…” It’s impossible to find a thing. Impossible.
For all the states of being, the mental, the vital, and even the subtle physical, that sense of separation has long been gone. But
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now I am speaking of the body. I say “I,” of course – but what says “I” is … it’s something as vast as the universe. And it CANNOT be otherwise. It’s not that I want it this way, or because I insist on it, it’s not the result of a tapasya or … not at all: it CANNOT BE OTHERWISE, that’s how it is. It’s my spontaneous way of being. The experience has become completely (how to put it?) externalized.
And that’s what makes the ESSENTIAL difference for this body. That’s why it feels different from other bodies. It’s … (Mother shakes her head) no, it’s not the same thing, it distinctly feels it’s not the same – because its reactions are different!
Perhaps there once was a jiva…. I don’t know, I don’t remember; all I remember now is … ultimately, an evolving universe, with a special concentration on the affairs of the earth, because the Lord has decided that the time has come to … to change something. That’s all. To change something.
(silence)
There’s a fellow (he’s neither young nor old) who has been living for twenty-five straight years at one of the sources of the Ganges, in a small cave carved into the mountainside – a tiny, bare space, an earth floor and a tiger skin. He sits on the tiger skin stark naked, without a stitch, naked as a newborn babe, in the dead of winter as well as in summer – outside everything is covered with snow. He eats … sometimes passers-by bring him fruit, which he dries in the sun, then puts into water and drinks. That’s all. He hasn’t once left there in twenty-five years.
One of our children, V., a courageous boy, went up there all by himself. In winter it’s completely isolated, there’s nothing nearby. It was May and still frightfully cold, it seems, snow still covered the ground. And the man was sitting there stark naked as though it were perfectly natural! He even asked the boy, “Do you want to spend the night here? …” That was a bit too much!
Anyway, V. went there, sat down next to him, and after a while the man went into a sort of trance and began to tell V. about his life (the boy’s life, not his own!). So V. was interested and wanted to know more. “Where do I come from?” he asked. The man answered, “Oh, from an ashram by the sea … the sea is there.” Then he began to speak (I must mention that outwardly he knew nothing about Sri Aurobindo or me or the Ashram, absolutely nothing at all), and he told V. that a “great sage” and “the Mother” were there, and that they wanted to do something on earth that
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had never been done before – something very difficult. Then, I don’t know whether he mentioned I was alone now (I have no idea), but he said, “Oh, she has had to withdraw [[Mother's "withdrawal" did not last long. 1962 is perhaps Mother's one quiet year. In 1963, the pitiless crowd will start up again. ]] because the people around her don’t understand and … life there has become very difficult. It will be very difficult until 1964.”
Perhaps he was reading the boy’s mind (I don’t know), but not his conscious mind. And he said several times, “They want to do something that has never been done before, it’s very difficult – very difficult – and that’s why they came, to do that.”
I learned about this two days ago. It interested me: “Something never done before, something entirely new.”[[A few days later, Mother remarked with a kind of admiration: "It's almost a miracle for such people to admit that someone is doing something entirely new! That's the great problem with those who have attained some realization, they shut the door: 'Now we have realized what the Forefathers said, and that's enough.' So to find a man who knows nothing outwardly and who FELT that we wanted to do something never done before ... I found that extremely interesting. It means he has an opening, an opening above, higher than the ordinary spiritual atmosphere." ]]
There were many other things, but it seems he speaks a particular Hindi which is very hard to understand. But this was quite clear, and he said it several times.
It interested me.
And that’s really it, that’s what Sri Aurobindo came for, and what I came for. And that’s what was present above my head when I was quite young: something new and very difficult (Mother smiles). Very difficult.
It seems he said that if we could make it to 1964, afterwards the difficulties would disappear. (But this is a very strong formation – what did he pick up? Is it Sri Aurobindo’s formation? Is it the boy’s thought, or what?…) But he’s a wonderful mind-reader; he must have a marvelous power of vision in the mental world.
It really amused me. If you asked … if you asked people here, not too many would have such a clear idea: “They have come to do something entirely new and very difficult.”
It’s lovely.
Voilà, petit.
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