March 23, 1963
(Mother first reads from her translation of “Savitri” a few excerpts about death. We give here the original English.)
A grey defeat pregnant with victory.
A whip to lash us towards our deathless state.
The inconscient world is the spirit’s self-made room …
Self-made.
Eternal Night shadow of eternal Day.
Night is not our beginning nor our end;
She is the dark Mother in whose womb we have hid
Safe from too swift a waking to world-pain….
Oh, this is….
By Light we live and to the Light we go.
Here in this seat of Darkness mute and lone,
In the heart of everlasting Nothingness
Light conquered now even by that feeble beam….
(X600)
It’s marvelous.
Yes, it must be a joy to work on “Savitri.”
Oh, mon petit! … It makes you live in a marvelous atmosphere.
So, that’s all. What did you bring?
Nothing, except a few Agenda conversations, as always.
Oh, but I am weary of my….
(silence)
It’s a snail’s pace, so there’s nothing interesting. Really a snail’s pace.
It’s one year since … When was that message? [the turning point of Mother's yoga, the great "pulsations"] In April ’62?
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It was towards the end of March.
No, at the end of March, I came upstairs not to go down again, that was on the 16th, I noted it. I noted it because my [translation] notebook stopped short on that day (!), I put a red mark. [[The following time, Mother added, “On the 16th, I stopped seeing people downstairs, but on the 18th and 20th I went down again for the balcony: those were the last two times. Afterwards I was put in bed (ordered!) on April 3rd. Up to April 3rd I still moved around here; then, to bed, no moving! It went on till May. Then the night of April 12th came the second experience, that’s when I called Pavitra to record [the message].” ]] But it will soon be one year since the second experience, the pulsations, the starting point of the work I am doing now – that was on April 13th. Slightly less than a month later. Well … there’s nothing to say. I am on the way, no doubt, there’s no denying the steps made: I do go forward, not backward. But I mean, it’s like wanting to walk round the globe! It’s endless.
Nothing spectacular whatsoever – “spectacular,” you know, that’s what people enjoy. Nothing of the sort. For instance, there are two things that give you (and others too) a sense that you’re making progress: one is the direct knowledge of what’s happening in a given place; the other is the foreknowledge of coming events. Well, ever since the beginning of my Yoga, the two possibilities or capacities have been there, with all the admixture (as Sri Aurobindo says) of the movements of the mind, which befuddles everything. Already around 1910, not only was the capacity there (it would come off and on), but along with it, a discernment which showed me the mixture, and thus left me without any certainty. In this regard, therefore, I can’t even say there has been a big change – the change is in the proportion, it’s just a question of proportion: proportion in the certainty, proportion in the accuracy, proportion in the mixture. The mixture keeps decreasing, the certainty keeps increasing – but that’s all. With, now and then (but that has always happened), now and then, a clear, precise, definite indication – bang! It’s a bit more frequent. That’s all. So? … Sixty-three years. Sixty-three years of methodical effort, of constant will, of opportunities for the work – people who want quick results, they make me laugh, you know!
This body isn’t even one that is unprepared. It had capabilities, it was born with certain capabilities and was prepared for all kinds of experiences. There was also the sort of intuitive discernment Sri Aurobindo refers to, it had been there since my earliest
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childhood – veiled, mixed, no doubt, but present all the same, it was there. Afterwards, it was purified, developed, strengthened, the mixture lessened and the body was somewhat … (laughing) to perfect itself it went through quite a great deal of friction of all types. It’s certainly more apt today than it was fifty years ago, there isn’t a shadow of doubt about it! But you understand, there’s nothing to boast about!
I feel very strongly that things are that way because the Earth is that way.
Yes, quite clearly! Quite clearly.
If there were…. If people aspired, if there were enough people who WANTED that, I feel it would be done almost in a flash.
Oh, that’s absolutely correct, absolutely true. But anyway, it’s a fact. And ultimately, a victory that’s conditional [on others], well, it’s just a way to speed up Nature’s movement a little. If that’s what it is, all well and good – but as I said (it’s very good, I make no demands, I don’t protest, I am quite peaceful, and, to tell the truth, the result is all the same to me), there’s nothing worth mentioning, that’s what I mean, you can’t write stories about that! (laughing) It’s not worth talking about it.
If there were something like a living proof of the truth of what was promised – ah, that would be worthwhile. But that’s not it! We haven’t reached that point. It [a victory conditional on others] speeds things up a little; but it has always been said that if people joined in the effort, it would speed things up to some extent – some extent, but to what extent?… We can’t say.
(silence)
Just think how long I have been looking after all these people – some have been here for more than twenty-five years, thirty years, and … (Mother shakes her head). I believe they have experiences, perhaps, but nothing to speak of. And the general atmosphere … (Mother shakes her head).
One thing, though: suddenly I read (yesterday or the day before) a sermon delivered in the U.S.A. by an American (who is a rabbi, a pastor and even a Catholic priest all at the same time!). He heads a group, a group for the “unity of religions.” A fairly young man,
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and a preacher. He gives a sermon every week, I think. He came here with some other Americans, stayed for two days and went back. But then, he sent us the sermons he had given since his return, and in one of them he recounts his “spiritual journey,” as he calls it (a spiritual journey through China, Japan, Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia, and so on up to India). What shocked him most in India was the poverty – it was an almost unbearable experience for him (that’s also what prompted the two persons who were with him to leave, and he left with them): poverty. Personally, I don’t know because I’ve seen poverty everywhere; I saw it wherever I went, but it seems Americans find it very shocking. Anyway, they came here, and in his sermon he gives his impression of the Ashram. I read it … almost with astonishment. That man says that the minute he entered this place, he felt a peace, a calm, a stability he had never felt ANYWHERE else in his life. He met a man (he doesn’t say who, he doesn’t name him and I couldn’t find out), who he says was such a “monument of divine peace and quietude that I only wished to sit silently at his side.”… Who it is, I don’t know (there’s only Nolini who might, possibly, give that impression). He attended the meditation – he says he had never felt anything so wonderful anywhere. And he left with the feeling this was a “unique” place in the world from the point of view of the realization of divine Peace. I read that almost with surprise. And he’s a man who, intellectually, is unable to understand or follow Sri Aurobindo (the horizon is quite narrow, he hasn’t got beyond the “unity of religions,” that’s the utmost he can conceive of). Well, in spite of that … Those who already know all of Sri Aurobindo, who come here thinking they will see and who feel that Peace, I can understand. But that’s not the case: he was enthralled at once!
It’s the same with people who get cured. That I know, to some extent: the Power acts so forcefully that it is almost miraculous – at a distance. The Power … I am very conscious of the Power. But, I must say, I find it doesn’t act here so well as it does far away. On government or national matters, on the terrestrial atmosphere, on great movements, also as inspirations on the level of thought (in certain people, to realize certain things), the Power is very clear. Also to save people or cure them – it acts very strongly. But much more at a distance than here! (Although the receptivity has increased since I withdrew because, necessarily, it gave people the urge to find inside something they no longer had outside.) But here, the response is very erratic. And to distinguish between the proportion that comes from faith, sincerity, simplicity, and
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what comes from the Power … Some people I am able to save (naturally, in my view, it’s because they COULD be saved), this is something that for a very long time I have been able to foresee. But now I don’t try to know: it comes like this (gesture like a flash). If, for instance, I am told, “So and so has fallen ill,” well, immediately I know if he will recover (first if it’s nothing, some passing trouble), if he will recover, if it will take some time and struggle and difficulties, or if it’s fatal – automatically. And without trying to know, without even trying: the two things come together.[[ The news and the "diagnosis." ]] This capacity has developed, first because I have more peace, and because, having more peace, things follow a more normal course. But there were two or three little instances where I said to the Lord (gesture of presenting something, palms open upward), I asked Him to do a certain thing, and then (not very often, it doesn’t happen to me often; at times it comes as a necessity, a necessity to present the thing with a comment – from morning to evening and evening to morning I present everything constantly, that’s my movement [same gesture of presenting something] but here, there is a comment, as if I were asking, “Couldn’t this be done?”), and then the result: yes, immediately. But I am not the one who presents the thing, you see: it’s “just the way it is,” it “just happens that way,” like everything else. [[Which means that Mother does not act personally but she is "acted through" automatically. ]] So my conclusion is that it’s part of the Plan, I mean, a certain vibration is necessary, enters [into Mother], intervenes, and … No stories to tell, mon petit! Nothing to fill people with enthusiasm or give them trust, nothing.
Three or four days ago, a very nice man, whom I like a lot, who has been very useful, fell ill. (He has in fact been ill for a long time, and he is struggling; for all sorts of reasons of family, milieu, activities and so on, he isn’t taken care of the way he should be, he doesn’t take care of his body the way he should.) He had a first attack and I "saw" him afterwards. But I saw him full of life: his body was full of life and of will to live. So I said, "No need to worry." Then after some time, maybe not even a month, another attack, caused not by the same thing but by its consequences. I receive a letter in which I am informed that he has been taken to the hospital. I was surprised, I said, "But no! He has in himself the will to live, so why? Why has this happened?" The moment I was informed and made the contact, he recovered … with fantastic speed! Almost in a few hours. He had been rushed to the
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hospital, they thought it was most serious, and two days later he was back home. The hospital doctor said, "Why, he has received a new life!" But that’s not correct: I had put him back in contact with his body’s will, which, for some reason or other, he had forgotten. Things like that, yes, they’re very clear, they take place very consciously … but anyway, nothing worth talking about!
But this man’s faith is extraordinary, such faith! … The first word he uttered when he regained consciousness: “Has Mother permitted my being taken to the hospital?” You understand. So I give him the full credit for his recovery. With people like that, yes, you can do something, but that’s because they have faith!
Well, then. No stories to tell.
These last few days, while walking in meditation, I said to the Lord, “What do I have? I have no certainty, no foreknowledge, no absolute power, I have nothing.” (I don’t mean “I,” I mean the body – this body.) The body was saying: “Do you see my condition? I am still full of …” (it was complaining bitterly), “oh, full of the silliest movements.” Petty movements of apprehension, petty movements of uncertainty, petty movements of anxiety, petty movements of all kinds of very, very petty things – those who live a normal life don’t take any notice, they don’t know, but when you observe what’s going on deep down with that discernment … oh, mon petit! It’s so petty, so petty, so petty….
Only one thing (which is not even absolute): a sort of equality that has come into the body – not an equality of soul (laughing): an equality in the cells! It has come into the body. There is no longer that clash of joy and pain – always and for everything, every minute, every reaction, “You, Lord, to You, Lord.” As though the cells were chanting, “To You Lord, to You Lord, to You Lord….” And … well, that’s how it is.
There are enough physical miseries to experience what people call “physical pain” – quite enough (!) Yet, materially, everything is organized to give every possible joy! For example (ever since the age of five it has been like that), whenever the body felt, “Oh, if I had this…. Oh, it would be nice to have that,” the thing would come in no time. Fantastic! It has always been that way, only it has become more conscious. Before, it would happen without my noticing it, quite naturally. Now, of course, the body has changed, it’s no longer a baby, it no longer has a child’s fancies. But when that kind of Rhythm comes, when something says, “Oh, this is fine!” … mon petit, it comes in TORRENTS from all sides without my saying a word. Just like that. There was a time when the body
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enjoyed it, it was delighted by it, made very happy by it (even two years ago, a little more perhaps), very happy, it found that amusing – it was lovely, you see. But now: "To You Lord." Only this, a sort of quiet, constant joy: "To You Lord, to You Lord, to You Lord…." And on both accounts: for physical pain as well. In that regard, the body is making progress. Although to tell the truth, its life is made so easy! So easy that it would have to be quite hard to please not be satisfied – the Lord is full of infinite grace.
No, in spite of everything, the body doesn’t have that sort of eternal stability, the sense of its immortality (immortality isn’t the right word), of its permanence. Not that it has a sense of impermanence, far from it, the cells feel eternal – that much is there. But a certain “something” that would be sheltered from all attacks. It still feels the attacks. It feels an instability, it doesn’t have a sense of absolute security, it hasn’t yet reached a state of absolute security – that’s it: the sense of security. There are still vibrations of insecurity. Yet that seems so mean, so silly! It still lives in insecurity…. Security, the sense of security only comes through union with the Supreme – nothing in life as it is, nothing in the world as it is, can offer the sense of security, it’s impossible. But to feel the Supreme’s presence so constantly, to be able to pass everything on to Him, “To You, to You, to You,” and yet not to have a sense of security! A shock or a blow comes (not necessarily personally, but in life), and there’s still a particular vibration: the vibration of insecurity – it still exists. The body finds that disquieting, painful: “Why?” Not that it complains, but it complains about itself, it finds itself not up to the mark.
To know that all is You, that You alone exist, to feel You everywhere, to feel You always, and still to be open to the first thing that comes from outside to give you a blow, a sense of insecurity – how absurd!
Of course, with a concentration of the true being (gesture above), it disappears instantly – but that means it isn’t the body that feels a sense of security! It’s the true consciousness (and quite naturally so, for it would not be true if it didn’t have that sense). But what we want is the body to exist in ITSELF, by ITSELF, with all qualities WITHIN ITSELF. In other words, God shouldn’t need to manifest for the body to live without anxiety!
No, that’s not THE thing!
So it takes a long, long, long time – one year has passed. And if we take stock …
Another example. A year later, I read a letter brought by Nolini.
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I began reading the letter, it was four or five pages long and I didn’t have time. Nolini didn’t say anything (of course, he is much too well-mannered to say anything), but within himself, he thought, “Why does Mother waste her time reading this letter when we barely have time to do our work?” It entered the atmosphere, and even before it reached me, as soon as I saw one, two, three, four, five pages, I said, “Oh, enough!” At the end of the first page, I said, “Enough!” and put the letter aside. But the thought from Nolini and the fact that my decision was made just a moment too late, a few seconds too late … my body was in a sweat from head to toe! It felt terribly exhausted. It took me at least half a minute of concentration to set things right. You understand, it has become so sensitive that in ordinary life it would be impossible – but for its transformation it was a necessity. Still, it surprised me. Naturally, after half a minute it was all over, but I had to concentrate and call for calm.
So the body thought, “Oh, I haven’t got beyond that…. If I have to do the right thing in the right way and right on the dot to keep my balance …” You understand, a sense of insecurity! And very strong, very strong. Of course, there is something like reason (not quite ordinary reason), something like reason that says, “When you automatically and always do exactly what should be done, it will vanish.” (Mother laughs) Thank you very much! But as it cannot be a mental decision, then how? You see, you can learn only through experience, and since everything is in perpetual motion, the experience of the past cannot help for the future: it’s a matter of every minute. So how can you know? … It means we’ll know that we are free from error only when we are all the time, all the time in perfect harmony! But then there will be no point in knowing it, it will be done! That’s the situation. If the body is transformed and lives naturally in the divine rhythm, why would I need to know it! (Laughing) It will be immaterial to me, because it will BE. We want to know things when they aren’t yet.
The body is like a child who needs encouragement, you know, “Come on now, don’t get in a state, things are fine, you’re making progress, you need not worry….” Oh, ridiculous!
There, mon petit.
(Satprem lays his head on Mother’s knees)
A new thing, for example, before (“before” means before last
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year!), when I gave my blessings, the Will came and went through me into the person – always. It wasn’t an act [by Mother]. But now, it’s visibly perceptible (Mother touches her fingertips), you can almost see the vibration going through the fingers and into the head [of Satprem]. That’s the difference: before, it was always the Consciousness, the Being working from above – now the body participates. This is different.
Very small things, very small things.
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