July 27, 1963
(Mother first comments on the death of a disciple, M.)
How they treat those poor dead! …
Naturally, they rushed to cremate him; they asked me candidly (because his nephew was coming but not before the next morning, that is, a little less than twenty-four hours after Ml’s death – nearly twenty hours), they asked me, “Should we keep him or not?” I answered, “It depends. If you ask me as far as HE is concerned, certainly the longer you keep him the better.” Then I see eyes open wide, a mouth open wide – don’t understand anything! I told them, “It takes QUITE A WHILE for the consciousness to come out slowly! Otherwise, when you burn him, it’s pushed out violently, it gives a terrible shock.”
To tell the truth, people burn the dead in that way to destroy the vital, I am sure of it. The idea is not to have any ghosts.
A little before his death he had asked me for a new name. He had nearly died twice, but he was saved (the doctors were sure he would die), he was saved by his faith; he had such faith, such an irresistible faith that twice it pulled him through: he was paralyzed, couldn’t see any more, it was terrible. And twice all his faculties
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came back (his eyes weren’t too good, but anyway he could talk and move around). The third time, he wanted to get completely cured, because he was a businessman and had made a resolve to earn ten lakhs [[One lakh: one hundred thousand. ]] of rupees for me (he had already given me four lakhs in the past, but he wanted to give me ten). So he absolutely wanted to live, but as he found himself not too well (he was quite deteriorated!), he called for one of those kaviraj (you know, those self-styled doctors), who finished him off: he couldn’t eat or sleep any more. And the “doctor” went on telling him, “You’re much better”! While the poor man was sitting up all night in a chair…. Finally, he was rushed to the hospital and died there. And the day of his death, about an hour later, I was informed that his son (he’s not a child, he’s a man) absolutely HAD to see me immediately. It was the time when I don’t see people, but I said “all right” (I felt there was something to it), I said “all right” and went to receive him. It was 11:00 A.M. (I think he died at 9:30 A.M.). I go there (I don’t remember if it was in the morning or early in the afternoon, anyhow it was very soon after his death), I sit down, the son is ushered in, and along with him comes a small boy, no taller than this (gesture), all golden, joyous, alive, happy! … And he rushed to me. He stayed like that, leaning against me, quite still. And how he laughed! How happy he was!
It was M., his psychic being.
Ever so lovely! All luminous – luminous with a golden light – and so happy, so glad! Like a baby, no bigger than this (gesture). Waving his arms and legs about, so happy! He stayed there – stayed put. So naturally, I received him and did the needful.
I’ve seen thousands of cases, you know, but it’s the first time I’ve seen that! And he had a remarkable knowledge, because in order not to risk any hitch, he clung to his son and urged him to come to me so as to make sure of reaching me without mishap, without any interference from the adverse forces, from currents and all sorts of things. He clung to his son, who was quite unaware of it, except that something in him WANTED him to come to me. And the poor son was crying; I told him, “Don’t worry, he is very happy”! (Mother laughs)
And lovely! A lovely thing. The sight of it filled me with joy – so happy, so happy, he seemed to be saying, “At last I am with you! I won’t budge now, no one can take me away.” This small.
I told you the story of the other one who came to be operated on
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and died [[See conversation of July 6. ]] (that makes two in a row, among our best workers). The other one had an important government position and did us some incredible services (he was a very intelligent man and had been chief justice for a very long time), he was very helpful and full of faith and devotion. This one [M.] had even promised to lend some money, but he died just before – a few days before he was due to give it![[ The Ashram chronically faces a worrisome financial situation. ]] But the first one was a conscious, highly mentalized being, with a very well-formed mental being; he knew a lot and he told me, “I am very conscious and now I know that I am fully alive and fully conscious, so I don’t want an impotent body that constantly requires someone to nurse it or move it around. I prefer to change.” He asked me to find him a good one (!) This one didn’t ask to take a new body, but the last thing he said (afterwards, he was paralyzed) was: I must live, because I want to give ten lakhs of rupees to the Mother. And he left with that – so an appropriate body has to be found.
But this one [M.] knew very little, he wasn’t an intellectual, he was a man of action, very psychic – very much so! Lovely, oh, lovely! He was like a little child, naked, of course, a baby this big, with small arms, small legs – dancing about, he was glad, laughing and laughing, he was happy. And all luminous. I immediately told his son (he did a “pranam” and rose with his eyes full of tears), I told him, Don’t weep, he is now where he wants to be and perfectly at rest. I didn’t tell him the story – he wouldn’t have understood a thing!
***
(Then Mother reads two letters by Sri Aurobindo which will appear in a future “Bulletin”:)
This I find very, very good:
“What the supramental will do the mind cannot foresee or lay down. The mind is ignorance seeking for the Truth, the supramental by its very definition is the Truth-Consciousness, Truth in possession of itself and fulfilling itself by its own power. In a supramental world imperfection and disharmony are bound to disappear. But what we propose just now is not to make the earth
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a supramental world but to bring down the supramental as a power and established consciousness in the midst of the rest – to let it work there and fulfill itself as Mind descended into Life and Matter and has worked as a Power there to fulfill itself in the midst of the rest. This will be enough to change the world and to change Nature by breaking down her present limits. But what, how, by what degrees it will do it, is a thing that ought not to be said now – when the Light is there, the Light will itself do its work – when the supramental Will stands on earth, that Will will decide. It will establish a perfection, a harmony, a Truth-creation – for the rest, well, it will be the rest – that is all.”
(XXII.13)
It’s very useful to say to people – they’re such a nuisance! Always wanting to put the cart before the horse. This other letter goes with it:
“It is not advisable to discuss too much what it [the supermind] will do and how it will do it, because these are things the supermind itself will fix, acting out of the Divine Truth in it, and the mind must not try to fix for it grooves in which it will run. Naturally, the release from subconscient ignorance and from disease, duration of life at will, and a change in the functionings of the body must be among the ULTIMATE (Mother repeats) elements of a supramental change; but the details of these things must be left for the supramental Energy to work out according to the Truth of its own nature.”
(XXII.8)
(Mother makes the gesture of hammering) I am all the time driving that into people’s heads. I spend my time telling them, “First of all, make yourself ready for its coming; afterwards, we’ll see what it does!”
Once the French translation is ready Satprem reads it back to Mother:
Always a slight tinge of humor!
(Satprem reads the French text up to:)
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“… to let it work there and fulfill itself as Mind descended into Life and Matter and has worked as a Power there to fulfill itself in the midst of the rest….”
If we follow that (Mother draws a great curve towards the future), he foresaw that one day the earth would be a supramental creation – the entire earth … entirely changed. That means a long, long way ahead. In other words, later, among the supramental race, they will say, “That’s all very well, but it’s only the beginning. Now, the entire earth has to become a supramental manifestation.” Just as from mental man the supramental being was born, so also from the supramental being will be born the powers that will transform the earth….
Do you see it?! It’s interesting.
(silence)
It’s something I’ve already been shown, I have already been shown it; when I go like this (gesture) and enfold the earth, I was shown a glorious earth, lit with an inner light. So instead of a burning sun, it was a Light that allowed Life to exist – you understand, it was the Physical itself that had become luminous. I saw that, I remember VERY DISTINCTLY seeing it.
But that’s a long way ahead! (Mother laughs) Is that all?
(Satprem reads the end of the French text)
Apart from that, is everything all right?
(Satprem answers with silence)
(Laughing) We’ll let the supramental descend and do its work!
(silence)
The greatest difficulty is that the body’s texture is made of Ignorance, so that every time the Force, the Light, the Power try to penetrate somewhere, that Ignorance has to be dislodged. Every time the experience is similar, renewed in detail (but not in essence; I mean, every time it’s a particular point, but the essence of the problem is always the same): it’s a sort of Negation out of
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ignorant stupidity – not out of ill will, there is no ill will: it’s an inert and ignorant stupidity which, by the very fact of what it is, DENIES the possibility of the divine Power. And that’s what has to be dissolved every time. At every step, in every detail, it’s always the same thing that has to be dissolved.
It’s repeated again and again…. It’s not as in the realm of ideas, where once you have seen the problem clearly and have the knowledge, it’s over; some doubts or absurdities may come back to you from outside, but the thing is established, the Light is there, and automatically things are either repelled or transformed. But this here isn’t the same thing! Every single aggregate of cells…. Not that it comes from outside: it’s BUILT that way! Built by an inert and stupid Ignorance. An inert and stupid automatism. And so, automatically, it denies – not “denies,” there’s no will to deny: it is an opposite, I mean it CANNOT understand, it’s an opposite – an ESTABLISHED opposite – of the divine Power. And every time, there is a kind of action which really in every detail is almost miraculous: suddenly that negation is compelled … compelled to recognize that the divine Force is all-powerful. Seen from another angle, it’s a sort of perpetual little miracle.
I’ll give you an example: last time you were with me, I got (while you were present) a pain here (gesture to the right side), a frightful pain of the kind that makes people howl (they think they’re very sick, of course!), it came here like that. You didn’t see anything, did you, I didn’t show anything.
As long as you were here, I didn’t bother about it…. I simply thought of something else. But when you left, I thought, “There’s no reason to leave that here.” So I concentrated – I called the Lord and put Him here (gesture to the side), and I saw it all, what I’ve just told you, that state of stupid negation, and how if you allow the thing to follow what they call its “normal” course, it becomes a good illness (Mother laughs), a serious illness. I call the Lord. (He is always here! But the fact that I concentrate and keep quiet….) And then it’s almost instantaneous: the first thing is a reaction – almost a STATE rather than a reaction – which DENIES the possibility of divine Action. It isn’t a will, it’s an automatic negation. Then there is always a Smile that answers (that’s what is interesting, there’s never any anger or any force that imposes itself, only a Smile), and almost instantly the pain disappears – “That” settles in, luminous, tranquil.
It isn’t final, mind you, only a first contact: the experience recurs on another occasion and for another reason (they aren’t
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mental reasons, they are occasions), it recurs, but there is already a beginning of collaboration: the cells have LEARNED that with That, the state changed (very interestingly, they remember), so they begin to collaborate, and the Action is even more rapid. Then a third time, a few hours away, it recurs once again; but then THE CELLS THEMSELVES call and ask for the divine Action, because they remember. And then That comes in, gloriously, like something established.
Now I’ve got it – I’ve got the knack! It’s for training the cells, you understand! It’s not just like a sick person who has to be cured once and for all: no, it’s a training of the cells, to teach them … to live.
It’s wonderful.
That’s why with all the consciousness and force, I tell people, “You make yourselves sick with your idiotic fear!” (A subconscious fear – sometimes mental, but then it’s utterly stupid – at any rate a fear in the cells, a subconscious fear.) “You make yourselves sick. Stop being afraid and you won’t get sick.” And I can say that with absolute assurance.
It’s interesting.
But constantly (I make the problem more precise for the sake of clarity), there are constantly in the atmosphere, as I have always said, all the suggestions, all that atmosphere of the physical mind which is full of every possible stupidity. You have to be permanently on your guard and sweep it all away: “Go away, don’t interfere.” The doctors’ opinions, the example of other people, that whole … really, that whole terrible muddle of Ignorance all around, which you have to drive back: “Don’t meddle, mind your own business.”
(silence)
So, regularly, as soon as there comes a pain somewhere or a discomfort or anything, immediately, instantly, the first reaction: “Ah! Lord, what do You want me to learn?” And I become attentive.
If everybody does the same thing, if all those who can do it (sincerely, of course, without pretense) do it sincerely: “Ah! Lord, what do You want me to learn?” and then observe, wait, then things are easier, you put yourself at least in better conditions.
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