October 17, 1964
You?
Me, I am going through all the phases, but fortunately very quickly, in a few hours – two, three hours – with new phases…. Anyway, rather unpleasant things.
* * *
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(Regarding the cards Mother sends the disciples on their birthdays. Those cards generally contain an indication of the effort or realization to be achieved during the new year.)
… What a work it is, you know!
You understand, with people from outside (about 200 people to whom I also send cards, maybe a little more), and all the Ashram people (except for very rare exceptions), it makes about 1,500 cards a year. There are only 365 days; so you can figure out how many cards have to be written every day…. D. comes every morning with my breakfast and a list of all the birthdays, and before seeing people or starting my work, I have to satisfy all those birthdays!
It keeps you busy!
But now, I have a new tactic: I have been given some of those alcohol [felt tip] pens that are like paintbrushes; I write with them – it takes up a lot of space! So I don’t need to say much. And my hand has remained as it was when I used to paint, very self-assured, but my eyes are no longer guiding, so the pen is the guide!
* * *
Soon afterwards
The nights are becoming more and more incredible.
Every night, I meet scores of people whom physically I don’t know at all, but with whom I have a relationship of … a sort of intimacy of work, as with someone you meet daily. And it goes on, and every night it’s different people. So it makes hundreds and hundreds of people with whom I work.
It’s very concrete: concrete like physical life (it’s in the subtle physical). Concrete in the sense that when you eat, you have the taste of it; when you touch, you have the feel of it; you have the smell. And what stories! Stories … fantastic inventions! I don’t note all that down because it would take hours and anyway I don’t find it worthwhile, but what stories it would make!
Fantastic.
Last night … I don’t remember at all now, only the impression; and the impression is so strong that after getting up it takes me at least half an hour to emerge from the atmosphere I was in!
All sorts of people. I don’t know their names, I don’t know their countries, I don’t know their languages, yet we communicate very well.
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And in the world, things are chaotic, it seems.
Yes, what is this “resignation” of Khrushchev going to do? [[The next day, October 16, the Chinese exploded their first atomic bomb. ]]
It looks serious. It would seem to be a revolt, because his son, too, has been kicked out. [[His son-in-law, Alexis Adzhubel, editor of Izvestia. ]]
Does it mean a setback?
Oh, a VIOLENT setback.
It’s serious.
Things were on the mend between America and Russia (at China’s expense! It was very funny).
This is going to demolish everything.
(silence)
You get an impression (it’s precisely the impression I bring back from those activities of the night), the impression of a building cracking – all over. Exactly like just before the collapse: it cracks all over.
Besides, if you are completely outside your usual consciousness, your usual reactions, your immediate circle and your daily activity, if you get completely out of all that, and take a look and wonder, “What’s going to happen?” – a black hole, you can’t see anything.
And when I say, “What’s going to happen?” I don’t mean what’s going to happen on earth, but through what combination of circumstances or sequence of events is the new creation going to take place?
There is an entire part of the earth’s past history that, ultimately, is totally unknown to us. They have indeed made so-called discoveries, but … all those stories, I don’t know how much of them is true.
Have they really discovered? I don’t know. Do you?
We probably know a little bit of history starting from a particular cataclysm. But how many cataclysms have there been?…
Yes, how many cataclysms have there been?
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(silence)
Now, for great upheavals men want to do without Nature’s help. It seems that five nations have atomic bombs, and the bombs of just one of those nations are enough to … vrrf! destroy the earth. So if all this (because it’s new, after all) suddenly gets out of control … They don’t know how long these things can remain in waiting: if all at once they start exploding – can you see that! (laughing) In all the countries, all the bombs going off at the same time!
Poor earth.
It’s worse than a Deluge. All in all, the ways of the Earth were more gentle, Nature was more reasonable.
(silence)
Ultimately, there is only one comfort, it’s that nothing will ever happen except what has to happen, so … This is the consciousness in which I live – I don’t worry at all, not in the least. But I mean that in actual fact, in an objective manner, we know nothing.
Is it in the wake of cataclysms that the animal became man?… That doesn’t seem to be very necessary.
No, the disruptive element is the Mind.
I am not aware of what people nowadays think they know, but, for example, when the animal reign dominated the earth, before it appeared and to make it appear, were there ever any catastrophes?… Of course, you can vaguely feel an earth that slowly grows colder and is first purely mineral, then plants appear little by little – you see that very well (I’ve even seen very interesting photographs), but is it the fact of growing colder that itself caused catastrophes? Earthquakes, submersions, floods?…
Yes, there was a period of great foldings.
There was a movement of the continents, and so, necessarily, the ice sheets melted and the earth was flooded. But this movement of the continents was probably a consequence of the cooling.
Now they say that they have instruments capable of measuring the fact that the continents are still moving. They even said, a few years ago, that many parts of Siberia, which used to be so cold that nothing could be done there, were beginning to be cultivated,
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and that, necessarily, the tropics aren’t so warm anymore.
But these things must be coming about very gradually, so it’s always possible to adapt, people can move to other places.
Yes, it happens over millions of years.
There’s time to move, to change habits.
(silence)
The historical period is very short. Already, as it is, it’s very uncertain, but very short.
Perhaps the conscious effort of the Vedas came after thousands and thousands of years of research, studies, civilizations that didn’t leave any trace? Because they have more or less calculated the time of the coming of man on the earth – a few million years, no? How much?
One million, I think. [[Some say two or three million years. The first vertebrates appeared 400 million years ago, and the first mammals, it seems, sixty million years ago. ]]
Out of that million, we know 5,000 years, you see that!
Poor little ball! How vain we are! We think we know everything.
(silence)
Maybe it’s into the past that I wander? It may be into the past, it may be into the future, it may be in the present. I have noticed that the costumes aren’t at all like today’s or like anything we know. But when I am there, in the activity, it’s perfectly natural, you don’t notice it: it’s like something you see every day, you don’t notice it. Only when I come back and objectify a little do I say to myself, “Well, how odd!” (for myself and for others). And I am not at all as I am now, not at all. Moreover, I think I have been what is called “different persons” at different times. There was even a time when I looked to see if it wasn’t that I was identifying with different persons, but there is no identification, I don’t feel I am “entering someone,” nothing like that. But in appearance, I am not always the same person: sometimes I am very tall, sometimes I am small, sometimes I am young, sometimes I am not old but grownup. Very, very different. But there is always the same central
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consciousness, there is always … (Mother collects herself) the Witness who watches on behalf of the Lord and decides on behalf of the Lord. This is the attitude: the Witness who watches – that is to say, who sees everything, observes everything, and who decides, either for himself or for others (indifferently), always. That is the fixed point. On behalf of … of the “something” that’s eternal – eternal, eternally true, eternally powerful and eternally knowing. That is there, through everything. Otherwise, there are different things all the time, different circumstances, different surroundings; there are ways of life that are very, very different. And also, if I wake up at the beginning of the night, it’s one particular type of thing; if I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s another type of thing; if I wake up … “wake up,” let’s be clear, it isn’t coming out of sleep, it’s returning to the present consciousness. And every time, it’s different, like coming from different worlds, different times, different activities.
And it’s clear that “one” doesn’t expect me to remember – that doesn’t matter at all. It is an ACTION. It’s an action, it isn’t a knowledge I am given – an action. I am working. Is it “I have worked”? Is it “I am going to work”? Is it “I am working”? I don’t know. Probably all three.
And whether I remember or not doesn’t matter at all.
(silence)
But there are some points one should nevertheless know … and for which there is no certainty. For instance, to what extent does the presence of a physical body [Mother's body], in the world as it is now, act on the Work that is being done? To what extent? … Is it indispensable? Is it really indispensable? And if it is, what is the effect and the extent? In other words, are there things that one can do only in a physical body, or can the same things be done anyway (except we don’t have the opportunity to chat about it, so! …)?
Certainly, there are things one can do only in a body.
Chatting!
No, not chatting!… Otherwise, there would be no need for Avatars.
Yes … so it seems.
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(silence)
But if the stories as we are told them are more or less true, I mean if they have any truth, there isn’t ONE Avatar who stayed – they all left. Or else they’re hiding well, because … No one has ever met any of them, you see. There are people who go looking for them, but no one has ever met them. And their deaths have even been much talked about and often seem to have played a rather important role.
How do you mean no one has ever met them?
Physically.
You see, it is said that Shiva lived on earth, that Krishna lived on earth. As for Buddha and Christ, we know they lived on earth – it raised enough rumpus! People even made more fuss about Christ’s death than about his life. As for Buddha, he professed himself in favor of going away for good (although he didn’t actually). But the others …? They have of course told the story of Krishna’s death – but they have told many stories.
It’s too “old.”
But it’s not old, mon petit!
Old for our history.
It’s not old. Obviously, there was no cinema and no newspapers! But newspapers and all paper things can’t last very long. In America, they have made underground shelters for books – they take all the best, then they store it under certain conditions. But what if the earth and the continents move! … And anyway, who will be able to read? Even the Assyrian inscriptions, which aren’t old, are still a riddle. They don’t really know: they imagine they know. The names we were taught when we were small and the names today’s children are taught are totally different, because they hadn’t found the phonetic notation.
Ultimately, if we look at things with the slightest care, even OUTWARDLY, we know nothing.
(Mother goes into a deep meditation)
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