September 28, 1966
(The secretaries have left Mother an hour late, so that the conversation begins at the time it should have ended.)
That beats all the records! And I started early – yet the work isn’t done.
It’s insoluble. Because I try everything in my power: I start earlier, I hurry in the morning, I do the work with as much order as possible – nothing doing. And I let them know a quarter of an hour in advance: “Time is up” – nothing doing.
But little by little everything is eaten up, there’s no time left!
No, there isn’t.
But at night, I sometimes work till 10:30 now, and it was agreed that I was supposed to retire before nine…. There’s no time left. And in my case, it’s not sleeping, it’s my real work that I do at night – and I can’t. In the afternoon too, I haven’t any time left: I am supposed to have lunch at 11:30; I have it at 12:30, so I haven’t any time left because I have to wash and resume work at 3. And I have never finished by 5. I tried to keep 5: 30 to 6:30 to myself – it’s not possible. It eats into all my hours of peace and quiet. Yet the work isn’t done! If it were, I wouldn’t mind, but it’s not done, there is still at least twice as much to be done – everyone protests, everyone complains.
There’s no use grumbling!
No, but anyway time vanishes.
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And on top of it all, I am broke! Amrita will be coming this afternoon: I can’t give him his money, I don’t have it. I have to pay a certain amount every day: well, as it happens, I am broke. This afternoon, as every Wednesday, I should give 5,000 rupees to this poor Amrita in debt: I haven’t a penny. That’s how it is, it makes things still worse. If at least I could more or less meet the requirements, it would be all right, but that’s not the problem: there are complications arising all over the place! I owe the cashier astronomical amounts, and I can’t pay him…. I am beset by debts on every side – it weighs lightly on me, I don’t lose any sleep over it! But the fact is there.
(Mother holds out a rose to Satprem) This is peace, my child. It’s peace. (Laughing) Oh, if you knew how peaceful it is here! (gesture to the forehead and above) I say things, but ultimately … they are the way the Lord wants them to be. Maybe He enjoys seeing the faces people pull!
(silence)
I have received a letter from a correspondent, who asks a question about suffering.
Very well, let’s see.
She writes this: “… We must stop encouraging torturers, whether of men or of animals. I am writing to beg you to teach me how to obtain the powers to lessen sufferings in others through concentration of fluid, and how to act by inwardly returning blow for blow to the aggressors, without hatred but implacably…. I beg you to help me. Which inner giving, which renunciation is necessary? Who will teach me the force and justice that will enable me to act and not to always let evil triumph? It is too easy to forget, deny, minimize other’s suffering. I can no longer put up with it. I no longer want to shut my eyes and comfort myself till the next time…. What should I undertake?…”
When did you get this letter?
Two or three days ago.
But did you decide to read it to me yesterday? Because the whole day I was in that frame of mind (not with these words, but
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in that frame of mind).
For a long time lately, that is, for days and days, there has been a very sharp perception, very intense and clear, that the action of the Force outwardly results in what we call “suffering” because it’s the only kind of vibration capable of pulling Matter out of inertia.
Supreme Peace and Calm were distorted and disfigured into inertia and tamas, and precisely because it was the distortion of true Peace and Calm, there was no reason for it to change! A certain vibration of awakening – of reawakening – was necessary to emerge from that tamas, which was incapable of directly changing from tamas into Peace; something was needed to shake the tamas, and outwardly it resulted in suffering.
I am referring here to physical suffering, because all the other kinds of suffering – vital, mental, emotive suffering – arise from a wrong functioning of the mind, and those … we can easily rank them in the Falsehood, that’s all. But physical suffering is to me like a child being beaten, because here in Matter, Falsehood turned into ignorance, which means there is no bad will – there is no bad will in Matter, everything is inertia and ignorance: total ignorance of the Truth, ignorance of the Origin, ignorance of the Possibility, even ignorance of what needs to be done so as not to suffer materially. This ignorance is everywhere in the cells, and only the experience – and the experience of what, in this rudimentary consciousness, is translated as suffering – can awaken, arouse the need to know and be cured, and the aspiration to be transformed.
This has become a certitude because the aspiration has been born in all these cells, and it’s growing more and more intense and is surprised at the resistance. But they have observed that when something is upset in the functioning (which means that instead of being supple, spontaneous, natural, the functioning becomes a painful effort, a struggle with something that takes on the appearance of a bad will but is only a reluctance devoid of understanding), at such times the intensity of the aspiration, of the call, grows tenfold: it becomes constant. The difficulty is to keep up this state of intensity; generally it all falls back into, I can’t say “drowsiness,” but it’s a sort of slackening: you take things easy. And it’s only when the inner disorder becomes hard to bear that the intensity grows and becomes permanent. For hours – hours – without flagging, the call, the aspiration, the will to unite with the Divine, to become the Divine, is kept up at its peak – why? Because there was what’s outwardly called a physical disorder, a suffering.
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Otherwise, when there isn’t any suffering, there is now and then an upsurge, then it flags and falls back; then at some other time, another upsurge … It never ends! It lasts for eternities. If we want things to go fast (fast relatively to the rhythm of our lives), the whiplash is necessary. I am convinced of this, because as soon as you are in your inner being, you treat this with contempt (for yourself).
But then, when that true Compassion of divine Love comes and you see all those things that look so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, that great pain over all beings and even over things … Then there was born in this physical being the aspiration to relieve, to cure, to make all that disappear. There is something in Love in its Origin that is constantly expressed by the intervention of the Grace; a force, a sweetness, something like a vibration of solace, spread everywhere, but which an enlightened consciousness can direct, concentrate on certain points. And that’s just where I saw the true use one could make of thought: thought is used as a channel to carry the vibration from place to place, wherever it’s necessary. This force, this vibration of sweetness is there over the world in a static way, pressing to be received, but it’s an impersonal action, and thought – enlightened thought, surrendered thought, the thought that is nothing more than an instrument, that no longer tries to set things in motion, that is satisfied with being moved by the higher Consciousness – thought is used as an intermediary to make contact, to build a connection and allow this impersonal Force to act wherever it’s necessary, on precise points.
(silence)
We may say in an absolute way that the remedy always goes together with the trouble. We could say that the cure for every suffering coexists with the suffering. Then, instead of seeing an “unnecessary” and “stupid” trouble, as people generally think, you see that the progress, the evolution which made the suffering necessary – which is the cause and the goal of the suffering – achieves the desired result, and at the same time the suffering is cured, for those who can open up and receive. The three things – the suffering as a means of progress, the progress, and the cure of the suffering – are coexistent, simultaneous, meaning that they don’t follow one another, they take place at the same time.
If, when the transformative action creates a suffering, there is in what suffers the necessary aspiration and opening, the remedy
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is absorbed at the same time, and the effect is total, complete: the transformation, along with the action necessary to obtain it, and at the same time the cure of the false sensation caused by the resistance. And the suffering is replaced by … something unknown on this earth, but which has to do with joy, ease, trust, and security. It’s a supersensation, in perfect peace, and clearly the only thing that can be eternal.
This analysis expresses very imperfectly what we could call the “content” of the Ananda.
I think it’s something that has been felt, experienced (partially and very fleetingly) through all ages, but which is beginning to be concentrated and almost concretized on earth. But physical Matter in its cellular form has, we can’t say a fear or an anxiety, but a sort of apprehension of new vibrations, and that apprehension naturally takes away from the cells their receptivity and takes on the appearance of a discomfort (it’s not a suffering but a discomfort). But when that apprehension is counterbalanced and cured by aspiration and the will for total surrender and the act of total surrender, then that sort of apprehension having disappeared, there comes supreme ease.
All this is like microscopic studies of the phenomena of consciousness independent of mental intervention. The need to use words to express ourselves brings in that mental intervention, but in the experience it doesn’t exist. And it’s very interesting because the pure experience holds a content of truth, of reality, which disappears as soon as the mind intervenes. There is a flavor of true reality which totally eludes expression for that reason. It’s the same difference as between an individual and his portrait, between a fact and the story told about it. That’s how it is. But it’s far more subtle.
So then, to return to the letter, when you are conscious of this Force – this Force, this Compassion in its essential reality – and see how it can be exerted through a conscious individual, you have the key to the problem.
I’ve had experiences …[[The conversation is cut short by the doctor's arrival. ]]
***
(A few days later, in Nolini’s presence, Mother took up
the conversation again, adding:)
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One should also be given the means to open up.
(Nolini:) This lady was suffering from that cancer (the whole lungs were almost gone), but she began to miraculously recover. Really it is almost a miracle. Her husband, who is here, says, “I am a surgeon and I have dealt with so many cases of this kind, I know what it is – gradually it has almost disappeared. Miraculous it is.” Now she is walking about. [[Original English. ]]
Ah, if one could catch hold of “that,” everything could be cured.
She is overwhelmed, she says, “I don’t understand.” And the doctor knows what it is, he has tried operations on this so many times.1
There are several cases of this kind. Very well.
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