Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-071_September 6_1967.htm

September 6, 1967

I have four baskets full to the brim, more than a hundred letters to read! So in the morning (Mother shows a stack of letters on her table) this much comes, and in the afternoon it will be the same thing. Then A. comes in the evening at seven with other letters…. That is, twenty-five to thirty letters a day. Out of them, if I work hard, I can reply to four or five! So you understand, the residue piles up: four baskets!

***

Soon afterwards

I have made discoveries these last few days…. I have discovered that in former lives (I don’t know which ones), my psychic being was several times in a tortured body. And it comes back for (how should I put it?) a collective action in the world, on the earth, so the possibility of the thing may disappear. It’s a rather interesting work.

But I noticed it because I said to myself, “But why is my attention constantly turned to that?” Then I looked carefully and saw that the psychic was several times in a tortured body, long ago at the time of the Inquisition, but also in political cases (much more recently, probably). Real tortures, you know, those inventions in which men are worse than monsters – no animal is as monstrous as a human consciousness when it is like that…. And it came back with the “law,” the principle of the thing, of the distortion of consciousness, and once I had understood, I looked at myself (I was wondering, “Why? Why is my attention turned to that?”), I looked and saw. And I started doing what had to be done so it may no longer exist in the creation – some things will not exist any longer.

But nothing in the creation that belongs to the mineral world, the plant world, the animal world, needs to disappear. There were those monstrous animals: they disappeared materially but not … not the principle of the creation. It’s since man came with the mind – when the mind was twisted, deformed by the adverse forces. That’s really ugly.

How can that be dissolved? Torture, for instance, that sort of

thing? How can it be dissolved from the earth consciousness

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so it no longer happens again? How can it be done?

Oh, for all really monstrous things, there is only one force – only one force that can dissolve them. I knew it in principle, but now I know it in practice: it is the force of Love. Love is truly all-victorious – but true Love, not what men call “love,” not that: true, divine Love.

You see one drop of “That” in its perfection, and all shadows disappear – all disharmonies disappear. Only in its perfection, in its essential purity.

It truly is all-powerfulness.

And without … without the sense of victory, that’s what is so, so wonderful! It’s the All-Victorious which doesn’t at all have the sense of being victorious – not at all, not at all.

(silence)

This morning for more than an hour, there were veritable scenes [of torture] in their completeness, with all the details, and then … that wonderful Thing.

Even while the torture is taking place, in that Consciousness, it disappears. And it disappears not only for the one who’s subjected to it, but for the one who’s doing it. And the Thing in itself. It was interesting.

There were all the details of the scene, with such precision! The words uttered, the gestures … To such a point that if it had simply been written down, it would have made an extraordinary novel! That’s what surprised me, because I am not a writer, and it doesn’t generally interest me, so why did it come back like that, presented so completely?… Until … until the fulfillment – the end was a marvel: That.

***

(Then Mother turns to the first Playground Talk [[Questions and Answers. ]] intended for

 the next Bulletin. In that Talk of April 29, 1953, Mother, as if

 coincidentally, was speaking about … religions. She said this,

 in particular: "… Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any religions.

 There would be masters and disciples, people with a higher

 teaching and an exceptional experience. That would be very

 good. But as soon as the master is gone, what happens is that

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the knowledge he gave is turned into a religion. Rigid dogmas are

 established, religious rules are born, and you can only bow before

 the Tables of the Law, whereas in the beginning it was not so.

 You are told, ‘This is true, that is false, the Master said …’

After a time, the master becomes a god, and you

 are told, ‘God said.’")

Should I let this pass? … It will cause a hurricane! (It’s a good text, anyway.)

Was it like that or did you arrange it?

No, no! I arrange the grammar in places, but I haven’t altered

 it at all, it’s as it was.

I am asking you because when I had those gatherings [at the Playground], on some days I would feel the full Force like this (gesture of descent), and everything I said would come direct. At other times, it was the memory that spoke, and then it would be so flat! But when you read those Talks back to me, I perceive those that were direct and those that were simply a machine playing (!) And this one, this talk, was very good.

With the last ones especially, in the last year, to me it was very clear, perfectly clear: on certain days That would speak (gesture from above), and I would only feel my mouth move and hear the sound of my voice. At other times it was the whole storehouse of memories, and what was expressed was just worthless.

For a long time, with these Talks we published in the Bulletin,

 I often used to arrange them because the language seemed to

 me too spoken or disjointed. But now that I am preparing the

 complete edition, I put things back almost word for word as

 you said them, except when it really jars too much, when it’s

 too ungrammatical! Otherwise, I leave it as it was, because I

find that’s how it has force.

(Mother goes into a contemplation)

A head big as this … He was smiling, and showing us both something that was the symbolic image of these Talks. It was very interesting! His head was this big (gesture: about a foot and a half), wholly luminous with that supramental light which is … it’s golden, but with red in it – not red: pink, but … it’s inexpressible.

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It’s almost like a flame, but not dazzling; and it gives the sense of a force – a really all-powerful force. He was there like this (gesture between Mother and Satprem), between the two of us, with his hand outstretched (it was all the same color), and held in it was a cube. And that cube was all those Talks. So he showed the cube, which had a transparent light … (how can I put it?) a steady transparent light – not still, but steady. And there were kinds of veins in it: blue veins, silvery ones … It was a cube, you see, a perfect cube, but it was all moving about: blue, silvery, red veins, and also, here and there, a small dark line. And he was showing it as if to say, “Here is how it is.” The whole thing was a cube of colorless, transparent light – purely transparent and purely luminous; and there were kinds of currents passing through it: sometimes in a corner (but it was shifting about, not still), and it was now dark blue (not dark, but blue – really blue), now silvery, now white, and in places, from time to time, here or there (gesture to various points), there was in a corner or at an edge, a small black line!

He held it out in his hand and laughed!

It was very good! (Mother laughs) The exact representation of these Talks.

But he meant (it certainly looked like that), he meant that the whole thing was the cube – a well-organized cube, with a transparent light, very pure, very luminous, like that, and then (laughing) it was all moving about inside it!

I saw him in profile (he was just in between us), I saw him in profile, and his hand, which I saw, was just in between us, like that, and he showed that so we would both see it – and he smiled and smiled…. I think he wanted to laugh!

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