January 28, 1970
(Satprem first reads out to Mother his preface to the second
edition of Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness.
We publish it here to give the temperature of the times.)
"The age of adventures is over. Even if we go to the seventh
galaxy, we will go there helmeted and mechanised, and we will
find ourselves exactly as we are: children in the face of death,
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living beings who are not too sure how they live or why, nor
where they are going. On the earth, as we know, the times of
Cortez and Pizarro are gone: a single Machine hems us in, the
trap is closing. But, as always, it turns out that our darkest
adversities are our best opportunities, and the obscure transition
is only a transition leading to a greater light. That is why we are
pushed to the wall and faced with the last exploration left to us,
the ultimate adventure: ourselves.
"The signs abound, they are simple and obvious. The most
important event of the sixties is not the trip to the moon, but the
’trips’ on drugs, the great hippie migration, and the student
unrest throughout the world – but where will they go? There is
no more room on the teeming beaches, no more room on the
bustling roads, no more room in the ever-growing anthills of our
cities. The way out is elsewhere.
"But there are many kinds of ‘elsewheres.’ Those of drugs are
uncertain and fraught with danger, and above all dependent on
outer means – an experience ought to be obtainable at will and
anywhere, in the marketplace as in the solitude of our room, or
else it is not an experience but an anomaly or slavery. Those of
psychoanalysis are limited, for the moment, to a few dimly lit
caves, and above all lack that lever of consciousness which
enables us to move about at will, as our own masters and not
as helpless witnesses or sickly victims. Those of religion are more
illumined, but they too depend on a god or a dogma, and above
all confine us within one type of experience, for one can be a
prisoner of other worlds as much as of this one – even more
so….
Yes, yes.
"… In the end, the value of an experience is measured by its
power to transform life; otherwise, we are before an empty dream
or a hallucination.
"Sri Aurobindo leads us to a twofold discovery which we urgently
need if we want not only to find a way out of our suffocating
chaos, but also to transform our world. By following him step
by step in his prodigious exploration – his technique of inner
spaces, if we may say so – we are led to the most important
discovery of all times, to the threshold of the Great Secret which
is to change the face of this world, namely, that consciousness
is power. Hypnotized as we are by the present ‘inescapable’
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scientific conditions in which we were born, we seem to find
hope only in an ever more enormous proliferation of machines,
which will see better than we do, hear better than we do, calcu
late better than we do, heal better than we do – and finally perhaps
live better than we do….
(Mother laughs)
"… We need to know that we can do better than they, and that
this huge Machine which is stifling us can collapse as quickly
as it came into being, if only we are willing to seize the lever of
the true power and descend into our own hearts as methodical,
rigorous and clearheaded explorers.
"Then we may discover that our splendid twentieth century was
still the Stone Age of psychology, that with all our science we had
not yet entered the true science of living, the mastery of the world
and of ourselves, and that there open up before us horizons of
perfection and harmony and beauty compared to which our
superb discoveries are like the roughcasts of an apprentice."
It’s very good, very good … it’s magnificent. That really has a dynamic force.
***
Soon afterwards
Not last night but the night before, for the first time I saw – it was the first time – Sri Aurobindo drive the car. He was driving the car, I was there right behind him, and then the whole world seemed to be there. But between me and Sri Aurobindo, that is to say, between the world and Sri Aurobindo, there was what looked like one of those screens at the front [a windshield], but it was a mat so that one couldn’t see through. I myself could see, but the others couldn’t, and I saw Sri Aurobindo at the wheel, and he was the one who was driving. He was … ageless, with an extraordinary power, and a MASTERY in the driving, extraordinary! And it was as if … he were beginning to drive the world.
I said to myself, "How come …?" It’s the first time. I see him almost every night, but always busy, going here and there, doing this or staying still or seeing people, or apparently doing nothing. But here, he was driving the car – it was the car of the world – and there was a screen so people wouldn’t see it was him…. The whole,
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entire world was at the back, and people didn’t know, but it was driven with extraordinary sureness and speed.
When I woke up, I had the impression that something had really changed.
It’s obviously the coming of the centenary [in 1972]…. Still, there was a screen, but he was the one who was driving.
Now I understand my vision.
It was that force, that power in him … it was tremendous.
(silence)
It was a rather peculiar night…. An old friend of Amrita’s died in the night: Ganeshan. I didn’t know. And it was …
How can I really explain?… The body, the body consciousness was the consciousness of a dying body, and at the same time with the perfect knowledge that it wasn’t dying. But it was the consciousness of a dying body, with all the anguish, all the suffering, all those things, but there was the knowledge that it wasn’t this (Mother points to her own body) that was dying. And it lasted a long time: it lasted all night – he died very early this morning. Afterwards, I knew (only a few hours afterwards, when I was told that he had left), then I understood…. That man was very ardent in his devotion and he had long known that he was going to die; his sons had proposed to take him away for treatment – he said, "No, I want to die at the Ashram, I don’t want to leave the atmosphere…." And I understand why, because … you see, the consciousness was there helping him all along, he instantly had the reaction this body [Mother's] would have, you understand? Which means he died in particularly favorable conditions. My body was like this (gesture of surrender) and saying, "All right. Lord, it’s as You will, I am quite ready." At the same time, it perfectly had the knowledge: "But you aren’t dying!…" Like that.
But that’s how it was, it said, "Very well, if You have decided. You have decided…." And it knew. I can’t say it spent a good night, no! [[That night. Mother vomited several times. ]] But the consciousness was very, very, very conscious, oh!…
So then, when it [the body] was told in the morning that that man had left (laughing), it laughed, it said, "Oh, so that’s what it was!…"
But it was interesting. And it’s after this (I forget at what time, but probably when it felt it was over or was going to be over – at
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any rate the intensity of the "operation" was past) that I immediately had that vision: the body entered its usual rest, and the next thing, I was in that car – that world car driven by Sri Aurobindo… And so, so TRULY clear, living, real – extraordinary!
(meditation)
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