Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-66_September 16_1970.htm

September 16, 1970

(Mother looks much better. After giving "Transformation"

flowers, she goes into a long peaceful contemplation.)

Peace has returned…. Still now and then, a tension.

(long silence)

Do you have anything to ask?

No, Mother.

(Mother goes into a contemplation again)

No questions?

The impression is that the Power [near Mother] is growing more

 and more powerful.

(after a silence)

People who had fallen ill have recovered. [[In particular Mothers attendant, Vasudha, who was operated on for cancer in Bombay (and is still there). Unfortunately, she will never resume her work near Mother. ]]

But has something begun to move from sensation to knowledge?

Ah, yes. From that point of view, yes.

There has been a distinct separation between sensation and consciousness, which means that … I have seen things.

(long silence)

But I even had, for one or two hours, the Ananda of the creation…. And it appeared so natural! So I wondered, "Whatever was that aberration I was in?" But I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t understand that … you know, that hell. I couldn’t understand how I was in it. And I must say, I didn’t try, because I said to myself, I don’t want to go back into that! So I didn’t try to understand…. With the concrete perception of the divine Presence and the constant action of the Grace, it has totally come back, so I didn’t try to understand how I could be in the other state – I had enough of it!… But it

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 happened all at once: suddenly, one morning, after I had spent a relatively tranquil night. There is still, now and then, a kind of anguish, something that feels … a discomfort – a discomfort and an anguish – so I take great care not to concentrate within.

(silence)

I’ll know that later.

This morning, I had an indication. An indication of the dream kind. That is to say, this morning, when it was time to wake up, I found myself … (how can I put it?) crawling on a roof, carrying someone, a girl (a "girl," I mean a young woman), I was carrying her with my two hands and I managed to crawl on the roof to go down on the other side. A roof like this (gesture of a steep ridge), and I was on the rooftop! Which means I was doing some impossible acrobatics, as dangerous and difficult as can be, and I was doing it DELIBERATELY and UNNECESSARILY.

So I said to myself … I "woke up," anyway I came out of it when I said to myself, "But why am I doing this?" That girl, I found her charming, and she was very fine, she was … like a child, someone helpless: she couldn’t move on her own. She had a face … she was very conscious, very lovely – very conscious. A face and … I don’t know, her hands, her arms were as if helpless or incomplete or … I don’t know. Naturally, all that was symbolic. I was on the top of a VERY HIGH roof, very high, and I carried this person like this (gesture in her arms). And I wondered, "Why am I taking such trouble?" There were people down below, and they asked (laughing), "Is it very necessary to do this?…" Then I resolved to stop. But I loved her very much and she was … she was VERY sweet, I mean, she had a lovely consciousness. So finally I decided, "I think it’s enough with this acrobatics!" Then I woke up, I returned to my normal waking state.

It was a dream, but it wasn’t a dream – it really was an activity, and in my sleep all my nerves, all my muscles, all my will were tense, terribly tense.

Twice during the night, I’ve had the sense of entering a COMPLETELY NEW way of seeing and feeling things. As if I were doing extremely difficult things but quite unnecessarily…. This morning I said to myself, "See how you are!…" Virtually impossible things, extremely difficult, and I did them effortlessly – effortlessly, but, so it seemed, quite unnecessarily; there was no reason for me to do them.

So this morning I pondered a lot about that…. Probably – probably a large part of the difficulty in the work comes … from

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 some stupidity on my part, you could say.

Yet, to my conscious consciousness, I constantly keep saying, "What You will, Lord, what You will…." But there must be in my body the habit of an unnecessary effort.

But Mother, about three weeks ago, when you were still fully

in that experience, you told me, "I don’t know whether I will

 remember, but perhaps the psychic will, because it attended."

 And you said, "It’s something prodigious and almost idiotic, so simple is it."

(Mother nods

 silence)

But this morning it was very clear and imperative, as if to give me a lesson.

It’s still mixed: from time to time, that anguish and that discomfort come back, and I clearly see that’s … it’s especially what, in the being, belongs to the past, you understand, what’s still in the habit of its past functioning.

(silence)

It was admirable (!), I carried that child with my two arms, and it was only with my legs that I walked on my knees on the ridge of the roof! And the roof of a house that must have had at least four or five stories! It was absolutely insane! And I did it quite naturally, effortlessly, when something suddenly … something like a consciousness looking at me made me ask, "But why am I doing this?…" And I held that little one in my arms, saying to her, "How sweet you are! How sweet you are!" And she was … she was sweet, but "sweet" … she was luminous, conscious – and she was absolutely helpless. Absolutely: she seemed to have neither arms nor legs. Like something totally powerless…. Its very strange.

So then, I saw people who weren’t on the roof (they must have been one floor below) and who were looking at me, almost laughing (amused at any rate), and they said, "But why are you doing this?!…" And I woke up with the impression that I was making life terribly difficult for myself – difficult and dangerous – ab-so-lute-ly unnecessarily.

It struck me for a long time this morning. For a long time I was under the influence of it. I said to myself (laughing), "I must be extremely stupid somewhere!"

But it was lovely, she had, oh, such a lovely consciousness!

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Isn’t it the new consciousness?

I don’t think so….

You don’t think so.

I don’t know.

Anyway, in any case she was quite helpless. Quite helpless: it was I who carried her.

But the new consciousness OF THE BODY, perhaps?

But I felt there was no reason whatsoever to do this…. I don’t know.

(Mother remains long silent

 and gestures to say she does not know)

This person hasn’t disappeared. I don’t know…. She hasn’t gone. It’s the relationship that has changed – I think it’s a question of relationship, because the relationship has changed: I got an impression that she was no longer separate, something of the sort.

Maybe it’s the separation between the two that … [[Mother may mean: the separation between the body and this consciousness may have been the cause for that hell. ]]

Maybe it’s the sense of separation between the two?

We’ll see.

(long silence)

We’ll see.

There is evidently a great change. Only, it looks like … it quite looks like the state of consciousness I had before. The state of consciousness doesn’t seem to have changed.

This morning I felt I had emerged from all these last days as if from a bad dream…. I had lost the consciousness I had in my body. [[Perhaps that was the "girl" Mother was carrying? But we do wonder whether they had not drugged Mother. The problem will recur. ]]

I don’t know…. There will be many things to understand.

I don’t know.

You understand, it may be either of two things; either I was going out of my body and passing on to the other world, and then I came back – it may be that – or it may be that I was in a transitional period for the transformation, and I’ve come out of the dangerous,

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 critical spot. It’s one of the two. Which one? We’ll see. Do you understand what I mean? I don’t know….

(silence)

You see, I ABSOLUTELY refuse to imagine anything at all, to do what people always do – draw conclusions and say, "This is how it is." Absolutely not, I absolutely refuse to do that. So I don’t know. I look, and we’ll see! (Mother laughs)

At any rate, the nightmare is gone.

But the nature remembers the experience and it’s still … (wobbly gesture) not too reassured.

There is also the impression that it needed – before the nature was ready to enter into this new creation, it needed to have known EVERYTHING of the old creation, completely and that was … the complement. But that really was a dreadful thing (Mother takes her forehead in her hands).... If I could … I saw myself like that, PRAYING so all that may no longer exist in the world. If I could have purged the world of it by having those days of horror, then it doesn’t matter, I don’t mind. Because … (Mother takes her forehead) it’s … it’s horrible. If the world could have been emptied of that …

Besides, that’s the feeling I had, that if, by living that, I could purge the world … then it didn’t matter.

We’ll see…. We’ll see.

(Mother holds Satprem’s hands

 for a long time)

***

(After Satprem leaves, Mother tells Sujata again about her

 experience on the roof, and makes a descriptive drawing,

 saying in substance:)

She was someone like you, about your height [five foot two], your dimensions, and I said to her, "You’re so sweet, so sweet!…" She was all luminous, but her arms and legs were as if stuck to the body. And no fear – neither I nor the child were afraid.

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