It's very interesting.... Because of this "message" for the new year[["Men, countries, continents! The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss." ]] (everybody is talking about this message everywhere, it has given a good jolt; even in government circles, everywhere), because of this message, everyone is claiming to be a "defender of the Truth." They ask me questions, and everyone is surprised that truth as he conceives it isn't established in the world. So I am beginning to be forced to wage war for the Truth against all the conceptions of the truth! And that's rather interesting.
For instance, there is here that old idea of vegetarian food. Some people write to me indignantly that these "holy rules" are being increasingly broken in the Ashram! Someone wrote to me a first time, asking me to answer; I neglected to. So he wrote a second time to tell me, "What can we do if you don't answer?" I answered (they'll probably bite their tongues at my reply), I replied something like this:
"Truth is not a dogma that one can learn once and
for all and impose as a rule. Truth is as infinite as
the supreme Lord and It manifests every instant
for those who are sincere and attentive."
I could have added other things but didn't, so as not to wage battle too openly!
The same day, that is, just today, I got another letter.... The whole letter ranted and raved about all that's going on in the Ashram, saying, "What! This place is worse than the world!" and so forth. (All this in the name of "truth," naturally.) So (laughing) I answered:
"Were Truth to manifest in such a way as to be
seen and understood by all, they would be terri
fied by the enormity of their ignorance and false
interpretation."
I hit hard this time.
And it's going on.
Day after day it's like that, growing acute. Everyone is the
Page 81
"defender of the Truth." One about food, another about money, another about business, another about relationships ... - everyone has his hobby-horse.
The wonderful thing is that till now not one has told me, "Maybe my opinions aren't true?" - not one! "Maybe my way of seeing or feeling isn't true?" - not one. They are all in full Truth!
It's very interesting.
The defenders of the truth are often worse than the enemies of
the truth.
(Mother nods approvingly) But I can't say anything about that because I am the one responsible, I told them, "Cling to Truth."
No, they all make the same mistake: they confuse truth with the old idea of virtue. They all make the same mistake as the moral error.
And above all, they want a truth expressed in a few very clear and well-defined words, so they can say, "This is true." The old calamity of religions: "This is true" - therefore the rest is falsehood.
How many times ... how many times Sri Aurobindo (and I myself) said, "When a thing is true, you can be sure that its opposite is also true. When you have understood this, then you will begin to understand."
This morning I was also bombarded with a quotation from Sri Aurobindo (they came and bombarded me in the name of Sri Aurobindo!), to tell me that in The Mother he wrote, "The divine Grace can act only in the Truth" - and I shouldn't forget that! (Mother laughs) There is a quotation from Sri Aurobindo in which he says, "The divine Grace will answer, but do not think it will answer in Falsehood...." An admirable sentence. Only, they don't know: THEY are the possessors of the Truth - Falsehood is for others!... And even intelligent people (that's the strange thing, because it's so idiotic!), even people who, anyway, have a brain, who understand, fall into the trap.
It's very common at the School.
(silence)
Thanks to all this, I might say (not even "because of" - THANKS TO all this), I have had these last three days a vision - a concrete vision every second, showing how the supreme Consciousness (which I
Page 82
personally find convenient to call the "supreme Lord"), how EVERY SECOND it makes you do or say or see or know ex-act-ly what is needed for everything to move on like this (round gesture expressing the innumerably ramified movement of universal forces), to move forward. It's not yet the direct, all-powerful, crushing Movement of direct Forces (gesture from above downward, like a sword of light): it's a movement like this (same round gesture), but marvelous - marvelously subtle, ingenious, respectful of everything, but everything; you know, a movement that makes use of everything to lead towards the goal, even "errors" - which aren't errors because when the Consciousness is there, the error isn't one committed by ignorance: a thing is said or done because that's what needs to be said or needs to be done - it may in appearance be even a blunder, yet it's ex-act-ly what is needed for everything to move forward (same innumerable round gesture), move forward luminously towards the desired goal. It's absolutely marvelous! And seen in tiny little details and in the whole. It's this marvel of a Consciousness that makes everyone do what must be done, puts everything in its place, sorts out everything, and it's our idiocy, an absolutely ignorant and stupid vision, that would have us believe in mistakes, in errors, in ... Everyone is a problem to be resolved, so all those problems interpenetrate, and it is the WHOLE that must be led towards precisely this famous Truth (the true one). But I've spent, you know, hours in admiration - a blissful admiration - at this marvel of organization, with all the little things around you, all the little people around you, all the little circumstances.... It's wonderful, wonderful!
And then, this overweening mind which understands nothing and asserts itself in its all-powerful knowledge, oh ... it's so comical!
(silence)
It is the maximum use of all possibilities and all impossibilities, all capacities and all incapacities; a maximum use in a maximum power and a maximum Compassion, and also ... a smile! A smile, a sense of humor, oh! ... Such a benevolent irony, so full of compassion, so wonderful.... And this overweening mind, a fantastic phenomenon indeed: it spends its time judging what it doesn't know and deciding on what it doesn't see!
(silence)
Then there was the vision of others and the remembrance of the
Page 83
time when those things had great importance and were taken very seriously, with a solemnity ... a wholly moral solemnity. That's amusing, too.
Page 84