A few days ago, I said something about Muslims and Israelites, and F. noted it down.... The impression it made on me (what should I say?) ... The whole life is gone, at any rate: it's hollow, dry, like an empty shell - well, the impression is of an unlit lamp. A lightless lamp! (Mother laughs) Here it is anyway:
"The Muslims and Israelites [[Mother later explains (see p. 242) her dislike of the word "Jew." ]] represent the two religions in which faith in God is the most extreme. Only, the Israelites' faith is in an impersonal God, while the Muslims' faith is in a personal God.
"Their enmity perhaps exists only because they are neighbors! ...
I should add that it was a reply to a letter B. wrote to ask me all kinds of questions, in particular: "Why? These two nations being neighbors, why do they hate each other so much?"
"... That curse on the Jews is a Christian story,
it has nothing to do with the Muslims.
"Violence and enmity ... When brothers hate
each other, they do so much more intensely than
others do. Sri Aurobindo said: 'Hatred denotes the
possibility of a much greater love.'
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"The Arabs have a passionate nature. They live
almost exclusively in the vital and its passions and
desires, while the Israelites live mostly in the
mind, with a great power of organization and real
ization, something quite exceptional. The Israelites
are intellectuals with an exceptional will. They are
not sentimental, that is to say, they don't like
weakness.
"The Muslims are impulsive, the Israelites are
reasonable.
"This is not the conflict that will decide the
future of our civilization."
(Rough notation of June 15, 1967)
Yes, he ended his letter with: "This conflict which must decide the present civilization ..."[[The question was worded thus: "Must we think that these two great peoples in conflict represent symbolic forces that are destined to decide the fate of our civilization?" ]] So my last sentence is in answer to that.
Yes, that's not where the issue is being played out.
No.
But this [the notation] is the lightless lamp!
When Pakistan and China attacked India [in 1965], I had a sort
of very clear intuition that the conflict, if there is to be one, that
must decide the fate of the civilization, can only be played out in India...
Yes.
Because this is where the last Asura [demon] must symbolically
come and die. The issue isn't being played out anywhere else. [[See Satprem's article in Addendum. ]]
(Mother remains silent)
(A month later, a disciple sent Mother the following
letter, in English, on the same subject:)
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"... At present the working is going on with direct Supramental Force. Its immediate action on the world of selfishness, strife and disharmony is not encouraging. We see everywhere clashes; the world is going on in the old way as usual, perhaps worse. One is reminded of the old legend that the first thing that arose from the churning of the Ocean of Life was poison. Nectar came last. The action now looks to be similar. India is going on in the same old way, placating Pakistan and the Mussulmans and Russians.
"One sentence in the Mother's reply in connection with the Israeli-Arab war seems to me to be very ominous: 'This is not the conflict that will decide the future of our civilisation.' Does it mean that there will be another bigger conflict in which the present civilisation will be destroyed though the world will be saved? Or does it mean that there may not be any war at all and the fate of our civilisation may be decided by natural evolution of consciousness? But the last one seems very unlikely except that the complete transformation of the Mother's physical will produce such tremendous effect everywhere that disharmony will become impossible."
(July 19, 1967)
(Mother replied thus, in English:)
"It looks evident that if the transformation undertaken could be achieved in its totality, the necessity of another world war would no more exist.
"But purposely, for the sake of the work, the future is not revealed. So your question cannot be answered. Thus for everyone the wisest is to open oneself as much as possible to the force that is pressing for manifestation, to keep sincerely an ardent aspiration and an unshaken faith ... and wait patiently for the result."
(July 27, 1967)
***
ADDENDUM
(We venture to publish here a text written by Satprem on June
24, 1967, despite its daring or extreme predictions, for it may
hold a grain of truth that time will reveal, and above all
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because it is obviously influenced by Mother's vision. The
following is therefore not so much an exercise in prediction
as food for thought.)
THE END OF THE ASURA
If, as Sri Aurobindo announced, the supramental Power is to enter a realizing phase in 1967 and if, as Mother said, the fate of the present civilization is to be settled in 1967, it is clear that the earth's many latent diseases must come out in the open and find a focus somewhere, as an abscess is the focal point for the disease of the body, our earth body.
There are no "catastrophes." The Supramental is a force of order and harmony. So what may seem to us at first glance to be a catastrophe is bound to actually put things in order, work in every way and every detail towards putting the earth in order.
September/October is generally the month of wars.
There is but one place in the world where the issue is being played out really and symbolically - that is India. That is where, therefore, the disease of the earth must be focused. It is in the order of things that the last Asura should come and die at the feet of the Mother.
But India, supposed to embody the forces of truth, is herself prey to the same Falsehood as is the rest of the earth. The Asura is also in India, perhaps more dangerous there as it is masked behind a veil of false truth.
The awaited conflict will thus have to put the house of the Mother in order to begin with, at the same time as it will put the other houses of the earth in order.
The devil will unmask himself and fall headlong into his own trap.
India's Falsehood will necessarily attract like falsehoods: those of China and of Pakistan. The troubles on Bengal's borders are already preparing the way for China's aggression, and the falsehood of Tashkent has left the wound open in Kashmir. Here India shall receive the blessed blow that will liquidate her untrue government and will give way to a military government that will prepare a more truthful government. Here China shall receive the blow that will free her from her Maoist Asura, while at the same time bringing Russia and America closer together against the common danger. Here Vietnam will lose its two untrue henchmen, in the North and in the South, and will put its own house in order. Here
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Pakistan will have set its own trap by allying itself with China and will lose its rights over Bengal and the eastern part of India.[[ Bangladesh was born four years later, in December 1971. ]] Left only with its western unit, which cannot be economically self-sufficient, Pakistan will be obliged to form a confederation with India and to understand that its destiny is inseparable from that of India. Here a wiser Russia and a wiser America, and a frightened earth, will become aware that they too must form a confederation of the nations of the earth and that the fate of any one nation is inseparable from that of all the others.
And order will be restored in the house. Man will be able to prepare himself for a vaster adventure.
Ultimately,
everyone commits the errors
that will help
towards the larger triumph of the Truth.
Satprem
24 June 1967
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