Mother, We read again Your ‘Notes on the Way’ (3)

Your ‘Notes on the Way’, as they proceed, show us clearly an alternation of two states. One is of the ‘material consciousness’ open and full of the Higher Consciousness. Then all is bliss, and immortality is a vivid reality. And the other is of the material consciousness closed within itself. Then all is doubt, difficulty, defeatism, suffering and dissolution.

You have said:

“This morning (August 21, 1965), for example, several times, for some time (I do not know how long, but not very short, a quarter of an hour, half an hour, I do not know), the cells of the body, that is to say, the form of the body, had the experience that to remain together or to dissolve depended on a certain attitude — an attitude or a will; something of both will and attitude. And with the perception (sometimes double, at the same time, one being rather a memory and the other a thing lived) of what makes you move, act, know; the old way as a memory and the new in which evidently there is no reason for dissolving unless one chooses it — that has no meaning, it is a meaningless thing: why to dissolve?..”[1]

“But this change of initiating power, if one might say, this transfer of power, that had upon me the effect of an unique experience, of something that had never taken place before. Unhappily that did not last long. But the expression has left a kind of certitude in the body — it is less uncertain of the future. It came to it, as if to tell it: it will be like that.

“If that remains, it is evident immortality”[2]

This experience of the transfer of power, of a new attitude and will in the cells was obviously a marvellous thing. It was an experience of eternity and immortality for the cells, which made dissolution and death an unreality, no necessity of existence, or just a matter of choice. The experience showed that the transformed consciousness of the cells “will be like this”. But it was an initial experience clearly showing that immortality was to the body a practical proposition. It was a wonderful promise and an assurance, which must naturally have its sequel of a realisation, final and settled whenever that might come about.

In the experience of the 21st August 1965, the alternation is marked by a transfer of initiating power to the cells, but the alternation between two states of the new consciousness of the cells and the old one continues in the instalments of the ‘Notes on the Way’ that follow.

Here is a statement, Mother, where You tell us that suffering is the method of pulling Matter out of its inertia. You say on September 28, 1966:

“For a long time, quite recently, that is to say, for days together, there was a very acute, very intense, very clear perception that the action of the Force translated itself externally by what we call suffering, because that is the only kind of vibration which can pull Matter out of its inertia.”[3]

“But then, all on a sudden when there comes this true Compassion of the Divine Love and when one sees all these things that appear so horrible, so abnormal, so absurd, this great pain which is upon all beings and even upon all things…then there takes birth in this physical being the aspiration to soothe, to cure, to remove the thing.”[4]

Obviously, the transformation of the body, constituted of Tamas as it is, must entail a passage through great suffering. Thus alone it could come out of its Tamas and discover as cure the Divine Love and with it its eternity and immortality. And, Mother, what a suffering You have had in recent years! And all because You undertook transformation of the physical and this in the interest of an integral transformation of life, of raising general human living to the high supramental level.

You have also in Your ‘Notes’ revealed the details and intricacies of the working of transformation. In the April issue of 1967, You have explained three approaches to the problem of transformation. And in the next issue, You state the problem as a whole in these words:

“The movements of the body almost in its totality are habitual movements. Behind, there is the consciousness of the physical mind (what I call cellular mind) which is itself constantly conscious of the divine Presence and is keen on accepting nothing but That; so a whole work is going on for changing, shifting the origin of the movements. I mean to say that instead of just being automatically the habit, it should be automatically the divine Presence and Consciousness that causes the movement.”[5]

And here is a statement of great joy, ‘a hosanna of all the cells’. You say:

“When the Contact all on a sudden becomes conscious and the sense of Identity comes, as I say for a few seconds, but when it comes… it is a hosanna of all the cells, that say: Oh yes, yes, it is true! so it is true…”

“That comes perhaps a hundred times in a day, but it does not stay.”[6]

Mother, how much we wish such a Contact could stay, for the completion of Your and Sri Aurobindo’s great work and for a new destiny for all mankind. But that abiding contact is bound to be realised sooner rather than later through the large and the wide action of both of You in your present status of existence.

[1] Ibid., November 1965, pp. 83-85.

[2] Ibid., p. 85.

[3] Ibid., November 1966, p. 75.

[4] Ibid., p. 77.

[5] Ibid., August 1967, p. 63.

[6] Ibid., p. 71.