Tomorrow is the day of Mahakali puja whence the Mother used to give special Darshan and Blessings. Now Her chair is kept at the Ashram where devotees go to receive the same Blessings and feel the invisible Presence watching over their destinies. Therefore we close this year’s readings with Divine Love. Indeed Love is the Origin and Love is the crown of creation as well as its heart. Let us pray that we become conscious of this wonderful Love that dwells within each and every atom of existence and is laboring in the darkest abyss to redeem it. Tomorrow, the 18th Oct is also Pranab Da’s birthday and hence we also take up a small extract from his stock of memories.
Words of the Mother
‘Be always at the height of yourself, in all circumstances.’
Then I wondered when and how I am at the height of myself. And this is what I saw:
Two things which were parallel and concomitant – that is, they are always together:
One – identity with the Origin, which imparts an absolute serenity and perfect detachment to the action.
The other – identity with the supreme Grace, which obliterates and abolishes all errors committed in the action by whomsoever and whatsoever – and which annuls all the consequences of these errors.
And the moment I perceived this, I saw that my third attitude in action, which is the will for progress for the whole earth as well as for each particular individual, was not the height of my being.
What if the human is too heavy, too narrow, too obscure to follow you?
No, it is exactly the opposite of what you are saying. It is not that the Divine in his divinity is opposed to his own manifested self – He is very far beyond, beyond the necessity for Grace; He perceives his unique and exclusive responsibility, and that it is He and He alone who must change in His Manifestation so that all may change.
* * *
I wanted to take this little rose (‘Tenderness for the Divine’), for I consider it to be the manifestation nearest to divine Love. It’s disinterested, spontaneous, intimate.
This is what I wanted to take with me to my super-heaven, as the most precious thing in the human heart.
October 8, 1956
* * *
If no vibrations ever disappear, then what happens with all these horrible things coming from every corner of the world? Don’t they pile up? Don’t the bad vibrations take on a more and more enormous volume in the end?
They are transformed. And at times they are transformed almost immediately.
You can’t see it or feel it till you concretely live the fact that all is divine, that HE is everywhere, in everything, always, in all that happens.
The first reaction is always a kind of shrinking before things which seem horrible, but if you can overcome that and really have the experience, everything changes.
And there are hundreds and hundreds of little experiences like that, like so many little stones marking the way. Then you see that the two things are ALWAYS together: the destructive and the constructive. You can’t see one without seeing the other. A time comes when the effort is to conquer the negative parts of creation and death (as at the end of Savitri), and when you have conquered that, then you’re above. And then if you look at all these things, even those which seem the most opposed to the Divine, even acts of cruelty done for the pleasure of cruelty, you see the Presence – the Presence that annuls their effects. And it’s absolutely marvelous.
I had a startling experience one day when X was doing his pujas to encircle the titans. He was in difficulty and I was about to intervene to help him when I was abruptly stopped. I was faced by a massive blackness (blacker than the blackest physical thing) and suddenly, right at its center, I saw the Divine Love shining with such a splendor – I had never seen it so splendid.
And now it has become constant; each time I hear or see something ugly or horrible, or each time something ugly or horrible happens, something which is a negation of the divine life … just behind is this flame – so wonderful. And then the effect is annulled.
There is a magnificence of realization which could not have been had this evil, this horror and this negation not been.
Our consciousness shrinks from these things which belong to the past and which are no longer in their place, so we feel disgust and revulsion – because we are ignorant. But if we can raise ourselves above and be in contact with That – the supreme Light – which is ALWAYS just behind, then this Light seems all the more supreme because it is so much its own opposite.
Then you know.
You know, so there is no longer this uneasiness, this shrinking. You feel carried more and more by all that you reject; you are in a forward movement, further and further, higher, constantly further.
July 12, 1960
* * *
What can make them (the Adverse forces) yield?
Divine Love.
It’s the only thing.
Sri Aurobindo has explained it in Savitri. Only when Divine Love has manifested in all its purity will everything yield, will it all yield – it will then be done.
It’s the only thing that can do it.
It will be the great Victory.
(silence)
On a small scale, in very small details, I feel that of all the forces, this is the strongest. And it’s the only one with a power over hostile wills. Only … for the world to change, it must manifest here in all its fullness. We have to be up to it …
Sri Aurobindo had also written to the effect, ‘If Divine Love were to manifest now in all its fullness and totality, not a single material organism would but burst.’ So we must learn to widen, widen, widen not only the inner consciousness (that is relatively easy – at least feasible), but even this conglomeration of cells. And I’ve experienced this: you have to be able to widen this sort of crystallization if you want to be able to hold this Force. I know. Two or three times, upstairs (in Mother’s room), I felt the body about to burst. Actually, I was on the verge of saying, ‘burst and be done with.’ But Sri Aurobindo always intervened – all three times he intervened in an entirely tangible, living and concrete way … and he arranged everything so that I was forced to wait….
So much time is wasted. We are … oh! We are so hard! (Mother hits her body) As hard as a rock.
But three times now, I’ve really felt that I was on the verge of … falling apart. The first time it brought a fever, a fever so …! – I was roasting from head to toe; everything became red hot, and then … it was over. That was the day when suddenly – suddenly – I was … You see, I had said to myself, ‘All right, you must be peaceful, let’s see what happens,’ so then I brought down the Peace, and immediately I was able to pass into a ‘second of unconsciousness – and I woke up in the subtle physical, in Sri Aurobindo’s abode.’ There he was. And then I spent some time with him, explaining the problem.
But that was really an experience, a decisive experience (it was many months ago, perhaps more than a year ago).
So I explained the problem to Sri Aurobindo, and he replied (by his expression, not with words, but it was clear), ‘Patience, patience – patience, it will come.’ And a few days after this experience, ‘by chance’ I came upon something he had written where precisely he explained that we are much too rigid, coagulated, clenched for these things to be able to manifest – we must widen, relax, become plastic.
But this takes time.
I don’t really see what we can do … I mean, it’s you who does, of course, but I don’t see what we can do to help change things.
Nor do I!
I have quite the feeling that I myself ‘do’ nothing at all, absolutely nothing. The only thing I do is this (gesture of offering upwards), constantly this, in everything – in thoughts, feelings, sensations, in the body’s cells, all the time: ‘You, You, You. It’s You, it’s You, it’s You …’ That’s all. And nothing else.
In other words, a more and more complete, a more and more integral assent, more and more like this (gesture of letting herself be carried). That’s when you have the feeling that you must be absolutely like a child.
If you start thinking, ‘Oh, I want to be like this! Oh, I ought to be like that!’ you waste your time.
* * *
EVERYTHING, everything that happens now, even things which seem extremely unpleasant to our mental conceptions or our mental reactions, everything is a bath, a bath of the vibration of divine Love. So much so that if I didn’t control my body, I would be smiling at everything all the time like an idiot. A beatific smile for everything (I don’t show it because I control myself).
(silence, the clock strikes the hour)
No, no: do not brood about it. Let it be, it will work out. It will work out the way it has to work out…..
But you know, it’s no joke, this transformation!
Yesterday I had such a strong feeling that ALL constructions, all habits, all ways of seeing, all ordinary reactions, were all crumbling away – completely. I felt I was suspended in something … entirely different, something … I don’t know.
(silence)
And truly, with the feeling that ALL one has lived, all one has known, all one has done, all of it is a perfect illusion – that’s what I was living yesterday evening.
And then….
It’s one thing to have the spiritual experience of the illusion of material life (some find this painful, but I found it so wonderfully beautiful and happy that it was one of the loveliest experiences of my life); but now the whole spiritual construction as one has lived it is becoming … a total illusion! Not the same illusion, a far more serious illusion.
If That was not there…. Obviously, That [divine Love] is here, like a mattress placed so you won’t break your neck when you fall. That’s precisely the feeling: this experience of the vibration of divine Love is the mattress … so you don’t break your neck!
So, petit, don’t brood; whatever your difficulties may be (laughing), you can tell yourself they are only beginning!
And I’m not exactly a baby; I have been here forty-seven years, and for something like … yes, certainly for sixty years I have been doing a conscious yoga, with all that memories of an immortal life can bring – and see where I am! When Sri Aurobindo says you must have endurance, I think he is right!
This path is not for the weak, that’s for sure.
I believe this body has suffered as much as a body can bear without going to pieces, and it keeps going, it has never asked for mercy – not once has it said, ‘No, it’s too much,’ not once. It says, ‘As You will, Lord: here I am.’
And so it continues.
(Mother gets up to leave)
Well, I’m never going to tell people that it’s just a promenade! No, it’s nothing like a promenade. Some say, ‘Oh, you’re too severe!’ But too bad for them; it’s better to tell the truth, isn’t it?
We mustn’t get discouraged.
The absolute certainty of the Victory is unquestionable; but I am not speaking at the scale of our bounded mind. It’s up to us to CHANGE TACK – this is what’s expected of us, to change tack and not keep going round in circles.
There you are, petit.
It’s a process of tempering, you know – we get tempered.
And there’s no point in giving up, because it would just have to be started all over again next time. What I always say is: ‘Here’s the opportunity – go right to the end.’ It’s no use saying, ‘Ah, I can’t,’ because next time it will be even more difficult.
March 27, 1961
* * *
Pranab Da: I Remember
Our contact with the Ashram began in 1934. It is from then that we started receiving news from the Ashram, books and letters, Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s messages, etc.
Once during this period, we went from Calcutta to Berhampore. On entering the Chandi-mandapa (an altar to Mother Chandi) I noticed that in place of Mother Kali’s statue photographs of Mother and Sri Aurobindo had been placed. I was furious when I saw this. How was this possible? To keep Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s photo graphs in Mother Kali’s place? They may be great yogis, advanced souls, spiritually realised, but still… . I was really angry. However, I kept mum. The elders of the family had done this so I repressed my own feelings.
A few days later, I realised to my astonishment that quite unknowingly I myself had begun following their path. A strange change had taken place deep within my being almost imperceptibly. It happened all by itself. And then I realised how right everything was. This is exactly how it ought to be. During the whole period that I spent in Berhampore, I used to take “Kamini” flowers (botanical name – MurrayaPuniculata) along with their leaves and arrange them in front of Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s photographs. And I experienced a great sense of joy doing this. When I was decorating Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s photographs with these flowers, I did not know the spiritual significance Mother had given to this flower: Peace in the Vital, the result of abolition of desires.
Now I understand how Mother and Sri Aurobindo eliminate and disperse all obscurity and hostile feelings in this silent, imperceptible, secret way through the light of their Grace and Love. This is perhaps what is called Divine Alchemy.
* * *
The Mother to Pranab
Today to love Mother; Tomorrow to love Mother and everyday to love Mother who loves me always and for all eternity.
