Mental Resistance to Change (HH 083)

Each plane and part of the being offers its own resistances as we move through the vast and complex journey of the Integral Yoga. Matter responds with dullness and inertia, obscurity and tamas while the vital with impatience and restless impulsiveness. The mind too offers its own resistance to the transforming action of the Grace.  In this talk we discuss a form of resistance offered by the mental instrument.

 Words of the Mother

I found my message for the 1st of January … It was quite unforeseen. Yesterday morning, I thought, ‘All the same, I have to find my message, but what?’ I was absolutely … like that, neutral, nothing. Then yesterday evening at the class (of Friday, November 7) I noticed that these children who had had a whole week to prepare their questions on the text had not found a single one! A terrible lethargy! A total lack of interest. And when I had finished speaking, I thought to myself, ‘But what IS there in these people who are interested in nothing but their personal little affairs?’ So I began descending into their mental atmosphere, in search of the little light, of that which responds … And it literally pulled me downwards as into a hole, but in such a material way; my hand, which was on the arm of the chair, began slipping down, my other hand went like this (to the ground), my head, too! I thought it was going to touch my knees!

And I had the impression … It was not an impression I saw it. I was descending into a crevasse between two steep rocks, rocks that appeared to be made of something harder than basalt, BLACK, but metallic at the same time, with such sharp edges it seemed that a mere touch would lacerate you. It appeared endless and bottomless, and it kept getting narrower, narrower and narrower, narrower and narrower, like a funnel, so narrow that there was almost no more room not even for the consciousness to pass through. And the bottom was invisible, a black hole. And it went down, down, down, like that, without air, without light, except for a sort of glimmer that enabled me to make out the rock edges. They seemed to be cut so steeply, so sharply … Finally, when my head began touching my knees, I asked myself, ‘But what is there at the bottom of this … this hole?’

And as soon as I had uttered, ‘What is there at the bottom of this hole?’ I seemed to touch a spring that was in the very depths a spring I didn’t see but that acted instantly with a tremendous power and it cast me up forthwith, hurled me out of this crevasse into … (arms extended, motionless) a formless, limitless vast which was infinitely comfortable not exactly warm, but it gave a feeling of ease and of an intimate warmth.

And it was all-powerful, with an infinite richness. It did not have … no, it didn’t have any kind of form, and it had no limits (naturally, as I was identified with it I knew there was neither limit nor form). It was as if (because it was not visible), as if this vast were made of countless, imperceptible points – points that occupied no place in space (there was no sense of space), that were of a deep warm gold but this is only a feeling, a transcription. And all this was absolutely LIVING, living with a power that seemed infinite. And yet motionless.

It lasted for quite some time, for the rest of the meditation.

It seemed to contain a whole wealth of possibilities, and all this that was formless had the power to become form.

At the time, I wondered what it meant. Later, of course, I found out, and finally this morning, I said to myself, ‘Ah, so that’s it! It came to give me my message for the new year!’ Then I transcribed the experience – it can’t be described, of course, for it was indescribable; it was a psychological phenomenon and the form it took was only a way of describing the psychological state to oneself. Here is what I wrote down, obviously in a mental way, and I am thinking of using it as my message.

There was a hesitation in the expression, so I brought the paper and I want us to decide upon the final text together.

I have not described anything. I have only stated a fact (Mother reads):

‘At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, generator of all creation.’

And it is again one more proof. The experience was absolutely … the English word genuine says it.

Genuine and spontaneous?

Yes, it was not a willed experience, for I had not decided I would do this. It did not correspond to an inner attitude. In a meditation, one can decide, ‘I will meditate on this or on that or on something else – I will do this or that.’ For meditations, I usually have a kind of inner (or higher) perception of what has to be done, and I do it. But it was not that way. I had decided: nothing, to decide nothing, to be ‘like that’ (gesture of turning upwards).

And then it happened.

Suddenly, while I was speaking (it was while I was speaking), I felt, ‘Well really, can anything be done with such material?’ Then, quite naturally, when I stopped speaking, oh! – I felt that I was being pulled! Then I understood.

Because I had asked myself the question, ‘But what is HAPPENING in there behind all those forms? …’ I can’t say that I was annoyed, but I said to myself, ‘Well really, this has to be shaken up a bit!’ And just as I had finished, something pulled me – it pulled me out of my body, I was literally pulled out of my body.

And then, down into this hole … I still see what I saw then, this crevasse between two rocks. The sky was not visible, but on the rock summits I saw … something like the reflection of a glimmer – a glimmer – coming from ‘something’ beyond, which (laughing) must have been the sky! But it was invisible. And as I descended, as if I were sliding down the face of this crevasse, I saw the rock edges; and they were really black rocks, as if cut with a chisel, cuts so fresh that they glistened, with edges as sharp as knives. There was one here, one there, another there, everywhere, all around. And I was being pulled, pulled, pulled, I went down and down and down – there was no end to it, and it was becoming more and more compressing.’ It went down and down …

‘At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid …’ Because generally, the inconscience gives the impression, precisely, of something amorphous, inert, formless, drab and gray (when formerly I entered the zones of the inconscient, that was the first thing I encountered). But this was an inconscience … it was hard, rigid, COAGULATED, as if coagulated to resist: all effort slides off it, doesn’t touch it, cannot penetrate it. So I am putting,’ … most hard and rigid and narrow’ (the idea of something that compresses, compresses, compresses you) ‘and stifling’ – yes, stifling is the word……

It was the MENTAL Inconscient. Because the starting point was mental. A special Inconscient – rigid, hard, resistant – with all that the mind has brought into our consciousness. But it was far worse, far worse than a purely material Inconscient! A ‘mentalized’ Inconscient, as it were. All this rigidity, this hardness, this narrowness, this fixity – a FIXITY – comes from the presence of the mind in creation. When the mind was not manifested, the Inconscient was not like that! It was formless and had the plasticity of something that is formless – the plasticity has gone.

It is a terrible image of the Mind’s action in the Inconscient.

It has made the Inconscient aggressive – it was not so before. Aggressive, resistant, OBSTINATE. That was not there before.

Yes, that’s it. It was not an ‘original’ Inconscient. It was a mentalized Inconscient. With all that the mind has brought in in the way of OPPOSITION – of resistance, hardness, rigidity.

It would be interesting to mention this.

Because the starting point, precisely, was to look into the mental unconsciousness of these people. It was the mental Inconscient. Well, the mental Inconscient REFUSES to change – which is not true of the other one; the other is nothing, it doesn’t exist, it is not organized in any way, it has no way of being, whereas this one is an ORGANIZED Inconscient – organized by a beginning mental influence. A hundred times worse!

This is a very interesting point to note.

It is not the experience, which I had once before, of the original Inconscient. The experience I had this time is of the Inconscient that has undergone the influence of the Mind in creation. It has become … It has become a FAR greater obstacle than before. Before, it did not even have the power to resist, it had nothing, it was truly unconscious. Now it is an Inconscient organized in its refusal to change!

It was a very new experience.

That’s where we are.

And this almighty spring is the perfect image of what is happening – what must happen, what will happen – FOR EVERYONE: suddenly, one is cast forth into the vast……..

It is likely that the greatest resistance will be in the most conscious beings due to a lack of mental receptivity, due to the mind itself which wants things to continue (as Sri Aurobindo has written) according to its own mode of ignorance. So-called inert matter is much more easily responsive, much more – it does not resist. And I am convinced that among plants, for example, or among animals, the response will be much quicker than among men. It will be more difficult to act upon a very organized mind; beings who live in an entirely crystallized, organized mental consciousness are as hard as stone! It resists. According to my experience, what is unconscious will certainly follow more easily. It was a delight to see the water from the tap, the mouthwash in the bottle, the glass, the sponge – it all had such an air of joy and consent! There is much less ego, you see, it is not a conscious ego.

The ego becomes more and more conscious and resistant as the being develops. Very primitive, very simple beings, little children will respond first, because they don’t have an organized ego. But these big people! People who have worked on themselves, who have mastered themselves, who are organized, who have an ego made of steel, it will be difficult for them.

Unless they go beyond all this and have enough spiritual knowledge to be able to make the ego surrender … in which case the realization will naturally be much greater – it will be more difficult to accomplish, but the result will be far more complete.

(14/12/13)