The Mother

Agenda

Volume 1

October 4, 1958

Do all our vibrations reach you, or must they have a special intensity?

It must be strong enough to pull me from my concentration or my activity. If I knew when you concentrate or do your puja,¹ I could tune into you, and then I would know more; otherwise, my inner life is too... I am not at all passive inwardly, you see, I am very active, so I don't usually receive your vibrations unless they impose themselves strongly or unless I have decided beforehand to be attentive to what is coming from someone or other. If I know that at a given moment something is going to happen, then I open a door, as it were. But it's difficult to speak of these things.

When you left on your journey,² for example, I made a special concentration for all to go well so that nothing untoward happen to you. I even made a formation and asked for a constant, special help over you. Then I renewed my concentration every day, which is how I came to notice that you were invoking me very regularly. I saw you everyday, everyday, with a very regular precision. It was something that imposed itself on me, but it imposed itself only because I had initially made a formation to follow you.

For people here in the Ashram, my work is not the same. It is more like a kind of atmosphere that extends everywhere – a very conscious atmosphere – which I let work for each one according to his need. I don't have a special action for each person, unless something requires my special attention. When I would tune into you while you were travelling, I clearly saw your image appear before me, as though you were looking at me, but now that you have returned here, I no longer see it. Rather, I receive a sensation or an impression; and as these sensations and impressions are innumerable, it's rather like one element among many. It no longer imposes itself in such an entirely distinct way nor does it appear before me in the same manner, as a clear image of yourself, as though you wanted to know something.

As soon as I am alone, I enter into a very deep concentration, – a state of consciousness, a kind of universal activity. Is it deep? What is it?... It is far beyond all the mental regions, far, far beyond, and it is constant. As soon as I am alone or resting somewhere, that's how it is.

The other day when I was in this state of concentration, I had the vision that I mentioned to you. I felt I was being pulled, that something was pulling me and trying to draw my attention. I felt it very strongly. So I opened my eyes, my mental eyes (the physical eyes may remain opened or closed, it makes no difference either way; when I am concentrated, things on the physical plane no longer exist), I deliberately opened the mind's eyes, for that is where I felt myself being pulled, and then I had this vision I told you of. Someone was trying to draw my attention, to tell me something. It takes someone really quite powerful, with a very great power of concentration, to do that – there are certainly a great many people here and elsewhere who try to do this, yet I don't feel a thing.³

In the outer, practical domain, I might suddenly think of someone, so I know that this person is calling or thinking of me. When you left on your trip, I created a special link-up so that if ever, at any moment, you called me for anything, I would know it instantly, and I remained attentive and alert. But I do that only in exceptional cases. Generally speaking, when I haven't made this special link-up, things keep coming in and coming in and coming in and coming in, and the answer goes out automatically, here or there or there or there – hundreds and hundreds of things that I don't keep in my memory because then it would really be frightful. I don't keep these things in my consciousness; it is rather a work that is done automatically.

When you asked me if X⁴ were thinking of me, I consulted my atmosphere and saw that it was true, that even many times a day X's thoughts were coming. So I know that he is concentrating on me, or something: it simply passes through me, and I answer automatically. But I don't particularly pay attention to X, unless you ask me a question about him, in which case I deliberately tune into him, then observe and determine whether it's like this or like that. Whereas this vision the other day was something that thrust itself on me; I was in another region altogether, in my inner contemplation, my concentration – a very strong concentration – when I was forced to enter into contact with this being whose vision I had and who was obviously a very powerful being. After telling me what he had to tell me, he went away in a very peculiar way, not at all suddenly as most people appear and disappear, not at all like that. When I first saw him, there was a living form – the being himself was there – but upon leaving (probably to see the effect, to find out whether he had truly succeeded in making himself understood), he left behind a kind of image of himself. Afterwards, this image blurred and it left only a silhouette, an outline, then it disappeared altogether leaving only an impression. That was the last thing I saw. So I kept the impression and analyzed it to find out exactly what was involved; all this was filed away, and then it was over. I began my concentration once again.

I intentionally carry everybody in my active consciousness for the work, and I do the work consciously; but the extent to which people in the world, or those who are here in the Ashram, are conscious of this or receive the results depends upon them, though not exclusively.

The other day, for example, though I no longer recall exactly when (I forget everything on purpose) – but it was in the last part of the night – I had a rather long activity concerning the whole realization of the Ashram, notably in the fields of education and art. I was apparently inspecting this area to see how things were there, so naturally I saw a certain number of people, their work and their inner states. Some saw me and, at that moment, had a vision of me. It is likely that many were asleep and didn't notice anything, but some actually saw me. The next morning, for example, someone who works at the theater told me that she had had a splendid vision of me in which I had spoken to her, blessed her, etc. This was her way of receiving the work I had done. And this kind of thing is happening more and more, in that my action is awakening the consciousness in others more and more strongly.

Naturally, the reception is always incomplete or partially modified; when it passes through the individuality, it becomes narrowed, a personal thing. It seems impossible for each one to have a consciousness vast enough to see the thing in its entirety.

You said that our way of receiving your work or becoming conscious of it does not “exclusively” depend upon us. What do you mean?

It depends upon the progress in the consciousness. The more the action is supramentalized, the more its reception is IMPOSED upon the consciousness of each one. The action's progress makes it more and more perceptible IN SPITE OF each one's condition. The milieu obviously limits and alters – distorts – what it receives, but the quality of the Work acts upon this receptivity and imposes itself on it in a more and more efficient and imperious way.

There is an interdependence between the individual progress and the collective progress, between that which works and that which is worked upon. It proceeds like this (gesture of intermeshing), and as one progresses, the other progresses. The progress above not only hastens the progress below but brings the two nearer together, thus changing the distance in the relationship; that is, the distance will not remain the same, the ratio between the progress here and the progress above won't always be identical.

The progress above follows a certain trajectory, and in some cases the distance increases, in others it decreases (although on the whole, the distance remains relatively unchanged), but my feeling is that the collective receptivity will increase as the action becomes increasingly supramentalized. And the need for an individual receptivity – with all its distortions and alterations and limitations – will decrease in importance as the supramental influence increasingly imposes its power. This influence will impose itself in such a way that it will no longer be subject to the defects in receptivity.

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(Shortly afterwards, concerning the experience of Wednesday, October 1: the divine Person beyond the Impersonal)

Before, I always had the negative experience of the disappearance of the ego, of the oneness of Creation, where everything implying separation disappeared – an experience that, personally, I would call negative. Last Wednesday, while I was speaking (and that's why at the end I could no longer find my words), I seemed suddenly to have left this negative phenomenon and entered into the positive experience: the experience of BEING the Supreme Lord, the experience that nothing exists but the Supreme Lord – all is the Supreme Lord, there is nothing else. And at that moment, the feeling of this infinite power that has no limit, that nothing can limit, was so overwhelming that all the functions of the body, of this mental machine that summons up words, all this was... I could no longer speak French. Perhaps the words could have come to me in English – probably, because it was easier for Sri Aurobindo to express himself in English, and that's how it must have happened: it was the part embodied in Sri Aurobindo (the part of the Supreme that was embodied in Sri Aurobindo for its manifestation) that had the experience. This is what joined back with the Origin and caused the experience – I was well aware of it. And that is probably why its transcription through English words would have been easier than through French words (for at these moments, such activities are purely mechanical, rather like automatic machines). And naturally the experience left something behind. It left the sense of a power that can no longer be “qualified,”⁵ really. And it was there yesterday evening.

The difficulty – it's not even a difficulty, it's just a kind of precaution that is taken (automatically, in fact) in order to... For example, the volume of Force that was to be expressed in the voice was too great for the speech organ. So I had to be a little attentive – that is, there had to be a kind of filtering in the outermost expression, otherwise the voice would have cracked. But this isn't done through the will and reason, it's automatic. Yet I feel that... the capacity of Matter to contain and express is increasing with phenomenal speed. But it's progressive, it can't be done instantly. There have often been people whose outer form broke because the Force was too strong; well, I clearly see that it is being dosed out. After all, this is exclusively the concern of the Supreme Lord, I don't bother about it – it's not my concern and I don't bother about it – He makes the necessary adjustments. Thus it comes progressively, little by little, so that no fundamental disequilibrium occurs. It gives the impression that one's head is swelling so tremendously it will burst! But then if there is a moment of stillness, it adapts; gradually, it adapts.

Only, one must be careful to keep the “sense of the Unmanifest” sufficiently present so that the various things – the elements, the cells and all that – have time to adapt. The sense of the Unmanifest, or in other words, to step back into the Unmanifest.⁶ This is what all those who have had experiences have done; they always believed that there was no possibility of adaptation, so they left their bodies and went off.

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(Towards the end of the conversation, about money:)

Money belongs to the one who spends it; that is an absolute law. You may pile up money, but it doesn't belong to you until you spend it. Then you have the merit, the glory, the joy, the pleasure of spending it!

Money is meant to circulate. What should remain constant is the progressive movement of an increase in the earth's production – an ever-expanding progressive movement to increase the earth's production and improve existence on earth. It is the material improvement of terrestrial life and the growth of the earth's production that must go on expanding, enlarging, and not this silly paper or this inert metal that is amassed and lifeless.

Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness. This is its true use. What I call an improvement in consciousness, a progress in consciousness, is everything that education in all its forms can provide – not as it's generally understood, but as we understand it here: education in art, education in... from the education of the body, from the most material progress, to the spiritual education and progress through yoga; the whole spectrum, everything that leads humanity towards its future realization. Money should serve to augment that and to augment the material base for the earth's progress, the best use of what the earth can give – its intelligent utilization, not the utilization that wastes and loses energies. The use that allows energies to be replenished.

In the universe there is an inexhaustible source of energy that asks only to be replenished; if you know how to go about it, it is replenished. Instead of draining life and the energies of our earth and making of it something parched and inert, we must know the practical exercise for replenishing the energy constantly. And these are not just words; I know how it's to be done, and science is in the process of thoroughly finding out – it has found out most admirably. But instead of using it to satisfy human passions, instead of using what science has found so that men may destroy each other more effectively than they are presently doing, it must be used to enrich the earth: to enrich the earth, to make the earth richer and richer, more active, generous, productive and to make all life grow towards its maximum efficiency. This is the true use of money. And if it's not used like that, it's a vice – a “short circuit” and a vice.

But how many people know how to use it in this way? Very few, which is why they have to be taught. What I call “teach” is to show, to give the example. We want to be the example of true living in the world. It's a challenge I am placing before the whole financial world: I am telling them that they are in the process of withering and ruining the earth with their idiotic system; and with even less than they are now spending for useless things – merely for inflating something that has no inherent life, that should be only an instrument at the service of life, that has no reality in itself, that is only a means and not an end (they make an end of something that is only a means) – well then, instead of making of it an end, they should make it the means. With what they have at their disposal they could... oh, transform the earth so quickly! Transform it, put it into contact, truly into contact, with the supramental forces that would make life bountiful and, indeed, constantly renewed – instead of becoming withered, stagnant, shrivelled up: a future moon. A dead moon.

We are told that in a few millions or billions of years, the earth will become some kind of moon. The movement should be the opposite: the earth should become more and more a resplendent sun, but a sun of life. Not a sun that burns, but a sun that illumines – a radiant glory.

¹ Puja: ceremony, invocation or evocation of a god (in this case, a tantric ritual).
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² When the disciple became a Sannyasi and travelled in the Himalayas with the tantric Swami.
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³ In this vision, the deceased tantric guru of the guru who initiated Satprem appeared to Mother in a dark blue light and “imposed” himself on her to tell her certain things.
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⁴ The disciple's tantric guru.
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⁵ We believe that Mother used the word “qualified” in the sense of restrict, limit or modify – a limitless Power.
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⁶ The vastness beyond the creation or the cosmic manifestation, the solid base upon which all the rest can unfold.
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