The Mother

Agenda

Volume 4

July 6, 1963

Then?

There are some texts from the Agenda.

Again! But I didn't say a word! I said you should cut out everything.

But some things should be kept.

All right then.

There is also the previous conversation: your experience of the pink clay boat....¹

Ah!

You know, the next day, I saw Sri Aurobindo again – it was Sri Aurobindo, he was with me, but a bit taller than the previous time, a bit slimmer, with his skin almost white, almost like mine (not the white of northern people but a kind of golden white). So I looked at him and smiled (because it had changed, you see!), I didn't say anything, but (laughing) he told me: Yes, to meet all tastes! I found that admirable!

That day, he was very busy with the external organization; he asked me for some information and made remarks about everything. Then there was an incident (I don't yet know what it means), and he said, Oh, there (but I can't remember which country that was – we were dealing with countries and governments), oh, there, all is all right, isn't it? And I answered him, “Yes, certainly, all is all right since all the people in the government are our people.” And he seemed to be showing me... (at night, Europe is always to my left, and America is always to my right, as if I were always facing north), he was showing me the left side and I too was pointing to the left, and it was there, all the people were ours: Everything is quite smooth. But I can't remember (probably on purpose); the name of the country or place or whatever has been wiped out – I could not remember it.

But I can still see Sri Aurobindo, a little taller than me, and myself bent forward and smiling, pointing to the left, and he said, “Yes.” And I could see – I saw lots of people. Because it's a strange thing, the eyesight is absolutely different (it's in the subtle physical), the sight is absolutely different from physical sight: you see thousands of miles away and very near at the same time, and distance is implied only by a given place in the atmosphere (I don't know how to explain this), but what's far away is as near from the standpoint of action as what's very close by. You see, the action is just as concrete and close, but it is as though differently placed (Mother shows different levels in the atmosphere).... I never gave it a thought, but probably in that activity of the subtle physical we are physically much taller, I think; yet the proportions remain the same; but things are smaller [than Mother or Sri Aurobindo]. It's the same for going up or down, it doesn't have the meaning it has here. And that country I was pointing to was to the left, a little... not backward, a little forward and lower down, like this (gesture).

Sri Aurobindo was very tall there. But I, too, was tall.

It was just the day after that first experience, at the same hour, but instead of looking after one kind of thing he was looking after another: all the material organizations, down to the smallest details, all the administrative details.... I remember very well looking at him like this (Mother raises her head, as if Sri Aurobindo were a little taller than she was) and telling him, Oh there, it is quite all right, it is all our people, you know. It is all our people, so everything goes smoothly.

?

(Laughing) There's no such place on earth!

None that I see!

Maybe it will come.

Maybe it was a premonition!

But the impression was very pleasant. Then he asked me a question on some detail of organization (but not a small thing, it was a big thing), and I answered, “Oh, I don't know, I don't see to that. I let them do as they think best. I only give the general orientation, and for details I let them do as they think best.” Then he nodded his head approvingly.

I didn't see him the next day – I was expecting to see him, but I didn't see anything. I saw something quite different.

*
*   *

Shortly afterwards

For some time (I mean a year or maybe a year and a half), I have quite often been seeing some very ugly faces pass before me, and also all kinds of queer objects – things I didn't use to see formerly. I had seen ugly beings only once, when I was with Sri Aurobindo: during the day I caught a sort of influenza (it was more vital than physical), because I had attended and, so to say, presided over the “festival of arms”² of the workers here. And they threw all their woes on me, asking to be protected, relieved and so on – there is a sort of spontaneous sincerity in those people, and I answered straightforwardly, without protecting myself. I didn't even think for a minute of protecting myself: I answered all of them (inwardly, of course). I came back inside.... In the night, I had a frightful fever. But in the midst of that fever I was entirely conscious; I had the fever people call delirium, and I saw what delirium is: there were hordes of beings from the most material vital rushing at me with such violence! It was a real battle against an army of beings from the lowest, most material and also most violent vital – they came in waves and I kept throwing them back (which probably people are unable to do): one wave and I threw them back, another wave and I threw them back, and so on the whole night long. I had a fantastic fever. Sri Aurobindo was there, sitting beside my bed, and I told him, “Well, that's what gives what people call delirium.” It attacks the cerebral region, it's really a frightful battle. The next morning, I had an influenza that looked like typhoid fever – I knew where it was coming from, I had seen it, I saw the whole thing, you understand.

It happened once and then it was over: quite naturally the atmosphere gave protection. This time it had the same character, in the sense that twisted faces, very base instincts, very ugly things come and ENTER, which means there must be some work going on on that level, and for it to be done some contact is necessary (naturally when I have my white atmosphere around me, try as they may, they cannot touch it), but this time they entered. Well, I peered at the thing (laughing), not without some curiosity. (The first times, I was surprised, I thought, “Why am I starting to see such ugly things!” But then I soon understood it was because a work had to be done.) I peer at the thing with some curiosity, and I see I just have to do this (gesture like the flick of a feather duster), simply a little effortless movement and... prrt! off it runs with fantastic speed.

But some of the faces I saw had come with the intention of making certain suggestions – I saw that (I don't know what their suggestions were, it didn't interest me and I kept sweeping it all away, so it went away). I didn't attach any importance to it, except that I kept answering in the same way (the feather duster), and I thought, “This must be putting order somewhere!” But today, N. read me a letter and told me the story of a boy who was here – a very nice boy who worked well – and who suddenly was overcome by disquiet and fear and got so ill at ease that finally he said, “My family is calling me, they want me, I must go.” Then (I don't know when it happened, it was a while ago), he wrote that some time after he came back home (I don't recall the details), he came to know that a magician was regularly doing black magic against him (he was seeing ugly faces, incense burning, all kinds of odd little gestures – he tells the whole story in his letter – and it affected him very much), and that the magician (who I believe was more or less connected with the family!) was doing that regularly to make him leave the Ashram. Then he went to see the magician, or rather someone went to see the magician and told him, “The boy is back now, you need not continue, he is here, so there is no more reason to...” And from that moment on, everything immediately disappeared: his feeling of disquiet and all his visions. Anyway, it was clear proof that the magician's work had put him in that state, and that as soon as the magician stopped his work, everything ceased.

Well, I have lived many years, and we know those things to exist, but I didn't attach any importance to them because to me they seemed powerless.... Indeed, they have never affected me (a few Tantrics did do some magic and succeeded in making me ill, but that had quite another character; this boy's story is in the lowest, most material vital domain, you see), and only lately did I notice those little games. They didn't affect me in the least – it was like images shown on a cinema screen, unsightly images, and I just thought, “What's the point?” Still, I did my cleanup, out of habit. But then, when I heard that story, I thought, “Well, I must be teaching a good lesson or two to all those people who do dirty magic!”

In other words, one domain after another, one difficulty after another, one kind of obstacle after another (obstacles that are either subconscious or in the most material consciousness or the lower vital), it all comes for an ACTION. An action which is very sustained and varied; even when some other thing (some other difficulty or problem) is in the foreground, predominant in the consciousness, everything is there [in the surrounding atmosphere], and all the time there is that Light (Mother makes a gesture of cleaning in the atmosphere) which has always been with me – of which I became totally conscious with Madame Théon, who told me what it was – a Light I have always kept with me, a white Light, absolutely pure, so dazzlingly white that eyes cannot look at it, a Light which is...

(long silence
Mother goes off into that Light, her eyes closed)

I will say what it is later.

But at any rate, that is the force Durga wields. And that force is INVINCIBLE for Asuras – it's a fact. What it is... we will know later.

(silence)

But it isn't total Victory, no. It isn't the power of transformation.

The other day, I told you, I think, that one of my present activities consisted of a sort of conscious concentration on one person or another, one thing or another, to obtain the desired result. For years on end, the Will and Force acted from above, and the outer conscious being [of Mother] wasn't concerned with anything further, knowing that it would only make things more complicated instead of helping them, and that the Force left to itself, directly under the supreme Impulsion, worked things out far better and far more accurately. But over these last months, there have come a will and a tendency to make the material being [of Mother] participate consciously in the details of execution. It has a kind of passive obedience, and so, once that was willed [the need for Mother's material intervention], it began to happen. There was a case recently, with a very good friend of the Ashram, a man with an important position who has been very, very useful. He had to be operated on (I won't tell the whole story, it would be too long); we received two or three wires a day, I followed the thing step by step. There was a very powerful force of destruction – it was a very grim battle – and there was a will to keep him, because in this body he had been very useful, he was still very useful and could still be very useful. He had a great faith, a great trust, and he was conscious (his consciousness was very sufficiently developed: I saw him constantly and constantly he came to me). He fell into a butcher's hands; anyway, it was a wretched thing. Still, even though everyone expected him to leave his body, he held on and was constantly saying (we were kept informed by his son) and feeling that it was I who was keeping him alive. I could even see what they should have done and constantly I sent the formation, the thought, “But THIS is what should be done,” insistently. Finally they caught my thought, but I think (I can't say, I don't know the details, the small material details), I think probably they didn't do exactly what they should have – that's why I say they must have been butchers. Thus they performed three operations in a row, and after undergoing all that, he came to me (before also he used to come very often – they said he was drowsy all the time, in a semi-coma, but that's not it: he was living inwardly), he came to me, totally conscious as usual, but he said, “I am afraid my body is irretrievably ruined, and if I survive now, instead of this body being a help and a tool of work, it will be a hindrance, an impediment, a source of difficulty, so I have come to ask to be freed – I prefer to enter a new body.” I answered immediately, “But as you are, you are useful, very useful; the position you occupy makes you very useful; you are totally conscious; it would be good if you could recover.” He listened, again insisted a little, I too insisted, and then he left.

The next morning, he was much better. I was hoping he had decided to stay, but we were without news for about twenty-four hours, till suddenly we were told he had stopped breathing and was being given oxygen. And then he left.

And I saw it so clearly: had he consented... (naturally, every being's soul is free, it is free to decide), had he consented to stay on, I would have had enough power to keep him, to maintain his body in a condition good enough to keep him alive, BUT I DIDN'T HAVE THE POWER TO UNDO THE DAMAGE DONE – that isn't there yet.

That showed me the exact extent. That isn't there yet. The transformation isn't there yet.

I mean it's not something I have at my COMMAND and can pass on to someone. Many other powers are at my command and can be passed on to one or another, but this...

Now I'll try (I always say “try” because... there are always ill-intentioned ears listening in!), anyway, the next step is to give him a new dwelling. This belongs to the domain of things that are not only feasible but done all the time.

He was very conscious, with a lovely faith. He was an active man, very energetic (a short man). How active! And very energetic, with great authority, oh!... The idea of being dependent on people who would have to nurse him... he preferred to leave. He was conscious enough to know that the essence of his being, of his experience, is not lost – but still there is all that materially one has built painstakingly, and especially in his case, his position is the result of a whole life. I don't know....

Begin again in a little baby?... (Mother shakes her head negatively) There's the rub, you see. When Sri Aurobindo left, he said, “I will return in a being formed supramentally – entirely conscious, with full capacities.”

¹ On June 29.

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² Ayudha Puja, during which workers and servants invoke the divine presence in tools and machines.

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