The Mother

Agenda

Volume 4

December 7, 1963

(Mother first reads a letter by Sri Aurobindo:)

“The way to get faith and all things else is to insist on having them and refuse to flag or despair or give up until one has them – it is the way by which everything has been got since this difficult earth began to have thinking and aspiring creatures upon it. It is to open always, always to the Light and turn one's back on the Darkness. It is to refuse the voices that say persistently, ‘You cannot, you shall not, you are incapable, you are the puppet of a dream,’ – for these are the enemy voices, they cut one off from the result that was coming, by their strident clamour and then triumphantly point to the barrenness of the result as a proof of their thesis. The difficulty of the endeavour is a known thing, but the difficult is not the impossible – it is the difficult that has always been accomplished and the conquest of difficulties makes up all that is valuable in the earth's history. In the spiritual endeavour also it shall be so.”

Sri Aurobindo

You see, they cut one off from the result that WAS coming... by their strident clamour and then triumphantly point to the barrenness of the result as a proof of their thesis! And it's so TRUE, it's an experience I've had so many, many times, not only for myself, but for lots of people.

*
*   *

I think (“I think,” like the scientists' “it appears”) I can announce that something is getting organized in the Subconscient – it's beginning to get organized – in the subconscient of individuals as well as in the general Subconscient. It's less unconscious (!) It's a bit more... yes, a bit more conscious, reflective and organized – a very faint beginning of organization, very little, but a growth in consciousness; it isn't quite so unconscious any more.

It's always the last part of the night that I spend there.... You remember that story of the supramental ship and how things were organized by the will, not by external means? Well, that's the action which is beginning to exist in the Subconscient.

Last night, for instance, early in the morning, there were several layers of cells,¹ as it were, and each cell was I can't say the property, but the possession of someone: what was under his direct control and reflected his “mood,” as it is customarily called, his way of being. And there were many levels: you could go upstairs and downstairs.... And the impression I had of myself was that I was much, much taller and that I towered above it all; and I had a different texture, as if I were made of a different substance, not quite the same as the others'. It was as if all that were inside me without being inside me (I can't explain): I was looming over everything and at the same time acting inside. And then, according to the action, people were going upstairs or downstairs, going and coming; but everyone had his own little box – they were BEGINNING to have it, it was beginning to get organized. Each cell was more or less precise: some were very precise, others more blurred, as if on the way to becoming precise. And the whole experience, last night, had a kind of precision about it. I was like something very big, outside, and I was laughing, talking to everyone, but they weren't aware of the action [of Mother]. You see, they seemed to me this tall (gesture: four inches), tiny. But quite alive: they were going and coming, moving about.... And I was talking to them, but they didn't know where the voice was coming from. So I laughed, I found it funny, I said to some, “There! You see, that's your idea of things.” And it was... oh, if I compare it to last year, there is a tremendous difference of CONSCIOUSNESS, from the point of view of consciousness. Before, all the movements were reflexes, instincts, as if people were impelled by a force which they were totally unconscious of and considered to be their “character,” most of the time, or else Destiny (either their character or Fate, Destiny). They were all like puppets on strings. Now, they are conscious beings – they're BEGINNING, they're beginning to be conscious.

The proportion has changed.

And I was able to show them precisely the proportion between the conscious, willed movement, which can be observed, and that sort of almost unconscious instinct which obeys a COMPELLING Force, that is to say, you know neither where it comes from nor what it means or anything – you just tag along.

Some still had quite blurred and cloudy spaces; with others, it was precise, there were even some very precise details. And clear, clear: there was a light – the dawning of a light.

If this goes on, it will be fine. It will change a lot of things.

It was in the subconscient of individuals?

Of individuals, yes.

It wasn't their waking consciousness?

No, no! It's not individuals as they know themselves – it is their subconscient. It is in the subconscient. The subconscient is a realm just as the material world is a realm – it's in the subconscient.

There have been many efforts, concentrations, meditations, prayers to bring about the clarification and control of all those semiconscious reflexes that govern individuals – a great concentration on that point. And this experience seems to be the outcome.

There are lots of things which people don't even take notice of in life (when they live an ordinary life, they don't take any notice), there's a whole field of things that are absolutely... not quite unconscious, but certainly not conscious; they are reflexes – reflexes, reactions to stimuli, and so on – and also the response (a semiconscious, barely conscious response) to the pressure exerted from above by the Force, which people are totally unconscious of. It is the study of this question which is now in the works; I am very much occupied with it. A study of every second.... You see, there are different ways for the Lord to be present, it's very interesting (the difference isn't for Him, it's for us!), and it depends precisely on the amount of habitual reflex movements that take place almost outside our observation (generally completely outside it) And this question preoccupied me very, very much: the ways of feeling the Lord's Presence – the different ways. There is a way in which you feel it as something vague, but of which you are sure – you are always sure but the sensation is vague and a bit blurred – and at other times it is an acute Presence² (Mother touches her face), very precise, in all that you do, all that you feel, all that you are. There is an entire range. And then if we follow the movement (gesture in stages, moving away), there are those who are so far away, so far, that they don't feel anything at all.

This experience made me write something yesterday (but it has lasted several days), it came as the outcome of the work done, and yesterday I wrote it both in English and in French:

“There is no other sin, no other vice

than to be far from Thee.”

“Il n'y a pas d'autre vice, pas d'autre péché
que d'être loin de Toi.”

Then, the entire world, the universe, appeared to me in that light, and at every point (which takes up no space), at every point of the universe and throughout the universe, it's that way. Not that there are far and near places in the universe, that's not what I mean (it's beyond space), but there is a whole hierarchy of nearness, up to something that doesn't feel and doesn't know – it's not that it is outside, because nothing can be outside the Lord, but it is as if the extreme limit: so far away, so far, so far – absolutely black – that He seems not to reach there.

It was a very total vision. And such an acute experience that it seemed to be the only true thing. It didn't take up any space, yet there was that sensation of nearness and farness. And there was a kind of Focus, or a Center, I can't say (but it was everywhere), which was the climax of Thee – purely Thee. And it had a quality of its own. Then it began to move farther and farther away, which produced a kind of mixture with something... that was nothing – that didn't exist – but that altered the vibration, the intensity, which made it move farther and farther away to... Darkness – unconscious Darkness.

And something kept coming again and again to me: there is no other sin... (because this followed a few lines I read in Savitri on the glorification of sin in the vital world, the words came to me because of that)... there is no other sin, no other vice than to be far from Thee.

It seemed to explain everything.

It wasn't I who wrote it! There's no “I” in it: it comes just like that.

The far from Thee is so, so intense in its vibration, it has a concrete meaning.

And that's the only thing: all the rest, all moral notions, everything, everything, even the notion of Ignorance... it all becomes mental chatter. But this, this experience, is marvelous. Far from Thee....

¹ Mother means structures, not cells in the biological sense.

Back

² Mother commented on and developed this passage in the following conversation, of December 11.

Back