The Mother

Agenda

Volume 4

December 14, 1963

Did W tell you his experience? No?... He says that lately he had the experience of an extraordinary force, like a kind of power going out of him through every pore and spreading, and he felt he had an extraordinary power; it lasted for hours.

A very good experience.

What force?

(Mother smiles) You know, there are, broadly speaking, two categories of people: those who by nature receive, are receptive; who receive and like to receive and to feel they are receiving; and those who like to give and like the feeling of giving. So those who like to receive have the experience of receiving, while those who like to give (laughing) have the experience of giving. But basically, it's all the same thing: it's the Force circulating. The Force circulates, and you get the feeling... (how can I explain it?)... it depends on the position of the consciousness with regard to the individual ego.

When I noticed W's difficulties, I put a lot of force on him, a lot, a great concentration to get him out of that tight corner, because I felt a kind of wavering in him, I felt he wasn't so steady on the path any more. That's what worried me. So I put a very great concentration of force on him to set him on the right road again. And, as I said, the Force circulates; it circulates: it isn't something which goes out like that, like a little beam which you send out, which reaches its goal and stays there – that's not it. It's a thing (round gesture) that spreads out with waves of concentration. And I've noticed this for everybody (I did my first study on myself), but the ego must be completely... (gesture of palms upward, immobile)... must become nonexistent, must stop interfering, at any rate, in order to feel that great, universal Pulsation.

It is simply the art of putting yourself in the right place in order to be in the path of the Force.

Or else, when you are able to see things from above, you can direct concentrations and channel the Force, as it were [on people and events]. And I've noticed (since it became a natural fact for me), I've noticed those two categories of people (with all kinds of nuances and differences): those who are happy to receive, and who are therefore much more conscious of the moment when the Force comes IN, and those (they are generous by nature, but also dominating) who are happier when they have a feeling of giving; so they are far more conscious of the Movement when it goes out of their individuality.

That's just what I knew of W's nature: the ego in him is that he likes to be a guru – that's when one is quite egoistic, but as one grows less so, there still remains that aspect of the nature that makes one more inclined to give than to receive. And as I had made a very strong concentration, quite naturally he felt the force going out of him.

I didn't tell him anything, I simply said it was a very good experience: an experience “that was given to you” or “that you were given” (all that impersonal, as impersonal as possible). I am very glad when people do not tell me, “You did this, you did that...” because immediately I feel that sort of little limitation which is so childish – intellectuals would call it “idolatry”! (Mother laughs) I don't like that.

I was very happy with W's experience. I also saw it was very sincere – naturally he feels filled with force! “But do not attach any importance to where it comes from, it doesn't matter! The Force is there.” It's true – in a way, it's true.

(silence)

You know that toy that makes images when it is turned? A kaleidoscope. All the little pieces arrange themselves to form patterns – there's a lot of that in the way forces organize themselves and play.

What I told you last time is still going on and intensifying. But sometimes, at a given moment, a movement comes to me, some reaction, for instance, and something complains (all this is in the BODY's consciousness), the body says, “Oh, I haven't got beyond that, what a wretched shame!” So immediately, there is an answer, and an answer which... It's odd, it doesn't come from one place, it comes from everywhere; and the body's protest also doesn't come from one place: it isn't ONE thing or ONE body that protests, it's a way of being; a terrestrial way of being which is expressed by: “Oh, I am still like that!” And the immediate answer: “But don't you see, don't you see the usefulness of it?” Then I am shown a whole tangled web of movements, vibrations, reactions, actions, all of it; and on one small spot there is a need for a small force: there is a small, slightly inert thing which serves as a support for something else – and then everything becomes clear, everything falls into place! You see so clearly it is egoism; egoism which wants personal, individual perfection: instead of wanting overall progress, it wants personal progress, it still makes breaks where there are none, separations where they do not exist. And you see how a movement going through [Mother] should be accepted when that is its place and when it is the right time for it to be useful, so that the WHOLE may follow its road – it's very, very interesting.

That way, you can gauge precisely how much is left of the old habit of personal reaction, especially in the emotive part of the universal being: it's the emotive part that still remains the most personal, even more so than the purely physical, material part. As soon as the emotive part comes into play, it “personalizes,” because it ENJOYS individual reactions; it is the part that LOVES to feel it loves, that LOVES to feel its own emotions, and because of it there remains a faint personal coloration. And when there occurs a somewhat darker or backward movement, the body is indignant and doesn't understand that it's part of the whole, that the whole must go forward together and you can't separate a piece of it to perfect it – it can't be done! It's impossible. It's not that it shouldn't be done – it CANNOT be done. Everything goes together.

(silence)

But since the 9th (the experience of the 9th at this table), there has been a considerable change – considerable.

(silence)

Do you have anything?

I can read you what you said last time....

Oh, now....

Is it worth the trouble?!

(Satprem does not agree)

If the expression becomes clear enough to be understandable, the present phase of the experience may be interesting for others, no? I have the feeling it could help break a few limits.

Certainly.

Yes, but it has to be understandable, really understandable – I am not sure it is. Because when I talk to you, I communicate to you the vibration of the experience, so insofar as you are receptive, you feel it. But it doesn't pass into the printed words – very little, very, very little.

People read with their heads, with their brains.

I see someone like N., who obviously is an exceptional subject in the sense that he vibrates with the intellectual vibration (Sri Aurobindo used to say, and it is obvious, that of all those around him, he was the one who understood best), well, even for him... it goes off at a tangent. It's not that he understands nothing, but it's at a tangent. It's a mitigated understanding, very slightly distorted, and which relates everything to the sense of the person, of the [Mother's] individual, so the thing loses all the ESSENCE of its value.... What I would like to be able to communicate is precisely that absence of individual. But when I express myself, I am forced to say “I,” the sentence always has a personal turn, and that's what people see. When I have my experience, it is there, living; you yourself feel it, and with a little movement of adaptation you eliminate the distortion that comes from the language, but others don't do it.

The best way to communicate your experience would be to give some of these recordings for people to hear, because then the thing is pure, it's you, YOUR vibration.

Not quite, but anyway, almost.

That's what would best convey your experience.

It would be worthwhile to make the experiment, one day. We'll see.

If one day I can find the expression...

I still feel I am struggling with the old way of speaking, I haven't found yet. It's this obligation of talking “as a person” – what can be done?... But, for instance, Sri Aurobindo would know very well how to speak while doing away with all that sense of personality.

The night before last, almost all of it, was spent with him – all kinds of very interesting things. They are mostly impressions. Extremely interesting impressions. And I understood an entire aspect of the creation....

The way the world is now physically organized, with the difference and specialization in the forms, in sexes, encourages a kind of opposition between the two poles, the union of which results in creation. So, naturally, each pole has enormous difficulty understanding the other (although it thinks and believes it does), especially understanding the pole I place underneath (gesture signifying the basis of the world), which is the effectively creative pole, that is to say, what is expressed by woman. She feels very well that without this (gesture above) the full understanding isn't there; but this, which is above, doesn't AT ALL understand the creative power of that which is below – it knows it in principle, but doesn't understand it. And there is a lack of adaptation, a sort of conflict, which shouldn't exist. It never existed – never – between Sri Aurobindo and me, but I could see it didn't exist because he had adopted the attitude of complete surrender to the eternal Mother (the stage, in the creation, of complete surrender). I would see it, and it embarrassed me! It embarrassed me, I thought, “But why does he think he has to do that (laughing), as if I couldn't understand!” On the contrary, I thirst for the other attitude – for identifying myself this way instead of that way (Mother presses her fist upward against her hand above): for identifying myself from below upward instead of from above downward. It was an aspiration, which has been there... almost for eternities... for the universal creative Force to identify itself with the Creator. And to identify itself not through the descent of the Creator, but through the ascent of the Force – the conscious ascent. But Sri Aurobindo willed it that way, so it was that way... and then I was very busy with my work. For the thirty years we lived together, it went on that way, perfectly smoothly; and I kept my aspiration quiet because I knew that it was his will. But since he left and I was obliged to do his work, so to speak, things have changed. But I didn't in the least want the Creator, because of my taking up the work, to be obliged to adapt himself to the creative Force (that won't do at all!), and my whole aspiration has been for the creative Force to consciously BECOME the Creator. It's becoming increasingly that way. And at the last meeting [with Sri Aurobindo], for a time (not the whole time, but some time), it was that way. Then I understood; it made me understand the play of all the forces in the two elements – the two poles – and how they could be joined, through what process that opposition could disappear so that the total Being might exist.

We're on the way. And it's growing clearer and clearer. It will be tremendously interesting. But that's for later on.

Increasingly (but it began long ago, after Sri Aurobindo left), it is growing, perfecting itself, becoming precise and increasingly conscious: the difference is fading away, the opposition is disappearing altogether, and the possibility is growing of identifying oneself with the other – the other attitude, the one I deliberately call “from above.”

Naturally, in human beings, the two are extremely mixed up. Among all the human beings you cannot find two who are one really male and the other really female – that doesn't exist. It's very, very mixed. But the goal is a totality; a totality in which each thing is in its place and plays its part, not in opposition but in perfect union – in identity. And the key to this is beginning to come.

But the difficulties are still there, and they're very subconscious.

It's very interesting.

(silence)

The thing that resists the most on the terrestrial level (perhaps even on the universal level) is that zone (which is more pronounced in the earth's atmosphere), the emotive zone. I had the clear perception that it CLINGS to its emotions, it ENJOYS its emotions. This counteracts the effort towards perfection, towards perfect unity – the pleasure of emotions.

There was an experience for a few seconds, with the clear vision and immediate action of the supreme Force over this [the emotive zone], but the experience wasn't sufficient so it could be noted down.

(silence)

Those things, which are ESSENTIAL conquests and advances and are happening now, take a long, long time to materialize [on earth].... What can be done to make them materialize faster? I don't know.

It's still the same problem as that of Identity I told you about the other day, the nearness to the center: identity, then nearness, then a greater and greater farness – that's why it takes time. To go right to the end takes a long, long time.

(silence)

Sri Aurobindo wrote somewhere, I don't remember where (I am translating, it's not the exact sentence): “The body's cells must burn with the divine Flame.”

It's obviously somewhere where he explains transformation.

The body's cells must burn with the divine Flame.

And you feel it – you FEEL it. It's when they begin to be aflame, to burn with a flame that is clearer and clearer, purer and purer... – when all the smoke is gone.