August 19, 1967The Mother
Agenda
Volume 8
August 19, 1967
This morning, for two hours, I had what I believe to be really the most wonderful experience in my life from the point of view of knowledge-vision. And it was so total... from the most essential perception of That which is beyond the creation down to the perception of the body's cells, from high to low. And in every plane, the vision of the creation.
It went on for two hours. I walked about, had my wash – it didn't matter in the least, on the contrary there was, added to that, the knowledge of how the body can act without disturbing the state of consciousness.
Afterwards, there was a slight flagging, because there came... I can't say the memory (it wasn't a memory), but all the complaints: the same thing as at the balcony on the darshan day – the human attitude towards the Supreme is only to complain and demand... complain and demand and complain... That's all. It came back. Before, the whole vision was there like that (gesture from high to low), it was magnificent, magnificent: each and every thing, the entire human history, the entire history of intellectual and material evolution, everything like that, everything in its place. It was really fine. And afterwards, there came that wave of complaints.
It was as if the body were asking, “What attitude” (that's what provided the link), “What attitude should I have? What should I do?...” Because there was the vision of life, death, of all circumstances, everything was there. The full knowledge of everything. Oh, the whole part about death was very, very interesting, and how mankind has tried to understand, how there have been all kinds of solutions (that is, partial attitudes), and all of it was part of the Whole.
So the conclusion... Oh, at that time I could have said many things about all the different intellectual and even spiritual attitudes of mankind.... There aren't big differences. The spiritual (what's commonly called “spiritual”) boils down to the whole attempt at finding the Divine again by annulling the creation – that's what has been regarded as spiritual life (that's why the word got distorted). To annul the creation in order to find the Divine again.... And then, NOW: the vision of now. We are obviously drawing nearer to the moment of possibility – that is clear. It's a question of time – of course, it can't be on the human scale, but we are on the borderline.
And as I said, the body asked... oh, it had such a wonderful moment! A moment, a few minutes, when it KNEW how it ought to be. It was magnificent. Then the experience
came.1 Till then, it was inexpressible: it was lived, it was a living consciousness, but the mind had become very quiet, so it was inexpressible. Then there came back that great complaint from the world, and the experience started being expressed (Mother looks for a note). It started being expressed, because it isn't just the anonymous demand of thousands of people: it's virtually a shower of letters, questions, demands from people who believe... they believe they are part of
the Work, of the Action, they believe they have given themselves, and they ask all sorts of questions – and such futile questions – which to them are of crucial importance, but which are so puerile, stupid, unimportant: how to start a business, the date of its inauguration, a name for a house, a message for a meeting.... And what goings-on, it's a deluge from every side. So it all was seen in the new attitude – not “new,” the consciousness was fully there, there had been a whole tendency to increasingly adopt that attitude, but now it was KNOWN, fully known: what one must be, how one must be. So I came down abruptly to reply to all that.
For some time there had been swarms of questions from people – I refused, just refused to answer; I would reply with some joke or other: “I am not a fortuneteller,” or “It's none of my concern, none of my business.” Jokes, and sometimes I would say, “Ah, let them leave me alone, that's childishness.” And people who think they are very dedicated, for instance a man who has already given at least ten lakhs of rupees (he knows it only too well, but still he did give them!) and who wants to work to bring more – but then, his questions... So instead of replying with a quip (that was my last experience: it's like dictated answers, but they are quips), this morning something came in English (Mother reads her note):
“We are not here to make our life easy and comfortable. We are here to find the Divine, to become the Divine, to manifest the Divine.
”What happens to us is the Divine's outlook, it is not our concern.
“The Divine knows better than us what is good for the progress of the world and our own.”
Everyone comes and complains and complains – that so-and-so has robbed him, that his wife doesn't love him, that his brother has betrayed him, that... All the idiotic stories by the hundreds, you understand, a deluge.
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(Soon afterwards, regarding a sympathizer of the Ashram, Mrs. Z, who cannot get out of her Christianity.2)
So, did you see this lady?
I feel there's a possibility to do something.... What's your impression?
This morning, Christianity, too, was there among all the other things.
(silence)
You understand, behind this whole earth evolution, there is, with a greater or lesser degree of consciousness (it's an unexpressed need rather than a precise consciousness), the need to live the Divine – or to put it differently, the need to live divinely. And it is clear that what was translated into different religions was solutions found individually (“found,” and perhaps partially lived); and here [in India], there was this solution: in order to really become the Divine again, the creation should be done away with. That is, the Nirvanic solution. And instinctively – instinctively – mankind felt death to be the negation of the Divine. But like every negation, it had the capacity to lead and open the way. The solution of Christianity wasn't quite new, it was the adaptation of an ancient solution: a life in other worlds – which was translated into that quite childish conception of heaven. But that was a conception for public use: a life in the presence of the Divine, exclusively taken up with the Divine, and so you would sing and... Touchingly simple. Anyway, they conceived of a world (not a material one) in which a divine life had been realized. In the ancient Indian traditions, there had also been a first hint of divine worlds, as a sort of reaction to that Nirvanism – if we want to be divine, we must stop being, or if the Divine wants to be pure, he must stop manifesting!... So all that was like clumsy attempts to find the means, and perhaps at the same time like inner preparations, to make people capable of really making contact with the Divine. Then there was that great reaction of the cult of Matter, which has been VERY useful to knead it and make it less unconscious of itself: it has forcibly brought consciousness back into Matter. So perhaps all that has been a sufficient preparation for the moment of the Total Manifestation to have come (gesture of descent).
This morning, during the experience, the body felt the whole bliss of the condition, but it was very conscious of its incapacity to manifest, very conscious in such a perfect peace, like this (gesture with the palms of the hands open upward), in which there wasn't
even the intensity of the need. It was simply a vision of how things were, how the condition was. And it was something like this: the conditions of the earth are such, the conditions of the substance are such that a local and momentary manifestation, as an example, is not impossible, but the transformation that would make possible the new Manifestation of the supramental being – and not just as an isolated case, but with its place and role in earth life – does not appear to be immediate. That was the impression.
And there was no anguish to know or anything of the sort, there was simply a very calm vision of things, absolutely devoid of almost any need: it was like this (same gesture with palms open), as peaceful as can be, smiling, calm, with a sense of eternity.... All that in this body, which was totally and entirely conscious of its incapacity. Naturally, the body, for its part, very clearly feels it neither knows nor is able to know or will or do: simply like this (gesture with palms open), as peacefully open, receptive, surrendered as possible. And that was the result [= the vision that the Manifestation was not for the immediate future].
And it always ends in the same way: “What You will.”
But with a very clear vision that a collective transformation sufficient to create a new species on earth still seems some way off... without any estimate of the length of time, but not immediate.
The fact is certain.
The fact is certain – it's not a possibility, but a FACT. But as for what's translated in the human consciousness in terms of time, that can't be estimated, it can't be calculated.
1 Mother seems to imply that the body's question was the “link” that brought about this experience of the great vision of the Whole.
2 By a rather striking “coincidence,” since Mother's vision of July 29 (“Christianity deifies suffering”), Christianity was going to crowd in on Mother in succession: monks, bishops etc., including the present lady who will figure in the Agenda on several occasions. Which goes to show that Mother's “visions” are in reality actions.