July 23, 1969The Mother
Agenda
Volume 10
July 23, 1969
(The American astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon on July 21. Mother shows the following text which was suggested to her as a “message” for August 15.)
It's Nolini who suggested this text... because of the people who landed on the moon! (Mother laughs) But it's far too personal – I said no. I am just showing it to you, but I told him, “No, I don't want.”
Q. “I have been wondering whether the Mother has been able to establish a direct connection with Mars or any other far off planet which is probably habitable and inhabited.”
Someone put this question to Sri Aurobindo. So now that people have landed on the moon...
A. “A long time ago Mother was going everywhere in the subtle body but she found it of a very secondary interest. Our attention must be fixed on the earth because our work is here. Besides, the earth is a concentration of all the other worlds and one can touch them by touching
something corresponding in the
earth-atmosphere.”1
Sri Aurobindo
(25.373)
January 13, 1934
He tells what I was doing, but I don't like to be spoken of.
They're so excited about this moon! Have you heard?
Yes, but what's so exciting about that?
To hear the voice of the gentleman on the moon .... You hear him as he speaks.
I must say I find all that puerile.2
It's childish.
But I also heard the radio .... I got a queer sensation: I went there in a trice, like that (gesture like an arrow darting from the forehead to the moon); when I heard, I went there in a trice because I was told there was a dangerous moment when they were to leave the moon to rejoin the other man who was going around [orbiting the moon] – it seems that was dangerous. I had just been told about it .... At first when I heard the voice, I didn't understand anything he said (it was uninteresting, besides: he said he had picked up a stone, that there were mountains – things like that, quite uninteresting). Then, hop! I was sent off like that (same gesture to the forehead), and I actually FELT that I was going there (I found that amusing), like that, prrt! Off from here, direct.
They're on their way back. But the Russians sent a robot in a machine that went round the moon, landed on it and picked up stones – and it was a robot! They said, “We'll never risk a human life – a robot is good enough.”3
But the children at the School here were in an extraordinary state of excitement .... So I was asked to say something to them. I said, “I'd better not say anything, because I would say it's big children having fun!” (Mother laughs) It would have thrown cold water on them!
(silence)
And what news do you have?
Well, I have gone once to that subtle physical.
Aah!
You must have called me.
So then?
Then it's all a bit chaotic, but anyway I saw Sri Aurobindo. I saw an image of him in which he told me (he was speaking in French, by the way), “Come, we need to do some physical exercises!” And it was as if he were taking me along for a walk ....
(Mother laughs)
Because there was a crowd there, oh, a crowd of people. And it was a Sri Aurobindo... not that he was younger, but he still looked very young. And he had ...
He is particular there, you know; he is very particular, with a very particular form. I mean... In fact, he is in his own likeness, but he is ageless.
Yes, ageless.
He is ageless.
But he looked much more agile, if you like, and his skin had a golden red color, golden pinkish red.
Yes.
And a crowd of people.
Yes, I have noticed that... Was he dressed?... Because I have seen him hardly dressed, with a light, a sort of light (here, for instance [gesture]) hiding the lower part of the body: only a light was visible.
I didn't notice, but it seemed to me that he was bare (or at least bare-chested).
Bare, that's it, me too. I have always seen him bare, but he doesn't look naked. And there's a special color, that's right.
Oh, so, you went there for a stroll ....
But what disappointed me was that it was all very familiar.
But it is very familiar! It's very familiar, extraordinarily so. With me too, it's like that. Far more familiar than our physical life .... Oh, but then you did go there for real.
I mean I remember having seen Sri Aurobindo fifteen years ago: he came during my sleep and put his hand on my heart-there was such an emotion... in my sleep I wept and wept .... So I thought that when I saw him again, I would have that same emotion ....
No!
But not in the least! He told me, “Come, we need to do some physical exercises”! And then it was as if he took me along for a walk.
Yes.
It seemed to be... “just like that.”
Yes, exactly, it shows you really did go there. It's really “like that.” As for me, I find it more... familiar, more (what's the word?) simple, you know, than our own life. Our physical life here seems... (Mother puffs up her cheeks). We make a lot of fuss about very little .... Oh then, you can be sure that you really went there!
But the place where I met him looked a little like your room downstairs ....
That's right!
And it was full of a clutter of things, you know: piles of things here and there ....
That's right.
And a crowd of people.
Exactly, it's correct. People going and coming ....
Yes! There was even one amusing detail: among that pile of things that were there, there were books; then as he went by, Sri Aurobindo took one to see what was inside. But B. was there (you know, the Italian), and told him, “You mustn't touch this without Mother's permission”!4
(Mother laughs heartily) Oh, this is priceless!
But didn't you see Mridu?5
No.
She's there (huge gesture, laughing), just as she was!... I saw Purani, I saw Mridu, and the other day (I told you) I saw Amrita and Chandulal talking together. That whole place looks like downstairs, but it's not downstairs. So it's the place all right.
Very long ago (very long, a few years after Sri Aurobindo left), one night (because I was already seeing him), I saw him: I had gone to his place, and I found him sitting on a sort of bed... with a truss: three or four bandages like that on his body! (Mother laughs) So he called me and said (in English), “Look! Look what they're doing with me! Look, they're putting bandages all over me!” So I inquired – and found that they wanted to make cuts in his writings ....
Ooh!
I said, “Be careful! Here is what he thinks of your cuts.”6
It's like that, thoroughly familiar, but very expressive.
I've had hundreds of visions there, I have them almost every
night, and it's always nearly the same. But there's a crowd! And all kinds of people ....
But does one work there? What does one do? What do all these people do?
According to what Sri Aurobindo told me, with those people he is preparing what will take place on the earth.
Last night (that was the first time), I was in a place (again in this subtle physical), a place as if atop a rather barren mountain, but where people met – there were even kinds of seats. And I was there to see... I don't know who (now I forget), but they were “wise” and “well-known” people of India. It seemed (in my vision) that I was there permanently and that those people had come to see me. And they came from every side: all of India's spiritual sects were represented, and everyone came, sat down, and told me... (laughing) the “virtues” of his creed. It was pricelessly funny! It was... I spent a good while, but I really had great fun! Some wore big turbans and were dressed in white, “very important” people who had had special seats brought for them, and they were quite... (Mother puffs herself up) they swaggered, they looked down on others from their lofty heights! Some were almost completely naked, some were... there were all sorts, and they were all in a big group like this (gesture in a circle). As for me, I was wearing a little white dress, like that, quite plain (the same shape as this one, but in white); I was sitting in a corner, having great fun – but I took up very little room! (Mother makes herself small) It was quite comical. Last night.
A big circle: one group, another group, a third group, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth group... and what fuss they made! It had to be seen.
But it's the first time.
Sri Aurobindo wasn't there – he was as he always is, a little more subtle within me: not with the same density. But not visible.
ADDENDUM
(As an illustration, we publish here two letters of Sri Aurobindo that were omitted from the “Complete” edition of his works, or simply truncated.)
“In order to remove many misunderstandings which seem to have grown up about his Asram in Pondicherry Sri Aurobindo considers it necessary to issue the following explicit statement:
“An Asram means the house or houses of a Teacher or Master of spiritual philosophy in which he receives and lodges those who come to him for the teaching and practice. An Asram is not an association or a religious body or a monastery — it is only what has been indicated above and nothing more.
“Everything in the Asram belongs to the Teacher; the sadhaks (those who practise under him) have no claim, right or voice in any matter. They remain or go according to his will. Whatever money he receives is his property and not that of a public body. It is not a trust or a fund, for there is no public institution. Such Asrams have existed in India since many centuries before Christ and still exist in large numbers. All depends on the Teacher and ends with his lifetime,7 unless there is another Teacher who can take his place.
“The Asram in Pondicherry came into being in this way. Sri Aurobindo at first lived in Pondicherry with a few inmates in his house; afterwards a few more joined him. Later on after the Mother joined him, in 1920 the numbers began so much to increase that it was thought necessary to make an arrangement for lodging those who came and houses were bought and rented according to need for the purpose. Arrangements had also to be made for the maintenance, repair, rebuilding of houses, for the service of food and for decent living and hygiene. All these were private rules by the Mother and entirely at her discretion to increase, modify or alter – there is nothing in them of a public character.
“All houses of the Asram are owned either by Sri Aurobindo or by the Mother. All the money spent belongs either to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother. Money is given by many to help in Sri Aurobindo's work. Some who are here give their earnings, but it is given to Sri Aurobindo or the Mother and not to the Asram as a public body, for there is no such body.
“The Asram is not an association; there is no constituted body, no officials, no common property owned by an association, no governing council or committee, no activity undertaken of a public character.
“The Asram is not a political institution; all association with political activities is renounced by those who live here. All propaganda – religious, political or social – has to be eschewed by the inmates.
“The Asram is not a religious association. Those who are here come from all religions and some are of no religion. There is no creed or set of dogmas, no governing religious body; there are only the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and certain psychological practices of concentration and meditation, etc., for the enlarging of the consciousness, receptivity to the Truth, mastery over the desires, the discovery of the divine self and consciousness concealed within each human being, a higher evolution of the
nature....”8
Sri Aurobindo
16 February 1934
*
* *
(The following example, among many others, was deliberately chosen as innocuous, so as to make the intention behind these cuts better understood. The censored passage is italicized.)
“As you say, it is the failure of the right attitude that comes in the way of passing through ordeals to a change of nature. The pressure is becoming greater now for this change of character even more than for decisive Yoga experience – for if the experience comes, it fails to be decisive because of the want of the requisite change of nature. The mind, for instance, gets the experience of the One in all, but the vital cannot follow, because it is dominated by ego-reaction and ego-motive or the habits of the outer nature keep up a way of thinking, feeling, acting, living which is quite out of harmony with the experience. Or the psychic and part of the mind and emotional being feel frequently the closeness of the Mother, but the rest of the nature is unoffered and goes its own way prolonging the division from her nearness, creating distance.
It is because the Sadhaks have never even tried to have the Yogic attitude in all things, they have been contented with the common ideas, common view of things, common motives of life, only varied by inner experiences and transferred to the framework of the Asram instead
of that of the world outside. It is not enough and there is great need that this should
change.”9
Sri Aurobindo
9 September 1936
1 When she read Sri Aurobindo's answer, Mother remarked, “This answer is very interesting, because it touches the heart of the problem.”
2 More explicitly, a month earlier, in a text written for Italian television (The Great Sense), Satprem had said, “We go to the moon, but we do not know our own heart nor our terrestrial destiny.”
3 Their probe, Luna 15, crashed on the moon.
4 Let us note that B. is a new, young disciple whose work is to keep that room downstairs clean.
5 Who was Sri Aurobindo's cook, and round as a barrel; she left her body seven years earlier, in September 1962.
6 Numerous texts were nevertheless censored in the so-called “complete” edition of Sri Aurobindo's works (the “Centenary Library”), in particular letters about the Ashram. As an illustration, we publish in addendum two of those censored letters, to make the intention plain.
7 Emphasis is ours.
8 The rest of the letter was published in the “complete” edition of Sri Aurobindo's works, joined to another letter of August 1934. See Vol. 26, Sri Aurobindo on Himself, p. 95. It is, moreover, impossible to overemphasize the disfigurement of Sri Aurobindo's letters under the pretext of a “subjectwise” classification, some letters having one bit published under one subject, another bit published under another subject, and yet another elsewhere – a classification into the mind's little pigeonholes. As Mother said, “Three or four bandages on his body.”
9 See Letters on Yoga, 23.904.