Tell me.The Mother
Agenda
Volume 10
September 24, 1969
So did you see this healer?
Yes, I saw him.
Tell me.
I am very much struck, I must say. First of all, to put things physically, the first time I saw him, I remained with him for three and a half hours-he didn't stop talking ....
Oh!
But the extraordinary thing is that usually, when I am with people, after half an hour I am exhausted – after three and a half hours (I didn't budge, didn't stop looking at him), I was as fresh as a daisy! And so full of energy that I didn't sleep the whole night! And I spent three and a half hours listening to this man .... Yesterday evening (I was tired, Id had a rather heavy day), I spent only half an hour chatting with him – I was as fresh as a daisy.
Oh, but he's first-rate!
I was quite fresh, as I am not after resting .... But Id like to mention one thing: I saw him BEFORE he came to Pondicherry. The day he reached Bombay, I had a sort of vision I didn't understand: I saw an enormous white horse, huge, but massive, like an enormous plough horse: not beautiful, but with an awesome massive power. A huge white horse. And when I saw him here, I thought, “But here's my white horse!”
Yes, surely.
A plough animal, you know, not beautiful but awesome.
And what does he say?
He's come here with a question-not a mental one .... But I should perhaps tell you the stages of his discovery. As you know, he discovered experimentally on himself what was going on. So he sought to understand: he bought books, went to see so-called “healers.” The first people who taught him were “Spiritualists.” They told him, “Use a pendulum.” He used a pendulum to detect diseases, and it worked very well. Then, after a time, he thought, “But this isn't reality.” And then his Pendulum stopped working! Afterwards, he went to see someone else, who told him, “But you
should do magnetic passes.” He was taught how to do it, and it worked very well: with his fingers he could feel the organs that were out of harmony (because, for him, the key word is “Harmony” or “disharmony”). Then, after a while, he said to himself, “But this isn't reality either.” And nothing worked anymore.
Oh, it's very interesting!
He thought, “But I have nothing left, neither a pendulum nor my hands nor anything....” And all of a sudden he had a revelation: “You have nothing left because you no longer need anything!” Then he began, and he noticed that when his thought met with someone's thought or call, it was done in a split second. For instance, one day a woman sent him a wire in Paris: she had given birth and had a torn perineum. He got the wire, thought, and said, “She's cured.” The next morning he went and saw her: the perineum had healed .... Another extraordinary case: a woman was dying in the fifth month of her pregnancy, dying of meningeal tuberculosis. The hospital was helpless, they brought her home. In reality, she didn't want her child. He went and saw her several times, and one day, she had terrible convulsions and died in his arms. Then, he says, “I had a sort of prayer at the bottom of my heart, I said, ‘But this woman hasn't followed the law of love, it's right that she should die, but why should this child in her die?... ’” He had a sort of prayer. And five minutes later, the woman came back to life in his arms. She opened her eyes and said, “I am cured.” She was indeed cured, but unable to move anymore. Two weeks later, she gave birth to a child, who was not only normal but viable and full-grown, which means that in those fifteen days, the gestation had accelerated and the child was just as full-grown as a nine-month-old child ....
Five months old...
Yes. Then the woman died the day after giving birth, and the child is now seventeen, I think .... He told me, “That's how it is: there is NO ‘power,’ it doesn't exist – there is That, the Harmony; everyone has the capacity to call this Harmony, and It acts. And It acts in a second, instantly....” But then, he told me, “Here is my question” (as far as I can express what he said).... Basically, he is aware of quite an extraordinary Power-though I should say I didn't feel a shadow of ego in this man, there's no trace of
ego .... He read my book, but that didn't teach him things, it only confirmed some experiences .... This man spoke to me for more than three hours, and apart from you and Sri Aurobindo, I have heard no one speak like him. It was a sage who spoke, a living experience that sprang forth, there wasn't one thing he said you wouldn't subscribe to: those “great Forces of Harmony” that must be embodied on earth, brought down on earth... It was really a sage who spoke, and those were your words, Sri Aurobindo's words.
That's what A. told me; the first day when he received him, he told me, “I thought I was listening to you or to Sri Aurobindo!”
But the surprising thing is that when he spoke to me, it wasn't his mind that spoke: it was a living experience that sprang forth, that's what was extraordinary!... He said, “I have the experience of the transformation, the experience of cellular regeneration .... I know from experience that there is intelligence, there is divinity deep down in the cells – I know all that, but it has to be embodied. Something has to be done.” So here's his question ....
What does he want to know?
He is conscious of this Power, but he says one needs to have the TOTAL vision, the vision of TOTAL Harmony. Because, he says, it's all an equilibrium, a wonderful harmony, and we mustn't cause any disequilibrium, we must obey the Law, follow the Law of Harmony, but it's a TOTAL Law, of course, and we mustn't make any mistake. “I need the total vision,” he says. “Take the Ashram: it's a center of light where there is total harmony; then there's a circle around it, Pondicherry, which is already darker ...
Very dark!
“...and less receptive; so you can't bring the Ashram's law into that obscurity without causing a disequilibrium; you can only bring part of it, or something that can be adapted to that darkness. Then there is a third, still darker circle, to which it's still harder to apply the law of total Harmony-so how to find out what one has to do depending on the particular point? How to know the right law, the total law?...” He says, “I don't want to cause any disequilibrium, I want to obey the Law....”
A. told me you asked to come with him on Saturday?
It's not that I asked, I just thought it might be interesting for him to try and put himself his question to you.
The interesting thing would be to know what he feels when he sees me.1 That would be interesting .... I'll see him tomorrow the first time, but it would be good if you brought him on Saturday. I don't think he'll speak tomorrow.
I told him, “Mother doesn't speak.” He said, “But of course! It's not words I need, expressing is useless; what I want is the vibration, the experience.” He understands silence very well.
Then we'll see. In that case the result might come on Saturday.
Because it would be interesting if in front of you he tried to formulate his question outwardly... He understands quite well that evolution has reached a point where things must accelerate and those Forces of Harmony must be brought into the world, but basically, he feels such a power in him that he wouldn't want to act arbitrarily: he wouldn't want to “break the equilibrium,” but to “follow the Law.” And for that, total vision is needed .... He told me, “The miracles Christ worked, for instance (there is no such thing as ‘miracles,’ by the way), all that I can do, but if I did it, with the means of communication of modern science, it would immediately be known the world over, and something of that sort could strike a ‘great blow’ to the ordinary mind which only believes in the truths of matter.” He asks, “That would be a means of action, but should I do that?...” His problem is one of action ....
What is he doing now?
Right now, for three days he has been fasting; he's stopped eating. He said, “I'll go and see Mother like this, without having taken any food.” So for three days he has been taking nothing but water... The wonderful thing is that there isn't an atom of mentalization, it's all an experience that springs forth. And all that you've said, all that Sri Aurobindo said, he has experienced....
He is conscious of the “moment” in the History of the earth, he feels all that. So he wants to participate in the Work.
(after a silence)
What is it that speaks in him, then? Is it his mind or his physical mind?
I think he's inspired. Because the first day, when I spent three hours and a half with him, the first hour (he's very slow to get started), it took a long time, he was groping for words, trying to express himself clearly. Later on, I tried to drive him into his experience, and it started flowing. What he said was beautiful, it sprang forth like that, spontaneously. It was really inspired .... And at the same time, so moved, because for the first time in his life he can talk about these things with people who understand him. He told me, “No one understands me – but here, everyone understands me.” So it comes out, it springs forth.
I'll see him tomorrow. But I think it would be better to tell him it's only a first contact and won't last long, because tomorrow I have a list long like this – every day it's the same! And on Saturday he'll come back with you, he'll stay for some more time.
(long silence)
How old is he? Do you know the year of his birth?
No, Mother, he must be about sixty-five.2
How old was he when he noticed that?
He noticed it when he very nearly died, that is when he was about forty-five.
Oh, as late as that!
When he was at a complete loss, he was cured in twenty minutes; so that suddenly started him off in quest of the True Thing.
So some twenty years ago ....
Did he tell you in which year it happened?
No, but I can ask him.
Ask him.3
So, to sum up his question: “To accelerate the movement without causing any disequilibrium,” and “to apply the Law without making any mistake” – that's what he wants.
1 This is precisely what was going to be a revelation for Satprem and a decisive turning point in his own understanding of Mother.
2 He was born in April, 1904.
3 In fact this power had been there ever since he was born, for his diseased mother noticed that her suffering increased when he was not present, and decreased when he was at home. He is the thirteenth child in a family of peasants.