The Mother

Agenda

Volume 11

April 22, 1970

So, have you brought questions?

(Laughing) No!

And you?

(silence)

Outwardly, sick people, difficulties, complications.... Very difficult... very difficult... It has almost come to look like a relentless fury.

The only thing is Sri Aurobindos Aphorisms, which are more and more amusing. Have you received them?

(Satprem reads)

483 – Sin is a trick and a disguise of Krishna to conceal Himself from the gaze of the virtuous. Behold, O Pharisee, God in the sinner, sin in thyself purifying thy heart; clasp thy brother.

“Sin in thy heart,” it looks like... Isn't it a joke? Is the word “sinning” or “fishing”?!¹

It's “sinning”!

In French, it's hard to distinguish!

But this one is wonderful:

482 – My lover took away my robe of sin...

Oh, yes, it's wonderful! And when he takes away the robe of virtue!...

... and I let it fall, rejoicing; then he plucked at my robe of virtue, but I was ashamed and alarmed and prevented him. It was not till he wrested it from me by force that I saw how my soul had been hidden from me.

Ah, that's admirable. Admirable.

But T. [a disciple who asks “questions” on the Aphorisms] sends me four or five of them at one go, without space to answer each... so I only answer the last one!

It would be good to say, “Let our robe of virtue fall so we may be ready for the Truth.”

That's one of the things being constantly done – oh, it's been like that for a long time, it's a long time since the body has been free from this illusion of sin and virtue, a long time. It finds it quite... quite ridiculous!

And then, in the contact with people... I hardly know who the people I see are (just about), so I see them without a thought, you understand, as they are, and AFTERWARDS I ask, or I am told about them, and... (laughing) I realize that most of the time, if a contact is made (when I see them, a contact is made, a receptivity), it's with the people most scorned by others, people who outwardly behave like real boors! Just recently again I had an experience like that.

One of the things hardest to bear is obviously self-righteous indignation. You know, people tell me what's going on (everyone tells me some story), and the vibrations hardest to bear, those that cause a... (gesture of unpleasant friction) are those of self-righteous indignation.

Now, I have to say one thing: when people come to see me (people whom I don't know, not those I see all the time), all those visitors, it's the best part of them that comes out. Several times I had contacts with people and the impression that something can be done, that they have a receptivity – and afterwards, those people misbehave, they cause disorder or trouble for others! But when they are in front of me, they're not the same. They feel it, they feel it's something else becoming active. But it's the Presence that... compels; then they go away, and they behave very badly, they quarrel, they... It's very difficult!

I see people from Auroville in rotation (once a week), in fact to try and work on this material, and it's really interesting (people I don't know: every time I am brought one or two or three new ones; some stay on, and others come in rotation). I said, “Those who want a bath of silence can come in turn,” and not a word is spoken. It's really interesting. Well, there are people there who behave like... and despite everything, they feel that what they are here is superior to what they are there. But the others would need to have a lot of patience!...

(silence)

What do you have to ask, or to say?... There is no need to “ask” – tell me something.

How can one make conscious contact with this subtle physical?

That, mon petit, I have no idea, because I never did it deliberately! (Mother laughs) It came on its own.

Now, very strangely, there are times when both are there, and then... A good thing I keep quiet (it's only to you that I speak), otherwise people would surely say, “Mother is taking leave of her senses!” (laughter)

For instance, there is a region (I went there exclusively for a time, a few months – I don't remember, maybe a little more, maybe a year), a region where there are many scenes from Nature, like fields, gardens... but all behind nets! There is a net of one color, another color... And it has a meaning. Absolutely everything is behind a net, you are... as if you moved about with nets. But it's not a single net, it depends: for its form and color the net depends on what's behind. And it is... the means of communication. You understand, it's lucky I don't speak because they'd say I have taken leave of my senses! And I see that with my eyes open, during the day, can you imagine! So I'll see my room, for example – I'll be here, seeing people – and at the same time I'll see one landscape or another, and it all changes and moves about... with a net between me and the landscapes, like that.... The net seems to be... (how can I explain?) what separates this subtle physical from the ordinary physical. But what does this net represent? I don't know... You see, there is no mentalization, there are no explanations, there's no thought, no reasoning, all that is clearly done away with. So, in fact, I see...

The sensation isn't the same either. Our way of feeling on the physical level isn't there, it doesn't work that way.... It's more like a sense of proximity or non-communication, or indifference; but things belonging to the indifferent world do not show themselves when the dual vision is there.

(silence)

Nights are very peculiar. And precisely because all that isn't mentalized, it's hardly possible to describe or explain.... But this subtle physical very concretely has the sense or feeling or perception (I don't know) of the divine Presence – the divine Presence in all things, everywhere. So then, this body is... one might say, partly this way and partly that way (gesture of oscillation between two worlds).... That was one thing I asked this morning: how (the body asked itself), why, how, how is it that, having this divine perception almost constantly (because, as I told you, that consciousness is in the process of being established), how is it that the body feels this anguish? – It lives in a sort of constant anguish. So what's that anguish?... And there are no explanations or... But just when it asked that, there was something like Sri Aurobindo's manner, so full of humor, as if it were he (but not visible), telling me, “Look carefully: in this anguish, there is Bliss.” And this morning, I was sitting on my bed about to get up, and there was this kind of... I can't call it suffering, but... it would be more like a discomfort, I don't know, as if at the thought of the whole day ahead (but “thought,” it's not a thought: it's as if the day were weighing down), and while I was feeling that discomfort (I had to make an effort to get up and resume activity), at the same time, there was something laughing deep down, all the way down, and saying, “But!...” And it was in bliss. But then, the body has been (that was part of its formation) very careful to maintain commonsense – not to go off its rocker.... You feel you are... just on the borderline, you know: one very small movement like that, and... (gesture of dissolution).

The body was used to commonsense, practical sense – and that, prrrt!... seems to be crumbling away So there is a sort of... What saves the situation is that I say to myself (I SEE – I don't know how to explain – I see it's people's reaction: in front of this, people quite naturally feel you're taking leave of your senses), so I say to myself, “What do I care! What do I care what they think of me – whoever it may be, I couldn't care less.” The body couldn't care less (it's been a long time since the rest stopped caring, but the body). Then I see in my memory certain expressions of Sri Aurobindo's, certain smiles in front of perfectly reasonable attitudes... and the ridiculousness of those reasonable attitudes becomes patent. I live in that all the time.

It's... (I don't know how to put it), it's like this (tight gesture, one hand pressed against the other): in one attitude (but not a willed, devised attitude, not that: its spontaneous), in one attitude, you are per-fect-ly at ease – everything is peaceful, normal; then, things remaining the same, there is beside that (not even beside, not inside or... I don't know how to explain, it's simultaneous), there is... a slight anguish. And that anguish is constant – maybe it's the anguish of a dying way of being, I don't know, but it makes for a strange situation.

But then, everything becomes simple when someone is there, receptive, that is, comes without thought, without... simply like a sponge that absorbs. Then the Presence becomes concretely perceptible, quite so. Things are exactly the same, but the Presence is concrete and quite... not only perceptible: it imposes itself. Then things come to a halt, there is a stabilization – and everything becomes perfect.

But it depends a lot – I mean, it STILL depends – on peoples receptivity... And these last few days, I've had the impression, or something like a perception, an impression of an AWESOME Power! The Power that would seem capable of bringing a dead man back to life, you know. An awesome Power that uses this [the body] without conscious identification, but quite, quite naturally, without... as if there were no resistance. It's a natural state, and it's neither this nor that nor that, it's... it's EVERYTHING (gesture showing an immense movement) which... which acts according to circumstances.

Usually I don't say anything (it's the first time I've said that), because there is still a sort of memory of what was [in the past], something remaining conscious that if those things are said quite simply as they are, then... the impression people would get... I don't know. The body doesn't care, but something is watchful – I see that “something” as a person (whom I don't know, besides) watching over my body and over circumstances, and stopping me from doing certain things... so there may be no catastrophes.

It's an impersonal person, I don't know; there's no personal relationship with it, but it's someone whose responsibility is to see to this body's well-being, and especially to its relations with others, because the body has reached the point where... it really couldn't care less.

Some curious things. Some people are quite well-disposed and even, I might say, full of affection, of care, and... I don't know, I can't explain, but certain things have to remain as they are and there should be nothing to disturb those people – but the body is quite unconcerned about that. The conscious, active being is turned only to the supreme Consciousness and exclusively concerned with doing what this Consciousness wants it to do, and so there are, as it were, people (or someone) whose responsibility is to see that things can be understood in the transitory state we are in. There.²

(silence)

But with people, when I am told about a circumstance, when someone (directly or through someone else) tells me some difficulty, some circumstance... there comes the clear, precise vision of what needs to be done, and it doesn't correspond to any thought, nothing at all (once I have said it, generally I don't even remember what I have said). And downright practical: this must be done, that must not be done.

Ordinary life, the ordinary way is as if projected onto a screen (it's not at all within, it's...), and constantly the disorder of ordinary life is as if shown – insubstantial, but perceptible. And if there were something [in Mother] still open to that, or even (let's put it very simply), if there is something still open, the result is a fact: a discomfort, or quite unpleasant things – more and more it's beginning to be unreal and unable to touch [Mother]... but you can't be sure.

It's a life which, described in detail, would be absolutely the life of... [a madman]. Luckily, I still appear to have some common-sense! (laughter)

But I don't talk about all that.

(At that precise moment, Satprem strongly had the following thought, which he almost told Mother: “If a caterpillar's vision were suddenly changed into a man's vision, it would clearly mean a bursting of its whole logic.”)

(long silence)

And you (to Sujata), do you have something to say?

Very often, afterwards when I am in front of you, I feel...

I can't hear.

After Satprem leaves, I come and do my pranam.³ Then, in front of your gaze, my true inner being seems to come to the front.

Yes.

And curiously, I have the sensation of a force of... Do you know the Ganges, the goddess Ganga? I feel an affinity with her.

With the river?

With that goddess.

Well, that's strange!

(silence)

This identification [with the Ganges] is the power of vital plasticity.... Probably there are in that way families of beings.

(Mother plunges in)

Do you get a special sensation when you have that? Do you feel something special?

(Sujata:) Right now, it's as if very interiorized, and at the same time with the inner being in front: both at the same time, like that.

Yes.

(Mother plunges in again)

¹ The two words are similar in French (pécher, to sin, and pêcher, to fish).

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² Seventeen years earlier, on 20 May 1953, in the course of a talk at the Ashram's Playground in front of the gathered disciples, Mother had asked this question: “Is it possible for one body to change without something changing in those around it? What will be your relationship with other objects if you have changed so much? Or with other beings?... It seems necessary for a totality of things to change, at least in certain relative proportions, so that one may exist, go on existing....” That may well be the whole problem.

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³ Generally, when Satprem leaves at the end of the conversation, Sujata remains alone with Mother for a few moments.

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