Workings of the Mother’s Force (HH 262)

The workings of this yoga do not take place through upadesha (instruction by a teacher) and techniques but by a constant opening to the Mother’s Force that will shift our psychological elements and change us. This talk touches upon some facets of this.

Words of the Mother

But how is it, if the mantra automatically contains the power of the experience, that it is always said that unless you have been “given” the mantra by your guru, it has no power?

That’s when you have no power of your own, naturally! If, for example, just anybody comes to me and asks me for a mantra, I won’t tell him he should find his own mantra inside….

What I said there applies to those who are in contact with their soul. But those who have no conscious contact with their soul cannot find their mantra – their head will search for words, but that’s nothing. I said the mantra must well up from within – but for them, nothing will well up! They won’t find it. They won’t find it, not a chance! So in that case, the guru passes on his own power.

Yes, but when you read a mantra in a book, for instance, it is said there’s no force in it – how is that, since the vibration is there?

But if you have the power within yourself and read the book, you will get the force! (Mother laughs) What’s required is the capacity to feel and make contact.

Ultimately, what does the guru do? He connects (gesture of junction), he is nothing but a link. It’s not “his” power he gives you (that’s what he thinks, but it’s not true): he is the link. He brings you into contact with the Power – a contact you don’t have without him. But those who don’t need a guru will make contact WITHOUT a guru.

It’s not at all like something he pulls out of his pocket and offers you! That’s not it at all: it’s the power to make contact….

Basically, the guru’s real power is to fill up the gaps! To bring you into contact: when you are in the higher planes, to bring you into contact with the Highest. Or to bring you into contact with your soul, your psychic being within, or to bring you into contact with the Supreme – but that not many can do.

(silence)

That’s what I saw when I spoke to you the other day about what I called a “bath of the Lord.” The atmosphere was full, really chockfull of a Presence (you can’t even call it a “vibration,” it’s much more than a vibration: it’s a Presence), but when people enter it, they don’t feel anything! Or if they do, they don’t even understand, it doesn’t correspond to anything in their consciousness. But if I concentrate a particular vibration on their consciousness, I bring them into contact with it. And all of a sudden they feel something, with the impression that it’s a new thing – it’s nothing new! What’s new is their capacity to perceive the thing.

In a general way, that’s how it works: the Lord is everywhere, His vibration is everywhere, but what’s new is the capacity to feel Him or be conscious of Him. From all eternity He has been there, for all eternity He shall be there….

I’ll give you the example of what Pavitra told me yesterday: he always used to go out of his body in his aspiration and to rise very high – I told him a hundred times that he shouldn’t do it, it wasn’t good (for HIM; to another I would have said to do it). He never understood, and every time he meditated, brrt! he would go out of his body. Then the other day he told me, “Ah, now I’ve understood! I was always seeking Mother up above, till suddenly I couldn’t find anything any more. So I concentrated here [in the body], and I found Mother immediately.” And he added, “It’s because now Mother is here!” (Mother laughs) I didn’t explain anything, but that was exactly the point!

* * *

The Force seems to act more strongly at a distance than near at hand – it’s odd. That is to say, it catches hold of people and won’t let go of them. Naturally, near at hand, there is always in me the constant will not to influence: to act without influencing, allowing a total freedom. And that … to tell the truth, people aren’t ready for it. Yet that’s how I understand things! I have the feeling that the world cannot be true unless it’s absolutely free.

And the more power you have, the less you should influence.

But it [the will not to influence] is probably in my very material consciousness, so at a distance it doesn’t count: people are caught, seized, held tight, and the Force won’t let go of them. Very interesting.

* * *

Since last night, a strange impression that the Divine has become … (how to formulate it?) like a golden Force pressing down like this (gesture of pressure on the earth). They alone, who by their aspiration are able to pass through to the Divine Origin, will escape catastrophes.

There was a catastrophe in Madras: one of our best cars was in a very serious accident.

Only those who have an aspiration, a sincere and unconditional aspiration towards the Divine, only they will escape – they will stand in a golden glory.

* * *

(Mother sits “looking”)

What do you see?

(silence)

I think I already told you, there’s a kind of golden Force pressing down (gesture); it has no material substantiality, and yet it feels terribly heavy….

Yes, yes.

… It presses down on Matter, to force it, to compel it to turn INWARDLY to the Divine – not an external flight (pointing above) but inwardly turning to the Divine. And the apparent outcome seems to be inevitable catastrophes. But along with this sense of inevitable catastrophe, there come solutions to situations or events that look simply miraculous.

As if both extremes were becoming more extreme: the good getting better and the bad worse. Like that. And a stupendous Power PRESSING down on the world. Such is my impression.

Yes, it’s very perceptible.

Yes, it’s as tangible as this (Mother feels the air between her fingers). And even in life circumstances, many things otherwise indifferent are becoming suddenly acute – acute situations, acute differences, acute ill wills – and at the same time, singular miracles. Singular. People on the verge of death are saved, inextricable situations are suddenly untangled.

And the same for individuals too.

Those who know how to turn to … (how shall I put it?) who SINCERELY call upon the Divine, who feel it’s the only salvation, the only way out, and I have seen that what we call the “Supramental,” for lack of a better word, is actually making the creation more susceptible to the higher Power, which we call “divine” because we … (it is divine compared to what we are, but … ). It’s something (gesture of descent and pressure) that will make Matter more susceptible and responsive to the Force. How can I explain it? … At present, whatever is invisible or imperceptible is unreal to us (I mean to human beings in general); we say that some things are “concrete” and others are not. But this Power, this Might, which is NOT MATERIAL, is becoming more concretely effective on earth than earthly material things. That’s it.

And that is how the supramental beings will protect and defend themselves. In its appearance it won’t be material but OVER MATTER its power will be greater than material things. Day by day, hour by hour this is getting truer and truer. The feeling that when this Force is guided by what we call the “Divine,” it has POWER, a real power – the power to move Matter, you understand; it can cause a MATERIAL accident, or save you from a wholly material accident, it can cancel the consequences of an absolutely material event – it is stronger than Matter. This is the totally new and incomprehensible fact. But it … (fluttering gesture in the atmosphere), it creates a sort of panic in the ordinary human consciousness.

That’s it. It seems that … things are no longer what they were. There’s really something new – things are NO LONGER what they were.

All our common sense, our human logic, our practical sense – collapsed, finished! No longer effective. No longer realistic. They are no longer relevant.

A new world, really.

(silence)

And in the body, whatever has trouble adjusting to this new Power creates difficulties, disorders and illnesses. Yet in a flash you sense that if you were totally receptive, you would become formidable. That’s the sensation. That’s more and more my sensation: that if the entire consciousness, the entire most material consciousness – the most material – were receptive to this new Power … one would become for-mi-dable.

(Mother closes her eyes)

But there is one essential condition: the ego’s reign must come to an end. The ego is now the obstacle. The ego must be replaced by the divine consciousness – what personally I call divine consciousness. Sri Aurobindo called it “supramental,” so we can call it supramental to avoid confusion, because as soon as you say “Divine,” people start thinking of a “God,” and that spoils everything. It isn’t like that. Not like that, it is the descent of the supramental world (Mother slowly lowers her fists), which is not mere imagination (pointing above): it is an ABSOLUTELY material Power. But (smilingly) with no need for any material means.

A world is trying to be born into this world.

(silence)

On several occasions, my body felt a sort of new discomfort, an anxiety; and something, not exactly a voice but it became words in my consciousness, said, “Why are you afraid? This is the new consciousness.” It happened several times. Then I understood.

(silence)

You see, what in terms of human common sense says, “This is impossible, it’s never been before,” that’s what is finished. This idiocy is over. It’s become a stupidity. Now we could say: it’s possible BECAUSE it has never been before. This is the new world and this is the new consciousness and this is the new Power; it is possible, and it is, and will be more and more manifest BECAUSE it is the new world, because it has never been before.

It will be because it has never been before.

(silence)

It’s lovely: it will be because it has never been before – BECAUSE it has never been.

(Mother looks up as if about to say something, then goes into meditation)

It is active – in you too. Not material and yet more concrete than Matter!

Yes, almost crushing.

Crushing, yes, just so…. Oh, it’s….

Whatever isn’t receptive feels crushed, but all that is receptive on the contrary feels a sort of … extraordinary expansion.

Yes. But that’s what’s so odd, there’s both!

Yes, both together.

You feel so expanded, as if everything in you would blow up, but at the same time there’s a sensation of being crushed …

Yes, but what feels crushed is what resists, what is unreceptive. One has only to open oneself. Then it becomes like a … a for-mi-dable thing. Fabulous! It’s our centuries-old habits that resist and give us that feeling, you know, but whatever can open up…. You feel as if you were becoming larger and larger and larger…. Magnificent. Oh, that’s it! …

May 6, 1972

* * *

The Force I spoke of yesterday is more and more active (gesture pressing down). The Action is becoming imperative. Crushing.

May 7, 1972

* * *

Mother, the other day you told me that for those who have sincerely given themselves to the Divine, for such persons what has to be done is done.

Yes, yes.

And you went on to say, “If such a person asks something for somebody else, that too is done.”

Yes, but not so completely.

What is unreceptive in that person distorts the Action.

Take for example someone who is ill and BELIEVES in the reality of his illness; the effect of the Action is lessened in proportion to his wrong belief.

Everything is organized down to the minutest detail, but it’s not preplanned as we do with our ordinary consciousness: the Force Simply PRESSES down and produces the required result. I could almost say: by any means whatsoever – any necessary means. It’s a Force that is PRESSING down upon the earth and making people do the most improbable things, those who seem the worst as well as the best, just to … to obtain the necessary result.

More and more it is so.

All our notions of good and evil are….

We have to keep reacting to things, precisely the reactions based on “good” and “evil,” the human conception of good and evil (it isn’t exactly a human “conception,” but an approximation of the Harmony) ….

(Mother plunges in and comes back moving her hand, as if waves were going through her fingertips)

Vibrations … vibrations transmitting the Divine without distortion. That’s it. That’s what is needed. And depending on circumstances or people, it takes one form or another – you understand?

Yes, Mother, I understand!

Everything we say is said using old ways of speaking.

(silence)

The Action is evident…. And it is the ego’s authority which is disappearing – increasingly disappearing. With total acceptance, you know, one that doesn’t even need to understand. We always want to understand in the old mental way – there’s NO NEED to understand. An acceptance like this (gesture, hands open).

Under that Pressure, the old remnants of authority, the remnants of the ego’s authority should disappear and be replaced by this (same gesture, hands open): a receptivity and obedience (not “obedience,” because there is no need to understand): to be impelled exclusively by the Divine. This in place of the ego. The last traces of the ego getting erased, and … (gesture, hands open) being replaced by … (same gesture).

I continually have the feeling (fifty times a day, perhaps) of being a little baby (gesture, kicking hands and legs), completely wrapped in and tossed about by the divine forces! (laughter) Exactly like that.

There are still…. It isn’t completely transparent, naturally, there still remain some old things, the ego’s old rule over the body, which causes grating and friction, but otherwise … otherwise just like a baby!

Like a baby.

* * *

There is a difference in the POWER of the action.

He (Sri Aurobindo) himself – he himself has a greater action, a greater power or action now than when he was in his body. Besides, that’s why he left – because it had to be done that way.

It’s very tangible, you know. His action has become very tangible. Of course, it isn’t something mental at all. It is from another region. But it isn’t ethereal or – it’s tangible. I could almost say material.

20 December 1972