A change must take place at the atomic level..to undo the power of death. A new perception of life emerges with 'true matter', the matter of the next species.
"The only hope for the future is a change in man's consciousness. It is left to men to decide if they will collaborate to this change or if it will have to be imposed upon them by the power of crushing circumstances." As the new post gradually infiltrates Mother's body it is the earth one wonders about. How is the earth going to absorb "this vibration as intense as a superior kind of fire"? "I see very few bodies around me capable of bearing it.... So what's going to happen?" It is the year of the first Chinese atomic bomb. Mother is 86. "A tiny, infinitesimal, stippled infiltration - the miracle of the earth!" A catastrophic miracle? Isn't that butterfly some sort of catastrophe to the caterpillar? "Death is no solution, so we are here seeking another solution - there must be another solution." Imperturbably, Mother descends deeper into the cellular consciousness and deeper still: "A kind of certainty, deep in matter that the solution lies there.... It is at the atomic level that a change must take place; the question concerns the state of infinitesimal vibrations in matter." Time veers into something else: "Perhaps it is into the past that I go, perhaps the future, perhaps the present?...." And even the laws of matter change: "As soon as you reach the domain of the cells, that sort of heaviness of matter disappears. It becomes fluid and vibrant again. Which would tend to show that happiness, thickness, inertia have been added on - it's false matter, the one we think or feel, but not matter as it really is." So what, then, would true matter be, the matter of the next species? "I am on the threshold of a new perception of life, as if certain parts of my consciousness were changing from the caterpillar state to the butterfly state...." And the earth groans and protests.... at what? "The whole youth seems to be seized by a strange vertigo...." Are we going to move on to a next species or not?
(Satprem reads Mother an old "Talk" of February 24, 1951, in which she refers to the memory of past lives and the unbridled imagination of certain people.)
I didn't name her, but it was Annie Besant. She recounted all her lives with all the details—right from the ape!
I didn't read her books, incidentally.
Oh, I tried several times, but it's really all stories, it gets on your nerves.
Yes, that's what I call "spiritual storybooks." Worse than that: spiritual pulp novels!
It's shallow. And it has done a great deal to devalue true knowledge.
(Mother nods her head)
Page 187
(Then Satprem reads a passage in which Mother talks about young children who remember their previous lives, the village where they lived, etc., with precise descriptions.)
That's amusing: a few days ago, after I saw you last time, one day I saw a whole story about that, which came back to me (it takes the form of a memory, but those things come from outside). It was about a seven-year-old child who told all his memories of his past lives. It came all at once, and I thought, "But why am I seeing this?" I watched it all and why and how it happened—a long story. And then it went away. It must have been while you were writing down the Talk!
It keeps happening like that all the time!
I still wonder, "But why has this come?" instead of saying to myself, "Oh, here he is reading this story!"
Amusing.
It's growing more and more precise. I lack a very tiny thing in the receiving set... a very tiny impersonalization. But maybe if it were there the attention wouldn't be caught: the thing would unfold (Mother shows a film being projected in front of her), and then it would go away.
For the moment, it comes, I stop it [the "film"], and then I work on it to clarify the ideas, put things in their place, see all the relationships; and when the work is finished, it goes away.
Only, it takes the form of a memory, so I wonder why I "remember" that—it's a lack of true objectification. That's how I explain it: otherwise, maybe the thing wouldn't be stopped, it would pass on.
But it is an entire "reconstruction" of the mental functioning.
(From the same Talk from the past, Satprem reads a passage in which Mother tells the story of Queen Elizabeth, who, dying, received a delegation from the people in spite of her physician's protests: "We shall die afterwards.")
Is it recent?
It's from 1951.
Again this whole story of Elizabeth came back to me a few days ago!
Since then, a part of the consciousness has been more self-assured, but it hasn't changed its attitude... (how can I explain it?...). Its
Page 188
attitude towards the Divine, towards the Work and towards life, is the same, but there is a greater clarity and a greater certainty—and a sort of integrality in the experience.
But I said, "It's recent," because the things that to me are old are those that give me the feeling of having changed my position and of having a completely opposite outlook—this Talk hasn't changed.
This remark, "We shall die afterwards," is my own experience, it wasn't a "dream"—in fact, it's never dreams: it's a sort of STATE you enter VERY CONSCIOUSLY, and all at once you relive a thing.
Even now I can see the picture: I see the picture of the people, the populace, myself, the gown, the person who nursed me—I see the whole scene. And I answered... It was so obvious! I felt so strongly that things are governed by the will that I answered, "We shall die afterwards," quite simply.
In English, not in French!
Just before Satprem leaves, Mother shows him a stack of letters:
There are very funny things all the time: I answer letters I haven't received! Then I receive them afterwards—my answer is already written down!
Things of that sort....
Home
The Mother
Books
Agenda
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.