The 'yoga of the cell' leads to 'true matter' and eventually the victory over death. A collective transformation sufficient to create a new species on earth is needed.
This year, all the features of the yoga of the cells become clear: "A growing conviction that a perfection achieved in matter is a far more perfect perfection than any other. The consciousness expressed in transformed cells is a marvel: it legitimises all these ages of misery. Oh, what a fuss all those gods make." This year marks the discovery of "true matter".... without fuss: "In that cellular limpidity, there are no more problems: the solution precedes the problem. That is, things arrange themselves automatically." It's another mode of life on earth - "such a natural way of being" - in a body freed from its mental shackles and the laws of false matter: "The extraordinary impression of the unreality of suffering the unreality of illness.... It does not cure illness: it annuls it - it makes it unreal.... And then you see: as the functioning gradually grows perfect, it necessarily, inevitably means victory over death." And meanwhile, Surveyor is digging the ground of the moon with its mechanical arms, while our own secrets remain buried in a little cell: "We can travel anywhere, we know what's going on anywhere.... and we don't know what's going on inside ourselves." War is raging in Biafra, the Israeli troops are marching toward Suez, American planes are bombing Haiphong, China explodes its first thermonuclear bomb.... and so on. "A tremendous conflict over earth." At stake is a new earth, or a return to the old fiasco: "A local and momentary manifestation is not ruled out, but what is needed is a collective transformation sufficient to create a new species on earth.... This fact is certain." Will we understand where the real way out is, and the Marvel concealed in a human body?
(For the past eight days Mother has been "ill," just as the conflict between Israel and Egypt was unfolding.)
A great battle.... I have learned a great many things.
And it's going on.
I've made discoveries.... Diseases, accidents, catastrophes, wars, all that, is because the human material consciousness is so small, so narrow that it has a rabid taste for drama. And of course, behind there is the vital being having fun, influences too... anyway all that enjoys an opportunity to delay the divine Work and make things difficult. And all that takes pleasure in that naturally encourages drama. But the seed of the difficulty is that pettiness, extreme pettiness of the physical consciousness—the material physical consciousness—which has an absolutely perverse taste for drama. Drama—the slightest thing has to make a drama: if you have a toothache, it becomes a drama1; if you bang against something, it becomes a drama; if two nations quarrel, it becomes a drama—everything becomes a drama. The taste for drama. The slightest upset in the body, the least disorder, which should go completely unnoticed, oh, it makes a big fuss,
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a drama. The taste for drama. I was thoroughly disgusted.
Everything, everything... Like the loud buzz at a fair.
The attack was apparently violent, so violent that after studying and observing it I was forced to think that some people were amusing themselves doing black magic.... Everything took on fantastic proportions. The same teeth I've had for such a long time (in the same state for such a long time, that is!), which for years hadn't given me any trouble, suddenly fancied they too had to make a drama! So, a raging toothache, swelling—absolutely ridiculous, absolutely. And you know, this discovery of drama wasn't thought out, it wasn't an observation: it was an acute experience, caught hold of as you would catch a thief. I caught it. And it's universal, all over the earth.
Because EVERYTHING was creating drama—the loud buzz of a fair, the tumult, all of it, a big fuss. Like those people over there when they fought each other, the same fuss (gesture expressing the seething turmoil of the war). What a to-do they make! What with "rights" and "duties" and "honour," oh!... Then, as things were pretty bad (I was almost completely incapacitated2), I asked what it meant (Mother laughs), and he showed me the picture! Then I understood.
The minute I understood, things started calming down (the raging toothache as well as the raging war in Palestine).
It's profoundly ridiculous, and unhealthy, moreover.
You understand, once the thing had been seen—seen and felt and lived completely—they started slowing down there. I can't say things are quite all right as yet, far from it, but anyway I think the worst of the catastrophe has been averted.3
Grotesque.
Things are somewhat better. There is still some friction.... "Traitors," "enemies," oh!... Now they say that Indonesia and Pakistan are up to something.... And with EVERYTHING, you know, from the biggest to the smallest, from what seems the most important (what disturbs the most things, at any rate) to the least little physical discomfort, it's like that: a very small, such a very small consciousness, petty and limited like that, and narrow, which makes a mountain out of a molehill.
There you are.
(silence)
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Because what took place is nothing new, it has happened so many times before, but the body's experience was different.... Previously, the consciousness of all the other inner beings was there and would fortunately counterbalance this idiotic tendency: even the vital, the vital being which also loves grand effects, but provided at least they are great, vast, powerful enough to be on a large scale and save it from being ridiculous; and then, positively above all that, all the rest, with a smile. But this time, this body was left TO ITSELF, to learn. And it has learned.
But death too, is the result of the taste for drama—what a pretty drama, ugh!
Well, there you are.
And as, naturally, it became impossible to eat, another consequence was that it became impossible to do anything.... The doctor made me take proteins that don't need to be digested, those that are directly injected into the blood, but he made me swallow them. Then I was able to resume some work—I could no longer speak, no longer eat, no longer...
It went on worsening nicely, till the day (I forget which) when I said with "great indignation" (Mother takes on a dramatic tone), "What is this creation in which..." (I said it in English) "in which living is suffering, dying is suffering, everything is suffering...." (Mother laughs) As soon as that was uttered, it was enough. And the consciousness was there, saying, "There is only one remedy, but the world rejects that remedy." So I was put in the presence of the fact, face to face with it, the thing staring at me—oh, what a pretty drama!
I wondered whether it was peculiar to the earth and if the other planets and suns weren't in this idiotic situation?... On an external level it would be interesting to know. But I am practically certain that death, for instance, is something that belongs exclusively to earth life—death as we FEEL it, as we understand it. Yet animals take part in it, but they don't have man's mental deformation.... But the taste for drama is exclusively human, because those animals that live with man catch the malady, while those that don't live with man don't have it at all.
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I saw this child (Sujata) on Sunday; I didn't look too great, did I?
(Sujata:) No, Mother!
I couldn't speak anymore....
Well, that's more or less something of my experience. Oh, it was ... many things, many more things than that.
For two days the impression of not knowing whether you are alive or dead (but these are words on the surface), of not being very sure of the difference it makes.... And then, the body asking this question: "But everyone has his theory: one says [death] is like this, another says it's like that, another one says something different again, but what is our OWN experience like?..." And it was like that (gesture of hanging between two worlds).
Then the body suddenly remembered (that was rather interesting; it's more recent, it was yesterday or the day before), the body suddenly remembered that it had once been brought back to life. It said, "But you knew at that time, you knew since you brought me back to life."4 Then I recollected what I used to know (and had stopped knowing because the knowledge was quite incomplete—it was entirely external and lacked the higher knowledge), I recollected the experience, and the two things came together (the old knowledge and the new). "Now," I said, "this is interesting!"
You know, the story of the soul "leaving the body," is childishness! Because I had that experience too, of leaving (not the soul! It's entirely independent, always and in everyone), of leaving the psychic being, the individual psychic being. When I left here in 1915, I left my psychic being here deliberately. I left it here, I didn't take it with me. Consequently, the body can live without the psychic being (it was rather sick, by the way, but that wasn't the reason—it's again the taste for drama!... Oh, always the taste for drama!).
There we are.
So the problem narrows down more and more.... If your most material vital being goes out, it doesn't make you die—it puts you in catalepsy, but it doesn't make you die. What makes you die?...
There are two things that make you die. One (the one that precedes the dramatic human existence) is wear and tear. What does wear and tear come from? From Ignorance, obviously. From Ignorance and the incapacity to renew forces; and that means the whole lower life: it decomposes, recomposes, decomposes again.... But it's only with
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animality and the beginning of a mental functioning that (Mother takes on a grandiloquent tone) "death" comes, such as we conceive it. But that is when the vital element that gives life (what we call "life") breaks down. There are innumerable reasons for that, all of which stem from the same source. Of course, taken together, it is the incapacity to follow the movement of progress: the need to remix everything together in order to start all over again. But for those who are beginning to think, that no longer has any reason to exist.
An accident?... An accident to the material combination? But what accident, since the heart can stop and start again? It's a question of how long the accident lasts.
If, for this wear and tear, this deterioration (which comes from the Inconscient and is the result of the RESISTANCE of the Inconscient), if for this we can substitute the aspiration for progress and transformation (not with words—the vibration)... That experience has been given to me several times. For example, suppose there is something which goes wrong, there is a pain somewhere, something disorganized that no longer works properly; if there is the vision and conception in the faith (faith and consecration to the Supreme) that it's deliberate, that the Supreme has allowed it to be (how can I express it? All words are meaningless), has allowed or willed it, or wanted it to be, because to Him it seems the best way to transform the thing, to have it make the necessary progress, if the cells that are somewhat disorganized and "sick," as they say, are able to feel this... then straight away it takes a marvellous turn for the better—immediately, in five minutes, ten minutes. I could give concrete, precise examples, with all the details. So that means bringing the two extremes into contact, we could say. And if that can become the normal life of the elements which make up this outer form, then there is no reason why... No, there is no need to die, no need whatsoever. There comes a point when death loses all meaning.
And one learns in the smallest detail, in the little cell or the faint sensation (and when it comes down to feelings, there is something which is the embryo of thought—oh, then...), the taste for drama. Ah, then everything is explained.
The taste for drama, the need for catastrophe.
That's what was there, pressing and pressing on the earth to bring about all the conditions for a resounding grand finale (Mother shrugs her shoulders).
And only one remedy: a widening into eternal peace ... To break limits, become immense.
(long silence)
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You said just a while ago that your body remembered an earlier death...
Oh, yes.
But you didn't say what that recollection was.
Yes, everybody knows it: it happened at Tlemcen while I was working with Théon. I had gone out in a wholly material way, the body was in a cataleptic state, and something came, something occurred that cut the link. So the link was cut.
But what was the experience like at that time?
The experience was that... (laughing) impossible to get back in there! But Théon was there (Théon got such a fright!), and there was at that time the knowledge of the occult (a good deal of knowledge!), the knowledge was there and then the will (Mother makes a gesture of pushing to re-enter the body), and also an inner faith (but I never used to talk about that), and a concentration. And he was capable, he knew. He knew how to "pull." And the body hadn't deteriorated, you see, it wasn't damaged, so it wasn't difficult. It was in very good condition, but the thread was cut, which means that what gives life had gone out and could not get back in.
I came back in as a result of the power and the will, because... In fact, simply because I still had something to do on earth.
It happened in 1910, I think.
Thus it's not because the soul leaves the body.
Oh, that's just words!
It is likely that the soul resolves, having seen that the body is either unworthy or unfit or incapable or unwilling or... whatever, and so the soul decides that the body must die and it may go; but it is not the fact of the soul's going that kills the body. There are innumerable people who are without a soul—they have a soul, but their soul isn't in their body—many people. And they go on living quite well.
It's more difficult however, to live without the psychic being. The psychic being, of course, is the covering—the individualized covering—between the eternal soul and the transitory body; and it becomes formed, individualized, it becomes more and more individually conscious. When that leaves the body, the rest generally follows. But I
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myself have had the experience of doing it deliberately, so I KNOW. One has to know how to do it, but it can be done. My psychic being stayed here with Sri Aurobindo, and I left with my mental, vital and physical beings. It was a ... slightly precarious condition. But as I also kept the contact quite consciously, it could be done.
What people call "death"... I see lots of people who to me are living dead (they are those who are without their psychic being, or even those who have no contact with their soul). But to know that, one must have the inner vision. But what people call "death," that is, the decomposition of the cells and dissolution of the form, is when the most material "vital subdegree," which brings into contact with Life—with the vital force, life—goes out. That is how death occurs in animals, for example. And that vital subdegree generally goes away when the external organism is unable to continue—when, for instance, it's cut in two or the heart has been removed, or anyway when something quite radical has happened to it! Because some people have met with accidents and had many parts missing, yet they lived on. But even cardiac arrest I can say, even that doesn't necessarily mean death, since after stopping, the heart can start up again. Those who have the material knowledge tell you that during a few... I don't know if it is a few seconds or a few minutes, the heart can start up again; after that, decomposition sets in. With decomposition it's over, naturally.
Therefore, we could correctly say that there are kinds of GRADATIONS in death. Gradations in life and gradations in death: there are beings that are more or less alive, or if we want to put it negatively, there are beings that are more or less dead. Oh! But for those who know, and who know that this material form can manifest a supramental light, well, those who don't have the supramental light in them are already a little dead. That's how it is. So there are gradations. What people are accustomed to call "death" is just a purely external phenomenon, because it's something they can't deny: it falls to pieces.
But I have seen people who were supposedly dead (not many in my family because it wasn't the custom to let the children see them, and once I was grown-up there were only very few occasions), but I have seen a few here. And they weren't all in the same state at all—not at all.
There was the case of Sri Aurobindo. "He is dead," the doctors
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decided—he was absolutely alive. Absolutely living. And even after five days, when they put him into ... it was because of (how should I put it?) the pressure of the outside world, and because it was impossible to preserve him. We had to consent. But I cannot say he was dead! He wasn't at all dead, it was perfectly obvious. The body was already beginning to ... (very little, but a little at the end of the fifth day), that is, the skin was losing its colour, but ... (Mother makes a glorious gesture).
For the first three days, I remained standing there, near his bed, and in an absolutely—well, to me, it was absolutely visible—all the organized consciousness that was in his body DELIBERATELY came out of it and into mine. And not only did I see it but I felt the FRICTION of its entry.
Then people say, "He is dead"—that's ignorance.
All that supramental power he had gradually attracted into and organized in his body came into me METHODICALLY.
I didn't say anything to anyone because it was nobody's business, nobody's concern. I remained standing there and ... (gesture showing the forces passing from Sri Aurobindo into Mother's body).
You know, people revel in high-sounding words and go on talking and talking—they don't even know what they're talking about.
Not very long ago, I saw first of all one or two photographs of someone, then he came to see me. I said, "He is dead, he's a dead man." And I don't mean dissolution at all (of course not! Since he came in and spoke—he spoke very loudly, thinking himself very alive, in fact): he was dead. So....
Some time ago, I had said that the cells were wondering, "But what is death?" They kept wondering like that. And just yesterday or the day before, because of a certain state which came, it was as if the Knowledge that constantly comes from above was saying to them, "Why? Why do you wonder? You have had the experience, you know how it is." Then, to the small central cellular consciousness (there is a small central consciousness of the cells,5 which is now gradually growing and being worked out), this Knowledge said, "Don't you remember? You know how it was." Ah, then the memory of the full
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experience in all its details came back—it was true, they did know.
Why are we so ridiculous?
We think we are ... we think we are so great, so wise, so ... Oh, all the virtues we give ourselves! (Mother laughs) So courageous, so enduring, so ... An act we put on for ourselves our whole life long.
At that time, for a few moments, there was the certitude of such a simplicity!... A simplicity ... (how can I put it?) whose immensity made it all-powerful.
That's still literature. It's the mind's play-acting: pretty sentences.
No words, no sentences, no wonderful gestures, no attitudes ...
(Mother goes into contemplation)
Oh, for those who like definitions, here's another answer to "What is the Divine?"—a smiling and luminous Immensity.
And THERE, you know, it's there. THERE.
Ah, shall we work? Enough chattering!
What makes me think that there were external adverse wills is that from every side there kept coming fine-sounding words—fine-sounding sentences, suggestions (dramatic suggestions, precisely) announcing a considerable number of catastrophes. They come from every side, like this (swarming gesture, like a rising tide), like so many snakes waiting there, kept at arm's length, rushing up as soon as they're given the opportunity to do so.... Which proves that there's clearly something the matter.
Suggestions like this one, for instance: "Oh, now you're well, you are strong and can speak—ah, but you'll see what happens to you." Suggestions and suggestions.... You understand, it can only come from rotten human thoughts. A swarm of things, each one uglier than the next one, comes like that. And you see them come (same gesture like a rising tide of snakes), you see them come like that.... From the basest to the most violent.
There was also, in relation to those possibilities of magic and also to "adverse " forces, a vision of it all as being a part of the great Play (gesture from below), but... This Immensity, luminous and smiling, an immensity... ("immensity" is a word—"infinite" too is a word),
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something... absolutely limitless, which simply goes like this (gesture of descent) in a movement of manifestation; then, at a certain point, It encounters a sort of movement from below that seizes hold of That and turns That into... what we see. In the higher part, it's a mixture of perverted mind and extremely powerful vital, which obviously takes pleasure in the distortion; and as That becomes more concrete it becomes all those human reactions; and when That draws near the earth, then... ah, you have the fine mess men have made of the earth's atmosphere. So this Thing, this smiling, luminous, marvellous Immensity, so...which is a living and conscious bliss... That is what it becomes.
And if by chance, by miracle, one drop falls without getting completely distorted, it becomes a miracle!
(At the end of the interview, the conversation turns to Satprem's health and a certain haemoptysis.)
... Tell your cells not to make a drama and you'll see! If you know how to tell them ...
They aren't bad-willed, they're idiotic (Mother laughs), that's not the same thing!
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