The consciousness of the cells is being taught to break free of 'false matter' with resultant effect in every country and continent, and every branch of human knowledge.
A fire spread across the world that year, from Warsaw to Colombia, from Nanterre to Alexandria: "There are long periods when things are being prepared, and a moment comes when something happens; and this something is what will bring about a new development in the world. Like the moments when man appeared on earth; now it is another being." This is the second turning point of Mother's Yoga. She is 90. Auroville has just been founded: "A center for accelerated evolution." Martin Luther King is assassinated, and Robert Kennedy. Russia invades Czechoslovakia - what is going on? "I have the strong impression of an attempt to make us learn something like the secret of the functioning [of man, of the earth]. The method we have learned is constantly shown to be false, it doesn't conform to reality, and there is a will to make us find the true method, but through experience." As if the earth were shut in a bowl, prisoner of a "false matter": "There is a sort of web over the entire earth, and the body is being taught how to get out of it.... Little by little the consciousness of the cells is breaking that hold." And on the other side of the web all of a sudden: "Never in my whole life have I seen or felt anything so beautiful!.... The most marvellous hours ever possible on earth - why do people go looking up above for something which is right here!" The short-lived miracle of 1968 seems to be swallowed up, while the walls of our bowl are slowly but inexorably being shattered in every country, every continent and every branch of human knowledge. "A considerable amount of time would still seem necessary for everything to be ready to change. And yet, there is almost a promise that a sudden change is going to take place." Could it be that, one fine morning, one last pressure of circumstances will throw us headlong into a new consciousness?
I didn't want to make rules for Auroville, but I am going to be forced to start formulating certain things, because... there happens to be difficulties. I don't know what to do.
What I wanted to say came; it's very simple (Mother takes a written note), simply like this (it's about very small things):
"One must choose between getting drunk and living in Auroville, the two are incompatible."
It's not an innocent drunkenness, I mean it results in acts of violence, it verges on madness.
So of course, if we start along this road, we may also say this (Mother takes another note):
"One must choose between living in falsehood and living in Auroville, the two are incompatible."
May it be true!
We could say that those who get drunk do it to forget; but one
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doesn't come to Auroville to forget: one comes to Auroville, on the contrary, to remember.
Yes, we might rather put it in that form.
But the idea was mostly to insist on the CHOICE. Living in Auroville is a CHOICE. It's a choice, an attitude you adopt, a decision you make. Living in Auroville is a choice, you choose a certain life. But once you choose one thing, some others become incompatible.... At any rate, living in Auroville is an ACTION, a decision you make, an action.
But this (Mother points to her note) is a concession to the present state of mankind, because, to tell the truth, in Auroville there should only be individual cases. What I mean is this: there may be people who get drunk and are nonetheless fit to live in Auroville. So we can't make a general rule. But if we don't make a general rule, on what ground can we say to someone (who's been accepted, that's the difficulty), "No, you must change—either you stop this, or else you can't stay in Auroville..."?
What is said of alcohol can be said of drugs; and it can be said of many other things.
Many, yes, lots. It's only a beginning. You understand, I have seen that we're going to be faced with the need... It's the need to impose a choice—to say, "You must choose between this and that."
It's the same with drugs, in some people the effects aren't dangerous, or not harmful.
Ultimately, everyone's freedom is limited by the fact that it mustn't go against others' freedom. That's the limit.
Obviously it's hard to make general rules.
It's impossible.
In my case, I remember having taken opium for several years, and it did me good, it would soothe me, quiet me. Taking opium now would be absurd, but at the time it did me no harm.
But of course! I understand that very well! I see it so clearly, in such a universal way.... You see, a sentence like this (Mother
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shows her note) ought to be said to only one individual, that is, "It's like this FOR YOU—you must choose between overcoming your weakness or habit and living in Auroville, the two can't go together." But then, it becomes a purely individual question; to another you may well not need to say it.
That's why the most general formula is to say that any self-forgetfulness is contrary to life in Auroville. One doesn't go to Auroville to forget, or to forget oneself—any self-forgetfulness, in any form.
Ah, but "self-forgetfulness," if you take it from a moral standpoint...! (Mother laughs)
Forgetting one's true self.
(Mother laughs) The minute one formulates...
It would be more correct to say:
"Any pursuit of unconsciousness is contrary to life in Auroville."
That's more general. And if we want to be still more general, we could say,
"Any movement backward or downward is in contradiction to life in Auroville, which is a life of ascent towards the future."
But words...
Some articles have appeared in newspapers about Auroville's foundation, for instance with the theme, "A utopia on the way to realization." So then, there are those who tell you, "You'll never succeed!" Their argument is, "They are human beings and they will remain human"—that's where they're wrong. "Human nature cannot be changed," that's the basis on which they tell you, "You won't succeed." Therefore the only thing needed is not only to accept and to want the future, but to adhere to the will for transformation and progress. As a general formula, that's quite fine.
But you see, with drugs, for instance—take chloroform used for operations: well, on every individual chloroform has different effects (they don't accept that in theory, but it's a fact). We have S.
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here, who was an anesthetist, and the upshot of his experience is that it has a different effect on everyone. Some it hurls into unconsciousness (the large majority, I think), but in certain cases, on the contrary, people are thrown into another consciousness.
And it's the same with everything.
So my note won't do, it can only do individually: "That's how it is in your case"; but in another case, it may not be incompatible at all.
So we'll have to deal with it little by little.... It'll be interesting!
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