Starts the terrible years.The change is DONE: a new mode of being of the cellular consciousness has appeared on earth. The future awaits - will the 'old' yield?
The beginning of the terrible years.... There was the feeling that Mother had found the secret of the change, conquered all she could from her own body, and that she was now sitting there, surrounded by the pack, just putting up with each and every resistance of the old species. "The change is DONE. Everything is tooth and nail, ferociously after me, but it's over." A new mode of being of the cellular consciousness had appeared on earth, as one day, in inert matter, there appeared a new mode of being called life - but this time it is "overlife": "The impression there is a way of being of the cells that would be the beginning of a new body; only, when that comes, the body itself feels it is dying." What would be the feeling of the first corpuscle to experience life? "The body feels it has reached the point of.... unknown. A very, very strange sensation. A sort of new vibration. It's so new that.... I can't speak of anguish, but it's.... the unknown. A mystery of the unknown." And there, what we call death is like the other side of the bowl for the former fish, and yet it is not "another world": "They are surprisingly one within the other! There is something there.... Is it possible? For overlife is both life and death together." And then, this cry of the breakthrough: "What appears to us as 'the laws of nature' is nonsense!...." Another world ON EARTH in which the old mortal laws of our bowl break down.... into something else? "I have just had a fantastic vision of the cradle of a future.... which is not very far. It's like a formidable mass suspended above the earth." But will the old pack let her go through to the end?
(Mother begins with the translation of two letters of Sri Aurobindo for the next issue of the Bulletin.)
"It is much easier for the Sadhak [disciple] by faith in the Mother to get free from illness than for the Mother to keep free—because the Mother by the very nature of her work had to identify herself with the Sadhaks, to support all their difficulties, to receive into herself all the poison in their nature...
Very kind of them! (Mother laughs)
"...to take up besides all the difficulties of the universal earth-Nature, including the possibility of death and disease in order to fight them out. If she had not done that, not a single Sadhak would have been able to practise this Yoga....
(Mother nods her head)
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"...The Divine has to put on humanity...
"Put on humanity...." This is fine!
"...in order that the human being may rise to the Divine. It is a simple truth...
(Mother laughs)
"...but nobody in the Ashram seems able to understand that the Divine can do that and yet remain different from them—can still remain the Divine." 8 May 1933 The Mother, 25.317
"...but nobody in the Ashram seems able to understand that the Divine can do that and yet remain different from them—can still remain the Divine."
8 May 1933 The Mother, 25.317
There's another text, which starts with a question:
"People in the Ashram believe that their difficulties and illnesses are taken by the Mother on herself and therefore she has sometimes to suffer. But at that rate there would be too much onrush of these things on her from many Sadhaks. An idea comes to me of taking upon myself some of these difficulties and illnesses so that I can also suffer with her pleasantly?"
(Mother laughs a lot) Pleasantly!... With a question mark.
Sri Aurobindo answers:
"Pleasantly? It would be anything but pleasant either for you or for us. "It is rather a crude statement of a fact. The Mother in order to do her work had to take all the Sadhaks inside her personal being and consciousness; thus personally (not merely impersonally) taken inside, all the disturbances and difficulties in them including illnesses could throw themselves upon her in a way that could not have happened if she had not renounced the self-protection of separateness. Not only illnesses Page 263 of others could translate themselves into attacks on her body—these she could generally throw off as soon as she knew from what quarter and why it came—but their inner difficulties, revolts, outbursts of anger and hatred against her could have the same and a worse effect....
"Pleasantly? It would be anything but pleasant either for you or for us.
"It is rather a crude statement of a fact. The Mother in order to do her work had to take all the Sadhaks inside her personal being and consciousness; thus personally (not merely impersonally) taken inside, all the disturbances and difficulties in them including illnesses could throw themselves upon her in a way that could not have happened if she had not renounced the self-protection of separateness. Not only illnesses
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of others could translate themselves into attacks on her body—these she could generally throw off as soon as she knew from what quarter and why it came—but their inner difficulties, revolts, outbursts of anger and hatred against her could have the same and a worse effect....
That's still true.... With some people, as soon as they come, I'll suddenly feel a disorder, or I'll start coughing, or... Then when I look, I see why. When I see why, I can keep the thing at a distance. It's curious.
"...That was the only danger for her (because inner difficulties are easily surmountable)...
That's so true! For that, a smile is enough.
"...but matter and the body are the weak point or crucial point of our Yoga, since this province has never been conquered by the spiritual Power, the old Yogas having either left it alone or used on it only a detail mental and vital force, not the general spiritual force. It was the reason why after a serious illness caused by a terribly bad state of the Ashram atmosphere...
"...I had to insist on her partial retirement so as to minimise the most concrete part of the pressure upon her. Naturally, the full conquest of the physical would revolutionise matters, but as yet it is the struggle." 31 March 1934 The Mother, 25.317
"...I had to insist on her partial retirement so as to minimise the most concrete part of the pressure upon her. Naturally, the full conquest of the physical would revolutionise matters, but as yet it is the struggle."
31 March 1934 The Mother, 25.317
How what he says remains true—that's first rate!
Is the "revolution" still far away, or close?
Alas! (Mother laughs)
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Soon afterwards
They told me you're seeing... (Mother tries to recall a name) Someone who sees you often, whom I don't know.
I see lots of them!
So it seems!... How come?
I wonder what I should do, in fact.
When do you see them?
They've found the way: I'll go out and...
(Mother laughs a lot) That's right!
So you go out of your home...
I go out in the evening around 5:30 for a bit of fresh air. First I go to the Samadhi—they catch me at the Samadhi and go around with me; then they come up to the beach and stay with me until I come home.... So I see all kinds. I see lots of them.
Are some interesting?
Yes. I let them, because I feel it's useful.1
Oh, useful, certainly, but you shouldn't tire yourself. Because, you know, they will... (Mother makes a gesture of swallowing).
Yes, it's tiring, that's true.
They find it quite natural to absorb you completely.
Oh, its tiring.
It's the same thing for me with people who come and see me.... I had to start putting up a fight because otherwise I used to say yes, yes, yes....2 They stay on till 1:00 P.M., and then... That can't be.
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Be careful.
I don't know what I should do.
If it's only while you're outside, it's all right.
At home, I'm rather fierce and I close my door.
That's what I meant: don't let them in.
Oh, a few still manage to slip in.
No, no, don't let them in. Because then you can't live anymore—you're only food for them.
Yes, it's tiring.
No, outside it's all right, it doesn't stop you from breathing the air, but inside, no.
You wanted to know about someone I see? What "someone" did they tell you about?
I don't remember.
Recently I saw someone I found very interesting. A young man. His name is L.
So then?
He quite strikes me as a young man with a past behind him, who's suddenly had rather surprising experiences. He seems to understand from within, to go very fast.
Yes, that must be him.
I'll give you one example: he was with Z and asked Z how the syllable OM should be pronounced (he didn't know). Z told him. Then he repeated just that word, and he says that it suddenly became absolutely awesome, as if there were hundreds of amplifiers and all of Matter everywhere said OM.
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Oh, he's sensitive.
Yes, that's fine.
Yes, he is interesting.... So he asks me lots of questions because suddenly he's just discovering all this.
That's interesting.
Yes, its useful and interesting.... It will be good when you see him. He first had experiences in Paris with drugs.
Oh!
Then, he told me, "But when I saw I could have experiences like that, without drugs, I said to myself it was much better!"... But he's fine, not distorted.
(silence)
(Mother holds out a flower) What is it?
It's "Power of Truth in the Subconscient".... Not easy!
(Mother laughs) The flowers are quite bold!
(Mother takes another flower) This is a "Psychological Perfection".... It's to find that [the power of truth in the subconscient].
We're preparing a book about flowers. There will be color photos of flowers, their significance, and a comment by me! They make me write a comment on every flower.... So I'm having fun! It will be interesting.
But in the subconscient, some things have a power of recurrence....
Oh!...
Not only that, you feel it's a power IN ITSELF, quite independent of anything, like a self-existent entity.
Yes.
So what can one do about it?
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It will only change when everything changes.
Yes, it's a daily battle.
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