It's neither life nor death.. BOTH are being changed.. into something still unknown.. dangerous and wonderful. On Nov 17, 1973, she left her body - why?
"Before dying falsehood rises in full swing. Still people understand only the lesson of catastrophe. Will it have to come before they open their eyes?" This is the year of Watergate, of Nixon's first trip to China, the assassination of the Israeli athletes in Munich, the first oil embargo. This is Mother's last lap. A lap strewn with heartrending little cries and stunning visions. The end of one world, the beginning of another.... whether we want it or not. "Sometimes, it is so new and unexpected, it's almost painful." And I would ask her, "But is it a state outside matter?" "I don't go outside of physical life, but.... it looks different. But it is strange. And it is PHYSICAL, that is the extraordinary thing! As if the physical had split in two.... A new state in matter. And it is ruled by something that is not the sun, I don't know what it is.... I am touching another world. Another way of being.... dangerous but wonderful." How I listened to her little breath as she gasped for air, a breath that seemed to come from another side of the world: "There is no difference between life and death. It's neither life nor death, it is.... something. It is not the disappearance of death you understand: BOTH are being changed.... into something still unknown, which seems at once extremely dangerous and absolutely wonderful." And what if "death" were merely the other, MATERIAL side of our human bowl, the sunlit shore for a species to come? A new condition on both sides of the world, in which life and death change into.... something else? "I am treading a very thin and narrow line...." And then this cry, this entreaty: "Let me do the work!" On November 17, 1973, she passed away - why?
(Mother had some cardiac trouble the day before.)
So?... Do you have something?
What about you? (Laughter)
Me... (laughing) it's all right. It's one difficult thing after another. Yesterday was what I call the "change of government" for the heart, so... it's a difficult moment. But now it's all right.
The other day, when I saw that little child playing (I still see it), on top of a HUGE mental head, giving it blows—it's the supramental. But what are we going to call that being?... We mustn't call it "superman," it isn't the superman: it's the supramental. Because, you see, the transition from animal to man is clear to us; the transition from man to supramental being is accomplished (or isn't) through the superman—there may be a few supermen (there are) who will actually make that transition, but that's not actually
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how it works. First, that supramental being has to be born.1 Now it's becoming plainer and plainer. The other day, I saw that little being (symbolically a child) sitting on a big mental head: it was the supramental being sitting, to symbolize its "independence," I could say, over the mind.
Things are becoming clearer. But we are just in the transitional period, the most difficult time.
Will some reach a similar state—at least similar or at any rate precursor to the supramental?... Such seems to be the present attempt, what is taking place now. And so you are no longer on this side, not yet on the other—you are... (suspended gesture). Rather a precarious condition.
Obviously, for all those who are born now and are here now have asked to participate in this, they have prepared for it in previous lives. From the standpoint of global knowledge, it would be interesting to know what's happening and how it's happening. But from the individual standpoint, it's not exactly pleasant(!), the period is difficult: you are no longer on this side, not yet on the other—just in between. There we stand.
Indeed, for passing into the supramental being it isn't necessary to pass though the overmind ...
I don't understand.
I mean that for contacting or reaching this SUPRA-mental consciousness or being, it is not necessary to pass through the overmental being.
What do you call "overmental being"?
What Sri Aurobindo calls "overmind."
Oh, no! No.
I see. Not necessary.
What Sri Aurobindo called overmind is the realm of the gods.
So it isn't necessary to pass through that.
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Oh, no, the realm of the gods... stands apart. I don't think it has much to do with the earth's problems. Only sometimes those gods enjoy meddling in earthly affairs. But they don't have much in common with the great Movement of transformation.
Yes, quite so.
They are immortal, aren't they, they are free (to a large extent, they are free and immortal). They have taken part in the earth's development only out of curiosity, as a sort of pastime!
Yes.
They may have helped humanity to understand that there is something beyond earth-life.
That was their usefulness.
At one time (laughing), I was very close to all these beings, they used to manifest in me, they would—well, they enjoyed it! And I enjoyed it, too! I was interested; but I never considered it as something essential.
So, in other words, the new being you saw is the supramental baby!
(Laughing) Yes! But I think this "baby" is a baby only symbolically.... I don't know if he will come as a child and then grow up—I have no idea. There are still some things that I don't know—plenty!
But what happened the day before yesterday is that, in the middle of the night, the heart passed from the old government of Nature to the divine government, so at one point there was... it was difficult. But accompanied by a... strange sensation, a sort of feeling that... the closest thing is the psychic consciousness. It has been governing the being for a long, long time—that's why the mind and the vital could be removed, because the psychic being had taken up the reins long, long ago.
As a matter of fact, I wanted to tell you (I don't know if I did2): the first time I went to Tlemcen (I don't remember when exactly),
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the first day I arrived at Tlemcen, Théon came to meet me and said... (I didn't understand then, but now I do!), he said, "You are now alone with me, aren't you afraid?" And I replied (I was absolutely conscious and calm).... I remember we were walking in his huge estate, we were walking up towards the house, and I told him (Mother raises her index finger), "My psychic being governs me—I am afraid of nothing." Well... (Théon started as if he had been burned).
I acquired that psychic consciousness just before leaving for Tlemcen. And it grew stronger there.
I don't know if this has been noted down somewhere....
Yes, you did tell me once.3
Oh, I told you about that conversation?
Yes, Mother, you told me about it.
It struck me, I never forgot it. All at once, my psychic being was there: "I am conscious of my psychic being, it protects me, I fear nothing...." Those may not have been the exact words, I don't know, but that was the general reply.
(long silence)
You have something?
I sense a change in me.
Ah! What?
I don't know. Last time you spoke of the "resistance" [of the subconscient] and that very evening I felt something like "a light of grace".
And then I felt lighter.
Aah! Yes....
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And now I have the feeling—I don't know if it's an illusion, but I really have the impression that something has changed, as if... the Grace came and untied a knot in me.
I feel something has changed...
It's true. It is true, but I wasn't sure you were fully conscious of it.
Oh, I was! I felt... but I'm always afraid of deluding myself, you know.
No—no, that's the mind in you, mon petit, give it a tap on the head!
I tangibly felt that... the Grace had DONE it.
Yes, that's right. Only the Grace can do that.
Yes, Mother, yes!
This is exactly the meaning of my vision: the transition won't take place according to mind's ways, it's a baby sitting on the mind and playing. I can still see it.
Yes, I experienced strongly how it's really the Grace that accomplishes everything.
Yes, yes.
All we can do is... call the grace, and that's all.
Yes, call, be receptive—eager for an answer.
I felt that very strongly, yesterday. I was going through a difficult moment—pain in the body, with irregular heartbeat (alternately starting and stopping), painful—when, just at that instant, the being simply... (Mother opens her hands): "What You will, Lord, what You will." Within a few hours everything was back in order. How was it done? I don't know. Only this (Mother opens her hands).
And for everything, everything, all problems, do like this (Mother opens her hands): what You will, Lord, what You will....
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I know—I say "will," but it's neither a vision nor the will of the Divine, it's... His way of being. A particular way of being—successive ways of being. We always think of a "conscious will," but it isn't like that: it's His way of being. The way of being of His consciousness. He has projected His consciousness into a creation: it's His way of being. And it's His way of being that changes.
Then, one understands that the mind isn't necessary—it's the way of being that changes. You follow?
(meditation)
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