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?
Perhaps you remember that in January, Msgr. R. wrote to you, and you concentrated on him for a long time; then you asked me to write him and ask "if he had been conscious of something."1 I have received his reply: one letter addressed to me and another to you. Here's what he writes to me (his answer was delayed because of Cardinal Tisserant's death):
"My brother, "... Actually, on the 29th of January (between five and six o'clock), Mother paid me a visit. An inner visit, but to me it was beyond a shadow of doubt. She told me so many things... in so short a time. "I think I am now ready to break with an entire past that has brought me nothing but deception, illusion and trickery...." Page 148
"My brother,
"... Actually, on the 29th of January (between five and six o'clock), Mother paid me a visit. An inner visit, but to me it was beyond a shadow of doubt. She told me so many things... in so short a time.
"I think I am now ready to break with an entire past that has brought me nothing but deception, illusion and trickery...."
Page 148
And this is what he writes to you:
"Since that unforgettable 29th of January (between five and six o'clock), I have been constantly living with you. I have never felt your presence so strongly. Not a bodily presence next to mine, but a spiritual presence made of affection and love. "I have heard and understood your message. "Yes, I know, I must change the direction of my life. The time has come. Soon nothing will keep me from doing it... not even pseudo-duty to this one or that one. "I would like, I want to work with you to pursue an ideal—an ideal that fills my whole being with enthusiasm. "Everything I have so painstakingly created is collapsing.... I am left with a feeling of having worked and suffered in vain and for nothing. "And so I turn to you in total trust. "The death of Cardinal Tisserant, who for twenty-one years was a peerless father to me, has plunged me into total disarray.... I feel like an orphan.... It is thus with all my earnestness that I say to you: Mother, help me to live again."
"Since that unforgettable 29th of January (between five and six o'clock), I have been constantly living with you. I have never felt your presence so strongly. Not a bodily presence next to mine, but a spiritual presence made of affection and love.
"I have heard and understood your message.
"Yes, I know, I must change the direction of my life. The time has come. Soon nothing will keep me from doing it... not even pseudo-duty to this one or that one.
"I would like, I want to work with you to pursue an ideal—an ideal that fills my whole being with enthusiasm.
"Everything I have so painstakingly created is collapsing.... I am left with a feeling of having worked and suffered in vain and for nothing.
"And so I turn to you in total trust.
"The death of Cardinal Tisserant, who for twenty-one years was a peerless father to me, has plunged me into total disarray.... I feel like an orphan.... It is thus with all my earnestness that I say to you: Mother, help me to live again."
(Mother remains concentrated for a very long time)
It's a beautiful letter.
(silence)
Is he French?
Yes, Mother.
What day is it today? And what time is it there?
Today is Saturday. It's about five o'clock in the morning there.... Do you have a message for him?
Tell him (words are so restrictive) that when I heard his letter, I saw—I saw and felt—the marvelous action of the divine Grace. There was a sort of... flood of Grace concentrated on him, and it stayed there, on him—it is there, concentrated on him (embracing gesture).
Page 149
It is very concrete—very concrete and very powerful: a concentration.
As if the Grace were concentrated on an instrument of the Divine, of the divine Power—an instrument.
For me, you see, there was constantly: May Your Will be done, Lord, may Your Will be done, Lord.... As if he were chosen as an instrument, as one of the instruments. May Your Will be done, Lord... with a great force of concentration.
(Mother plunges in)
(Mother then listens to several texts from Sri Aurobindo for the message of April 24. Sujata suggests the following passage from Savitri, which Mother immediately accepts:)
He comes unseen into our darker parts And, curtained by the darkness, does his work, A subtle and all-knowing guest and guide, Till they too feel the need and will to change. All here must learn to obey a higher law, Our body's cells must hold the Immortal's flame. Savitri, I.III.35
He comes unseen into our darker parts And, curtained by the darkness, does his work, A subtle and all-knowing guest and guide, Till they too feel the need and will to change. All here must learn to obey a higher law, Our body's cells must hold the Immortal's flame.
Savitri, I.III.35
That's excellent.
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