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 sees some teachers from the school. Towards the end of the meeting, Pranab enters Mother's room in his customary manner, heads straight for Mother, and launches into a violent diatribe against some French television reporters—whom Mother had received the day before—because they filmed Sri Aurobindo's tomb "in spite of his orders." Mother tries to calm him down.)
When they [the reporters] cannot get something from one person, they go to somebody else—and it works. In any event, I won't see them anymore.
(Pranab explodes:) If I meet them again, I'll smash their cameras.
I don't want any violence or nasty scenes here.
(Pranab retreats to the other end of the room, muttering angrily)
(Mother sits with her head in her hands) I have worked all my life so people would become a little conscious. But this violence....
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(Mother turns to one of the teachers with a kind of distress in her voice)
People say that I am old, that I can't speak, that I am senile, but the consciousness has never been so clear.... One minute of silence and....
(the teachers leave the room silently, Mother remains alone with her bodyguard and the attendant)
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