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?
Did you receive the last answers to T.J. [the "Notes"]?
I think there were one or two, I don't quite remember.
The last one I received is this one:
The truth, which man has vainly sought to know, will be the privilege of the new race, the race of tomorrow, the superman....
Is that all?... See if there is something you can use....
Yes, certainly there is!1
(silence)
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Sujata told me about the experience you had the other day, that vision you had of your body, the transitional body.
Yes, I WAS like that. It was me; I didn't look at myself in a mirror, I saw myself like this (Mother bends her head to look at her body), I was... I just was like that.
That's the first time. It was around four in the morning, I think. And perfectly natural—I mean, I didn't look in a mirror, it felt perfectly natural. I only remember what I saw (gesture from the chest to the waist). I was covered only with veils, so I only saw.... What was very different was the torso, from the chest to the waist: it was neither male nor female.
But it was lovely, my form was extremely svelte and slim—slim but not thin. And the skin was very white, just like my skin. A lovely form. And no sex—you couldn't tell: neither male nor female. The sex had disappeared.
The same here (Mother points to her chest), all that was flat. I don't know how to explain it. There was an outline reminiscent of what is now, but with no forms (Mother touches her chest), not even as much as a man's. A very white skin, very smooth. Practically no abdomen to speak of. And no stomach. All that was slim.
I didn't pay any special attention, you see, because I was that: it felt perfectly natural to me. That's the first time it happened, it was the night before last; but last night I didn't see anything. That was the first and the last time so far.
But this form is in the subtle physical, isn't it?
It must be already like that in the subtle physical.
But how will it pass into the physical?
That's the question I don't know.... I don't know.
I don't know.
Also, clearly there was none of the complex digestion we have now, or the kind of elimination we have now. It didn't work that way.
But how?... Food is already obviously very different and becoming more and more so—glucose, for instance, or substances that don't require an elaborate digestion. But how will the body itself change?... That I don't know. I don't know.
You see, I didn't look to see how it worked, for it was completely
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natural to me, so I can't describe it in detail. Simply, it was neither a woman's body nor a man's—that much is certain. And the outline was fairly similar to that of a very young person. There was a faint suggestion of a human form (Mother draws a form in the air): with a shoulder and a waist. Just a hint of it.
I see it but.... I saw it exactly as you see yourself, I didn't even look at myself in the mirror. And I had a sort of veil, which I wore to cover myself.
It was my way of being (there was nothing surprising in it), my natural way of being.
That must be how it is in the subtle physical.
But what's mysterious is the transition from one to the other.
Yes—how?
But it's the same mystery as the transition from chimpanzee to man.
Oh, no, Mother! It's more colossal than that! It's more colossal for, after all, there isn't that much difference between a chimpanzee and a man.
But there wasn't such a difference in the appearance either (Mother draws a form in the air): there were shoulders, arms, legs, a body, a waist. Similar to ours. There was only....
Yes, but I mean the way a chimpanzee functions and the way a man functions are the same.
They are the same.
Well, yes! They digest the same, breathe the same.... Whereas here....
No, but here too there must have been breathing. The shoulders were strikingly broad (gesture), in contrast. That's important. But the chest was neither feminine nor even masculine: only reminiscent of it. And all that—stomach, abdomen and the rest—was simply an outline, a very slender and harmonious form, which certainly wasn't used for the purpose we now use our bodies.
The two different things—totally different—were procreation, which was no longer possible, and food. Though even our present
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food is manifestly not the same as that of chimpanzees or even the first humans; it's quite different. So now, it seems we have to find a food that doesn't require all this digesting.... Not exactly liquid, but not solid either. And there's also the question of the mouth—I don't know about that—and the teeth? Naturally, chewing should no longer be necessary, and therefore teeth wouldn't be either.... But there has to be something to replace them. I haven't the slightest idea what the face looked like. But it didn't seem too, too unlike what it is now.
What will change a great deal, of course—it had acquired a prominent role—is breathing. That being depended much on it.
Yes, he probably absorbs energies directly.
Yes. There will probably be intermediary beings who won't last, you see, just as there were intermediary beings between the chimpanzee and man.
But I don't know, something has to happen that has never before happened.
Yes.
Sometimes I have a sort of feeling that the time of realization is very close.
Yes, but how?
Yes, how—we don't know.
Is this (Mother points to her body) going to change? It either has to change or else follow the old, ordinary pattern of coming undone and then being redone again.... I don't know. True, life can be greatly prolonged, there have been examples, but.... I don't know.
Several times I have felt that instead of a transformation, there will be a concretization of the other body.
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Ahh!... But how?
We don't know the process either. But instead of this body becoming the other, the other body will take the place of this one.
How, I don't know.
(after a silence)
Yes, understandably, if the body I had two nights ago were to materialize.... But how?
Do you want to meditate?
(Mother goes into contemplation)
We know nothing!
It's amazing how we know NOTHING.
(Satprem prepares to leave, Sujata draws near to Mother)
(Sujata:) You know, Mother, in his poem "Transformation", Sri Aurobindo's opening lines are:
My breath runs in a subtle rhythmic stream It fills my members with a might divine...2
Breathing, yes, that's important.
"A might"?
"Might," yes, Mother.
(Mother caresses Sujata's cheeks)
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