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 remains absorbed a long time. She often asked Satprem if he had any "questions," but truly speaking Satprem didn't come to see Mother to "ask questions." Rather he wanted to efface himself all he could and let her experience flow out it she liked to give it expression, or remain silent if so she preferred He did not want his mind to grind thoughts, with its thousand questions, lest it should cloud the atmosphere and bring pressure upon Mother. Questions seemed pointless to him unless they arose on the spur of the moment, springing from within, because then they responded to something iN Mother. Indeed, Satprem wanted to be simply a sort of catalyst for what was happening in her. And then, too, seeing her gasping for breath very much affected him.)
So what do you have to say?
Nothing much.
(Holding Satprem's hands) What do You have to say?
Really nothing much, Mother.... I wish all the last recesses of my being would open up—that's what I wish.
Why—tell me why do I keep seeing an image of you (it's strangely persistent), as I saw you the last time at the Government House?1 I had gone to see the new governor, and you were sitting in the room... on the verandah.... There was a bench, a sort of long bench, and you were sitting there, and when I came out I saw you sitting there, silhouetted against the sky. It was either a balcony or a verandah, I don't remember....
It keeps returning again and again and again.... Why?
Do you remember that?
No, Mother [= I don't want to remember].
Why did it strike me so?... You weren't alone, there were other people with you, perhaps two or three, I don't know. I don't even
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remember who they were or what they looked like or anything-I saw only you. And I was....
It was actually my last visit to Government House. You were still there, but the governor had left—I mean Baron.
Why?
You don't remember your own feeling?
No, Mother.
Why does it keep coming back to me like that?
It was like a foreknowledge of the place you would occupy in my life.
Everything else was blurred, indistinct—nonexistent—but you... I still see it as if it were yesterday. And you were sitting... sitting on that.... You were in a rather mocking mood.2
I was quite stupid.
What?
At the time I was pretty stupid—now I'm a little less....
(Mother laughs)
Thanks to you.
(silence)
Mocking, I don't think so, Mother. I was never really the mocking type.
No, not mocking....
I was rather defiant, or suspicious!
Yes, yes! That's it. Yes, that's exactly it.
As if you were saying to yourself, "What on earth is this!" (laughter)
Ah, Mother, what a grace to have met you!...
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(Mother takes Satprem's hands)
I KNOW.
(after a silence)
Oh, mon petit... both together, you know, it's so incredible: a fabulous power—you feel you just do this (Mother closes her fist on a little bit of air), and it's done—and at the same time... you know nothing, understand nothing.... My memory is gone. There's no more, no more... (Mother touches her head, indicating a void). Some decisions go through the consciousness, but as soon as they are uttered or implemented, they're gone.
I remember nothing, nothing, nothing, except like this (Mother pinches up a point in the air), one thing in a thousand. But why?
Oh, what a strange experience it is. All the daily occupations, the most ordinary things—getting up, going to bed, taking a bath, "trying" to eat (which is rather in vain)—are.... It sounds ridiculous, but they are accompanied by a feeling that they can be an occasion of death (there isn't a single thing that isn't an occasion of death, that is, to leave the body), yet at the same time—at the very same time—there's a feeling of immortality. Almost... it's almost indescribable.... Both opposites are there—not "opposite," but... (they are only opposite in our language).
(silence then Mother smiles as if she had just discovered something)
Ah! Ah!... You see.... Oh, listen, it sounds utterly absurd, but I'll tell you. This consciousness here is as though conscious of the divine decisions; as though there isn't a single trifle that can't be an occasion to leave the body if the Divine decides that the body has to go, nor is there a single moment when one can't have the feeling of immortality if the Divine decides that one should have the feeling of immortality. The SAME thing. Do you understand what I am saying? The SAME thing.
For example, take that image I keep having of you sitting on that bench and staring at me like—yes, as if saying, "What
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on earth is this!" because I visited Government House (I used to come very often during Baron's time, but I stopped coming after he left), so I came and you seemed to be saying, "What on earth is this?" as if... yes, as if you were thinking, "How quickly one forgets!" or something of the sort3—anyway you weren't overly friendly! (laughter) At least that was my impression.... But why does it keep recurring like that?... You see, that encounter... that occasion was the starting point—the starting point of a great action between us, together. A great action together. So why these trifling little ripples, just when destiny was being shaped?
One could almost say they were there to prove how appearances are illusions.
Yes. Yes.
ALL appearances are illusions—there's something... something which for me is becoming increasingly concrete and tremendously powerful: the Lord's Will. This conscious will is not like ours, it's something like this (Mother lowers her outstretched arms). Inexpressible. It's unlike anything we know. And it is a formidable will—formidable, you understand, in the sense that all appearances, all contradictions, all human wills are zero: THAT alone (same, powerful gesture of lowering both arms). That's it, THAT is what I feel going through me, as if I bathed in it. Exactly like that.
There isn't any... there's nothing here (Mother touches her forehead), it's empty, empty, completely empty—hollow. Hollow. I don't think. There isn't any "I," or any .... It's almost like an empty shell, yet with that formidable Force... (vast, powerful gesture, arms outstretched).
(long silence)
The supramental consciousness must be trying to take possession of it .... This [the body] is just like a shell.
A shell .... Will it be able to change? I don't know.
A constant feeling of... (vast, powerful gesture, arms outstretched).
(Smiling) It's profoundly interesting.
As if a superhuman Power were trying to manifest through millenniums of impotence.... That's it. This [the body] is made of millenniums of impotence. And a superhuman Power is trying to... is exerting a pressure to manifest. That's what it is. What will be the outcome? I don't know.
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And the famous day when I saw you there, sitting against the sky... it's as though the place you were going to occupy in this creation were decided AT THAT PRECISE MOMENT. Truly... it's truly, miraculously interesting.
And the same goes for everything—everything, absolutely everything. There are MOMENTS when things are decided.
(meditation the clock strikes the hour)
Time does not exist anymore....
(Mother nods her head)
As if another time had entered this one.
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