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 calls Satprem and Sujata in at 10:30 A.M. instead of 10:00.)
On your days, the Wednesdays and Saturdays, I see only the Ashram "birthdays," but we're now more than 2000, just fancy! So it's.... I see the other birthdays on other days and several at a time, but even so quite a few people come on your days—next Saturday in particular, the 9th (a mass of people in the Ashram were born the 9th).
All right, Mother, all right, I get the point! (laughter)
So I'll have to call you at 10:30 instead of 10:00.1
What about you, are you feeling better?
A little better [a problem with an eye].
The world seems to be engulfed in a sort of violent chaos. They're fighting at the Olympic Games!... An athlete was killed by bullets.2 That's how it is.
Yes, they killed an Israeli.
Yes, the Arabs did it.
These Muslims really have something which is... something that must disappear, Mother. They're so fanatical!
They are very violent.
Yes, fanatical.
Very violent.
I don't know what universal trait they symbolize, but they really seem to be....
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Force.
Force.... Well, they spend their time stabbing each other.
(after a silence)
You see, they firmly believe there's life after the body's death—the body's death to them is in no way the end of life.
They only believe in some sort of "heaven," that's all.
(Laughing) Yes, murderers' heaven!
(long silence)
Eating is becoming almost—almost impossible. Nor do I have the faintest idea of what will replace food (Mother sweeps her hand across her forehead): I don't see anything.
Everything is becoming... I can't say a suffering, but a discomfort: a discomfort, there's perpetual discomfort, as if my body were made to live through every single thing that must disappear. Nonstop. From time to time, for a few seconds there's... (Mother opens eyes filled with wonder), but not even long enough to be able to define it. And it's very rare. Whereas the other condition is almost constant. Everything—external things, internal things, things in so-called others, things concerning this body—all, all is terrible, terrible, terrible....
That's certainly how Buddha saw things, and why he said that life was a falsehood and had to disappear—but I know better! I KNOW it isn't a falsehood. But it must change... must change.... But in the meantime....
Only when I am (gesture, hands open) absolutely silent within and everywhere... does it becomes tolerable.
(silence)
I feel a fantastic Power (Mother touches her fingertips), but... also sense a little person full of... (how can I put this?) containing all the things that must disappear. As if all the negations had accumulated here so that I do the work, and I don't know who that "I" is anymore.
The body, this poor body, is not happy—it isn't unhappy either. It has a sensation of nonexistence. Everything it encounters, the
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entire organization of things, its entire life is the negation of what it sees as the... Beauty to be realized.
That's all.
(Mother plunges in)
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