Notes on the Way

18 October 1969

For a perfect realisation, the whole being must be illumined; but for the beginning of a realisation, it is probably easier for a body that does not possess a very developed mind.... For us, well, who have reached the maximum possibility of the mind, it is through the maximum that we have gone beyond: it is only when the mind had realised its maximum that it abdicated. And this is quite all right for the integral realisation, but generally the body is too much used to obeying the mind, it is not supple enough to be transformed. And that is why my mind has been sent away.... But that is a method which others cannot be encouraged to follow. For out of ten nine would die.

The mind?

If the mind goes away.

You think I would die?

The mind and the vital.

Yes, the vital, I understand, but if you removed my mind...

No, my child, I refuse to do it! (Mother laughs) It must... it must step down.

A great passivity is needed for the Force to be able to pass through quickly and reach the body. I see that each time there is a pressure for acting upon one part of the body or another, the thing begins by an absolute passivity—which is... the "perfection of inertia". You understand? It is the perfection of that which inertia represents as imperfect... something that has no activity

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of its own. It is just the most difficult thing for those who have a very well—developed mind, very difficult. Because the whole body has worked all its life for being just in this state of receptivity to the mind, which makes it obedient, passive, etc., and it is that which must be abolished.

How to explain?... The development through mind means a constant and general awakening of the whole being, even the most material, an awakening as a result of which there is also something quite opposite to sleep. And to receive the Supreme Force, one must have, on the contrary, the equivalent of immobility—the immobility of sleep, but absolutely conscious, absolutely conscious. The body feels the difference. It feels the difference to such an extent that... for example, I stretch myself in the evening and I remain like that, for hours together I remain so; and if after a time I fall into ordinary sleep, my body wakes up in a terrible anguish! And then it begins again to put itself back into that state. This anguish I feel from time to time—and it goes away as soon as it gets back into the true attitude, which is a state of immobility, but absolutely conscious. "Immobility", I do not know how to say it.... But it is almost the opposite of the inertia in immobility.

And it is that which is making me understand now the reason why creation began with inertia. And so, that state had to be rediscovered (Mother describes a big curve) after having gone through all the states of consciousness. And it is that which has given us... (Mother laughs) for us, it is a fine mess! But when it is done purposely, it is no more a mess.

For me the difficulty that I meet very often is a need also of activity in aspiration.

Yes, yes.

I have the feeling that I must not stop actively aspiring.

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Often I could very well leave all that aside, without stirring, but...

Yes, but then the aspiration comes.

I feel the need of the activity of aspiration.

Yes, it is to counteract inertia. Because we still have inertia as our heritage.

But then, in such a case what is to be done? Should one let everything be spread out or... should one persist in this active aspiration that is truly intense?

It is difficult to say, because I am convinced that each one has his own way, but for this body the way is to have this active aspiration.

To have the active aspiration? Yes, but then it is no longer this immobility.

It has got the thing, it has understood the means, how to do it.

The two together, the union of the two?

Yes, they are together. That is what it succeeded in getting: a complete immobility and an intense aspiration. It is only when immobility is there without the aspiration that it falls into a frightful anguish which wakes it up immediately. It is that, an intense aspiration. And it is absolutely immobile, immobile within, as though all the cells became immobile.... It must be that. What we call intense aspiration must be the supramental vibration. It must be the divine vibration, the true divine vibration. That I have said to myself often.

But if, even for a single minute, the body falls into the state of inertia—immobility without aspiration—it is awakened by an

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anguish as though it were going to die! You understand? It is to that degree. For it, immobility means... yes, it has the feeling that the highest vibration, the vibration of the true Consciousness, is so intense that it is... it is equivalent to the inertia of immobility—an intensity which is not perceptible to us. So great is this intensity that it is, for us, equivalent to inertia.

It is this which is getting established.

It is this which has made me understand (because now the body understands), has made it understand the process of creation.... One might almost say that it began by a state of perfection, but unconscious, and that it must pass through this state of unconscious perfection to a state of conscious perfection, and between the two is the imperfection. Words are foolish, but you understand.

(Silence)

You know, the feeling is that one is on the threshold of understanding. And it is not at all a mental understanding, not at all, not at all. (One has had that, but it is nothing, nothing, it is zero.) It is an understanding that one lives. And that the mind cannot have, cannot. And the feeling is that only the body—receptive, open, in any case partially transformed—is capable of having the understanding. Understanding the creation, what we call creation: why and how, the two things. It is not at all a thing thought out, it is not a thing felt: it is a thing lived and that is the only way of knowing.... It is a consciousness.

But you know, when this understanding comes—it comes and then it becomes like this (gesture as of a luminous inflation), it comes like this and then it dwindles, and comes again and again dwindles; but when it does come, it is so obvious, so simple that one asks oneself why one was not able to know it before!

Still more time is needed.... How long, I do not know. But the notion of time is also quite arbitrary.

We want always to translate all our experiences into the old

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state of consciousness and that is the misery! We think it is necessary, it is indispensable—and it is stupefying. It delays awfully.

(Silence)

Everything, everything, everything that men have said, everything they have written, everything they have taught is only a way of saying. It is only to try to make oneself understood, but that is impossible. And when one thinks (Mother laughs) how much one has fought for things that are so relative!...

(Long silence)

Looking at the days as they pass and at things that happen, the experience of the body appears like this.... In some way, at some moments it is in the consciousness of immortality, and then, through influence (and still, from time to time, through old habit) it falls back into the consciousness of mortality, and that is truly... for it now to fall back into the consciousness of mortality is an awful anguish; and it is only when it comes out of it, when it returns to the true consciousness, that the thing vanishes. And I understand why there have been people, there have been Yogis who spoke of the unreality of the world; because, to the consciousness of immortality, the consciousness of mortality is an unreal absurdity. It is like this (Mother passes the fingers of one hand into the fingers of the other, indicating a coming and going of the two consciousnesses). So it is like this at one moment and like that at another. And the other state, the state of immortality, is immutably peaceful, tranquil, with... like staggeringly rapid waves, so rapid that they seem immobile. It is like that—nothing moves (apparently) in a tremendous Movement. And then as soon as the other state returns, all the ordinary notions also return, that is to say... in fact now, in the state where it is, that gives it the pain and the suffering of a falsehood. But it is still like that (same gesture of coming and

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going).... To come out of it, the only, the only effective way is just to give up, surrender. It is not expressed by words, nor by ideas, nor by anything; it is a state of vibration in which nothing but the Divine Vibration has any value. Then, then only, things are put back in order.

But all that, as soon as one speaks of it...

Note, however, that this is constant: it comes at night, it comes in the morning: and then at other times when... (gesture vast, united, with a smile) no more problems, no more difficulty, nothing.

(Silence)

There is a background (it is that particularly), a background of unconscious negation which is behind everything, everything, everything, still; it is still there everywhere—you eat, you breathe, you receive this negation.... It is still a colossal work to transform all that. But when one is, as one might say, on "the other side" (these are not "sides"), but in the other state, it appears so natural, so simple, that you ask yourself why it is not like that, why it appears so difficult; and then, as soon as you are on the other side, it is... (Mother holds her head within her hands). The mixture is still there, without doubt.

Indeed, the ordinary state, the old state is consciously (that is to say, it is a conscious perception) that of death and suffering. And then in the other state, death and suffering appear as things absolutely... unreal. There!

Here, take it (Mother gives a flower of transformation).

No impatience.

A trustful patience.

In truth, everything is for each one as good as it can be. All the time it is the old movements that get impatient.... That is to say, when one sees the all, one finds that certainly impatience has been created to counteract inertia—but now it is done with, that time has gone.

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