Notes on the Way

31 May 1969

The night before last, I spent more than three hours with Sri Aurobindo and I was showing him all that was about to come down for Auroville. It was quite interesting. There were games, there was art, there was even cooking! But all that was very symbolic. And I was explaining to him as though on a table, in front of a vast landscape. I was explaining to him the principle on which physical exercises and games were going to be organised. It was very clear, very precise, I was giving as though a demonstration, and it was as though I was showing on a very small scale a miniature representation of what was going to be done. I was moving people and things (gesture, as though on a chess-board). But it was very interesting, and he was very much interested: he was laying down the broad laws of organisation (I do not know how to explain). There was art and it was beautiful, it was good. And how to make the houses pleasant and pretty, upon what principle of construction. And then even the kitchen; it was so amusing, each one brought forward his invention.... This went on for three hours—three hours of the night, it is a lot! Very interesting.

Yet conditions upon earth seem to be very far from all that...

(After some hesitation) No... it was right there, it did not seem to be "foreign" to earth. It was a harmony: a conscious harmony behind things; a conscious harmony behind the physical exercises and the games; a conscious harmony behind the decoration, the art; a conscious harmony behind the food...

I mean that all this seems to be at the opposite pole of what is now upon earth.

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Not...

No?

I saw X today and I was telling him that the whole organisation of the arts and sports, even of food and all the rest, was ready in the subtle physical—ready to come down and embody itself—and I told him, "What is needed is just a handful of earth (gesture of cupping the hands), a handful of earth where one could grow the plant.... One must find a handful of earth to let it grow."

(Silence)

I do not know whether it is a correct perception, but it is now months that I have been having the feeling that the earth has never been in such darkness. I feel it is a formidable darkness.

Yes, yes. But the two are there. It is true. The confusion—it is a confusion, a dark confusion, yes. A dark confusion, but it is what Sri Aurobindo was always saying: the confusion becomes all the more intense and dark at the time the light is about to dawn. It is so. It appears as a dark chaos. And the Chinese...

Mother, do you know that in the West the books that have influence (not only influence, but are read and devoured by young people) are the books of Mao-Tse-Tung?

What does the man say?

He says, "Power springs from the barrel of a gun." (Mother remains silent.) That is what is read in the

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West. And the last great bestseller is a book entitled something like The Wretched, which is an apology for violence: power must be seized by violence. It is this which has success in the West; it is this which all the students swallow.¹

Oh! An apology for violence...

A gospel of violence.

That is the vital in its fullness.

Yes.

Oh! That explains all the visions I have had. I believed... I was blaming my body, I was saying: this poor body, it has an unfortunate atavism: always horrible, horrible imaginations—and they were not imaginations, it was conscious of what was happening... oh!...

It is very interesting, what you have just told me, because yesterday (these days, these three days), in front of the horror of the perception of things, this body (which is the very opposite of being sentimental; it has never, never been sentimental), this body wept.... It was not weeping physically, naturally, but it was... And it said, with an inner intensity, "Oh! Why does this world exist?" In that way, so it was... it was horrid, sad, miserable... so it was miserable and... so horrible, oh!... But immediately it got the Answer—it was not an answer in words,

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it was simply... as though a vastness opening into the Light.

Then, there is nothing to say any more.

But how can That, that vastness, become this?... I do not know. The question: "How did That become this?" It is in that way that it came to me: "How could That, that Marvel, have become this, this hideous, monstrous thing?"

But the procedure for changing this back again into That, I do not know.... The procedure is... abdication (how to say it?), self-giving (it is not that). But everything, everything appeared to it so gruesome. There was a whole day very, very, very difficult. And strangely enough, I knew at that moment that it was the exact repetition of the experience that Siddhartha Buddha had had and that it was while he was in this experience that he had said: "There is only one way out: Nirvana." And at the same time I was in the state of true consciousness: his solution and the true one. It was really interesting. How the Buddhist solution is only one step taken—one step. And it is beyond that (not in another way, but beyond that) that the true solution lies. It was a decisive experience.

(Long silence)

But what, after all, is this creation?... Well, separation, and then wickedness, cruelty—the thirst for doing harm, one might say—then suffering, just the joy of inflicting suffering, and then all the illness and decomposition and death—the destruction. All that, forming part of the same thing. What has happened?... And the experience that I had was of the unreality of these things, as though you had entered into an unreal falsehood, and all disappears as you come out of it—it does not exist, it is not. This is what is frightful! What is for us so real, so concrete, so terrifying, all that does not exist. It is... you have entered into Falsehood. Why? How? What?...

But never, never in the whole life-long existence of this body, not for once even, had it felt... such a total, such a deep pain

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as on that day... oh!... something which... (Mother presses her throat). And then at the end of that, the Bliss. And then, pfft! It is wiped away, as though: "not yet, not yet, it is not yet the time." As though all that, all that which is so frightful did not exist.

In the end, probably—probably—it is only the earth (that I do not know). It does not seem to be so, for the moon is very concretely a desolation. In short, there is still a feeling very strong and very exact that it is something limited that is like that, in this Falsehood. And unreal. And we are all in the Falsehood and Unreality; that is why it is like that. And what was interesting was that this escape into Nirvana was not the solution, was only a remedy, a remedy for a time (how to explain? I do not know), partial. A partial cure, and, one might almost say, momentary.

And then that, for a moment it is a paroxysm. Afterwards comes the long way: one must carry on, carry on progressively the work of transformation. And then, the next minute, it is what Sri Aurobindo has called the supramental being. It is as though the passage from the one to the other.

But how will all this change? I do not know.

Yes, the other day I had a perception, it was so concrete, that the earth was as though under a dark robe—it is what you call Falsehood, Illusion. It was something that covered the earth.

Yes, yes.

I felt that, but very concretely, a black robe.

Yes, it is that.

Only it must be pulled off for the whole world...

(After a silence) I cannot say, it is inexpressible; it was something that contained horror, fright, pain—and a compassion, oh! so

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intense.... Never, never had this body felt like that. And besides, it put the body in a condition quite... quite critical for some hours. And afterwards it was as though everything—each and every thing—came with a Smile and a shining Light, as though (translated in a child's image) as though the Lord was saying, "You see, I am everywhere. You see, I am in everything." And it was incredible—incredible.... But there is no communication between the two.

Well, it was at the time when the body was saying: "How is it? Is it going to be necessary to con-ti-nue that? Must one, must one con-ti-nue that? The world, people, the whole creation—to continue that?"... That appeared... I understood all at once: Ah! It is this which they have translated as "eternal hell". It is this. It is someone who has had this perception.

And all the means—which could be called artificial, including Nirvana—all the means of coming out of that are worth nothing. Beginning with the idiot who kills himself to "put an end" to his life (this of course is, of all the idiocies, the most idiotic; it makes one's case still worse), starting from there right up to Nirvana (where one imagines one is able to escape), all that, all that is worth nothing. They are all at different levels, but all are worth nothing. And then, after that, at the time when you really have the feeling of an everlasting hell, all of a sudden... (nothing but a state of consciousness, it is nothing else but that), all of a sudden a state of consciousness... in which all is light, splendour, beauty, happiness, goodness... and everything inexpressible. And it is like that: "There, there you are", and then, pfft! it appears and then, hop! off it goes. And then the Consciousness which sees, which asserts itself and says, "Now, next step, the next step." So, it is that, it is in the presence of all that that the body had... never, never in all its life had it felt such pain, and even now...

Is that, is that the lever?... I do not know. But the salvation is physical—not at all mental, but physical. I mean to say that it is not escape, it is here. This I felt very strongly.

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But the body had a few very difficult hours. And always, for it, it is all the same; it says, "Well and good"; it is quite ready for the dissolution or... There was no question of that. The question was not that; the question was, to know how to receive the Cure.... And how is it?—with our means, it is inexpressible.

But it is not that it is veiled or hidden or whatever: it is there. Why? What is it in the whole that takes away from you the power to live it? I do not know. It is there. It is there. And all the rest, including death and all, becomes truly a falsehood, that is to say, something that does not exist.

Yes, it is a robe that is to be taken off.

If it were only that, it would be nothing.

No, I mean that all this, this Illusion, is like a robe that has to be taken off from the earth.

Yes, it is that. Yes, it is that! But is it only the earth? I do not know. They are going high up there to see!

All that I know, the feeling I have, is that it is concentrated here. Here is the concentration, here is the work. Maybe it is also... the whole solar system, I do not know.

(Silence)

But one cannot get out of it all alone.

Yes!... Sweet Mother, the other day you said something. You said, "It is time to take one's stand." You said, "The body, on its side, has taken its stand," but till now you did not dare push others to do the same, and you said, "Now it is time to take one's stand."

Yes, I believe so.

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But what do you mean by "taking one's stand".

This, this consciousness in which the body is now, that all this is unreal.

The body, if it were asked, would say, "I do not know if I am alive, I do not know if I am dead." Because it is truly like that. During some minutes it has altogether the feeling that it is dead; at other moments it has the feeling that it is alive. It is like that. And it feels that that depends exclusively upon... whether one sees the Truth or not.

(Silence)

Upon what does that depend?...

(Silence)

According to what others say or write or experience, I have seen that what the vast majority of mankind fears most is this perception: that it is a Falsehood and all that leads towards it. I know people (they have written to me) who had terrible frights quite lately because all of a sudden they were seized by force; there was something that began to touch them: the perception of the unreality of life. So that shows the vastness of the way to be trod. It means that all hope of a near solution seems to be a childishness. Unless... things take another turn.

If it is to follow the movement it has been following till now... there have been centuries and centuries and centuries.... Then the superman would still be only a stage and afterwards there would be many other things...

Each time I think of that, I always have the feeling that the only solution is that you should have a glorious body,

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visible to everyone; then all could come and see—come and see the Divine, how it is!

(Mother laughs) That would be very convenient indeed!

It would be such an upsetting of all their notion...

Yes, well certainly! It would be so convenient. Will it be like that?...

That, surely I am in full agreement! And I would be very glad if it were anyone, it does not matter who; I have not the least desire that it should be myself!

Come and see the Divine, how it is!

Yes, how it is! (Mother remains gazing for a long time.)

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