On Thoughts and Aphorisms

Aphorism - 95

95—Only by perfect renunciation of desire or by perfect satisfaction of desire can the utter embrace of God be experienced, for in both ways the essential precondition is effected,—desire perishes.

It is impossible to satisfy desire perfectly—it is something impossible. And also to renounce desire. You renounce one desire and you have another. Therefore both are relatively impossible; what is possible is to enter into a state where there is no desire.

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(Long silence)

It is a pity that I cannot note down all these experiences that come, because these last few days and during a whole period, there has been a very clear perception of the true working which is the expression of the supreme Will translated spontaneously, naturally, automatically through the individual instrument; one might even say—for the mind is quiet, it keeps quiet—through the body; and the perception of the moment when this expression of the divine Will is clouded—distorted—by the introduction of desire, the special vibration of desire, which has a quality all its own and which has many apparent causes: it is not only the thirst for something, the need for something, or the attachment to something; the same vibration can be set in motion, for example, by the fact that the will which is expressed seems to be, or at least is mistaken for, the expression of the supreme Will; but there has been a confusion between the immediate action which was obviously the expression of the supreme Will and the result which should have followed—it is a mistake we very often make. We are in the habit of thinking that when we want something it should come to us, because the vision is too shortsighted—too shortsighted and too limited; instead of having an overall vision which would show us that this particular vibration was necessary to set off a certain number of other vibrations and that it is the totality of all that which will have an effect, which is not the immediate effect of the vibration emitted. I do not know if this is clear, but it is a constant experience.

As a matter of fact, during this period, I have studied and observed this phenomenon: how the vibration of desire is added to the vibration of Will emitted by the Supreme—in our little everyday actions. And with the vision from above, if we take care to maintain the consciousness of this vision from above, we can see how this vibration emitted was exactly the vibration emitted by the Supreme, but instead of obtaining the immediate result expected by the surface consciousness, it was meant to set off a

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whole series of vibrations and to achieve another, more distant and more complete result. I am not speaking of great things or of actions on a terrestrial scale, I am speaking of the very small things in life: for example, saying to someone, Give me this, and instead of giving it, that someone does not understand and gives something else. So if we do not take care to preserve an overall vision, a certain vibration may occur, for example a vibration of impatience or of dissatisfaction, together with the impression that the vibration from the Lord is not understood and not received. Well, this little added vibration of impatience or, in fact, of not understanding what is happening, this impression of a lack of receptivity or response, is of the same quality as desire—it cannot be called a desire, but it is the same kind of vibration—this is what comes to complicate things. If we have the complete, exact vision, we know that "Give me this" will produce something other than the immediate result and that this other thing will bring in something else which is exactly what should be. I do not know if I am making myself clear, it is rather complicated! But this gave me the key to the difference in quality between the vibration of Will and the vibration of desire, and at the same time the possibility of eliminating this vibration of desire by a wider and more total vision—wider, more total and far-seeing, that is to say, the vision of a greater whole.

I insist on this point, because this eliminates all moral factors. It eliminates this pejorative notion of desire. More and more, the vision is eliminating all notions of good and bad, right and wrong, inferior and superior, and all that. There is only what might almost be called a difference of vibratory quality—"quality" still gives the idea of superiority and inferiority; it is not quality, it is not intensity. I do not know the scientific term they use to distinguish one vibration from another, but that's what it is.

And so what is noteworthy is that the vibration, what one might call the quality of the vibration that comes from the Lord, is constructive—it builds and it is peaceful and luminous; while

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the other vibration of desire, or any similar vibration, complicates, destroys, confuses and twists things—confuses and distorts them, twists them. And this takes away the light; it produces a greyness, which can be intensified by violent movements into very dark shadows. But even when there is no passion, when passion does not intervene, it is like that. The physical reality has become nothing but a field of vibrations that mingle and unfortunately also clash and conflict with one another; and the clash, the conflict is a climax of this kind of turmoil and disorder and confusion created by certain vibrations which are in fact vibrations of ignorance—because we do not know. They are vibrations of ignorance and they are too small, too narrow, too limited—too short. The problem is no longer perceived from a psychological point of view at all; there are only vibrations.

If we consider it from the psychological point of view... on the mental plane, it is very easy; on the vital plane it is not very difficult; on the physical plane it is a little heavier, for it takes the form of "needs"; but here too there has been a field of experience these last few days: the study of medical and scientific conceptions of the structure of the body, its needs, what is good or bad for it; and that, reduced to its essence, comes down to the same question of vibrations. It was rather interesting: there was an appearance—for all things as they are seen by the ordinary consciousness are pure appearances—there was an appearance of food-poisoning and it became the object of a special study in order to find out whether there was anything absolute in it or whether the poisoning was relative, that is, based on ignorance and a bad reaction, and on the absence of the true vibration. The conclusion was that it is a question of proportion between the amount, the sum of vibrations that belong to the Lord, and the vibrations that still belong to obscurity; and, depending on the proportion, it takes the form of something concrete and real or of something that can be eliminated, that is, which does not resist the influence of the vibration of Truth. And it was very interesting, for as soon as the consciousness was informed

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of the cause of the disturbance in the functioning of the body—the consciousness saw where it came from, what it was—immediately, the observation began with the idea, "Let us see what is happening." First, put the body in a state of perfect rest with the certitude—which is always there—that nothing happens except by the will of the Lord, that the result is also the will of the Lord, and that therefore one should be completely quiet; so the body is completely quiet, untroubled, it is not restless, not vibrating, nothing—completely quiet. And then, to what extent are the effects inevitable? As a certain amount of matter containing an element unfavourable to the elements of the body and to the life of the body has been absorbed, what is the proportion of favourable and unfavourable elements, or of favourable and unfavourable vibrations? Then I saw very clearly that the proportion varies according to the number of body cells under the direct influence, which respond only to the supreme vibration, and the others which still belong to the ordinary way of vibrating. It was very clear, because one could see all the possibilities, from the ordinary mass which is completely upset by this intrusion and in which one has to fight with all the ordinary methods to get rid of the undesirable element, to the total response of the cells to the supreme Force, which means that the intrusion can have no effect. But this is still the dream of tomorrow—we are on the way. And the proportion has become quite favourable—I cannot say all-powerful, far from it—quite favourable, which means that the consequences of the disturbance did not last very long and the damage was, so to say, minimal.

But all the experiences at the moment, one after the other—all the physical experiences of the body—lead to the same conclusion: everything depends on the proportion of elements responding exclusively to the influence of the Supreme, the elements that are half and half, on the way to transformation, and the elements that are still in the old process of vibration of Matter. Their number seems to be diminishing; it seems to

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be diminishing greatly, but there are still enough of them to produce unpleasant effects or reactions—things that are not transformed, that still belong to ordinary life. But every problem—whether psychological or purely material or chemical—the whole problem comes down to this: they are nothing but vibrations. And there is the perception of this totality of vibrations and the perception of what one might call, very crudely and approximately, the difference between constructive and destructive vibrations. We could say—it is simply a way of putting it—that all vibrations that come from the One and express Oneness are constructive and that all the complications of the ordinary separative consciousness lead to destruction.

(Long silence)

It is always said that it is desire which creates difficulties, and indeed it is like that. Desire may simply be something added to the vibration of will. The Will—when it is the one Will, the supreme Will expressing itself—is direct, immediate, there are no possible obstacles; and so everything that delays, hinders, causes complication or even failure is necessarily an admixture of desire.

One can see it in everything. For example, take an external field of action, with the external world, external things—of course, to say that it is "external" is simply to put oneself in a false position—but, for example, from the higher consciousness, the Truth-consciousness, you tell someone, "Go",—I giving one example among millions—"Go and see this person and tell him this in order to obtain that." If this person is receptive, immobile within and surrendered, then he goes, he sees the person and tells him and the thing is done—without any complication whatever, like that. If this person has an active mental consciousness, if he does not have total faith, if he has all the mixture of everything brought in by ego and ignorance,

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he sees difficulties, he sees problems to be solved, he sees all the complications—and of course, all this happens. And so according to the proportion—everything is always a question of proportion—according to the proportion, it creates complications, it takes time, the thing is delayed or even worse, it is distorted, it does not happen exactly as it should, it is changed, diminished, distorted or in the end it is not done at all—there are many, many degrees, but all that belongs to the domain of complications—mental complications—and desire. Whereas the other way is immediate. There are countless examples of these cases—of all cases—and also of the "immediate case". Then people tell you: "Oh, you have performed a miracle!"—no miracle has been performed: that is how it should always be. It is because the intermediary did not add himself to the action.

I do not know if this is clear, but anyway...

So this ranges from the smallest thing to an action on the terrestrial scale. There are examples, in terrestrial action, of things that have been done in this way—if there is a good intermediary. Nobody understood how it was done, why it was done—like that, very, very simply, everything turned out well. And in other cases, to get a visa or a permit one has to move mountains. So, from the smallest thing, the smallest physical indisposition to a worldwide action, it is all the same principle, everything comes to the same principle.

4 November 1963