Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

17: Japan

Once again, She crossed the old postern with its liana of “Faithfulness," but this time it was to leave. It was February 22, 1915. She would come back only five years later. Solitude, a harsh solitude ... flung headlong into a hell of darkness!¹ The outward reason was Richards mobiliza­tion, but who actually was Richard? I have never been inclined to complain and even now I am not inclined to speak in more detail, She wrote to her son ten years later.² Mother was not one to meet just anyone; her whole life was a work upon one element or another, and how can one speak of "transforming the world", if one is unable of trans­forming what is right next to one? To a certain extent, She had transformed, or neutralized, Theon and the rather formidable power he represented, but Richard was more elusive—a thunderbolt can be caught, but who can catch an octopus? The mental octopus with its thousands of tentacles slithering into everything. She could have stayed very comfortably near Sri Aurobindo—No flight out of the world! The burden of darkness and ugliness must be home to the end,³ She wrote aboard the Kamo Maru. She would fall ill, gravely ill (a kind of generalized neuritis) just after going through the Suez Canal. For the next five years, She would go from one mortal illness to another, intrepidly, ] indomitably. After her return to Pondicherry, She would d write to her son, 1 did not expect to live many more months. । This very rapid decline was mainly due to an almost total j nervous exhaustion stemming from the virtually hellish life i I had been living for many years, until November 1920.⁴ She j spent exactly one year in France, finding enough strength i to take care of the wounded—She had to touch all the world’s wounds to be able to heal them—while spending her nights, as She told me, going through gardens full of snakes. Snakes are all the bad and distorted thoughts. And she almost fiercely blamed herself: Matter has to be rigorously churned to become capable of fully manifesting the divine light.⁵ Such was the way She took everything; each thing, each being, each illness and each difficulty was an opportunity to work on her own matter by taking the difficulty into her own body. Everything Mother did was physical. She never blamed “others,” She blamed her own body—perhaps because everything was gradually becoming her own body. The being is progressively and methodically expanding, She noted about an experience of 1915, breaking through all barriers, shattering all obstacles to contain and manifest a Force and a Power ceaselessly growing in vastness and intensity. It was a sort of progressive dilation of the cells until a complete identification with the earth was reached ...⁶ Years later, She would tell me, I remember very well that when the war—the First World War—started, every part of my body, one after another (Mother touched her legs, her arms, her chest), or sometimes the same part several times over, represented a battlefield: I could see it, I could feel it, I lived it. Every time it was ...it was very strange, I had only to sit quietly and watch: I would see here, there, there, the whole thing in my body, all that was going on. And while it went on, I would put the concentration of the divine Force there, so that all—all that pain, all that suffering, every­thing—would hasten the preparation of the earth and the Descent of the Force.⁷ Each of Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s illnesses has coincided with the earth’s illnesses.

From Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo wrote to Mother: It is a singular condition of the world, the very definition of chaos with the superficial form of the old world resting apparently intact on the surface ... And He asked this question: Will it be a chaos of long disintegration or of some early new birth? It is the thing that is being fought out from day to day, but as yet without any approach to a decision.⁸ Sixty years later, it would seem that the world has chosen the path of a “long disintegration,” but who besides Sri Aurobindo knew in 1915 that the world would never again return to its old form and that an irreversible process had begun? Each one was eager to rebuild his own little world as fast as possible (Ah, the Folies-Bergeres!). But to what degree, even today, are people aware that the old world is dead? It is a corpse they keep filling with penicillin and monetary laws. What Sri Aurobindo perhaps did not know was that the disinte­gration would be so slow and the battle so long: Everything internal is ripe or ripening, He wrote to Mother, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks.... And if there were not the strength and Ananda [joy] within, it would be harassing and disgusting work.⁹ Three days later, like an echo, Mother noted in her journal, The heavens aredefinitively conquered, and nothing and nobody has the power to take them away from me. But the conquest of the earth has yet to be made ... ¹⁰ As Sri Aurobindo said, we must, “according to the Vedic formula,” make "Heaven and Earth equal and one." ¹¹

The first round of the battle would last for thirty-five years, until that day in 1950 when Sri Aurobindo ... I was about to say “succumbed,” but when I read those words to Mother in 1962, for a book I was writing at the time,¹⁰⁰ She immediately reacted: He did NOT “succumb. ” It's not that he couldn’t have done otherwise. It’s not the difficulty of the work that made him leave; it's something else.¹² Perhaps the “second round” will reveal to us the secret of his departure as well, for the departure of one and the departure of the other stem from the same reason—though this word “departure” does not make sense. The secret of Death may be right here, quite obvious before our eyes, but we must make it obvious. It is like the little pebbles in the virgin forest—we do not know which is the precious one, and we can step right over it without knowing that it is gold. In fact, the “pioneers” are those who come to show us the ever-existing gold: to render things obvious.

In March 1916, Mother embarked from London on the last boat bound for the East—the next one would be sunk. Richard, who was definitely an expert in marvelous pre­texts, managed to get himself demobilized and sent to Japan. Why, we do not know. But this, too, was a pretext, like the electoral campaign in Pondicherry—an infallible Hand guides our destiny and uses the most improbable pretexts to weave its threads. Here, too, there are many miraculous little pebbles that we do not even see, for if we were to understand a single one, perhaps we would understand everything. The world is a perpetual, obvious miracle. And perhaps evolution is the slow uncovering of what is obvious. Four years in Japan. Two mortal illnesses. Matter was definitely being “churned." The photographs taken in Japan show her very pale, always dressed in a kimono—for Mother is the one who belonged to all nations —but with two small lines at the corners of her mouth, the first lines, and who knows what pain behind them.... Yet She laughed very heartily. She was always laughing. She enumerated her mortal illnesses while making fun of her­self. Oh, how She made fun of everything! I have seen her emerge from umpteen heart attacks with that laugh of a little girl puffing up her cheeks—She was taking up the gauntlet—Mother was a constant challenge to everyone and everything. One had to be solid to live near her (or perhaps so unsolid as to extend everywhere like a limpid infinity—the solidity of the infinite). I can’t stand drama. I don’t want to be tragic. I would rather make fun of everything than be tragic!¹³ During the first Japanese war epidemic, which caused hundreds and thousands of deaths, people walked in the streets with masks over their mouths, and Richard asked: “But what is this illness, what is it? You who know the occult secrets, what's behind it? What is it? Why don’t you go and catch it, to see?" Mother recounted, laugh­ing. She got on a tram, crossed Tokyo, and came back with the disease. Not a single medicine: just the battle against the forces behind. Indeed, She had to practice with disease and death, since this was to be her battlefield to the very end. She came out of it "miraculously," as they say, but "miracles” are but the reverse of our medical superstitions; on both sides there is a tremendous superstition. An obvious "something”... to uncover. Perhaps the cure simply consists, too, in uncovering the Obvious. Once we really see, all the Falsehood will collapse. The power of Falsehood lies in our false vision—including death and disease. But this is a long path, which Mother was learning step by step. She had to wear down death exhaustively. Then She contracted tuberculosis, which would really be cured only with Sri Aurobindo: but Sri Aurobindo was present the whole time I was away from him. Here too, who could ever describe the relationship between these two beings?... Yet they hardly spoke to one another; we would be wrong to think that Sri Aurobindo and Mother, together for thirty years, exchanged many words—yet everything was known instan­tly in the other, whether in Tokyo or in the next room. "Wordless telegraphy,” as She said, laughingly: The only reason people cannot have wordless telegraphy is that their instruments are not properly tuned!¹⁴ Indeed, we still have many things to “tune” before bolting our interplanetary spaceships.

But all this did not keep her from enjoying Japan’s beauty: For four years in Japan, I went from wonder to wonder.¹⁵ First with the architecture: houses that seem to merge com­pletely into the landscape... not like a punch in your face. And then, as always, Nature, her old accomplice, the secret understanding, the mute communication between them, as with beings, as with everything—Mother flowed every­where. In Tokyo, I had a garden, She told the Ashram children, and in this garden I grew vegetables myself. So every morning, I would take a walk after watering them, to choose the vegetables I was going to pick for eating. Well, just imagine, some would say, “No, no, no, ” while others would call me from a distance and say, “Take me, take me, take me. ...’’So it was very simple. I went and picked those that wanted to be taken, and I never touched those that didn’t.... I loved my plants very much; I took care of them, and I put a lot of consciousness into them while watering and weeding them.¹⁶ Vegetables, flowers, cats and everything were her field of work (as for cats, She was trying to make them undergo a metempsychosis in reverse,¹⁷ She humorously explained). What did She not apply an interest to? (Some­times, we are inclined to forget that in evolution everything evolves—not only man.) But She also tried to put a little consciousness into men, or rather into the women of Japan, by urging them not only to stop bringing children into the world as rabbits do, but to make a conscious creation,¹⁸ in other words, to deliberately form an exceptional being by surrounding themselves with harmonious and exceptional vibrations of consciousness—a child absorbs his mothers thoughts as well as her blood—for, as She remarked with her ever-present humor, That the superman shall be born of a woman is a great indisputable truth 1... The true domain of women is spiritual. We forget it too often.¹⁹ Even Tagore, who was passing through Japan, was struck by Mothers clarity of vision and invited her to organize the education in his ashram at Shantiniketan—but what interested her was the Ashram of the world.

In her “Talk to the Women of Japan,” She announced in prophetic terms the coming of Sri Aurobindo and the signs by which one can recognize the advent of the New Age. It was in 1916. But let us listen: No sign will enlighten those whose eyes remain closed. But for those whose look is clear, darkness itself becomes a sign. Fordo they not know that the night grows darker as dawn approaches? Nevertheless, we will give to everyone a means of discernment: when all moves and quakes, when a shiver passes through the people, awak­ening those who had been plunged in sleep for centuries and threatening thrones, when that which seemed immovable begins to waver, when the proudest and most solid construc­tions shake on their bases and threaten ruin because the very foundation of things is displaced, then can be known the advent of the one whose superhuman steps make the earth tremble.²⁰

Her stay in Japan, which we know little about, or prefer to say little about, drew to an end, as did her own strength. Richard kept on philosophizing all the same. Sustained by Mother’s force, he was perhaps dreaming of becoming a mental superman, just as Theon had dreamed of becoming a vital superman. But Theon did not lack for greatness. It is a strange experience, sometimes, to realize how literally covered over we are by our mental constructions, so elegant and refined, often even wreathed in light, seeking Truth and Beauty for the world, preaching the Truth if necessary, while underneath there simply lies a human ego that has grasped hold of the Truth as it would grasp hold of False­hood, just as readily; it is merely another way of feeding itself and proliferating. The minute we touch the pretty fortress, it is there, claws out. How clearly Sri Aurobindo and Mother had seen this, how well they knew that the solution cannot be found there, in the Mind. Even the truth is rotten there. It can philosophize forever and add to this morals, light, or even yogic disciplines and austerities, Zen meditations and contemplations of every shade, it all amounts to the same thing: it is “I” feeding itself. And as long as this “I” keeps on nourishing itself, it will turn into its "opposite” the next day or the next minute or twenty years later, once its truth is no longer so nourishing. And the farce goes on. The Mind is the great mystifier. We recall that delightful story when Sri Aurobindo received Gandhi’s son, who was shocked to see Sri Aurobindo with a cigar in his mouth and exclaimed, “What! You’re attached to smok­ing, you, a yogi?” etc. Whereupon Sri Aurobindo replied, What! You're attached to non-smoking?... There we have it in a nutshell, quite simply. There is something radical to change. When our ultimate truths have collapsed and our hands have let drop their smoking or non-smoking, vio­lence or non-violence, divine or non-divine, we will silently begin to breathe a light air, which seems like nothing and is perhaps the truth of everything. To those same women of Japan, Mother said, The civilization which is ending now in such a dramatic way was based on the power of the mind, a mental handling of matter and life.... Thus, man’s road to supermanhood will be open when he declares boldly that all he has till now developed, including the intellect he is so rightly and yet so vainly proud of, is no longer sufficient for him, and that to uncase, discover, set free a greater power within shall henceforth be his great preoccupation.²¹ In Japan, with Richard, Mother had perhaps learned how useless it is to convert the Mind, that is, to do what all the “saviors of the world” have tried to do one after another; we must go down to the root, then everything else will change automatically. As for Sri Aurobindo, He had under­stood from the beginning: I am not here to convert anyone.²²

One pure little cell.

The four years were coming to an end with an absolute inner certainty that there was nothing to be done, Mother said, that it was impossible, impossible to do it this way (to convert Richard). There was nothing to be done. And I was intensely concentrated, asking the Lord, "Well, I made You a vow to do this, I had said, ‘Even if it’s necessary to descend into hell, I will descend into hell to do it.Now tell me, what must I do?... ” The Power was plainly there; suddenly everything in me became still; the whole external being was completely immobilized and I had a vision of the Supreme ... more beautiful than that of the Gita. A vision of the Supreme. And this vision literally gathered me into its arms; it turned towards the West, towards India, and offered me—and there at the other end I saw Sri Aurobindo. It was ... I felt it physi­cally. I saw, saw—my eyes were closed but I saw... Ineffable. It was as if this Immensity had reduced itself to a rather gigantic Being who lifted me up like a wisp of straw and offered me. Not a word, nothing else, only that. Then every­thing vanished. The next day we began preparing to return to India.²³

The last page of her journal, dated from Oiwake, simply says, Nothing remains of the past but an overflowing love which gives me the pure heart of a child and the lightness and freedom of thought of a god.²⁴

The granddaughter of Mira Ismalun, who had taken Paris by storm with her sky-blue tarboosh tipped low, had come to the end of her journey—the pupil of thundering Theon, the friend of Rouault, Rodin, Matisse, the patient student of all the mental and spiritual gymnastics, the mathematician sister of Matteo, the musician of a great blue note, was going to lay down her burden at Sri Auro­bindo’s feet to take on a still heavier burden—for the whole world is there, when there is no longer an “I”.

In 1920, on her way back to India, Mother would stop in China. She would touch Chinese soil (we do no know where exactly), to feel the atmosphere, as She said ... at the very moment when Mao Tse-Tung, fifteen years her junior, was completing his first work, "The Great Union of the Popu­lar Masses,” and founding the first Chinese Communist cell. Was it mere chance? She came into contact with that, too—twice. What evolutionary knot is situated there?... What onslaught of forces?

She was going to take one pure little cell by storm.

"We lived together for a year,” recalled an elderly Japa­nese gentleman by the name of Ohkawa. “We sat together in meditation every night for an hour. I practiced Zen and they practiced yoga.... There was a light in her eyes like that of the great morning of the world that was about to dawn.... She had a will that moved mountains and an intellect sharp as the edge of a sword. Her thought was clarity itself and her resolve stronger than the roots of a giant oak.... An artist, She could paint pictures of an unearthly loveliness. A musician, She enchanted my soul when She played an organ or guitar. A scientist, She could formulate a new heaven and earth, a new cosmogony. I do not know what Mirra had not become or was not capable of becoming.... She was beautiful in Western clothes. And She looked surpassingly lovely when She wore a kimono. If I could see her now, I would surely have said that She looked equally lovely in an Indian saree.... How could I, who lived in the very heart of the Fujiyama, tell you about the volume of its fire and flame and the dimensions of its light? "²⁵