Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

12: The Permeation

It was a life that was more and more bizarre, incomprehensible for everyone, and Mother had the wisdom to say nothing, like Sri Aurobindo, otherwise they would have thought that She was mad, and yet She spoke to me—less and less, not for reasons of silence but because She was more and more devoured by the invasion of people, their quarrels, their lies: a rush of Falsehood¹¹⁷, she would say. It was the year of Bangladesh. And She had to live in the midst of all that, each minute in the midst of all that, while her body was traversing a sort of low-flame hell—smiling to everyone, answering everyone, accepting everyone, swallowing everything. Anyone would have been truly exhausted, emptied, robbed by that incessant crush in her room. No, it was not a silent retreat. And sometimes, more and more often, the precious hours—precious for the world—that She would reserve for me were encroached upon and swallowed up by their sordid stories: They shove my head into such a mush I would be surrounded by a black cuirass, absolutely coal black, if I didn’t do my work of purification all the time, all the time).¹¹⁸ And when I would arrive for the interview after a line of an hour or two hours, She was so pale that I would just place myself at her feet, in silence, and would not have the heart to ask her questions. Lots of secrets were lost, many links missed because this one did not like his neighbour or that one had been unfaithful to this one. It was distressing. I would look at the “secretaries,” I wanted to tell them: for heaven’s sake, don’t you understand that these few moments with Her are of interest to the world? They would have not understood. That is the way it is. And Mother was seeking the transformation of the world, wasn’t She, so it was necessary that all the elements enter the crucible. But the crucible was pure poison. And finally, because of this very situation, that was so contradictory, because of this ever increasing silence, of this growing invasion that seemed to slowly, irresistibly try to separate me from Her, cut me off from Her, I touched something else: She was building another way of communication and from then on those extraordinary silences near Her were the best “explanation” of the impossible way: Shall I take you? and She would take my hand, and then ... it was not even a “journey,” because we would go into no “over there” at all, but we would begin to palpate, to touch unsayable secrets that had no name and were like the formation of a new being within, of a new perception, almost of a new substance: a substance that was all of that at the same time—being or power (a formidable one), vision, knowledge and love, as if everything were made of love on that level—where we moved together in so intimate an accord that the slightest movement of one was perceived by the other, followed by the other, and there was no longer any “other,” It was as if encompassing your body in the same movement of the cells.¹¹⁹ And today, like already two years ago, I feel the same experience that continues, as if She had built a way of communication for all times. And they say that She is dead. Or they say that She is in a “subtle body.” But that body is more concrete and more living and more physical than all their movements of ghosts! If it is a “subtle” body, then subtlety is decidedly more solid that all their empty gourds.

But the fact was that She was devoured.

And as always (it is truly the strangeness of this path), one would have said that the solution was born from the very contradiction, that the difficulty, the obstacle, the impossibility were the very key. No, She understood nothing of the way, but it was born of its own under her feet, minute by minute. And if one tried to go against the difficulty, to “rectify” the difficulty, it was as if the key instantaneously escaped. Mother accepted EVERYTHING. The destiny of the world or the sordid quarrel of this one, it was all the same, without priority. It was the same thing. At every instant it was the destiny of the world, everything was the destiny of the world. And more and more one recollected Sri Aurobindo, who would make a whole detour not to disturb the nest of a sparrow on his door: that detour and that bird and that work never finished, because of the thousand epistolary detours of these ones and those, were a single Movement. The work is at every instant. There is not a single detour. When we have understood the absolute sense of each instant and of each thing in that instant, we will be very close to an innumerable life and to a body that is everywhere.

Iridescent Materiality

But how was that body going to enter this one? It was the “burning” problem, if one can very adequately say so. How was that growing, formidable vibration, that tidal wave of golden power going to modify the corporeal substance or even just enter there without demolishing everything? The experience had begun years before in fact, without one knowing very well what it meant nor where it was leading and as of 1961 Mother had observed “that small scintillation of vibrations that seems indispensable to be able to enter that Matter,” as if that could not pass purely through, obviously, without setting everything aflame. A small multi- coloured scintillation that seemed to be the first “adaptation” of the supramental substance for it to be able to infiltrate into the body. She had seen this some fifty years earlier, in 1906, but so far off, at the end of that “vertiginous fall,” and it is quite curious to note the precision of the experience of back then; when She opened her eyes at the end of the experience, She wrote: There are also luminous, golden clouds, but dense, not transparent, and in those clouds are small dots of iridescent light. I felt it was the materiality brought by the trip. The materiality of the new world. And it seems that across the years, imperceptibly, the small iridescent scintillation has come closer, layer after layer, to the pure body, to pure Matter, as if truly we were separated from our own body by thick layers of consciousness without our being aware of it. The body is what is the farthest away from us! Across lie all the atavistic residues, of course, but the more one approaches, the more one uncovers the old primary layers, the residues of the animal, vegetal and mineral, as if in truth the end of the journey were the beginning of the world. We are millions of years from our body! the one that one touches and which seems so strappingly standing. But it is an enormous crust. It is that which makes for our dying. And the whole phenomenon (in fact since 1906) is the slow perforation or infiltration of this small scintillation until it traverses this obscure enveloping and reaches the small pure cell: the direct body. Then that which was all the way out there is all very much here. When we feel that is so very much out there, we say: Oh! It’s a “subtle” world, it’s a “subtle” body, it’s a “vision,” a dream.… And when it is come here … well, it’s fully physical! it is one and only one physical separated by walls of consciousness and layers of filth. In the pure little cell, the two worlds are ONE, the “subtle” is as perfectly physical as Mr. Jones in a suit (perhaps even more so). It is exactly the phenomenon that occurred in Mother, slowly, patiently, carefully; and as the small scintillation entered her body, it was as if, simultaneously, the “other world” hewed its path into this one and She found herself suddenly, with her eyes wide-open, in “Sri Aurobindo’s residence,” that so-called “lining” of the world where the living and the dead go around together as if there were nothing to it.

So it becomes evident that what makes the veil between the two worlds is the physical Mind and what makes death is the physical Mind—one and the same thing. A coating of false matter or of fossilized Matter on ... an immortal physical reality. Death is not on the other side, it is we who are on the mortal side and die, precisely because we are not in the immortal reality of the earth, in the true physical.

How to make this true physical pass through or infiltrate into the old crust is all of our question: truly a question of life and death for the species. One can say that for the first time in the world Sri Aurobindo and Mother asked the true question. For the first time someone found the true question of evolution, which is neither a flight into little bodies of paradise nor the scientific imprisoning in a mortal, legal and inevitable Matter. Then truly our millions of years of effort and pain find their sense. Earth becomes sensible. Otherwise it is simply a scientific monstrosity or a similar religious monstrosity in reverse. We are coming out of this contradictory stupidity. We are coming out of the false dilemma which has blocked the true paths of the work for so many centuries—but perhaps the time had not yet come. Even our science and our religion have worked well to bring us to the point of such absolute and painful contradiction that the earth really had to emerge into a third position. We are there. We are in the physical passage to this third position. It is not a question of philosophy: it is a question of skin, bones and viscera. The whole question is to know how the said skin and viscera will sustain this small scintillation of new—and oh! so old light. And Mother’s body begins to appear to us in all its reality as an evolutionary laboratory. Her undertaking is truly OUR undertaking. And those who want to divinize her or make a new religion of her are foolish—it is the earth that must be divinized, it is men that must be divinized, it is Matter that must be divinized. It is the reality of the earth that we want and of those that inhabit it— finished with religions.

Let’s get to the work of true Matter.

The Supramental Invasion

Now, Mother took years to understand that this small, strange scintillation that She saw in everything, “associated with everything,” even with her eyes open, was the process of infiltration, or of “permeation” as She would later say, of the true physical or true Matter into her body and into the whole body of the earth—it was not particular to her body, even though her body, and Sri Aurobindo’s body before, may have triggered the terrestrial phenomenon (before or simultaneously, because after all it was as far back as 1906 that Mother had her experiences). But it was in 1962 that the phenomenon began to become a bit clear for Her—fifty-six years after her first experience! The two [the ordinary physical and the subtle physical] seem to be fusing more and more. Instead of SHIFTING from one to the other, it’s as if one were permeated by the other and you can almost feel both simultaneously. It’s one of the results of what’s going on these days. A very slight concentration, for example, is all it takes to feel both at the same time, which leads me to a near conviction that true change in the physical results from a kind of PENETRATION. The most material physical substance no longer has that sort of density that resists penetration: it is becoming porous, and thus can be penetrated. Several times, in fact, I’ve had the experience of one vibration quite naturally changing the quality of the other—the subtle physical vibration was bringing about a sort of ... almost a transformation, or in any case a noticeable change in the purely physical vibration. As soon as the body is motionless, there’s this perception of the two vibrations, and of the physical vibration becoming porous. That seems to be the process, or at least one of the most important processes. And it’s not like something more subtle penetrating something less subtle without altering it: the essential point is that this penetration actually changes the composition. It’s not merely a degree of subtlety, it’s a change in the internal composition. Ultimately, this action probably has an effect on the atomic level. And that’s how (how to say?) the practical possibility of transformation can be accounted for.¹²⁰

An atomic alteration?... without exploding from it?

And Mother added: On the surface, it’s a very humble work, nothing sensational.

There are no illuminations filling you with joy and All that is fine for people seeking spiritual joys—it belongs to the past. It’s a very modest work, very modest. And at each step, it’s as though you had to take great care that nothing gets thrown off balance.¹²¹ The “ridge,” as Mother would say, was to become more and more fragile and dangerous. All the powers, all the realizations, all these things are ... the grand extravaganza—the great spiritual spectacle. You go from fairground to fairground, displaying your feats of skill.¹²² But this isn’t like that! It’s very modest, very modest, very unobtrusive, very humble, nothing showy about it. It takes years and years and years of silent, quiet and extremely careful work before there can be any visible and tangible results, before anything can be noticed....¹²³ “Every atom,” Sri Aurobindo would say. And the problem of time would always come back.

The atomic level of the problem would come back as well. In that same year 1962, Mother noted rather mysteriously: There is nothing to “change”! The relations between things are what changes. As an analogy, look at what Science has discovered about the so-called composition of Matter at the atomic level—there’s nothing to change. Nothing to change! The constituent element doesn’t change: the relations between things are what change. Everything has one and the same constituent element, you see; and everything lies in the interrelations. Well, it’s exactly the same for the transformation.¹²⁴ And as I was rather perplexed, Mother added: You can’t grasp what I mean by the word “relation” unless you take it scientifically. Your body, and my body, this table, this carpet, are all made up of atoms; and these atoms are constituted of “something” that is the SAME. The differences we see—different bodies, different forms—are due to the movements or the interrelations within this same thing. Well, I say that the Power must change this intra-atomic movement. Then, instead of disintegrating, your substance will obey the movement of Transformation, you follow? But it’s all the same thing! What must change are the relations among things. And so it becomes evident that immortality can be achieved! Things get destroyed simply because of their own rigidity—and even then, it’s only a semblance of destruction; the essential element stays the same, everywhere, in everything, in decay just as much as in life.¹²⁵

Was Mother only making an analogy? Or should we understand it literally.… Without doubt one understands that the supramental Power is the very power that animates and constitutes the atom, and therefore it can maneuvre what it has constituted and which to us seems immaneuverable, except by the frightful methods of apprentice sorcerers. But what would result from it?... We lack experience, as Mother says, we can only note the fact and understand there as well that this “change of relations” could only come about with infinite precautions—and with time. Ultimately, She observed as a conclusion, it’s all the constructing Will. The constructing Will is eternal and infinite—it’s obvious—so there’s no reason why Its creation shouldn’t partake of immortality and infinity—things don’t necessarily have to go through the semblance of disintegration to change form, it’s not indispensable.¹²⁶ Eight years later, in 1970 (and one sees the slowness of the “very modest” and very precautionary process), Mother noted: That union between the two, between the subtle physical and the material physical, is taking place all the time—day and night and day and night. You might almost say that there is an attempt to substitute one for the other. There’s a sort of ... not exactly fusion, but a permeation (it really is a permeation), which doesn’t drive away the other, but ... at length, it will probably transform it. This subtle physical is working to take the place of the other one, but not through elimination: through transformation. But I can see (as I perceive the two at the same time, I can see very clearly) that it’s a tremendous work. It takes away some of the fixity. Our physical is crumbly, and the subtle physical takes away that crumbly character: wherever it would break, now it bends; wherever it would crumble, it’s fluid, it becomes.... It’s very strange. It’s hard to explain. But, of course, it’s a colossal work.... The experiment is under way: for months and months [years in fact] it has started with the more subtle, and then, very slowly and progressively, it has descended into a more material field ¹²⁷ All the layers were worn through and one was reaching the pure, direct body. And simultaneously, the “other” world, the so-called “subtle” world, the so-called “other side” entered this one (not “entered,” as it had always been on this side: it showed through): Last night, remarked Mother in that same conversation of 1970, it was really remarkable.... One would have been unable to say, “This is the subtle physical, and that is the material physical.” It was ... surprisingly one within the other. You don’t get the impression of TWO things.¹²⁸ The junction of the two sides was done. But to say true, this “other side” did not preoccupy me at all, even if it was on this side; it was the earth that interested me, the visible earth and I asked Mother, “But in a terrestrial manner, how are things happening? How is the permeation of that subtle physical into the earth happening?”— But in that way! Mother exclaimed, in that way. That is the work—the permeation.¹²⁹And I insisted, like St Thomas: “But is it happening terrestrially?”—Yes. “In everyone?”—Yes.

And the experience grew, intensified. I no longer have the impression of dreaming, no longer at all. It no longer has anything to do with a dream: it’s an activity that goes on and on The “over there” goes on, and it’s as real, as tangible as physical things. There, those with a body and those without a body are mingled without difference. They have the same reality, the same density and the same conscious, independent existence. The physical appears to be less imperative, less ... Previously, there was the impression that, all right, it wasn’t a “dream” as people call it, but a more subtle and less precise consciousness, and that the physical consciousness was quite concrete and precise. But now this distinction And Mother remained suspended there, looking right in front of her, towards Sri Aurobindo’s tomb. It was as if that subtle physical world wanted to ENTER into this one (and there is indeed a great power in it), but I don’t know how to explain as if it wanted to force its way into this world.— “An invasion of the subtle physical?”—Yes, that’s what seems to want to happen ¹³⁰

The supramental invasion.

But the more the junction occurred and the more that descended or entered her body, the more that began to boil and become infernal: the irised light changed into molten gold. Truly a small death at every minute. And the same thing in the body of the earth. Two years later, in 1972, the phenomenon had become even more tangible, crying, one could say. There’s a kind of golden Force pressing down; it has no material substantiality, and yet it feels terribly heavy and it presses down on Matter. And the apparent outcome seems to be inevitable catastrophes. But along with this sense of inevitable catastrophe, there come solutions to situations or events that look simply miraculous. As if both extremes were becoming more extreme: the good getting better and the bad worse. Like that. And a stupendous Power PRESSING down on the world. And then even in life circumstances, many things otherwise indifferent are becoming suddenly acute—situations, differences, ill wills that become acute—and AT THE SAME TIME, singular miracles. People on the verge of death are saved, inextricable situations are suddenly untangled. And the same for individuals too. Those who know how to turn to ... who sincerely call upon the Divine, who feel it’s the only salvation, the only way out, and who sincerely offer themselves, then ... within a few minutes, it becomes a wonder—for the least little thing. There’s no big or small, important or unimportant, it’s all the same. The whole scale of values changes. The vision of the world is as though changed. This is as if to give an idea of the change brought about in the world by the supramental Descent. Things that were insignificant are becoming quite categorical: a small mistake becomes categorical in its consequences, while a little sincerity, a true little aspiration becomes miraculous in its results. The values are intensified, they stand out more.¹³¹ The same for the body: the least thing seems to produce consequences completely out of proportion—in either good or bad. The customary “neutrality” of life is disappearing.¹³² Day by day, hour by hour, this is getting truer and truer. The feeling that this Force has power, a REAL power—the power to move Matter, you understand; it can cause a material accident, or save you from a wholly material accident, it can cancel the consequences of an absolutely material event—it is stronger than Matter. Things are no longer what they were. It’s truly something new, it is NO LONGER what it was. A new world, really. We can call it “supramental” to avoid confusion, because as soon as you say “Divine,” people start thinking of a God, and that spoils everything. It isn’t like that. Not that, it is the descent of the supramental world, which is not mere imagination: it is an absolutely material Power, but [and Mother smiled] with no need for any material means! A world is trying to be born into this world.¹³³

It was the year of Bangladesh, Watergate, the assassination of the Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, the withdrawal from Vietnam. The first journey of Nixon to Peking as well.

And the problem of the transformation of this body begins to link itself definitely to the transformation of the world. It is the burning “permeation” here and there. The miracle and the catastrophe side by side. The precipitation of Death and the transformation of Death.

What is going to happen?