Mother or The New Species - II

1. That Great Gaze

A new life was beginning.

Something had closed in this violent heart, ² like a heavy silver door behind which She held her pain in a silence that was perhaps terrible. Something had taken root there forever and for each and every day, a sort of gaze which could be intensely black with gold in its depths, an iron will that stared at Death unflinchingly. Now She knew: it was "the question given me to resolve." She was tracking down the Enemy in all its guises; behind all the gestures, the steps, the words, one person or another, She was looking at that and piercing a form of it. I know of no other being in the world who bore so constantly and so inexorably a sole and undivided will—not a breath of that life, not a second of those twenty-four hours in a day was worth living, or even could be lived, except to conquer and to find that out. He had left, had he not? A complete collapse. And it was not even Sri Aurobindo She was looking at—Sri Aurobindo was herself, like her own breath—it was beyond Sri Aurobindo, "something" that was like the great That of the world: the Absolute, the Supreme—and what do words matter, words are absurd anyway. That, which keeps everything from collapsing straight away like a monstrous farce. For, as it is, from the way things look at first glance, the world is a sheer monstrosity veiled only by our unconsciousness. Without that veil of unconsciousness, it would be unbearable. Without all its pretty snares of illusion, it would be intolerable. Remove the illusion and the only choice left is the path of Nirvana, or of suicide—or else That, the only hope for finding any sense. The Positivity of this enormous non-sense. Death's counterpart. Otherwise it is Death alone, triumphant everywhere, in every corner, waiting for us at the next bend in the road, when it will pull off its mask and, with a laugh, kick away all our painful stupidity. That or Death. There is nothing else in between, except a masquerade and the puppets in the masquerade. So one looks toward That or one is already in death. That, the only possible and living thing in this parody of a life which is not life, the only Intensity that matches the intensity of death everywhere. And if we do not believe in it, so much the worse for us—it only means that our name is already on the list of the candidates for death. Actually, it is not a matter of "belief," it is a matter of breathing; once the illusion is undone, it is no longer a question of pondering whether oxygen exists or of studying the metaphysics of oxygen: one breathes or dies. It is that simple. That means breathing. We may call it a "whale" if we wish, but if we are not on the back of that whale, we will soon be sucked down to the bottom—it is at the door, it is for tomorrow. It is even right under our noses: death slips past and slithers back again at every moment, like a silent shark, elegant and smiling—charming. The real truth is that it (Sri Aurobindo's departure) projected me DIRECTLY towards the Supreme, with no intermediary. ³ It is That or nothing, quite simply. Nothing, that is, Death. She said "the Supreme" or "the Lord" or "You"—it does not matter. It was simply her way of calling that something which does not care in the least what name we give it, but which is the only breathable thing in front of this omnipresent intensity of death. And it may be that all human experiences—all without exception—no matter the color or the language they are clothed in, exist exclusively, solely and absolutely to lead each of us to that single Second when we turn to this unique Possibility: suddenly we say that, or it is death. We turn to the Positive Thing, catch hold of the oxygen, open our hands, and like idiots, or not, we say: That, that, that... the one and only absolute is the Supreme; the one and only permanence is the Supreme; the one and only security is the Supreme; the one and only immortality is the Supreme! ⁴ And that alone exists. Otherwise it is not possible, otherwise it is living death. All experiences, all without exception, are meant to lead us there. That is the first second of life in the reign of Death. And it becomes such an absorbing and absolute experience.... The uncertainty, the instability, the fleeting, inconstant and impermanent nature of all things—everything collapses, there is nothing to lean on, except the Supreme, for He is all. One thing alone is unfailing: the absolute All. Words are stupid—it's an experience. Once you have the experience, that's that: all the rest simply follows from it—details.⁵ Then we are truly safe; or rather, we are assailed from all sides by death—which we had not seen before. We are safe because we are in the Breathing. We begin to see the real face of "life." We begin the battle against death. We side with those who pull evolution over toward the breathable side—actually, we do not side "with those": we side with the Supreme. "With those" is still part of the mortal mixture. And we can bear, without a quiver, that great, intense gaze of Mother which opened, at times, behind the Silver Door... because that gaze is terrifying for all the little deaths we hold within ourselves. I have spent my time veiling myself: one veil over another veil over another veil, so as to remain invisible. Otherwise... unbearable.⁶

At times... I saw.

So now we know what Life means in this reign of Death. This is what She had set out to conquer, the real life for the earth—versus our countless little deaths. When the earth can bear that Gaze, it will come closer to being the true earth, for it will have purged its incredible identification with death. There is not a single being, perhaps, who is not an accomplice of Death in one way or another. It is frightening. But these twenty-three years of Mother's were to be frightful years.

In short, each one in this evolutionary laboratory was like a little specimen of death "to be worked out."