Mother's Chronicles - Book Three

15

At the Threshold of the Formless

Weeks and months went by after the Morissets' return from Algeria. The year 1907 was well in its stride. Mirra was twenty-nine years old. Her ten years of intimate mingling with artists was drawing to its close —she had seen the boundaries of their world. After living ten years with Henri, it became amply evident to her that their parting of the ways had come.

She returned to Tlemcen for the second year running.

"18 July 1907 —Mirra came," Teresa noted in her diary.

Quite unexpectedly, on this second visit, Mirra was on the verge of discovering a secret. Mother disclosed this to Satprem when replying to a question

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of his. He wanted "to understand the process" —Sri Aurobindo's or the Veda's —by which the Supermind was to be found.

She replied, "My own experience I know and can speak about in detail. There is also what Theon and Madame Theon used to say."

She remarked upon the vision of Theon and Madame Theon converging on that of the Veda —the world of Truth which must incarnate on this earth and create a new world. "They even picked up the old phrase from the Gospels, 'New heavens and a new earth.'

"Because Theon also knew about it. He knew and called it 'the new world,' I think, or 'the new creation upon the earth and the glorified body.' But anyway, he knew the Supramental existence —he had had the revelation of it and that's what he announced. He also said that it would be reached THROUGH the discovery of the inner Divine ; and that that would lead to the 'thing.' For him, as I told you the other day, the 'thing' had a greater density —it seems to be a correct experience. Well, for my part, I made investigations and saw the earth's history in innumerable visions,

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about which I spoke a lot with Sri Aurobindo."

To whom she also told what Theon had said to her about Barlet and his "idea that the perfect man, the immortal man, would be spherical." And Sri Aurobindo, who always enjoyed a joke, repeated it in an informal chat with his disciples. "This question about the nature of the Supramental body was answered by Theon. He was in France at that time and he said the Supramental body would be a 'body of light — corps glorieux.' He had a number of disciples, some of whom were mathematicians and scientists. One of them brought the solution one day that the body of the Superman would be a sphere! Theon said, 'It may be, but it would be very inconvenient if people want to kiss each other!'"¹

Although Theon had all the knowledge, it was actually his wife who had all the experience FOR him. Mother gave a graphic description of the process she used. "Madame Theon had this experience, and it is she who, not actually taught me, but gave me the indication of how it was to be done. She would go out

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of her body and become conscious in the vital world — there were many intermediary states too, if one cared to explore them. After the vital came the mental ; you consciously went out of the vital body, left it behind —you could see it —and entered the mental world. Then you left the mental body and entered into . . . And in like manner she successively left twelve different bodies, one after the other. She would leave one body and enter the consciousness of the new plane she was in —she was extremely 'formed,' you see, individualized and organized, I mean —then fully experience the surroundings and all that was there, and describe it. And so on twelve times."

The Indian term for these bodies is kosha or 'sheath.' You leave your 'food sheath,' or the material body, on the material plane; then you enter the vital plane in your vital sheath; there you unsheath again to enter the mental plane. And so forth.

"I did the same thing," said Mother. "With great dexterity even. I could halt on any plane, do what I had to do there, move around and look, study, and then tell and record what I had seen. And my last stage abutted upon the Formless — Theon almost

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used the Jewish terminology: the Supreme without form he called 'the Formless.' From this last stage — which Theon called 'pathetism,'¹ a very barbaric but very expressive word —one passed on to the Formless. There was no further body to leave behind, one was beyond all form, even all thought-forms, all possible forms were ended. In this domain one experienced total unity —unity in something that was the essence of Love ; Love being a manifestation more . . . 'dense,' he would always say —there were all sorts of different 'densities'; Love was a denser expression of THAT. THAT was the sense of perfect Unity — perfect unity and identity —and THAT no longer had any form corresponding to those of the lower worlds. It was a Light! An almost immaculate white light, but with something of a golden-rose in it. Words are crude. This Light and this Experience were truly marvellous, it's inexpressible in words," Mother shook her head.

"Well then, once I was there —Theon said not to cross to the other side, because one did not return —

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but once there, I wanted to pass over to the other side. When, in a quite unexpected and astounding way, I found myself in the presence of the 'principle' as it were, a principle of the human form. It bore no resemblance to man as we see him, but it was an upright form, standing just on the borderline between the world of forms and the Formless, like a kind of 'standard.' At the time nobody had ever spoken to me about it, and Madame Theon had never seen it; nobody had ever seen or said anything. But I felt that I was on the point of discovering a secret."

Mother, during another conversation, had remarked upon the evolution of the human form showing a trend towards diminishing the difference between the male and the female forms. "More and more they resemble what I myself had seen on the highest height. I had seen it at the beginning of the century, even before knowing of Sri Aurobindo's existence, and without having ever heard the word 'supramental.' Nothing. No idea. I saw on the highest height, there at the threshold of the Formless, at the extreme limit, an ideal form resembling the human form —it was an idealized form, neither man nor

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woman. A luminous form, a form of golden light.

"Afterwards, when I met Sri Aurobindo and talked with him about it, he told me, 'It is certainly the prototype of the supramental form.' I saw it several times again, later on, so this proved to be true.

"I did this experiment approximately in 1904 — I think it was in 1904." It was in 1907 actually. "Consequently, when I arrived here, it was all an accomplished work and a known domain. Thus, when the question of finding the Supermind came up I had only to do my experiment again, to which I was well accustomed. I was used to doing it; I was taught to do it at will, through successive exteriorizations. It was a voluntary process."

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