Mother's Chronicles - Book Three

6

The Earthly Paradise

While 'the last fierce spasm of the dying past' is shaking the nations, let us take a glance backward at Earth's maidenhood. And for that our best recourse is Mother.

Mother, who had lived everywhere and in all times, had an assortment of inscribed tablets in her Memory's halls. Everything there was well documented and docketed. No cobwebs hung in any corner or recess where the tablets were neatly stacked. And there we find one tablet, untouched by time, which pertains to the earthly Paradise.

One morning in 1961, Satprem asked, "Is it true, Mother, that an earthly Paradise existed?"

"From a historical viewpoint," she replied, "not psychological but historical, if I take stand on the grounds of my memory . . . Only, I can't prove it —

Page 79

nothing can be proved, and I don't think any truly historical proof has come down to us, or, at any rate, it hasn't been found yet. But going by my memories ..." Mother folded her hands on her lap, shut her eyes and went in search of her memories. "Certainly, at one period of the earth's history, there was a kind of 'earthly Paradise,' in the sense that life then was perfectly harmonious and perfectly natural. I mean, the manifestation of Mind was in accord —was STILL in complete accord —and in total harmony with the ascending march of Nature, without any perversion or deformation. That was the first stage of Mind's manifestation in material forms."

She unlocked the doors of the Halls and began reading aloud from the inscriptions.

"Because this much I know," Mother was now sure of her ground, "I know for having lived it, that when the passage from animal to man —a very obscure , passage, but of which more or less convincing traces have been found —was adequate, when the result was plastic enough, there was a Descent, there was a mental descent of human creation. They were beings... it was a double descent, that was precisely its peculiarity,

Page 80

double —male and female —it wasn't one single being, it was two who descended. Those beings lived an animal life in Nature, but with a mental consciousness, without, however, any disaccord with the general harmony. All the memories are perfectly clear about a spontaneous animal life, absolutely natural, lived in Nature. A marvellously beautiful Nature, strangely similar to the nature in Ceylon and in tropical countries —water, trees, fruits, flowers. . .

She seemed to be listening to the music of a great orchestra.

"That spontaneous, natural and harmonious life — very harmonious —was extremely beautiful, luminous and easy! A harmonious rhythm in Nature. In short, a luminous animality."

Mother's relationship with Nature is of old standing, it seems!

"That's how we began."

How well she remembered that beginning!

"I still see it, the image is still fixed in the memory. It had nothing to do with mental civilization and development. It was a blossoming of force, of beauty in a spontaneous and NATURAL life, like animals

Page 81

life, but with a perfection of consciousness and power greatly exceeding what we now have. In point of fact, with a power over all surrounding Nature, over animal and vegetal and mineral nature, a DIRECT handling of Matter which men don't have —they need intermediaries, material instruments, while that was direct. And it was not thought, not reasoning, but spontaneous." Mother made a gesture to indicate the will's direct r

"That life was, yes, a truly superior life in a natural setting, and of such an extraordinary beauty and harmony! But I don't have the feeling that it was

—how to express it?—something known. And no idea at all that there were other beings upon earth and you had to mind them, or 'demonstrate' to them; nothing of the sort, absolutely nothing of mental life, nothing. A life like . . . like a pretty plant or a fine animal, but with an inherent knowledge of things, fully spontaneous and effortless — an effortless life, purely spontaneous. I don't even have the impression that there was any question about eating. I don't remember it. But the point was the joy of Life, the joy of Beauty

—there were flowers, water, there were trees, animals,

Page 82

and everything was friendly, spontaneously so. And no problems! There were no problems to be solved, nothing at all —one lived!"

She who carried an incredible burden of problems, sighed.

"Certainly an uncomplicated life."

She sat deep in thought for several minutes. Then she said, "But it's far, far away in other times. For there wasn't the least bit of sensation that one had sprouted from below. One had as though fallen there, simply, to amuse oneself."

The faraway look in her eyes faded slowly. "It must have been before the first man produced by Nature. Not after. Before."

Traditions say that the first human pair materialized through an occult process. "That is to say, beings belonging to higher worlds built or formed a body of physical matter by a process of concentration and materialization; it wasn't that the lower species progressively brought forth a body which was the first human body."

Mother with her spiritual and occult knowledge was in a good position to discount, or rather rectify one

Page 83

current theory that the form precedes the consciousness and permits it to manifest. "It is absolutely certain that the conception precedes the manifestation and expression. And all those who have had a direct contact with the past, had the memory of a kind of human prototype — far superior to the present humanity —who came on earth as an example and a promise of what humanity will be like when it reaches its acme."

Mother switched the focus to another point on the canvas. "How long did it last? It's hard to say. My memory is of a life where the body was perfectly adapted to its natural surroundings, the climate to the needs of the body, the body to the demands of climate."

Mother wondered again, "How long did that period last? I am unable to say. Because I recollect also an almost immortal life. It seems that it was through some sort of evolutionary accident that the disintegration of forms became necessary for progress."

Are we then doomed for ever and a day to this rotten system formed by that 'accident'? Perhaps not. Sri Aurobindo and Mother say different. "Basically," she said, "when a body will be formed as the result of

Page 84

an ideal and an increasing development, a body with enough stuff and possibilities, enough potentialities, there is a good chance that an abrupt Descent by a supramental form will take place, just as happened with the human form."

In a very short time Mirra was to see this future form. But that will come in its own place.

Her eyes fell on a brilliant crimson canna in a vase. I often arranged a vase of flowers on Mother's interview days with Satprem. "Ah, there were many flowers just like this one in the landscape of that earthly Paradise —red, and so beautiful!"

She leaned back in her chair, placed her fingertips together and closed her eyes. "I have a recollection of that life, for I relived it when I first became conscious of the life of the entire earth. But I can't say how long it lasted or what area it covered —I don't know. I only remember the condition at the time, the state of being, how the material Nature was, and how the human form and human consciousness were; and also this type of harmony with all the other elements of the earth. There was a kind of spontaneous knowledge of how to use Nature's things, the qualities of

Page 85

plants, fruits, and all that vegetal nature could offer. And no aggressiveness, no fear, no contrariety or friction, and NO

"It was certainly with the progress of evolution, the march of evolution, when the mind began to develop FOR and in itself, that ALL complications, all deformations began. So much so that this story of Genesis that seems so childish does contain a truth. The old traditions like Genesis were similar to the Vedas in that each letter was the symbol of a knowledge; it was a pictorial resume of a traditional knowledge, just as the Veda contains a pictorial resume of the knowledge of its time. But additionally, even the symbol had a reality in the sense that there was truly a period when life upon earth —the first manifestation of mentalized Matter in human form —was still in complete harmony with all that preceded it. It was only later that ..."

She left her sentence in mid-air to again scrutinize the landscape. "And where did it take place?. . . From certain impressions, but these are only impressions, it would seem that it was in the vicinity of

Page 86

either this side of Ceylon and India or the other side, I don't exactly know." Mother waved her arm towards the Indian Ocean, to indicate either west of Sri Lanka and India or to the east between Sri Lanka and Java. "Although certainly the place no longer exists; it must have been engulfed by the sea. I have a very clear vision of the place and a consciousness of that life and its forms, but I can't give precise, purely material details. Did it last for centuries, did it. . . ? I don't know. To tell the truth, when I was reliving those moments I wasn't curious to look at the details —one is in another frame of mind where there is no curiosity about material details; all things turn into psychological facts. The forms were human. But I can't say I remember . . . for instance, if I were asked whether or not there were nails at their fingertips, I wouldn't know! It was very supple and very luminous. At any rate, the forms were humanlike. But it was ... it was something so simple, luminous, harmonious, far removed from all our usual preoccupations with time and place."

She mused for a while. "Repeatedly, under different circumstances, and no few times, a similar

Page 87

memory came back to me —not exactly the same scene and the same images, no. Because it wasn't something I was viewing but a LIFE I was living. During a certain period, by day or by night, in a particular state of trance, I was rediscovering a life I had lived. And I was fully aware that that life was the flowering of the human form on earth —the first human forms able to incarnate the divine Being from above. This was the first time I could manifest in a particular terrestrial form, an individual form —not a general life but an individual form —that is to say, the junction between the higher Being and the lower being was made for the first time, through the mentalization of this material substance. I have lived that several times, and always in a similar setting and with quite a similar feeling of SUCH joyous simplicity, without complexity, without problems, without all these questions. There was nothing of all that, absolutely nothing! It was the blossoming of a joy of life —nothing but that — in a universal love and harmony; flowers, minerals, animals, all got along together perfectly."

Verily, as Sri Aurobindo addressed her, the young maiden was the

Page 88

"Mystic Miracle, daughter of Delight,

Life, thou ecstasy ..."

"It's only a LONG time afterwards that things began to go wrong," stated Mother, "long after —but this is a personal impression —probably because certain mental crystallizations were necessary, inevitable for the general evolution, so that the mind might prepare itself to move on to something else. That was when . . . ugh, it seems like a fall into a pit —into ugliness, darkness! Everything became so dark, so ugly, so difficult, so painful. Really . . . really the sense of a fall, a brutal fall, oh!" Mother swiftly brought down her arm to show a rapid fall.

"For the earth it probably happened like that, all at once; a sort of ascent, then the fall. But the earth is a tiny concentration. Universally, it's something else."

She lapsed into silence, then broke it to disclose: "The recollection of those times is preserved somewhere in the terrestrial memory, in the region where all the memories of the earth are inscribed." She also indicated that there are people who can make contact with this region.

Page 89

After pondering some more, she said: "Theon also used to say that man was born perfect, but had taken a tumble. Evidently, these things can always be explained symbolically. Take the explanation of man's 'exile' from Paradise, Theon explained it like this: When the Being, the hostile Being, assumed the status of the Supreme Lord vis-á-vis the terrestrial realization, it wasn't to his liking that humanity should progress mentally, thus gaining a knowledge which would enable it to stop obeying him! That is Théon's occult explanation."

"And what does the serpent represent physically?" Satprem asked, thinking no doubt of the original sin!

"Why," exclaimed Mother, "it is the vibration of evolution!"

"I don't mean symbolically," he explained, "but physically, materially —the animal."

"It's a tremendous concentration of vitality," she replied. "Energy —a progressive energy, an energy of motion."

"But why does the animal always give us this evil feeling?" he asked.

"Christians say it is the spirit of evil," she

Page 90

answered. "But all this is mere incomprehension.

"Theon always told me that the true interpretation of the biblical story —about Paradise and the serpent — was that man wanted to pass from the state of animal divinity, like the animals, to the state of conscious divinity, through a mental development. And this is what is meant symbolically when one says that they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge."

Does anybody know whether the apple from the Tree of Knowledge the serpent gave to Eve and the apple Newton saw fall, were not one and the same?

"The Tree of Knowledge," Mother said to Satprem, "symbolizes this kind of knowledge —no longer divine, you follow; the material knowledge that resulted from the sense of division is what began to spoil everything. And Sri Aurobindo fully agreed with this. He used to tell me the same thing: that the mental evolutionary power is what led man to knowledge, a knowledge of division. Besides, it's a fact that with the sense of Good and Evil, man became conscious of himself. Naturally this spoiled everything and he couldn't stay; it was his own consciousness that exiled him from Paradise. He could no longer stay."

Page 91

As Satprem sat listening to her, spellbound, Mother went on. "As for the serpent — Theon always said that it was irised, meaning that it had all the colours of the prism —it was not at all the spirit of evil; it was the power of evolution, evolution's force and power. And naturally enough, it's this evolutionary power that made them taste the fruit of knowledge." Which infuriated Jehovah. "Because it enabled man to become godlike by the power of an evolution of consciousness. That's why he drove them away from Paradise."

"Was man then banished by Jehovah or by his own consciousness?" asked a perplexed Satprem.

"Beg pardon! Theon always maintained that the 'Serpent' wasn't at all Satan, but the symbol of evolution—Theon was wholly pro-evolution —evolution in a spiral; and the earthly Paradise, on the contrary, was under the domination of Jehovah, the great Asura who claimed to be unique —who wanted to be the only God. For Theon, there is no one and only God, there is the Unthinkable. It's not a 'God'."

Then Mother said in a slow thoughtful voice, "But this stems from his Jewish background, it seems to me.

Page 92

"And for the Jews, it's the Unthinkable, whose name must not be uttered. It is uttered only once a year, on the Day of Atonement- 1 think that's what it's called. The word is Yahveh, and should not be uttered. The prayers speak of 'Elohim,' and the Hebrew word Elohim is plural, meaning the invisible lords.' So, for Theon, there was no one and only God. but solely the Unthinkable Formless; and all the invisible beings who claimed to be one and only gods were Asuras."

Page 93