Mother's Chronicles - Book Three

16

The Mantra of Life

"From that highest height I would redescend," said Mother, "reentering my bodies one after the other—you really feel the friction, you feel you are retaking a body and reentering."

She let fall that "when one is on that highest height, the body is in a cataleptic state." Which is neither sleep nor death, but a state in between.

Satprem the seeker, sought to know, "Is there a difference between sleep and death? Or are they the same?"

"Death and sleep? Oh, no!"

"But isn't sleep like death?" he insisted. "When asleep one is no longer in one's body; everything else goes out just as it does at the time of death. No?"

"Oh, no! Not at all," she disagreed. "No. The cataleptic state of trance, yes, it's like death, apart

from the link which remains —only a link remains, otherwise everything goes out. Actually, the body becomes cataleptic when everything has gone out. Otherwise all that is most material in the vital remains in the body."

The work Mirra did with Theon was "quite a perilous work, moreover. It was the body's life-energy that went out —everything, everything went out, just as when you die. Besides, that's how I came to experience death."

"I mean," Satprem chipped in, "aren't the places you go to in sleep the same as the ones you go to after death?"

"No. No-no." Then she gave the underlying reason for sleep and described what mostly happens in reality during sleep. She stated, moreover, "But no two sleeps are alike, my child. And the same goes for death —no two are alike. But they are different because . . . they are different STATES."

She repeated, "The STATES are different. While you have a body you are not in the same state as when you are 'dead.' After the doctors have declared you 'dead' there is a period of seven days when you are

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still in an intermediary state. But the state of death, death proper, is totally different BECAUSE there is no longer this physical base."

Mother took up the theme of the body's cataleptic state, giving her own example. "Once ... it happened twice, but I am not sure about the second time as I was alone. The first time was in Tlemcen and I was with Theon. My body was in a cataleptic state and I was in a conscious trance. But it was a special kind of catalepsy, in that my body could speak. I could speak, although very slowly —Theon had taught me how to do it. Well, anyhow, it can be done because the 'life of the form' always remains and this is what takes seven days to leave." Mother was always indignant at the way Indians cremate their dead so soon, only a few hours after they are pronounced dead.

"The life of the form, when trained, can make the body move —although the being is not there —at any rate, it can make it utter words." She then gave additional details on her own case.

"By and by, while I was still in catalepsy, the body began to live again, that is, it was able to speak and even move. The body managed to get up and

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move about. And yet everything had gone out of it. When everything goes out, the body becomes cold, of course, but there's a body-consciousness which manages to draw a little energy from the air, from this and that. And I would speak in that state; I spoke —I could speak very well and would recount all that I was seeing elsewhere."

In this state life literally hangs by a thread.

"However, this state is not without danger, the proof being that during my work, for some reason or the other— obviously due to some negligence on Théon's part who was there to watch over me —the cord, I don't know what to call it, went snap!" There was a faint rueful smile on Mother's face. "The link was cut malevolently."

Satprem shuddered. With reason. For, as a rule, it denotes a point of no return. To put it simply, when a spirit goes out from a body that is asleep or in a trance —as in Mirra's case —as long as life continues in the body the spirit is attached to it by a tenuously thin cord of silver light which is capable of stretching to an infinite distance.

I was told by a Tantrik that this was how the

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Rishis of yore could stay in trance for such long periods of time without dying. They left their bodies seated on the earth while their spirits went roaming, for instance, in the Sun-world (Suryaloka). To take an example at random, Mirra visited distant planets, we learn from Sri Aurobindo. It was way back in 1934 when a disciple was "wondering whether the Mother has been able to establish a direct connection with Mars or any other far-off planet."

Sri Aurobindo wrote back, "A long time ago Mother was going everywhere in the subtle body but she found it of a very secondary interest. Our attention must be fixed on the earth because our work is here. Besides, the earth is a concentration of all the other worlds and one can touch them by touching something corresponding in the earth-atmosphere."

But evidently great precaution should be taken to guard the material body while the subtle body or the spirit goes out of it.¹ It can be darned dangerous.

1. A story from Shankaracharya's life (788-820 A.D.) illustrates this. Shankaracharya had beena sannyasin since his childhood, and once he needed to have the experience of worldly life. Having asked a disciple of his to keep a close

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However, if sudden danger threatens the body, the silver cord is able to recall the spirit to animate it. But if that silver cord is once severed, the body dies. That is generally the case of people who are said to have "died in their sleep."

And why was the link "cut malevolently"?

Mother answered Satprem's mute question. "Theon made me find the Mantra of Life, the mantra that gives life. And he wanted me to give it to him, he wanted to possess it — the thing was formidable! It was preserved in a place." Not physical, of course. "It was the mantra that gives life —it can make anyone return to life, but that's only a small part of its power. This mantra was shut away, sealed, with my name on it in Sanskrit. I didn't know Sanskrit at that time, but he did. When he led me to that place, I told him, 'There is a sort of design, it must be Sanskrit.' I could recognize the characters as Sanskrit. So he told me to

watch over his body for a year, he left it and entered the body of a dying king. After living a king's life for a whole year, Shankaracharya left the king's body and returned to his own, having acquired the knowledge he wanted. He would seem to have acquired a Tantric process —a siddhi—by which yogis transfer themselves into another body.

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reproduce what I was seeing. I reproduced it. And it was my name, Mirra, written in Sanskrit. It was meant for me, and none but I could open it. He told me — we were doing this when I was in a catalyptic state — 'Open it and tell me what is there.' Then something in me KNEW at once, and I said, 'No.' And I didn't read it."

Mirra's refusal made Theon violently angry, and it was this that snapped the silver cord.

"I had gone out of my body in an entirely material way, the body was in a cataleptic state, and the link got cut. So the link was cut."

Satprem, ever curious, asked, "But what was the experience at that moment?"

"The experience was," Mother said laughingly, "impossible to enter that!"

Then in a more serious vein she went on, "When I wanted to return, when it was time to return, I couldn't get through. But Theon was there —Theon was scared stiff! But I was able to warn him. I alerted him, saying, 'The cord is cut.'

"He was capable; he knew —he knew how to 'pull.' So he used his power and his knowledge to make

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me return. But it was no joke! It was very difficult," she said mildly.

She reverted to Satprem's first question. "And that's when I had the experience of the two different states; because there, the part that had gone out had gone without the body's support —the link was cut. Then I knew. I was, of course, in a special state since I was doing a certain work in full consciousness with all the vital power, and I was mistress not only of my surroundings but . . . But, you see, what happens is a kind of reversal of consciousness — you begin to belong to another world. You feel this quite distinctly. Now, Theon instantly asked me to concentrate —I was getting ready to go wandering off! He was in a mortal dread that I would die on him! He entreated me to concentrate, so I concentrated on my body."

An impossible situation, surely! "But Theon was there," so the reentry into the body was made possible.

Knowledge was an important factor. "There was, from an occult point of view, knowledge — a goodly knowledge! There was knowledge as well as the will," Mother made a gesture of pushing to reenter the body.

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"And also an inner faith —but I never spoke about it — a concentration." Another factor helped. "Besides, the body was not deteriorated, you see; it was undamaged, so it wasn't difficult. It was in a very good condition, only the thread was cut —that is, what gives life had gone out and could no longer return.

"I returned as a result of the power and the will, because ... In fact, simply because I still had something to do on the earth."

We suppressed our smiles at Mother's understatement.

"But when I reentered, it hurt horribly. Hurt atrociously. An excruciating pain, terrible, terrible, as though you were entering into a hell."

"Into a . . . ?" Satprem was flabbergasted.

"Into a hell." Mother laughed. Yet it was no laughing matter. On the contrary the reentry was "an unforgettable suffering," she told us once.

"It was terrible. It doesn't last," she added.

"He made me drink half a glass of cognac. He always made me take some every day after the session, because I remained working in trance for more than an hour —which is generally a forbidden practice.

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"But still, I am quite sure that had it not been he and I, that would have been the end. I would not have reentered.

"So, even in my outermost consciousness I know a little bit. A little bit, that's all."

And she said in conclusion, "No, sleep is something else. Yes, something else. It's more like a falling back into the Inconscient. We all know, of course, that the Divine Consciousness is there in the depths of the Inconscient. But for some reason, probably owing to the necessities of the Work, I've never had, to my knowledge, a fully unconscious sleep."

As for the Mantra of Life, "I found it again when I was with Sri Aurobindo. And I gave it to Sri Aurobindo.

"But that is another story again."

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