An extract from 'Life without Death' - an English translation of the original French book 'La vie sans mort'.
This is an extract from 'Life without Death' - an English translation of the original French book 'La vie sans mort' published in 1985. This conversation is between Satprem & Luc Venet.
Uprooting Death
Satprem had greatly changed since I had last seen him. Something indefinable in his look betrayed the new intensity he was living in day after day. He was totally “present,” with even a mischievous little gleam in his eye, and light-years away at the same time, as if his body were a bridge between some infinite dimension where the worlds are created and the immediate space in front of us. Something inexpressible around him, like great wings of infinite softness, reminded one of Mother – it was there without words, concretely – but if one looked too probingly or tried to
“understand,” everything vanished. One had to be soft oneself, to let the great wings enfold one without thought or understanding. Then, after a while, one “understood,” but in a different way: the understanding came from within, with a soft heat, and one knew: “Yes, this is it.”
Several days passed. Sometimes, in the evening, Satprem would invite me to accompany him on his walk in the countryside. We would sit in silence under the trees, and everything would stop except for that life of life kindled within the being and illuminating everything with its rays of knowledge and peace. The world around unfolded divinely. One day, however, he had broken the silence: “In this business, you spend your time dying without dying!” That had slipped out of him, perhaps because he had felt my silent questions beside him. But he could not or would not say more. There were so many things implied in that little sentence, a whole mysterious and dangerous world, that I was left speechless.
Abruptly, a few days later, after inviting me to accompany him, Satprem added, “You might as well take your tape recorder – one never knows!” We walked some distance in silence, sat down before a lovely expanse of green. I pressed the button:
(Satprem:) The whole work is actually to ... try to build, to fabricate the base of that transitional being – that being who is still human and will make ... I don't know ... the transition to the supramental man, who will no longer be animal, no longer driven in the animal way.
That's the work Mother was doing.
I don't know what will happen, but what I understand – I can only talk about what I understand at this time, through my experience – is that the whole task is to ... UPROOT
death. One could say, the FRAUD of death. But it isn't a mental fraud; it goes right down to the roots of life – to the very first claws of life in matter, as it were, to the ROOTS, what we call the roots of life. Well, you actually realize that the roots of life are the roots of death – they are the same thing.
(silence)
It's a real labor to reach that point and realize that ... You see, what they call “death” is nothing; it's just the end result, but you realize what a CRUEL domination has seized hold of all life – at least human life. It's a cruel, dreadful, horrible domination. It's ... abominable. And that's the CRUEL DOMINATION over life in matter.
So, in a way, the whole work is to EXPOSE that.
But, of course, this doesn't take place in your head – you expose it after you've managed not to die from it! And then, you face it a thousand times, ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times, every second, for hours, and every day.
That's what the work is all about, you see, in a way to ... EXPOSE THE FRAUD, this falsehood that wants us to believe that it rules, that it is life.
Death wants us to believe that it is life.
But the moment you start uprooting the fraud (all this takes place in the body, you understand; it's in the body), well, you also uproot ... it makes you believe: “You see, you're dying! You're dying! Your heart will stop and your brain will give out and ... ” That's what happens. You are made to see this, feel this, in thousands of ways.
So the whole work is to ... (Of course, you can't possibly do it, do this work, so long as the other Force is not there. How could you do that with your own forces? How could you even go down at that level without the other Power?) So it's
like a ... battle, I don't know, between that cruel domination which wants you to believe – and has very powerful means to make you believe! – that it is not at all an illusion, that it rules and that ... Look, this is life, and if you start fooling with it, you're simply going to croak! It can be very convincing when it wants to.
But it's a fraud!
It's a lie.
What we call life is DEATH!
And it's as though the body had millions of fibers planted in an old evolutionary soil, an old evolutionary soil that is human, that is – well, it's “life,” and if you pull out the roots, it'll just die!
So you must pull out the roots and then turn them around toward true life – true life, which is without death – PURE life.
That's it.
And then, you see, every time that Power of the new life comes, the whole body is thrown into a dreadful fright! Well, my FAN-TAS-TIC discovery (Satprem pounds the ground with his fist), you see, my fantastic discovery is: WHAT IS AFRAID – IT'S DEATH THAT IS AFRAID!
It's death, inside the body, that is afraid – and tries to scare you to death and convince you: “You're dying, you're dying, you're dying....”
It's death you are uprooting – not life. On the contrary, you're trying to bring in some real life.
That's it – that's it.
When that Power comes down, there's a dreadful squirming in the body – mortal.
But the day I began to discover it was death that was afraid of dying, it was such a revelation for me, such a tremendous help. But this has to take place in the body, you understand. When your heart starts going “thump, thump” and gets stuck and ... Well, afterwards, when it realizes – when it persists and realizes it didn't die, or when its brain is about to burst and it realizes it didn't burst.... But it takes many instances, you know, many such operations to uproot that falsehood, that fraud, that cruel domination. Because death is merely the end, but before getting there, you see all the horrors, the abominations, the suggestions: all that dominates, all that cruel squirming that dominates life (pounding the ground), dominates men, dominates human consciousnesses – everything.
It's a CRUEL domination.
So the body must begin to realize that what dominates is the Lord, what dominates is Life, not death, that what is being uprooted from it is its old mortal rot – what is being uprooted is its old disaster.
I can assure you, that “stupid death,” as Mother used to say – but it isn't stupid; it's nasty – that nasty death is saying, “Ah, you think I'm stupid!”
It's extremely clever, you know – it's clever day and night.
And very cruel.
But it's a FRAUD.
*
Life Without Death
(Satprem continues:) That transitional being is one who is WITHOUT DEATH – it doesn't mean “immortal” as simplistic people think: one “regains youth” and all that nonsense. In fact, I don't know how it will be – I don't want to speculate – but it will be PURE life. That is to say, a life in which there is no death as at present, completely intertwined with life like a snake.
It will be PURE life: life without death.
It doesn't mean “immortal”; it means without death. There, death does not exist – death and ALL its tricks. Because death is just the end result, the culmination of meanness, deceit, cruelty, falsehood, perversity – of everything we see everywhere around us.
We see it “outside,” but when you go inside yourself and you see DECEIT, MEANNESS, CRUELTY – and you realize how deeply ingrained all that filth is!
Death is nothing but the outcome of that.
That's exactly what Sri Aurobindo said: It's a “SPELL.”7 We must destroy that spell. The body must break through that spell. Only ABSOLUTE PURITY can break through.
So I think that's what the transitional being is: it means trying to uproot that filth, somehow....
What lives, what rules, what dominates, what is true, what is ONE, is ... the Divine, is Mother – that's what exists, you understand. While everything else wants you to believe that falsehood is what exists.
We are filled with that mortal squirming, everywhere, in everything – snakes and claws, venom and suggestions – oh, it's ... I don't know, we're full of it!
That's the BASE: a life without death, a pure life, a life ... freed from the fraud, from the illusion, from the MAGIC of death. That's the base. We have to build that base. Mother, Sri Aurobindo have built it, but a few bodies have to be willing to ... follow!
What will happen after that base is established does not preoccupy me, I must say. But what is clear is that this (Satprem strikes the ground several times with the palm of his hand) is done – all the rest is divine play.
So you spend your time dying without dying.
The New Power
The body needs a good dose of it to begin ... to feel differently.
For instance, the other day I truly thought I was going to die. My heart was really in a bad way. And I was in real pain.... But the body was not in the least worried – just the same it spent the day lying flat on the bed, but not in the least worried. It was just in pain. The next day, it wasn't at all over. I sat up and ... that tremendous Power came, and the heart started to have, you know, those irregular heartbeats, which are kind of frightening for a body (!) Because when that Power comes, you feel as if it were going to crush everything – and what's a poor human heart compared to that!
Well, that was the breakthrough: the body took the resolution to say, “But dammit, is this the divine power or what! Is it the divine power that's trying to kill me? Good, if it wants to kill me, let it kill me!”
That was the body's reaction.
I stayed for, I don't know, an hour and a half, two hours, under that ... Cataract (I don't know what else to call it; it's a Niagara of power, it's fantastic). And the body simply didn't concern itself with those ... fluttering heartbeats. Everything went perfectly well for – after an hour and a half, I was a little tired, so I went and lay down. But everything went very smoothly. There was nothing wrong with me. On the contrary, it was going through like a breeze, a breeze, a breeze ... And it is like a breeze! You see, what creates the explosion is all the falsehood and death swelling up and saying, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no....”
I had the same experience the other day. I had a racking headache, a real misery in my head (you know how it is, don't you?), and that same Power came. I said to myself, “It's going to break everything, shatter everything to pieces – it isn't possible....” I stayed very quiet. But then, that same TREMENDOUS power is ... it's like a breeze, a breeze, a breeze....
It's death that swells up, tenses and starts ... going into hysterics – it wants you to believe that you are going to burst, that everything is going to burst.
But, of course, that kind of “operation” has to go on for several months, you understand.
(Luc:) But what does that Power do exactly? What is its .. function?
(Satprem:) Look, how do you go down into a body? When you want to dig a hole in something, what power do you use for digging? How would you dig in there without that power?
If you use your mind, it's like looking at all this with a little flashlight – which merely reflects on the surface. In order to go deeper, you literally need to dig in there, in those layers. The rishis said it: they said “digging.” What are you going to “dig” with? What power? Your mental power? Even the power of your soul? Or your vital power? What can penetrate there? Only that Power has the FORCE to penetrate there. But the moment it penetrates, it stirs up all the death that's in there!
Do you understand?
The first step, of course, is to establish a contact with that Power. Afterwards, well, it does the job – some job! ... It's not you who do the job; all you have to do is try not to be party to that ... mortal squirming. You mustn't be party to it – that's the difficulty.
We mustn't be party to it.
And it tries to get you in every conceivable way, using every conceivable means. I need not go into details....
Well, that's some “digging,” I assure you.
The Spell
Oh, now I understand the “process” – well, I listened to Mother for so many years, and of course I “understand” with my head, but now I understand with my body. I can assure you, it's one thing to see the fraud in your head and something else to see it in your body – to become aware of the roots of that cruelty. Oh, it's abominable!
Humans do not realize.
On the contrary, they spin, they endlessly spin all possible threads so as to be bound hand and foot by death. They spin them in every way: with their newspapers, their television, their science, their books, their novels, their adventures, their ... They spin ... truly, they SPIN death around them for the sake of spinning – they spin and spin endlessly. So afterwards, when you want to undo all that ... you must ask yourself, “My God, but what are they doing! What are they doing?”
Because all the means they use are PART of death! They are all the TRICKS of death: their surgery, their medicine, their physics, their science – they are all the tricks of death, the inventions of death, tricks to tie you up even more tightly.
Even their cures are part of death!
And they have frightful reasons on their side: “You see, you're going to die of this.” They have certainty on their side, countless proofs – death is FULL of proofs. And you are absolutely under its control: even if you have some faith in your heart and your head, come a crucial moment, well, you're scared out of your wits and you go to the phone and call the doctor. And then go and acknowledge that you are wrong; then go and try to convince your body: “Look, this is not what you think!”
But they go on spinning, regardless. And so the world is in a colossal, dreadful spider web – which they spin foolishly, you see, day after day, with all their “things”: their television, their newspapers, their novels, their literature, their poetry, their philosophy. Everything is an ENORMOUS spider web.
(long silence)
Six or seven months ago, I don't know, when for the first time I suddenly realized – but realized in my body, you understand – that it's death that is afraid of dying, it was such a ...
It's DEATH that's afraid of dying.
Yes, I remember exactly.
And that's where you understand, you realize that Mother and Sri Aurobindo have seen all, realized all. But to realize it in your mind isn't enough. I recall that phrase of Sri Aurobindo where he speaks of the “deep
falsity of Death.” The deep falsity of Death – well, it's “deep” within the body's tissues! That's where it's deep. But it's FALSE. It is a FRAUD. It is a LIE – a lie with millions of proofs on its side.
It is a lie.
The deep falsity of Death....
You see, Sri Aurobindo often speaks of this “magic spell” or this “deformation spell” (at least four or five times in Savitri – it had struck me each time). “Spell” – he repeats the word three times or four times in Savitri.
Well, that's what it is. It's really a “spell.”
In other words, the “divine life” begins when you can uproot that fraud, when you can create a base of pure life. Then the divine life begins – anyway, the one that ... I don't know, I don't see it yet, but it will come. But this is not some philosophical divine life! It's a very ... material divine life.
I have been talking a lot....
(Satprem gets up)
And all their DNA molecules – that's still a view from inside the prison.
The New Being
(We resumed our walk.)
Satprem's words had made such a profound impact on me. I imagined his battle against the dark and demonic forces he had just described. Everything seemed so simple and obvious: we just had to go down into our body and kill the dragon dwelling there, the death snugly ensconced in our tissues, and we would be free at last on a true, happy and harmonious earth. I was walking beside him and our footsteps had a strange echo on that country road; they seemed to go deeper than the surface, almost as if they touched and pressed upon another dimension – perhaps a little bit upon the dragon's tail?
A few days earlier, a mutual friend had told us of a dream in which she had seen at length, and even talked to, a marvelous being, a child, of a different constitution from earthly beings, yet with a form very close to that of humans. That dream, and what was evoked by it, had very much struck Satprem.)
(Luc:) And what about that “new being” that S. saw in her dream?
(Satprem:) That's the future, the supramental being, the being who in fact is no longer made of all that mortal fabric of falsehood. It's a being who is made ... divinely.
(Luc:) Could one say that the work you are doing is –
(Satprem:) You know, I wouldn't say “I” am doing, because you really have a feeling that the “I” is precisely what creates the obstruction – rather, you try not to stand in the way.
(Luc:) I understand. But is it conceivable that your endeavor brought that possibility faster, I mean, that child who seemed so close, so “concrete”? Could one say that in a sense he is born of –
(Satprem:) He is born of the supplications of some, and perhaps many, people who ... Well, supplications. There are some good people on this earth, you know, who say to themselves, “My God, this isn't possible!” People who ache, you know. Well, there are ignorant supplications and others that are less ignorant. Without a doubt, every call has contributed. If there were nobody on this side to call for something truer, why should the Divine bother to do anything? He must be called, the Divine.... To call is in fact the first step toward liberation. There are no “individuals” in this – just calls. PURE calls. There may not be many, but there are some. There are beings who ache.
Sri Aurobindo and Mother sowed something, but on the other side there has to be ... They threw her into the tomb, so there has to be a few people pure enough, with enough true love in their heart, to call her, to draw her out! Otherwise, why should she come out? She would stay forever in her tomb if people don't want her!
We must – we must call her.
And REALLY call her, you understand.
Not just as an idea.
It's SCALDING to be sincere; it's PAINFUL to be sincere.
So if this new being is ... materialized, it's a marvelous grace. There's no other word for it. It's the solution to everything – if he's really materialized. Personally, I have seen him, but in a subtler world. Did he actually become material? It looks like it. I don't know, but for the last month or two, I have had such a strong feeling that something had to
happen.... It's possible – it isn't impossible. If he is here, it brings such a tremendously positive energy into the atmosphere – it's extraordinary! People can't understand, or else they understand through roundabout ways or masks.... It's bound to hasten everything toward the better, toward the True, and of course toward the collapse of Falsehood.
I don't know, my child.
We'll see – we'll see what happens.
I can only speak of my own experience: it's becoming very, very intense, very acute. One feels, I don't know, on the ... brink of something.
Oh, yes! I understand Mother! – everything, absolutely everything. It's a pity I understand so late, because if I had understood her better then, I would have loved her a little more. That often makes me sad....
Well, anyway, my child, we'll see what happens. We must just do our part – let that white laser penetrate through all that squirming of falsehood. We must do our part, and that's all.
(Once again we sat under a tree. All human sounds seemed to have ceased. And again that same feeling of compact power near Satprem, at once gentle and imperative,
which seizes you from within.)
(Satprem laughing:) They'll think he's an extraterrestrial!
(It took me a moment to come back to reality ...)
(Luc:) Ah, yes, that he came down from Venus!
(Satprem:) Oh, you know, their stupidity knows no limit! It knows no limit.
But I think that particular being will have ... “powers” – but not the ones they think. Not the ones they think. He will burst the BUBBLE.
It's no use speculating. We know nothing – nothing.
We know nothing.
The description [of the new being] that S. gave is ABSOLUTELY exact – and it's perfectly material.
Personally, I very much felt that something would happen – that something had to happen. That's all I can say.
Well, if he is here in matter, maybe his “radar” (laughing) will guide him to us, and he will come and say hello?
I did see something, but not in that form.
We are stuck inside a mortal fishbowl. We are like fish, hopelessly fish, and anything beyond the fishbowl is death-death-death-death – it's asphyxiation. Evidently, a few beings have tried to say, to show – to prove – that in fact one is not “asphyxiated”; one merely moves into another air, into
a true life. And the whole “transition” is to try to poke one's nose outside of this human fishbowl. So if a first being quietly glides and slips to the surface, can you imagine what an extraordinary help that can be? A being who would be “supramental.” If he is here, if he manifests himself ... it will cause many things to collapse, it will help many things to collapse, many barriers. But, nonetheless, a few beings had to – have to – try to poke their nose to the surface, into the other air – which is NOT mortal.
The Cry
(To my surprise, the next day Satprem asked me again to bring the tape recorder on our walk. I felt encouraged to ask the question I had been reluctant to ask.)
(Luc:) I wanted to ask you a question about that “power” you spoke of yesterday. From the outside, one gets the impression that it is rather as if a car were moving at a certain speed, and accelerated and accelerated – and suddenly there's a sort of break in the movement of the car: it leaves the road and takes off into the air – it behaves in an altogether “unclassical” manner. As if that “power” had nothing in common with our usual notion of spirituality.
(Satprem:) But of course, it has nothing in common!
They would be crushed to a pulp if they were in contact with that!
The rishis, yes, they knew....
(Luc:) So my question is to know how – not how one gets it (I understand one doesn't “get” it; it has to come by itself), but –
(Satprem:) What helps to make it come?
(Luc:) Yes ... what has to happen, at some point, in the being – in the body – for that Thing to manifest?
(Satprem:) All right, let me put things as simply as possible (I always use the same metaphor because I find it very vivid): we are REALLY like fish inside a fishbowl – it's an absolute fact. It is a fishbowl of horror, of pain, of calamity. But then ... (after all, sometimes there is a grace in life), all of a sudden, something in the body cries out ... CRIES OUT – something cries out materially, not in the mind, not as a result of self-discipline or anything of the sort. A cry suddenly bursts out of the ordinary man in the street because he is SUFFOCATING. And all of a sudden ... the fish sticks its nose out on the other side of the water, into another air – which is formidable (formidable, because he's still a fish). But, you see, you stick your nose out on the other side, you emerge – it's your SUBSTANCE that has to emerge there, nothing else! I'm talking of the cry of the man who is condemned to death, the cry of the man who is being tortured, the cry of the nightmare, the cry of – you've reached the END, you understand; you simply can't go on: you're dying.
So what is the way to get there? The way is uncatchable, indescribable; it belongs to no system, no spirituality, no ... – it belongs to the substance that CRIES OUT.
That cries out.
All of a sudden, in the middle of its nightmare, it cries out. In the midst of its pain, of its ... it lets slip a cry.
And you emerge a first time. You emerge ... and you are in that other Power of life – which is Life.
A Revolution in the Body
But the most extraordinary discovery that I – in my body, you understand, because you can discover anything you want in your head, it's just hot air; whereas when the body makes a discovery, it's ... absolute, you know. It's like: suddenly it knows how to swim, or suddenly it knows how to – it KNOWS. These are absolute discoveries. Well, it was extraordinary that day when the body suddenly REALIZED (it was feeling all the horror of that cruelty, that suffering, that ...), when it said to itself, “WHY, THIS ISN'T LIFE DYING; THIS IS DEATH LIVING!”
It is DEATH that lives – it isn't life that dies; it's DEATH that lives.
I felt that death everywhere – death-death-death; cruel death. Death in every way: in my mind, my heart, my life. There was nothing but death and horror, really – what kind of life is this, for God's sake!
What kind of life is this?
And then – I don't know how to describe it, because for the body it's quite simple and overwhelming, like a complete reversal of all its values, but not “intellectual values” – suddenly it was right there in the flesh; it was ... it was like being born to the world! Or being born to a world.
That's it: it isn't life that ... ; it's DEATH that lives.
It created a sort of ... revolution in the body, a complete reversal, a real breakthrough, I assure you.
There isn't any method.
You see, it is right at the point of dying that you begin to emerge. “At the point of dying” – you can die in your heart, die in your mind, die in your ... in fact, we never stop dying in this life; that's all we do! But it has to become sufficiently ...
that death has to hold you sufficiently in its grip ... so that there is such an intense aspiration in the body, you see – as when it is asphyxiated.
As when it is asphyxiated.
Well, look, there isn't any manual for that! You must ... all of a sudden you kick the bottom of that ... that hell, and you emerge. But “emerge” – it's in your SUBSTANCE that you emerge, not in your head, you understand! It is both EXTREMELY SIMPLE and absolutely indescribable. There is no “path”; it's something completely automatic. There is no literature about it. There is no philosophy on it.
For the body, the Divine is something one DRINKS.
I tell you, the first time, it was – oh, it was like drinking nectar! The body was drinking. It drank for HOURS – it drank and drank and drank and drank.
I had never seen anything like it!
It was ... it was unbelievable! It drank and drank and drank and drank – really as if it had been thirsty for thousands of years, and suddenly it was DRINKING the Divine! There was not even such a word as “divine”; it was just life pouring in for the first time.
So that Power is ...
You can't describe the way – it's automatic. You can't “understand” it; you can't understand a way that doesn't exist – it is made for you. You can't “understand” it, because how can you ask a fish to understand what happens in the sunlight? It's impossible – it's another ... way of being.
So it's automatic.
The only thing is the beginning: “Really, it's hell in here!” It's hell, and that's all. And it isn't just hell in your head – you're at the end of your rope! Then, all this matter, all that is covered up, you know, ENTOMBED, shut in a tomb – all this body covered up by that dreadful mental formation: that philosophy, religion, atavism ... (the body is almost literally in a TOMB beneath all that!) – all of a sudden, all that breaks open.
The body suffocates! – we are just not aware of it. We notice it ... we notice it when it begins to die! But there's obviously no manual on suffocation or asphyxiation – at that moment whatever must happen happens....
Then, gradually – and that's the painful part – the old fish learns how to live in that other air, that other Power, that other kind of breathing.
But it is as material as this (Satprem makes a fist). It's really – it isn't a metaphor – that material. One day, when the first fish became amphibian, it must have gone through hell – it must have been asphyxiated and suffocated in order to invent a new way of breathing. Well, this is exactly the same thing, you see.
It's EXACTLY the same – MATERIALLY the same.
These are not “metaphors.”
The Other Air
I can tell you quite simply how it happened, the first time when really ... when it happened. I don't need to tell you all the details: truly, since the age of twenty I have been thrown into horror, and I did go through a lot of horror and pain and – a lot, a lot....
Anyway ...
But a time comes when you really reach the end of the line. To reach it at twenty is already difficult; to reach it at sixty is in a way easier – but it's also more difficult. So there's really that ... burning NEED in the body – because all spiritualities and ideas and methods and all that are part of the fishbowl, part of the asphyxiation, part of the
NOTHING, you see. And then there's this matter, this body, so full of pain – and genuine pain, you know, because one has lived enough to be able to feel a little of that misery, which is not only one's own, but the misery of this dreadful world. So you say to yourself, “That's it, you're going to die, and then what? What will you have DONE? What will you have truly LIVED? What is – WHERE IS LIFE, for God's sake?! Where is life?”
Where is life?
Well, one of these times (you can't pinpoint one in particular; there are millions of times, thousands of times, and some days it's more vivid than others – well, that day it was more vivid), it's absolutely as if everything in the body, all this consciousness, this ... (this what? What drives this body), all this were seized with such an intensity – a MORTAL intensity, I could say – with such a CRY ... I could see the entire course from the time I was twenty, with the Gestapo, till I was sixty – and what I saw was forty years of horror! FORTY years, you understand: I am sixty and I still find the SAME HORROR!
Truly, one can't talk about those things....
So it's ... I don't know. Of course, that cry happened many times before – many, many times, I am sure, and since very long ago.
But there was a day when all that cry of the body was like millions and billions of material particles, which started to rise and rise and rise and rise from the whole body.... So I said to myself, “This is it, you're going to die.” And I couldn't have cared less. It was really like millions of particles of my body which ... (were they the consciousness of my body? or the cry of my body? or what? – I can't say). But there was really the feeling of countless tiny particles leaving the body. As if the whole body were being emptied, you
know – being emptied of all its being, of all its ... life (or blood?).
And all of a sudden, it found itself ... well, it found itself in that other air.... It had the impression of rising and rising and rising (while, in fact, it stayed right on the ground), and then it emerged into ... into another air, another Power, another – call it what you like.
You can't describe these things. I tell you, it is both extremely simple and ... People have to experience it, that's all.
People have to experience it.
There must be enough of a CRY, enough intensity of call, enough ... This is perhaps how all mutations happened? Because a given species is dying – well, it's got to find the other way, or perish.
This is what has to happen in a few individuals.
And it can be ANY individual.
The grace is ... to call.
That's all.
We could also say that the grace is to asphyxiate....
That's true.
And, of course, this has nothing to do with any spirituality. You see, I did do ... well, I've had all sorts of experiences in my life. So as far as the regions “above” are concerned, the super-regions of yogis and people who practice meditation, I know them well – I've explored them. Well, I tell you, they seem like a paltry dream in comparison – like a dream. That power has such a DENSITY! And yet, it is such an incredible nectar. It's something you TASTE, you DRINK, you ... INHALE. How can you possibly describe that? For the
body, which has been living in death for ... well, for nearly sixty years in my case (and for each person, it's been death for as long as he or she has lived), all of a sudden, it's life!
All of a sudden, it's life!
But it's a life that ... You do not emerge into it once and for all, you see. You carry with you all the old fish. So you must constantly ... well, now the old fish must learn the new way of breathing, the new way of being. It must be learned. And learned how? Well, learned by asphyxiating, by painful labor, by – you learn it on the job. This is not in any manual, you see. And then, it will vary; it will be different for each individual. How do you learn to evolve from fish to amphibian? How do you learn to grow legs to walk on the ground? Yes, how do you learn? ...
That's it, you see.
The fins have to change into something that can walk, the lungs have to change into something that can breathe the air – it's a completely new way of being. It has to be developed, to be learned....
An Automatic Path
Well, there isn't any manual for that. There's nothing.
It's a wonderful path (in a sense), because, since you can't know ANYTHING about it, you're certain not to make any mistakes! You are certain. You can't make any mistakes. Because you can't know what the next step should or shouldn't be – you simply can't. You don't know – you know NOTHING! What does a fish know about life in the sunshine? It knows NOTHING.
So it's a totally automatic path – totally material and totally automatic. You meet all the obstacles, all the difficulties, all the complications – all that is necessary for you to learn the new way of breathing, the new way of walking, the new way of being. And you can't invent it; you can't plan it – it's impossible. Impossible.
You can't make any mistakes – there is no road!
And, you know, if you tried to deceive yourself – pfft! (gesture of a blade across the throat) It's impossible, you see, because it is overwhelming. It is, in fact, a PURE air, so if the least thing is impure, it's ... simply pulverized. And that's not a joke! You must be TOTALLY pure – in fact, the whole task is for the old fish to purify itself of all its old ... way of being. And if you try to bring a little of the fish into the other air, it EXPLODES! You can't cheat with “that,” you see. You simply can't; it's impossible – it's a material fact. You can't bring any of the fish to the other side; it's impossible.
I could say any fool can do it. But it has to be a fool who is really asphyxiating, really crying out, really calling, really ...
All those who believe they have remedies, panaceas, tricks are still completely stuck in the death of the fishbowl – they are nothing but panaceas of death. The point is, you must be at the end of all “panaceas” – at the end of everything.
If Sri Aurobindo and Mother had not MADE the way, it would be completely impossible, you know, because ... you would panic instantly. It would be impossible – they had to open the way because you would think you've gone insane. You'd fall directly into death!
So the way has been opened.
In other words, the surface of that ... mortal illusion has been BROKEN. And through that break, let's say that others, in turn, can pass: their cry can get through.
That's the difficult part, but it's also a marvel – a lived marvel. But you can't talk about these things. It's like discovering life, you see!
It's truly like that.
The Delight in the Body
I didn't realize.... Once, I had to go to F. to the dentist, and I felt really miserable, as if I were at the end of my life. I felt so ... exhausted by all those people rushing and bustling about. And I did not realize how much of that other air I had already absorbed (you don't realize that you absorb a lot, a lot of that other air). I came back home – and suddenly what an incredible TORRENT OF LIFE came pouring in! The body, these billions of cells were all drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking as if ... I can't say. It's ... it's concrete!
It's truly a nectar. It's something that has never been experienced.
So, for the body, it's divine – it is the Divine. It's adorable, delightful; it's a delight. No words are necessary – but the body understands! It understands.
You can't imagine how marvelous it is.... It's really as if this body – this body, these cells – had lived for thousand and thousands of years, gone through desert after desert after desert, and suddenly it finds the water of life – a water it never knew, an air it never knew, which is its first breath ever. It's unbelievable, I assure you. It's unbelievable! It isn't expressible – it's a fact. You can't compare it with anything.
And that is life!
That is life. A life that will ... build everything, that will make Life! – which has never been, you see.
Which has never been....
We'll see what the future has in store – that doesn't preoccupy me.
That swelling of delight in the body! ... It's unbelievable, inexpressible!
It's a complete revolution, a trauma in reverse. I don't know how to describe it: it was dead and now it is living! How can you express that? And even trying to express it is ...
Yes.
But that, it doesn't forget – it doesn't forget. That leaves a marvelous imprint everywhere, in its myriad cells. From that moment on, it – that's what helps, what will help it to undergo that purification (indeed painful) of everything that's left of the old fish, you see. That's the tough part: that old death that still sticks to you, yes (laughing), the remains ... of the old fish, which must still be purified.
But it leaves such an imprint ... I don't know.
It's like a collapse in reverse. I can't tell you: It was dead and now it is living; it was locked in a prison of all sorts of things, and pfft, the prison is gone! You have to breathe that to ... all of sudden to appreciate the sort of CATACLYSM it creates in that squirming – but a wonderful cataclysm! It's a reversal of everything: there was death, and now there's life (while the body thought there was life when there was, in fact, death). Everything is reversed. And not in the HEAD – the body has UNDERSTOOD.
It has understood forever.
Come, let's walk a little....
A World Simply True
(We resumed our walk. All the trees around us stood out with amazing clarity on the horizon. Satprem continued:)
And so they all spend their time worshipping the tomb of Mother and Sri Aurobindo – instead of making a HOLE in it!
They are the ones who are entombed.
It will be so beautiful the day when that tomb of the world, the tomb of pain and falsehood and horror BREAKS OPEN, when a new earth comes into being at last, into the open air, into a delightful air, a true air, yes, really true....
It's TRUE world, you know! (in a sobbing voice) It's ... TRUE. For once, it's true, simply true.
Perhaps the blessing of our times, of our century, of our ... (the blessing of our horror, one could say) is that we have reached such a horrible point that ... things will break and we'll emerge into something else. Not break with their bombs – that's still the triumph of the old death – but something that breaks in the human consciousness. This is perhaps the blessing of this horrible age. Before, the Horror had a lovely mask: it had beautiful literature, beautiful religion, beautiful spirituality. Everything was gilded and respectable – now it's stark naked. That, too, is a blessing. You can no longer be deceived. There's a whole illusion that nobody can entertain anymore; all that is finished. These are moments of grace, precisely because the illusion is for the most part shattered.
Shall we sit a little?
(We sat at the edge of a field, beneath a beautiful tree with a smooth, straight trunk.)
(Luc:) The trouble is that in this world – in society, let's say – if a man had such an experience, if his cry succeeded in tearing the veil, in breaking the fishbowl, he would instantly think he'd gone crazy!
(Satprem:) You must never forget that that “other thing” is truly divine: it's the pure Divine, the lived Divine. So it takes a very great care of ... whatever may happen. One could say that it automatically takes care of what's there. That's the whole point: it's “unthinkable,” it's ... an automatic, effortless, natural marvel. Completely natural: “it” does exactly what is needed, and “it” knows exactly everything there is to know.
Those who'd become crazy are those who would have cheated in one way or another.
It's measured – it has to be, I should think! If you emerged completely, entirely into it, well, there would probably be an explosion; everything would be shattered, pulverized. As far as I can tell, it comes in stages. In stages – that is, each time it's a deeper physical layer that is touched. Naturally, the deeper it is, the more powerful it is.... It's measured – there's no need of any description, of any system, because it's marvelously and automatically divine.
It is precisely the opposite of everything that happens in this phony, twisted mind, which is capable of taking the most marvelous spirituality and turning it into the most marvelous fakery – it's the OPPOSITE of that.
In a way, it's frightening, but it's frightening for the old death, for the old falsehood, for everything that's twisted.
That's what has to happen to everyone ... just in the right “measure,” in the right way, at the right moment.
Only death can die!
It's ... really the truth.
Oh, you know, it's so extraordinarily simple!
Only falsehood can become crazy! Only what is twisted can become twisted.... It's very simple!
Someone, obviously, had to ... open the passage for the first time, because ... Someone had to do it once. And that's where the work done by Sri Aurobindo is fantastic, you know – it's unbelievable.
It's unbelievable....
Well, people, the world, are approaching that Moment. We are approaching that moment of ... the Marvel.
While, for them, it's a cataclysm, it's “death” – but everything is upside down! Everything is upside down! For them, we are approaching a cataclysm, the end of God knows what, of the world. But it continues.... It's certainly the end of the fish ... (that wouldn't be too bad!) or at least of this kind of ... intelligent fish.
We must dare!
There are plenty of “manuals” on how to do Yoga – there's no manual for being thirsty.
And if you are thirsty, the river comes to you; if you are not thirsty, the river does not exist.
It does not exist.
The Marvel....
One day, you know, it struck me – it struck me without warning. It seized hold of me in such an ... unbearable way. I had just turned sixty, and one night! I again found myself with the Gestapo, in that world of horror. And I thought, “So there it is: you've dragged that horror for forty years. You've dragged that horror for FORTY years – and you're still dragging it!”
It was ... crushing, really. I was crushed with despair. I found myself again in that nightmare, in that perverse world, as only humans can invent perversity. And I thought, “This has been going on for FORTY years!”
I have had that nightmare thousands of times.
Well, the entire world is right in the nightmare.
This is what you have to take back with you: That exists. There is that Marvel – IT EXISTS.
It isn't complicated.
It exists.
We just have to realize it's there....
What is that Marvel going to do? What is that Power of pure life going to do? We don't know. There is no path – it just happens. We cannot “understand” – it just happens. We don't know how it works.
You see, sometimes, when that Marvel comes, it's like ... I can't say, it's at once a Nectar and a torrent of FIRE, unbearable for all that is mortal, precisely. So if you put people face to face with a flood of FIRE and told them, “Well, go right ahead!” – they couldn't do it. And it's obvious: you can't do it. Well, all life is like that, with death saying: “You can't do it. You can't do it. Listen, be reasonable; you can't do it.” It's
DEATH that makes all the you-can't-do-it, you-can't-do-it, you-can't-do-it.... And that's that – and mathematical to boot.
So it isn't in the head that you can do this. It must be experienced by the cells of our body! That “you-can't-do-it” must simply cease to exist for the cells! And then it will be over: no more “you-can't-do-it.” Then everything will be possible.
So I don't imagine anything, I don't speculate about anything, but I know that's how it is: that some “you-can't-do-its” are clearing out, and all the “you-can't-do-its” will eventually clear out, and ... we'll see what happens!
But the first and foremost magic wand of death is that “you-can't-do-it.”
That's how it possesses us. And it's a magic wand that's “scientific” to boot!
But one can't undo the “spell” in one's mind. Only the BODY can undo its own spell. That's the only place where it can be undone, where you go from the fishbowl into the open air. It's your old fish matter that emerges – it's in matter that it can be done, that the spell can be undone, not in the brain. It may be good to know about it intellectually, but that's not where it takes place, you see. This is not a “liberation”
up above in heaven – it takes place IN matter. And there, well, everyone's on his own. It just happens.
And sometimes it happens in spite of yourself and in an unexpected way! You can't do anything about it. All you can do is to cry, to ... to do the work of a true human being, that is, a little sincere.
But the world that is coming is prodigious, you know! It is there, approaching ... waiting for us – waiting for us to get out of this evil spell.
The thing is, you can't pretend anything, you can't invent anything; it's done FOR you. It is precisely a world in which there is no more “pretending,” no more “cheating”: it's the pure simplicity of Truth – I say “Truth,” but it's still an abstract world; it's PURE simplicity, you see, like breathing air. You can't cheat. You can't “imagine things,” you can't invent things – you can't pretend. There can be no counterfeiter, no fraud – it's the “Truth.” It's PURE air. And if you try to cheat, you die instantly! Everything that's corrupted and mortal in you dies instantly.
Well, it's going to be – it will be – an absolutely wonderful world, you know! Not in the sense that people think, but wonderfully simple – divinely simple! No more tricks. No more gimmicks. No more “Great Powers” – all those people
loaded with “Powers”: the superyogis, superpresidents.... No more powers – the only “power” is simply to breathe and to be. No more “powers,” you see – all that is over. These “powers” are just the tricks of Falsehood: “Me, I am capable of doing this and that!”
It's death that is “capable.”
Oh, how good it will feel the day when all the frauds of the world CRUMBLE! It will feel so good!
And in the meantime, they elect the next president – they always elect the next liar. Or else they pick up the phone to call the next liar who will help them ... to die.
I speak to you, brother, because you will be in that world. Not “another” world – this one. You will be there – you will. You are already in it. You still don't realize it completely, because ... you have a job to do, and in order to do that job effectively, you still need to wear masks....
It's temporary.
Mother is gracious, you know.... She is gracious. It takes very little on our part – our poor part – it takes very little for Her to ... rush to the rescue and help.
We are very obtuse, you know. We are precisely doing our old work of being obtuse.
I think ... everything is VERY CLOSE.
We have been created ... for that Marvel ... for that Delight ... on earth.
(to be continued ...)
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