April 25, 1961The Mother
Agenda
Volume 2
April 25, 1961
(Mother comes in with a book by Alice Bailey, “Discipleship in the New Age,” which had recently been sent to her. Pavitra is present and shows Mother a brochure he has received, “World Goodwill Bulletin,” and protests against this proliferation of movements all claiming to work towards “world union,” and proselytes making so-called “spiritual” propaganda without having found, within and by themselves, the true spiritual foundation. Mother goes on.)
But these people just can't get out of their education! Here is a lady [A. Bailey], quite renowned, it seems (she's dead now), who became the disciple of a Tibetan lama... and she still speaks of Christ as the sole Avatar! She just can't get out of it!
And each one has the absolute Truth!
(Laughing) But it made me so angry (why, I don't know). Not anger, but a kind of... oh, it's exasperating!
And I am surrounded by people who tell me, “I'm sending your message to so-and-so, they MUST come here, they HAVE to meet you.” Oh!... “I'm going away!” I said to myself, “I'm going to hide somewhere.” I've had enough.
I don't want to be the leader of a group – oh Lord, no! Not at any price! It's disgusting.
It began with this famous World Union1 and now the Sri Aurobindo Society2 is meddling in it! They have put together a brochure saying, “We will facilitate your relations with the Mother”!! Luckily, the draft was sent to me. I said, “I do not accept this responsibility.” I agreed to be President because money is involved and I wanted to be a guarantee that all these people who make propaganda don't put the money into their own pockets for their personal use; so I agreed to be President – to guarantee that the money would really go to work for Sri Aurobindo, that's all. But no spiritual responsibility; I have nothing to teach to anyone, thank God!
(Pavitra.) But Mother, A. has also been bitten by the propaganda bug; in the by-laws he sent, he put: “The goal of the Centre d'Etudes de Sri Aurobindo [Sri Aurobindo Study Center, in Paris] is to steer people towards Pondicherry and the Mother....”
Ooh!... OH!... How dreadful. How dreadful. He too!
(silence)
I'm going to make a declaration: “I am not the leader of a group, I am not at the head of an Ashram.” Oh! It's disgusting.
And that's not all. This J.M., who thinks herself highly intelligent, has written a letter saying, “... It is exactly the same teaching – exactly.” It's always exactly the same teaching! They are abysmally ignorant.
(Satprem:) They jumble everything up.
Yes. They have no discrimination. As long as the words are there, that's it – it's enough!
And what an atmosphere it all makes... phew!
The first thing I did this morning was to open this book by Alice Bailey (I've had it for several days, I had to have a look at it). So I looked... Ah, I said – well, well! Here's a person who's dead now, but she was the disciple of a Tibetan Buddhist lama and considered a very great spiritual leader, and she writes, “Christ is the incarnation of divine love on earth.” And that's that. “And the world will be transformed when Christ is reborn, when he comes back to earth.” But why the devil does she put “Christ”? Because she was born Christian?... It's deplorable.
And such a mixture of everything – everything! Instead of making a synthesis, they make a pot-pourri. They scoop it all up, toss it together, whip it up a little, use a bunch of words that have nothing to do with one another, and then serve it to you!
And they want to shove me in there, too! No thanks.
After this, I received the draft of the Sri Aurobindo Society's brochure to be distributed among all disciples, all society members, in order to “encourage” them. Well, that was the last straw! Oh, the most asinine propaganda! And plump in the middle of a bunch of other things (which had nothing to do with me), I come across this: “We have the great fortune to have the Mother among us, and we propose to be the intermediary for all who wish to come into direct contact with her”! They wanted to print this and distribute it, just like that!
So I took my brightest red ink and wrote: “I do not accept this responsibility, you cannot make this promise.” And that was that. I cut it. And now here's A., doing the same thing!
(silence)
I'm wasting my time.
Already, with all the people here.... (But I never told them they were my “disciples,” I told them they were my children – and with children, to begin with, there's no need to do everything they want!) I already waste all my time answering their letters, which are worse than stupid. What questions they ask – questions already answered at least fifty times – simply for the pleasure of writing! So now I've stopped answering. I write one or two words, and that's it.
No, it's disgusting!
(Satprem.) There's this passage on propaganda by Sri Aurobindo I sent to the World Union people. It should really be published everywhere. Do you remember it? “I don't believe in propaganda....”3
Look here, there's a muddle in all this. The Sri Aurobindo Society people had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the spiritual life when they began; they didn't at all present themselves as a “spiritual group” – nothing of the kind; they were people of good will who volunteered to collect money to help the Ashram. So I said, “Very well, excellent” and as long as it's like that, I'm behind it. Leaflets can be handed out – whatever people like; it's enough if their interest is aroused, if they know there is an Ashram and that it needs some help to go on. But that's all. It has nothing to do with yoga or spiritual progress or anything of the kind – it was a strictly practical organization. It was not the same thing as World Union.
World Union wanted to do “a spiritual work on earth” and to create “human unity.” I told them, “You are taking something of an inward nature and you want to externalize it, so naturally it immediately goes rotten.” (But it's almost over now, I've pulled the rug out from under them.)
Anyway....
(Pavitra.) Yes, but now it's resurging in the form of the Sri Aurobindo Society.
Ah, no! That's not the same thing at all, They have nothing to do with each other. Nothing. They wanted to merge: I refused. I told them, “You have nothing to do with each other. You, World Union, are idealists (!) wanting to realize your ideal externally (without any foundation), while they are businessmen, practical people, wanting to bring money to the Ashram, and I fully agree with that, because I need it.”
It's another thing entirely.
But then, they [the S.A.S. people] began posing as... almost as teachers! Luckily, the draft of their brochure was brought to me. I said, “Nothing doing. If you want to talk to people, tell them what you like, it's all the same to me, but I am not publishing this. What you have written about me is not to be printed and you are not to distribute it. I'm not in the picture. My name, the fact that I am president, is simply to give my guarantee that the money won't go into the pockets of those who collect it but will be used for the Ashram, the running of the Ashram, and that's all. And on this basis alone I give my guarantee. I am in no way going to help people imagine they are doing a yoga!” It's absurd.
The other day, I told N. (and I told him loud enough for everyone to hear): “We can dispense with a good half of the ashramites straight-away and not lose a single sadhak.”4
Well, his jaw dropped!... People imagine that by the simple fact of being here they become disciples and apprentice yogis! But it's not true.
So, now I'm not angry any more!
It's especially this mental paucity... everywhere they say, “Oh, they have the same ideas as we do! Oh, they teach the same thing! Oh!...” Deplorable.
(silence)
*
* *
Pavitra leaves.
Mother gives flowers to Satprem:
Here, this is Grace.5 Here, Balance6 (how lovely!). Here, “Light without Obscurity.”7 And this is purity: an “Integral Conversion”8 (in the cup of this flower, Mother has placed two other flowers: “Service”9 and “Sri Aurobindo's Compassion”10), an integral conversion, with Sri Aurobindo, with his compassion – his compassion which gives us the opportunity to serve him.
Oh, mon petit, we need to say something a bit intelligent, don't you think? I'm counting on you.
I'm counting on you!
Yes, of course – Sri Aurobindo told me so. But I stay behind, invisible! You don't even need to tell me things – you may tell me if you like, but it isn't necessary.
(silence)
Now and then, I feel like saying outrageous things.... I almost said, “How well I understand Sri Aurobindo – who passed to the other side!”
I have no intention of doing so, none at all. Not that I'm the least bit interested in all this outer jumble, not for that, but... I promised Sri Aurobindo I would try.... So....
So, that's that.
Only one thing would actually be true, one single thing: to DO it. All this talking and talking and promising and painting things in glowing colors – just DO it.
(silence)
Ah, but that's far more difficult than talking – far more! Far more, infinitely more difficult than talking. If you are a bit clear, transparent – it's enough just to be like this, at a given moment (gesture of opening upwards), to catch the Light, and then you can talk about it. Once you have seen it, you don't forget it. But to do....
This paucity, this narrowness.... It's relatively easy to get out of mental paucity, mental narrowness: one has only to pierce a hole, go beyond, and view things from above; and yes, immediately, it all widens. That's relatively easy. But this vital and PHYSICAL paucity, material narrowness... ohh!
For mental narrowness, we know the means – one has only to go beyond it – we know the means. But this (Mother touches her body), however much one keeps bringing in, bringing in, bringing in the Light and the Force.... Yes, for a few moments one can live a universal life, even in the sensations – but in the body....
(silence)
For obviously it has to be done in this life. The body's progress can't be preserved, can it?
Of course not – that's just it!
It could be, yes, but to no avail. If all these cells which have become so conscious have to break up .... It would result in cells that are conscious, but mixed with .... What would it amount to, mixed with the sum total of all the unconscious cells of the earth? It would be useless.
Yes, it would be useless; I mean, perhaps after millions of years it would gradually snowball and have some effect – but that's just how Nature functions when left to her own interminable way – it is not yoga.
But once you have effected the transformation in your own body, will it be transmittable to others? Will your experience and your realization be transmittable?
It's a question of contagion. Spiritual vibrations are quite clearly contagious. Mental vibrations are contagious, and to a certain extent even vital vibrations are contagious (not often in their finer effects, but anyway, it's clear – a man's anger, for instance, spreads very easily). Well then, the quality of cellular vibrations should also be contagious.
But the difficulty.... You see, so far as Mind is concerned, the whole yoga has been done – like a path blazed through the virgin forest. And since it has been done, it's relatively simple: the landmarks are there and one follows them. But here, nothing has been done! One doesn't know which end to take hold of – no one has ever done it!
You meet all the same obstacles before which others have simply said, “It's impossible.” Sri Aurobindo explains that it's not impossible, but nothing more. And he himself hadn't done it.
No, for the least little thing, the whole mechanism has to be discovered, and discovered in a realm of the most total ignorance, where, really, unconsciousness is the most unconscious and ignorance the most ignorant....
(silence)
Well, we shall see.
*
* *
After the work:
Our habitual state of consciousness is to do something FOR something. The Rishis, for example, composed their hymns with an end in view: life had a purpose – for them, the end was to find Immortality or Truth. But at any level whatsoever, there is always a goal. Even we speak of the “supramental realization” as the goal.
Just recently, though, I don't know what happened, but something seemed to take hold of me... (how to say it?) this perception of the Supreme who is everything, everywhere, who does everything – what has been, what is, what will be, what is being done – everything. And suddenly there was a kind of... not a thought or a feeling, it wasn't that; it was rather like a state: the unreality of the goal – not “unreality,” uselessness. Not even uselessness: the nonexistence of the goal. And even what I was saying just now – this will to make the experiment lingering in the body – even this has gone!
It's... something... I don't know.11
There used to be a kind of mainspring, which had its raison d'ętre and so persisted: do this to arrive at that, and this leads to that (it's more subtle, of course); but this mainspring suddenly seems to have been abolished, because it became useless.
Now a kind of absoluteness prevails at each and every second, in each movement, from the most subtle, the most spiritual, to the most material. The sense of linking has disappeared: that isn't the “cause” of this, and this isn't done “for” that; there is no “there” one is heading towards – it all seems....
(silence)
Is this, perhaps, how the Supreme sees?... Perhaps that is what it is: the supreme perception, an absolute.
Rather curious.
An absolute – innumerable, perpetual and simultaneous.
(silence)
Curious.
The sense of connection has gone, the sense of cause and effect has gone – all that belongs to the world of space and time.
Each... each what? What is that “that”? You can't say a “movement,” you can't say a “state of consciousness,” you can't say a “vibration” (all this still belongs to our ordinary mode of perception), so you say “thing” – “thing” means nothing. Each “thing” carries in itself its own absolute law.
oh, how clumsy all this is! But what is clear, completely clear, is the total absence of cause and effect and of goal, of intention – purpose. There is no... (Mother makes a horizontal motion) this kind of connection doesn't exist; it's like this (Mother makes a vertical motion which towers over and embraces everything at once).
And so, in an individual consciousness it's expressed by an infinitesimal point – a physical body and everything dependent on it; but it's exactly the same thing as the Supreme Point and everything depending on that. It's the same thing. It is only like the shifting of a glance – if it can be called a “glance” – like a needle point occupying no space.12 And yet it is the same consciousness – “consciousness”: is it “consciousness”?... Something like that. It is not “consciousness” as we understand it, nor is it “perception”; it is a kind of will to see (good God, what words!), and with such absolute freedom and omnipotence: it can be this or that, or yet another, and it is EXACTLY the same thing.
Don't try to understand!
It is obviously untranslatable.
But what can be translated is this kind of sensation that the sequence of cause and effect, of purpose, of goal, all seems to be very far below, very, very DISTANT, very... human – perhaps divine, too (from the viewpoint of the gods it may be like this also, I don't know), because in the consciousness of the universal Mother it is still there, there is still this ardent love to serve: “To do Your Will.” That is still there, so it's there with the gods also.
(silence)
It seems unreal. How very curious.
It came last night. It came slowly, but last night it was very strong: no more sequence, no more linking of cause and effect, no more goal, no more purpose, no more intention – a kind of Absolute which does not exclude the creation. It is not Nirvana, it has nothing to do with Nirvana (I know Nirvana very well, I've had it – just yesterday evening, for instance, while walking for japa, and even this morning.... You see, I begin by an invocation to the Supreme under his three aspects, and no sooner have I uttered the sound, TAT... when all is abolished: Nirvana. And the last few days I have noticed that it's instantaneous, so easy! Oh, a delight!... Bah!...). But it's not Nirvana, it's beyond that; it contains Nirvana and it contains the manifested world and it contains everything else; all the appearances and disappearances13 – all of that is contained in it.
Something....
Something which has neither cause nor effect nor prolongation (Mother makes a horizontal motion) nor purpose nor intention – intention to do what?! There is nothing to be done! It's like this (Mother makes the same vertical motion as before).
I hope I'm not driving you to a lunatic asylum! (Mother laughs)
(Mother gets up to leave)
What is most interesting is that everything stays the same. Everything stays the same. You see how it is – I can do anything, I talk to you, I joke.... Everything stays the same, it doesn't make a change in anything.
My problem begins when I ask myself how it's going to change!
There it is, petit. I think we would do well to keep all this secret.14
1 See conversation of March 4.
2 After Mother's departure, this “Society” would try to appropriate Auroville: “Auroville is a project of the Sri Aurobindo Society.” (sic)
3 The following is the exact text referred to, an extract from one of Sri Aurobindo's letters: “I don't believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious work it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom – and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere – or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds or thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to the ‘religions’ and is the reason of their failure....” 2.10.1934 (Cent. Ed., On Himself, Vol. XXVI, pp. 375-76)
4 Sadhak: seeker of Truth.
5 Hibiscus mutabilis, white.
6 Begonia, white.
7 Eucharis grandiflora (Amazon lily).
8 Hippeastrum (white amaryllis).
9 Peltaphorum pterocarpum (yellow Copper Pod tree flower).
10 Portulaca grandiflora (rose moss).
11 Mother gradually goes into trance and “follows the experience.”
12 It seemed to us that Mother's experience, related while in a deep trance, could be likened to that of the Rishis, who spoke of “an eye extended in heaven.”
13 The creations and “destructions” of this world or of all worlds.
14 This “secret” is no doubt part of the Secret which this entire Agenda seeks to track down. So where to stop? And if we are indiscreet, who knows whether the secret of man is not some simian indiscretion!