The Mother

Agenda

Volume 4

July 20, 1963

So what would you like to tell me? Tell me a story!

I don't have anything interesting to tell. I have quite a stagnant feeling.

Anyway, this time I've observed, carefully observed X's arrival, stay and departure. Because there were different opinions: some very unfavorable, that he always brought difficulties; others, that he always brought something positive. Well, to tell you the truth, there is nothing to it, ONLY what people think.

Yes.

Simply what they think. Otherwise, his arrival, his stay, his meditations, his departure: absolutely neutral. In other words, I noticed neither increased difficulties nor improved conditions. Things carry on in their own sweet way without any difference. The two atmospheres mingle without anything changing.

I had decided I would study the thing very carefully, absolutely objectively, in order to be sure – because I had around me all the waves of all the impressions, well-disposed as well as ill-disposed, and I found all that whirl ridiculous. I conducted my observation in a most scientific and objective way: the whole, entire effect is purely mental. The whole whirl – mental.

There you have it.

That's all.

And for you, did he tell you anything? For your yantram? Didn't you ask him?

I've lost the habit of asking him!

He doesn't answer.

So I stopped asking long ago.

But, no! It's because he doesn't know what to answer.

Maybe!

No, no, now I am sure! At the beginning I thought: maybe it's because... But, no. I am sure.

All right.

How long do you still have to do it [the yantram]?

Till the end of December.

The end of December.... The Force, the Power may act, mind you – only, X as an instrument is... barely conscious. It may pass through him – I don't say it won't. Because the remarkable point in the meditations (I took a good look this time) is that at the moment of his best, most complete receptivity, I had to come down to X's most material form to find a form – all the rest, there was no more form. Which means the inner being isn't individualized: it's identified, merged. And that's precisely what Sri Aurobindo explains so well: the difference between one who identifies with the Supreme through self-annihilation and one who can express the Supreme (gesture of pulling downward) in a perfected being and everywhere. That's what makes the whole difference. Of X there remained only the outer husk, so to say (a coarse enough husk, besides, thick and heavy, with very heavy vibrations), it was there, sitting in front of me and empty: the consciousness was gone (gesture showing the consciousness spread out or dissolved in the Infinite). So his power acts in an almost mediumistic manner, which means that when it is X who speaks, it's something quite ordinary, but the Force can come through him.

But curiously enough, that “yantram” seems to exasperate the physical mind.

Doesn't it set something at rest in your mind?

Generally, it makes the most material mind extremely active.

Extremely active...?

I have great difficulty keeping a hold on it. A domestic detail, for instance, some utterly material things invade my consciousness. The rest is always quiet, but utterly material things become very active.

Probably it pulls the Force down into a very material domain....

All right. It will calm down as it develops.

Yes, I think so. In fact I can see that it's good, it's useful.

Oh, yes! Certainly.

But apart from that, I've had a great sense of inner stagnation for a few months: there's no progress. Up there, there's always something: if I climb up there and meditate, if I connect myself up there, everything is fine, but... it seems to me it can go on for centuries!

Yes.

... Without anything changing. I have no sense of progress.

It's because the action, the power of progress now acts in the thick of Matter. And down there, there's a long, long way to go – a long way, oh!...

We can only arm ourselves with patience, that's all.

That's the only thing we can do. Be patient.

But materially, is your body better or...?

Because that's where the progress is taking place.

(silence)

All the habitual rhythms of the material world have changed....

The body had based its sort of sense of good health on a certain number of vibrations, and whenever those vibrations were present, it felt in good health; when something came and disturbed them, it felt that it was about to fall ill or that it was ill, depending on the intensity. All that has changed now: those basic vibrations have simply been removed, they no longer exist; the vibrations on which the body based its sense of good or ill health – removed. They are replaced by something else, and something else of such a nature that “good health” and “illness” have lost all meaning! Now, there is the sense of an established harmony among the cells, increasingly established among the cells, which represents the right functioning, whatever that may be: it's no longer a question of a stomach or a heart or this or that. And the slightest thing that comes and disturbs that harmony is VERY painful, but at the same time there is the knowledge of what to do to reestablish the harmony instantly; and if the harmony is reestablished, the functioning isn't affected. But if out of curiosity, for instance (it's a mental illness in humans), you start asking yourself, “What's that? What effect will it have? What's going to happen?” (what the body calls “the desire to learn”), if you are unlucky enough to be that way, you can be sure (laughing) that you'll have something very unpleasant which, according to the doctor (according to ignoramuses), becomes an illness or disrupts the body's functioning. While if you don't have that unhealthy curiosity and, on the contrary, will the harmony not to be disrupted, you only have to, we could say poetically, bring one drop of the Lord on the troubled spot for everything to be fine again.

The body is unable to know things in the way it did formerly.

So there is a period when you are in suspense: no longer this, not yet that, just in between. It's a difficult period when you have to be very quiet, very patient, and above all – above all – never become afraid or irritated or impatient, because that's catastrophic. And the difficulty is that from all quarters and without letup come all the idiotic suggestions of ordinary thinking: age, deterioration, the possibility of death, the constant threat of illness, of the slightest thing – illness, dotage... decay. It comes all the time, all the time, all the time; and all the time this poor harried body has to remain very quiet and not to listen, preoccupied only with maintaining its vibrations in a harmonious state.

Sometimes I catch it (that must be something quite common among human beings) in a sort of haste – a haste, a kind of impatience, and also, I can't say fear or anxiety, but a sense of uncertainty. The two together: impatience to get out of the present moment to the immediately next, and at the same time uncertainty as to what that immediately next moment is going to bring. The whole thing makes a vibration of restlessness – what's the word in French?

Febrility, agitation?

That's too much – “agitation” is too much, it's rather a lack of rest. Not agitation really, but something that lacks the rest of certainty. I constantly catch my cells being like that. Naturally I react, but for them it's a very normal state: always straining after the next moment, never the quietude of the present moment. The result (the words I use give a very concrete character to something rather fluid), the result is the feeling that you have to bear or endure, and the haste to get out of that enduring, along with the hope (a very faint and flimsy hope) that the next moment will be better. That's how it is from moment to moment, from moment to moment, from moment to moment. As soon as the Consciousness comes (gesture of descent) and concentrates, as soon as I bring the Consciousness into the present moment, everything becomes quiet, immobile, eternal. But if I am not CONSTANTLY attentive, the other condition [of restlessness] comes almost as a subconsciousness: it's always there. And VERY tiring – it must be one of the most important sources of fatigue in mankind. Especially here (Mother touches her forehead and temples), it's very tiring. Only when you can live in the eternity of the present minute does it all stop – everything becomes white, immobile, calm, everything is fine.

But it means constant vigilance – constant. It's infinitely more difficult than when one worked even in the vital; in the vital, it's nothing, it's child's play in comparison. But here, phew!... Because, you see, in the mind or the vital, it's all movements of organization, of action, of choice, of decision – it's very easy to decide, to rule! But that cellular tension is there EVERY SECOND: it's the activity inherent in material existence. It's only when you go into samadhi that it stops. That is, when outwardly you are in trance. Then it stops.

From time to time – two, three times a day – I am given a few minutes of it. It's a marvelous relaxation. But I always come out of it (I mean the BODY comes out of it) with an anxiety, in the sense that it says, “Oh, I've forgotten to live!” Very odd. Only one second, but a second of anxiety: “Oh, I've forgotten to live!” – and the drama starts all over again.

No, it's no fun. It's interesting only for someone who finds interest in EVERYTHING, to whom EVERYTHING is interesting, that is to say, who has the sort of will for perfection that neglects no detail – otherwise, it isn't... As soon as you enter the mental realm, of course, the mind says, “Ah, no! No, it's a waste of time.” It isn't, but the mind regards all that as twaddle.

(silence)

I said just now that when I come out of those moments of trance, the body feels, “Oh, I've forgotten to live....” It isn't “live,” it's the feeling: I've forgotten to act or concentrate, or to do the thing needed; the feeling of a servant who for a minute has stopped his work – that's it. It's just a flash, then at once comes the sense of the divine Presence, and it's all over.

It's not the word “live,” no, it's “To do what one is supposed to do.”

It happens especially during daytime (between 12:30 and 1 o'clock – not for long, a few minutes, I can't say; and between 5:30 and 6). At night it's not the same, because (I think I've told you already) as soon as I stretch out, the whole body is like a prayer. It's more than an aspiration, it's an intense need: “Lord, take hold of me ENTIRELY! So there may be nothing but You,” and that always brings about a result [the trance] – which may last more or less long, until (how can I put it?)... the moment “agreed upon” comes! Then when I wake up, or rather when the body emerges from that state, it knows it's agreed upon, it doesn't have that anxiety. I don't know how to explain.... In terms of consciousness it's almost like a child: very simple, very simple. No complications, no complications whatever, very simple: to do what is to be done in the proper way while expressing the supreme Will.... That is, to bring as little mixture as possible to the supreme Will (it's not a question of Will: the Movement, the Vibration), as little mixture or distortion or deterioration as possible to the Vibration – we always translate into words that are too intellectual.

But the body is docile, full of goodwill. Only I find it's a little bit of a whiner (that must be particular to this one, I am sure other bodies are different), it isn't spontaneously joyful. Not that it complains, not at all, but... Perhaps it's due to that sort of concentration of Force of progress – it's not a blissful satisfaction, far from it. It's a long time since it stopped enjoying ordinary satisfactions, like the sense of taste, of smell: it doesn't enjoy any of that – it is conscious, very conscious, it can discern things very clearly, but in an entirely objective way, without deriving any pleasure from them.

Yet it has a spontaneous tendency to find itself incapable; and it receives the same answer all the time: “That's still the ego.” That happens so often, it says to the Lord, “Look how incapable I am of doing what You want,” and pat comes the answer, direct, in a flash: “Don't bother about that, it's not your business!” Naturally, I put it into words to express myself, but it isn't words, it's only sensations – not even “sensations”: vibrations.

Voilà.

So all that must be having repercussions on the others, like Pavitra, when he told me the other day he was seeking me “up above” and could no longer find me! This very down-to-earth state (we can really call it down-to-earth), this very down-to-earth state of things may also create... not an increased heaviness (because God knows it isn't heavy! It's so luminous, vibrant, luminous, so vibrant, vibrant), that's not it, but it's really at ground level. At ground level. It has none of the flights and enthusiasms of mental things, visions and all that. So it appears a little monotonous and very much at ground level.

Yes, but we don't have the sense of participating in something. You are conscious, while we're not.

Exactly, there's nothing to satisfy you one way or the other!

Yes, but if we were conscious, at least we would see that something is happening, but as we are unconscious, we aren't aware of anything.

But how can you say that something is “happening,” mon petit!

We would see a work is being done.... As it is, we don't see anything.

But, no, you can't “see”! How can you?

(silence)

I have a kind of certitude (not quite formulated in words: a certitude in sensation, in feeling) that once this work is completed, the result will be... almost like a thunderbolt. Because the Power's action through the mind gets diluted, qualified, adapted, altered, and so on, and how much reaches down here? (gesture as of water disappearing into sand) While the day it acts through this matter (Mother touches her body), obviously it will be overwhelming. There isn't a shadow of doubt. But when will that be? After how long? I can't say. When you see the thing in detail, you know, it appears interminable.

I console myself with the thought that the ways of the Lord are unknown to us, and that the day it pleases Him to declare, “Here, now it's all changed,” (Mother laughs) all we'll have to do is contemplate!

But when? I don't know. Voilà.

We must have endurance, patience, and trust too – to last and last and last. Because ultimately, whatever way you look at it, that's the only solution. All the roundabout routes people follow (zigzag gesture as if to show the spiritual disciplines and all the usual human quests) are simply to give you the illusion that you are doing something.

That's quite clear.

(silence)

All the same, I have some hope that in February next year¹ something will be tangible. But... (laughing) Sri Aurobindo says that man lives on hope from the cradle to the grave! Anyhow, mine isn't the same kind of hope: it's a sort of sensation. Something may happen next February – we'll see.

¹ Second anniversary of the supramental Manifestation.

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