August 21, 1963The Mother
Agenda
Volume 4
August 21, 1963
(Regarding an old “Playground Talk,” of January 4, 1951, in which Mother said that one of the essential conditions for transformation is an awareness of the inner dimensions: “It's a total reversal of consciousness, which can be compared to what happens to light when it goes through a prism. Or else it's as if you turned a ball inside out, which can be done only in the fourth dimension. You emerge from the ordinary consciousness of the third dimension to enter the higher consciousness of the fourth dimension, and then an infinite number of dimensions. This is the indispensable starting point.”)
That's what I had told you already: the whole basis of the yogic effort is changed now. Formerly, the work was based precisely on that knowledge of inner dimensions – I can't recapture that any more, I see it as completely outside me.1
So I can't add anything to those “Talks”: their source is different. Even now for the aphorisms, it's a little bit difficult. I feel I have to come down, to revert to an old frame of mind in order to say something.
You need not bother about people. Just speak according to your
present mode, without bothering whether they understand or not.
They understand nothing.
It doesn't matter.
Then it's no use publishing what I say!
Some do understand.
Anyway, what I say nowadays is good for the [Agenda] box.
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(Then Mother returns to the aphorism on “renunciation.” She remains silent. She still appears to be shaken.)
It's difficult because...
These days, I don't know whether it has come to the last battle, but it has descended very deep into the cells' worst-lit realm: what still belongs most to the world of Unconsciousness and Inertia and is most foreign to the divine Presence. It is, so to say, the primal substance that was first used by Life, and it has a sort of inability to feel, to experience a reason for that life.
In fact, it's something I had never experienced [that absence of meaning]; even in my earliest childhood, when there was no development, I always had a perception (not a mentalized but a vibrant perception) of a Power behind all things which is the raison d'ętre of all things – a Power, a Force, a kind of warmth.
It isn't the experience of THIS body's cells: it's an identification with the world in general, with the Earth as a whole. It's an absolutely frightful and hopeless condition: something meaningless, aimless, without raison d'ętre, without any joy in itself or... and worse than disagreeable – meaningless, insensate. Something that has no raison d'ętre and yet is. It was... it is a frightful situation.
I have an impression of being quite close to the bottom of the pit.
Yesterday, it was like that almost the whole day long. But all at once something came (I don't know from where or how... neither from above nor from within nor from... I don't know): there is only ONE raison d'ętre, only ONE Reality, only ONE Life, and there
is nothing other than... THAT. It was THAT (not in the least mentally, there was no intellectual formulation, nothing), it was Something that was Light (far more than Light), Power (far more than power), Omnipotence (far more than Omnipotence), and also an intensity of sweetness, of warmth, of plenitude – all that together – along with that Something, which naturally words cannot describe. And That came all at once, like that, when there was such a frightful state of anguish, because it was nothing – a nothing you couldn't get out of. There was no way of getting out of that nothing, because it was nothing.
You know, all those who seek Nirvana, all their disgust of life, all that is almost enjoyable in comparison! That's not it. That's not it, it was a thousand times, a million times worse. It was nothing, and because it was nothing it was impossible to get out of it – there was no... no solution.
At one point, the tension was so great that... you wonder, “Am I going to burst?”
Then everything relaxed and opened up (gesture as if the cells opened out)... OM.
(silence)
I don't know if there's a yet deeper pit but...
And that relief, that blossoming, that peace... Everything disappears, except That.
(silence)
It's really the first time I had that experience – never, never did I experience that before. And it wasn't in the least, in the least personal to my body, it2 isn't my body's cells – it's something else....
And that is the basis and foundation of all materialism.
It lasted the whole day long!...
(silence)
The experience came at the time when the condition was most acute in its nothingness.... I don't know how to explain it, it's inexpressible, but it was COMPLETE: there was nothing but that, that sort of meaningless and aimless “nothing,” without raison d'ętre or origin – and, therefore, without remedy. Then it reached the point when... you know, when everything is about to burst
and there is such a tension. (Is it tension? I don't know how to explain.) And all at once, a change as total as you can imagine.
So you understand, those old “Talks,” all that's... a lot of talk!
(long silence)
Every time an experience of that kind occurs, the entire vision of things and of the relationship between things is changed (gesture of reversal). Even from a quite practical viewpoint. You see, Life is a sort of chessboard on which all the pawns are arranged according to certain inner laws, and every time it all changes: everything changes, the chessboard changes, the pawns change, the types of organization change. Also the inner quality of the pawns – very much so.
For instance, these last few days I had a whole vision of X, of what he represents, the people around him, his relationship with the Ashram – all that entirely changed. Every element took a new place in relation to all the others. And I have nothing to do with it, I don't “try” to understand, I don't “try” to see, nothing: the thing is simply shown to me. Like pictures that are shown to me. Each thing has its own special flavor, its own special color, its own special quality and its own special relationship with the rest – all the relationships are different.
It's growing very PRECISE, very minute, very sharp, not floating: very accurate to the last detail. And with a great simplicity.
As though the entanglement of forces, of consciousnesses and movements grew clearer and clearer, more and more complete, very, very precise. And very simple too.
Very simple.
All problems, all problems are beginning to be seen in that way.
And always an impression of emerging (what I previously called “clarity” or comprehension is to me now incomprehension and confusion), of emerging from that towards a greater clarity, a more total comprehension. With all sorts of complications that disappear, even though everything is far more complete than before.
Before, there were always hazy spots, some hazy, imprecise, uncertain things; and as that disappears, it all becomes much clearer, much simpler, and MUCH MORE EXACT. And the haziness disappears. There is, you know, a whole world of impressions, of guessing (things you imagine, they are imaginations rather than impressions) that fills the gaps; and there were some reference points, things that are known and linked together by a whole hazy
mass of impressions and imaginations (it works automatically); and every time, oh, you emerge from it all towards something so light (gesture above), and all those clouds evaporate. And it looks so simple! You say to yourself, “But it's so obvious, so clear! There weren't any complications.”
Every time, it's like that (gesture of ascent from stage to stage): you see farther, you see more things at a glance.
It would seem that a time will come when all the movements of the earth will be like that, very clear and very simple.
And it corresponds to that descent into the pit.
1 See Agenda III, May 24, 1962, p. 159.
2 That pit of Inertia, of material Unconsciousness, which feels no raison d'ętre for itself and is “nothing.”