Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The New Consciousness In The Vital

May 7, 1969

(Mother remains in meditation for a long time)
This Consciousness has started working in people's vital beings. Have you noticed? Some people had big vital difficulties - it's beginning to work in them. It's quite unexpected for me. You haven't noticed? <172>
I have an impression that it's more easy, that difficulties are less violent-that one has a greater mastery, if you like. That's my impression.
(Mother nods her head
silence)
And it's taken it into its head to compel me to concern myself with politics, and that bothers me. But if the time has come ...
I have the impression that just as it has tried, not exactly to dissolve religions, but to get inside them and remove barriers, it's taken it into its head to do the same thing with politics (if I may say so). It seems to be working to create, not a disharmony, but a sort of ... to take away cohesion among people: cohesion among parties, cohesion among religions. As though this Consciousness were doing that.
It's odd.
(silence)
But you have noticed something in the vital?
Yes ... I have noticed ... (how can I put it?) the presence of this Consciousness in the vital. Some people I see are almost exclusively in the vital, and there is the PRESENCE of this Consciousness, at work there.
And also I am compelled to intervene (not outwardly, but inwardly) in the actions of people involved in politics.
We'll see.
It's continuing its action of mentor of the body in an absolutely remarkable way That's going on well. But added to that, there are contacts in the vital, and also the obligation to intervene in certain political actions.
We'll see.

The New Consciousness

May 3, 1969

This Consciousness is very interesting. It has (smiling) ... it's not scorn, it's a sort of faraway indifference for all human ideas - all conventions, all principles, all moralities, it finds all of that ... absolutely grotesque. Now and then, it comes into contact with human ideas (Mother takes a surprised tone of voice): "Ooh! So that's what they think ..." It's amusing!
There are two things. Death, it doesn't at all understand what we mean by that, the importance we attach to it - but not at all. And then, money, to this consciousness, is buffoonery: this system of money, the invention of this system, which prevents you from doing anything unless you pull out a banknote, to it, really it's buffoonery. Strange, I suddenly realize that the psychic being (dominating gesture behind) ... the psychic being is almost like a witness, it's a witness to the whole evolution of things, and it KNOWS (it understands the deeper reasons, it knows how things are). It's in the body that this Consciousness is so active, and so, every time the body goes on with the little habits from the time when there was a mind and a vital, really it feels it as buffoonery. And the attitude with regard to money is like ... Death, food and money: this Consciousness feels those are the three "awesome" things in human life, that human life revolves around those three things-eating, (laughing) dying, and having money - and to it, the three are ... they are passing inventions which derive from a wholly transitory state that doesn't correspond to anything very deep or very permanent. That's its attitude. And then, it teaches the body to be otherwise.
It tolerates food, provided it doesn't take up too big a place and isn't too cumbersome or too important; it says, "Very well, that's the way you're built, too bad for you, you've got to eat." (Mother laughs)
And then, death ... Just yesterday (yesterday afternoon), I had an example. An accident took place, have you heard about it? [[A teenage girl drowned in the Ashram's swimming pool in the presence of her whole group. ]] They're really wondering how it happened. As for me, I INSTANTLY saw that there was in the girl a psychic will (which she wasn't conscious of: she only felt an unease), but there was a psychic will to die (why? I don't know, I haven't yet seen why). That was clear. <165>
And how everything was arranged to favor that, it's almost miraculous (you don't talk about it because people will say you're going mad if you call such a misfortune "miraculous"). But habitually, all those who go into the swimming pool have to put their name down when they go out (that's the rule). Yesterday, the man who kept the register had asked to go to Madras at 6, so he wasn't there and no one's name was noted down, and so they didn't know ... Things like that. She went to see the group's captain and told her, "I am tired, I don't feel well, I want to go"; the captain said, "Yes, yes, you can go." (Of course, it was foolish not to check that she had left; the captain was busy and just thought, "All right, she's leaving.") The girl was then at the shallow end of the pool - impossible to get drowned there, unless you do it quite deliberately (they found her at the other end). But the pool was full of people - nobody saw anything. You see, everything was arranged just to ... force her to die. [[Let us note that the girl's sister, who was very close to her, should have accompanied her to the swimming pool, but was away on that day And when the girl's body was taken to the hospital and put under an oxygen tent, after two minutes the oxygen was exhausted and there was none left in the whole hospital. ]] Every precaution is in place, and not one worked .... And as soon as they told me the news of the accident, as soon as I was told, I immediately looked, and I saw, in the place of her psychic, a peaceful will, like this (Mother stretches out her two arms in an immutable gesture). They were working hard: they worked for hours; first they took all the water out (they know how to do that), they drained the body of the water, then started working-tractions and all that to try to make her breathe again - they worked for hours (they were ready to work the whole night), they did all they could. And the psychic was like this (same gesture), that is, immutable, determined. But she didn't know [that she was going to die]: it came through her vital to reach her, and she felt quite ill at ease, she said, "Oh, I want to go out." So they told her, "Yes, that's right, you should go ...." And because she had said that, naturally no one was worried when they didn't see her (no one had put their names down, so they couldn't check); it's only when they found her clothes ... She had been under water for over an hour.
This Consciousness was so conscious of the movement in everyone, of every reaction, it was extraordinary! And it's this Consciousness that saw this, that showed me this: a psychic like this (same immutable gesture), like an irrevocable decision. And for this Consciousness, you understand, it's like someone who decides to move to a new house, or to a new room, or even to change clothes .... "Why do you make so much, so much fuss about that?" <166>
I haven't said any of this, because ... I haven't said anything to anyone.
(silence)
Last year, you remember, there was a boy who drowned at Gingee: [[It was three years ago, in a pond, during an outing. See Agenda VII of 17 December 1966. ]] that was with P. [the group's captain]; and this little one, it was with B., R's sister [also a captain]. So I looked: outwardly, they are vitally very strong and very egocentric, which would be the external, material reason that allows the accident to take place-that is, no intuition of other's needs or state: no contact, they're like this (gesture closed in on oneself), but with an inner solidity on which, the psychic was leaning, for both of them [the two captains].
The other one too [the boy who drowned in the pond] wanted to go, but in his case it was very interesting: I saw Sri Aurobindo come and fetch him under water, and Sri Aurobindo said, "He will be born in the family" (he came back in a child), "he will come back in the first child to be born in the family." And this girl, I don't know yet what will happen, but her psychic being WANTED to go (for some reason or other). [[See in addendum Mother's comments to a disciple regarding this "accident." ]]
(silence)
The strange thing is that when you see things with this Consciousness, the PERFECTION of the organization is so TREMENDOUS that you are ... you're almost terrified! Normally, when she went down to the bottom they should have noticed it immediately-they would have brought her up and it would have been over (they know very well how to do that, nothing would have happened).
(silence)
For this Consciousness, apart from a few individuals, human beings are weak. They are weak beings. Highly speculative, imaginative, very highly active in the mind, oh, tremendously active; that gives it a sense of ... oh-oh, what agitation! But like that, from the psychophysical standpoint, weak.
Since it began, I've told you several times about this sense of a FORCE, an absolutely unusual force (I am not the only one: all those who are in contact with this Consciousness say they feel a force ... an extraordinary force). And it's this Consciousness. But it has a different character: it's a force that sees things differently, wholly differently. <167>
So then, for instance, these two I mentioned [P. and his sister, the two captains], from a human standpoint, you would say they're really insensitive - it's because they're insensitive and too egocentric that the accident took place. In other words, a reproach. In this light, "Oh, these are good instruments, one can lean on them [[Let us note that P. and his sister are both very muscularly solid. ]] (solid gesture), they won't sag, they're strong enough for one to lean on them." And all that is shown to the body, which is really beginning ... (laughing) to know things no body had ever learned before - ever. And to see life quite differently It feels ... (laughing) you know, it feels stupid, that is, consciously it's in one way, and then out of atavism, out of construction, it's tied down in the other way. So it feels very silly, very silly But the Consciousness held it (with yesterday's event), it HELD it in its Consciousness like that, present, until it had really understood everything in detail, and once it had really understood, poff! the thing was gone, finished. So it understands that when something is held like that, it means there's something to understand, it has a lesson to learn, and when the lesson has been learned, when it has understood, seen clearly-once it has seen clearly and it's all simple and very clear - that's it, poff! it's gone, finished (gesture showing the Consciousness letting go of the body), as though the thing were quite taken away That was taking place at night, while I am not disturbed (the night hours are the only ones when I am not disturbed every minute; I can carry on with my work untroubled), and then I saw. And that night was so peaceful, but with such peace! ... It's ten rungs above the ordinary material "peace," completely You know, the peace of a psychic will so powerful (Mother stretches her arms in a sovereign gesture), so tranquil ... that all our emotions, our reactions, all that absolutely looks like childishness. But the body understands very well (since this Consciousness came it has begun to understand lots of things), it understands that all that [emotions, reactions] was a necessary path to prepare receptive instruments.
It's really interesting.
There are all the vibrations, the little tensions in beings, and this Consciousness shows (it shows very clearly) how that is the cause of disorganizations, illnesses, distortions ... that vibration of constant trepidation - a vibration of weakness.
(silence)
<168> There was one thing. This little one, they're going to cremate her now. So they came to me with a tray of flowers to show me the flowers they were going to place on her body And there [with the tray], there was something of the little one - a psychic embryo; it was there, and it made a slight movement ... suddenly, a movement of such a deep tenderness. She was like this (gesture in front of Mother, with the tray of flowers), I took a rose, and it was as though I gave it to her in her hand; I gave it and said, "Here, it's for you." And all that, all those vibrations, it was all luminous, lovely, and she (the conscious part in her) was so per-fect-ly happy! ...
How can you tell that to the parents? They would say, "You're crazy ..."
But that's the FACT, the plain fact: I saw Champaklal come with the tray of flowers, and it [the psychic embryo] was floating above, like that; so when I saw her, I took a rose and ... there was something so lovely, so luminous, like that (a very small thing, not a great force or anything), but so lovely, so luminous, so happy, with such a sense of repose ....
And how many times it must happen like that!
Mon petit, we don't know anything! Day after day after day, I am increasingly convinced that WE KNOW NOTHING. We think we know, we think ... and we know nothing. We are in the presence of hidden wonders that elude us completely because we're idiots. There.
But with this Consciousness, there is the why of everything: everyone's reaction, why he acts in that way, and ... And since it's been there, not once have I seen in this Consciousness a reproach-not once did it reproach anyone. It has explained everything in such a way that it becomes so luminous, so understanding as to make you wonder, "Why should one reproach anyone? ..." Oh, for it, moral notions are something ... something ultra-stupid. But I told it (I am still telling it) that they were necessary in the course of evolution to refine matter and open the way to certain forces: if people had been from the beginning wholly satisfied with themselves, they would never have progressed. But now, it's time to see-time to see.
The vast majority of humanity is unconscious (what I call unconscious, that is, without contact with the Consciousness, not CONSCIOUSLY in contact with Consciousness), the vast majority; but for one who is capable of being above circumstances with a clear and precise vision of the why and the how ... it's wonderful.
There.
It's what Sri Aurobindo wrote in Savitri: God grows up on earth -God grows-but man ... (laughing), the wise man talks and <169> sleeps ... and no one will notice it till the work is over. [[Savitri, I.IV.55. ]] That's how it is. And he knew it.
(silence)
Do you have any news? ... Nothing?
Do I have a contact with this Consciousness?
Do you ...?
Have a contact with this Consciousness?
(Mother opens her eyes wide) I never even asked myself the question! I took it for granted.
But I can't make out the difference: for me there's always "the force," so ... I can't tell the difference between forces.
No, but I ... Mind you, if I hadn't had that experience of January Is', when I felt it come - I felt it, saw it come, it was wholly concrete, like ... like someone coming into the room, you understand, that concrete. So that's what made me take notice, otherwise I would have found it to be the normal course of the development. But that experience alerted me; that, and the fact that three people felt it before I said anything, and those three people told me about it before I even said a word. They told me about it while asking me, "What has happened?" That's what I found interesting. But, for me, it was the same thing as for them, there was no difference; I told them there wasn't any difference in gradation - it wasn't that this Consciousness was more intimate with me than with you all: it's the same thing, it was like someone coming in. But a someone ... superlatively conscious. That's what caused me to note the fact; otherwise I would have taken it as the course of the development, like you.
And it did that thing ... (it was the first time it happened to me ...
You see, I was asked, "What is the condition one should be in to fully receive this Consciousness?" So I was here, sitting like this, and the person was sitting where you are (a little more to the side), and I saw with my open eyes the Consciousness (not this consciousness: the Supreme Consciousness) come down (gesture like a column of light before Mother) ... That, mon petit, it can't be described .... <170>
I was like this (eyes wide open), and I saw it come (same gesture like a column) and settle down on the wooden floor like that, about this size (gesture: about five feet wide). All the rest was as usual (Mother shows the furniture, her bed, which she could see as usual), and there was "that" which I saw with these very eyes. Then this Consciousness took my consciousness (revolving gesture starting from Mother's left side, going through the column of light in front of Mother, and returning on the right side): I didn't see anything [i.e., any shadow]. I wondered whether it had gone through the column (yet I FELT it while going through). And then, so I would understand clearly it took the consciousness of the person sitting there and made it go through [the column of light], and I saw a slight form, I saw a blue form in the place of the head .... That was a weakness. For a long while I saw, I looked, then it went away all of a sudden. You know, it's so independent of one's will, aspiration, movements of consciousness - of everything. And like this: visible for this body - on its scale, you understand. Fantastic!
This body was accustomed to having experiences under the psychic's influence, in its adoration for ... the Supreme Conscious Truth - in adoration. Its whole joy was there, it was fully satisfied. But since that time, it has had experiences - which the other parts of the being had IN THEIR OWN WAY, but now this way this physical way is so concrete! ... So concrete and tangible .... The body can say, "I have SEEN the Supreme Consciousness," like people in the past who said, "I have seen God." - This body doesn't believe in God ... it believes in something much better than God! (laughter)
There. Is that all? Do you have anything to ask?
No, Mother.
Nothing? ... Mon petit, I can tell you (I don't like to tell things that look like compliments or flattery, that's why I don't say anything, but since you've asked me ...). As a matter of fact, I feel that this Consciousness moves about in you without meeting obstacles. It's only materially: the physical needs a slight encouragement to let itself ... be kneaded, so to speak, so you may become physically really receptive - but in my case, my body can't say anything, because it too is like that: it has that same difficulty, a pain here, a pain there, this here, and that ... all the time small things that ... For them to disappear, it has to remember. It's the only thing, it's analogous to you. But the Consciousness moves about (Mother makes a wavy gesture, pointing to Satprem's body), I see it move <171> about, always unhindered - unhindered, like something natural. You understand, it's like something natural: it goes through like this (same wavy gesture), perfectly natural. So it's all right! (Mother laughs)
***
ADDENDUM
(Mother's comments, noted down from memory by a disciple, in English, about the teenage girls drowning in the swimming pool.)
P. spoke to the Mother in detail at 1:30 p.m. today about the findings of his inquiry of yesterday's incident. To that the Mother said:
"I can tell you about the result of 'my' inquiry - the inner inquiry. Last night I was busy all the time looking at this incident. I found that it was her soul that took this decision - she was not conscious - but her soul wanted to go ... to leave her body. From the facts that I gather from you it seems that there was not enough reason for her drowning - in spite of it her soul managed to leave her body.
"This fact was further supported when this morning Champaklal brought a dish of flowers to be burnt on her body. I saw a pretty little flame in the center of the dish. Generally I do not give any flowers on the dish; I send it as it is. But today I was specially interested, I took a rose and put it on the flame of the dish. The flame grew big and it was glowing wonderfully - it was very beautiful."

Monday, May 13, 2013

Body"s Identifcation With Everything

I would like people not to put me in a box and shove the body ... like that, because it will be aware of it, it will feel it, and that will mean adding one more misery to all those it has had. Let them wait till it deteriorates. I am saying this to you, so you will be able to say it to others if necessary.-THE MOTHER


May 24, 1969

It's difficult .... The English would say, it's not a joke .... Everything, everything is getting disorganized, everything is disorganized.
It's easy to see that it's getting disorganized TOWARDS a higher organization, that is, a broadening, a liberation - that's true ... but nothing, nothing at all is working in the ordinary way any longer. So the body can no longer eat, can no longer ... Sleep, of course, for a long time there hasn't been any ordinary sleep (I don't regret it), but everything, just everything is like this (gesture of upheaval).
(long silence)
It's a very strange sensation: no relationship remains as it was before. Nothing: neither of the body with itself, nor of the body with others, nor anything; it's all ... like something that has disappeared. Now and then, you know, it's like a breath of air passing by, a small thing ... I can't say how it is - charming. It's not a pleasure, not a joy, it's ... a breeze passing by, something quite special - and charming, quite charming. You drink a drop of something, which the minute before was absolutely dull-it's not intense, not violent, not strong, but ... charming. The next minute, it's gone.
The body suddenly feels a sense of peaceful and luminous rest, something quite ... adorable - the next minute, it feels pain all over.
So everything is like that.
A sort of identification with everything, which is far from being too pleasant (it's not unpleasant either), but ... it gives a bizarre impression of life. Everything is like that. One moment, the impression that you don't depend on anything, that you are an expression ... (how could I put it? [Mother smiles]) an expression of the Lord, and that you depend on nothing; the next minute, that you are nothing at all, merely a sort of semiconscious movement in the middle of a general semiconsciousness - very unpleasant. It's like that, and all the time like that .... At one time, things become so ... (what should I say?) repugnant, almost, that you feel like screaming - and in fact, if you don't keep a check on yourself, you do start screaming. Another time ... everything is so peaceful that you feel as if you are entering an eternity So you understand ... All that you can do in the middle of all that is to be still!
Then, it comes along with an awareness (not a mental perception: <193> an awareness) of all that people think, all that people feel, all that ... it's all oh, so pitiful! It's so pitiful .... As I said, one minute, suddenly there's something absolutely marvelous; and the next minute, it's ... So the body, one can't say it finds that very amusing, no, but it ... It doesn't rebel in the least, not in the least, it says, "Since it's like that, it has to be like that." Sometimes, now and then, it aspires to get somewhere.
You see the condition.
As a result, I can no longer, I can no longer even ...-for instance, previously, when someone told me he had difficulties or was unhappy or ... it was very simple, spontaneously I would say, "But just think of something else, think of the yoga, and you'll find peace" - I can't even say that any longer! Because I can't tell people, "Do as I do and you'll be in peace"! It's true that I don't have a single care - not one care. One day (it was yesterday or the day before, I don't remember), everything seemed to go haywire-everything everywhere: everybody, all circumstances, all things - every thing, on the scale of the earth. Not on a small scale, on the scale of the earth. On a small scale: complete disorder; on a general scale: complete disorder. But even that the body can still see and smile at. But you see, it can't eat anymore, or it throws up all that it eats, or ... Complete disorder. I can't say it finds that perfectly all right, but it doesn't find it unbearable; it says, "It's like that, so it's like that." Because there's always, always this, this which doesn't budge (gesture above the head, like an unshakable will), there is always the consciousness of ... reaching, reaching the Lord, the Supreme Consciousness ... reaching the Lord. This is stable. This is durable. And then: "If all this still has to dissolve, it will dissolve; if it can evolve, it will evolve; if it has to go through all these troubles, which really aren't very pleasant, it will go through them." This doesn't budge (same gesture above the head). And it even comes - when things begin to be troublesome enough, it comes like this: "To be what the Lord wills .... What You will."
There.
So I've stopped speaking - I am speaking just now, but I have stopped speaking because ...
And a sort of fluidity (gesture spread all around): either what people have comes here, or what's here goes out there, or ... A fluidity like that ... which isn't particularly pleasant. It's interesting, even amusing at times-it's funny, comical. But I can't say it's very cheering.
I didn't even know if I would say anything, because it's really not <194> ... really not pleasant to say ... How long is it going to last? I don't know ... There are times when you feel it can't last, it's going to end; and there are times when you feel it can go on like that for an eternity. And then, when it's like that, when there is that feeling ... "Why? Why, why all this? Is it really any use to have a manifestation like this, which lasts eternally like this? What's the use? ..." If you have the vision of a Beauty and a Joy, a Harmony, then you say, "All right, let's go through the difficulty and then we'll arrive there," but this way, if things must always be as they are ... So there.
And then, as I have said, from time to time, for ONE second (not even one second), a joy ... something ... I can't say, it's neither joy nor pleasure nor happiness, nor any of all that, it's ... something adorable-which may be nothing: it may be a taste, or a perfume, or a gesture, and then ... it disappears. If the world were constantly like that, it would be a wonderful thing! Wonderful, inexpressibly wonderful, but ... But impossible to be all alone like that, it's not possible. It's not possible, there is all that comes from outside (gesture like a truckload being dumped) and which ... So if we have to wait till everything is changed ... phew!
It's obvious that the creation CAN be a wonderful thing - it seems to be the opposite of that. But how is the one going to change into the other? ...
(silence)
The body has reached a state of consciousness in which it knows that death can bring about a change, but isn't-isn't a disappearance (disappearance of the consciousness). And then, that idea the vast majority of human beings have: the repose of death ... (Mother puts her hand on her mouth, as if before an extraordinary piece of nonsense). Not even that consolation. For most people, it's the opposite of a repose. So then, there too, but even more acutely and intensely: "The only, the SOLE hope is ... You, Lord, to be You. Let there be nothing but You. Let this separation, this difference disappear, it is MONSTROUS!" Let it disappear. Then, let it be as You will: You in full activity, or You in complete repose - it doesn't matter in the least; whether it is this way or that way, either way it's completely, completely unimportant; the important thing is that it should be You.
There's the absolute CERTITUDE (Mother clenches her two fists) that there's only ONE way out of all that, only ONE - only one, not two, there's no choice, there aren't a few possibilities, there's only one: it's ... the supreme Door. The Marvel of Marvels. All the rest <195> ... all the rest is an impossibility.
And all that is the experience of this (Mother points to her body), it's not mental, but wholly and completely material.
I see, you know, because people's consciousness is an open book for me (there's no difference, it's an open book), and so I see: in the vast majority of people, when things become really difficult, there is that idea (that sort of idea is always there): "Oh, one day, all that will be over." - What a joke!
(silence)
But why? ... Why? ... Now and then the body worries: "Why? Why, why all this, why? ..." When it sees, when it's in contact with suffering, people, miseries, difficulties, why, why? Why ... why?
(Satprem lays his forehead on Mother's feet)
Since this Creation can be a marvel identical with the Supreme Consciousness, why, why did it have to go through all this? (Mother draws a circle that comes back to its starting point)
Now and then that comes to it.
But obviously, it's idiotic, because it's useless - it's like that, so it's like that. All the whys will not prevent things from being like that. All that we have to do is to find the way for them no longer to be like that, that's all.
(silence)
I always think of Buddha and all of them: we'll go and merge with the Lord, and then there'll be nothing left! (Mother takes her head in her hands)
So then, for their theory to be credible, they say ... (laughing) that it's all an "error." And they don't see the stupidity of their theory: that the Supreme Lord should have been capable of an error ... and then should have repented and withdrawn from it!
These people, all these people, the more convinced they are, the more you feel they are shut up in blinkers.
(silence)
But in fact, your body is a symbol of the whole earth.
It seems to be like that.
So everything comes to you to be purified. <196>
Yes, but that doesn't console me, the body couldn't care less!
Yes, but I feel that once anything has touched you, it can't go back into the world as it was before.
It seems to be so; there are constantly extraordinary things taking place. Constantly, all the time, every minute, I hear really extraordinary things.
But that doesn't console the body! ... It doesn't have any selfesteem.
Yes, but that serves some purpose.
Oh, yes!
It purifies - it must purify the world.
The body doesn't even worry about its purification .... I don't know how to explain .... It's night and day, ceaselessly, "What You will, Lord, what You will ...." You understand, "what You will" in the future, instead of "what You want" in the present, because it's not only like this (gesture inward), but also like that (gesture outward, spread out). "What You will, what You want." That's all. And that's its perpetual state.
(silence)
Because, of course, one very clearly feels how everything is grating.
(Mother laughs,
silence)
At any rate (this is very clear), the consciousness striving to help the body in the work has made it understand per-fect-ly well that going away isn't a solution. Even if there was earlier a curiosity to know what the body will be, that curiosity is gone; as for the desire to stay on, that went away long ago; the possible desire to leave when things become a bit ... suffocating went away with the idea that it would change nothing at all. So only one thing remains for the body: to perfect acceptance. That's all.
When it doesn't talk about it, it's relatively easier; when it expresses it, it becomes very concrete.
There. <197>
The only thing that really consoles it (but not for long) is the idea, "What you are doing is useful for all; what you are doing isn't for you, a stupid little person, it's for the whole entire creation to profit by it." That's what gives it patience.
But when there are people with, you know, a great goodwill (with perhaps a little ambition) to do some work too, I tell them, "If it comes, take it, but don't pull it to you ...." A part of the creation had to do the work for the whole (that's obvious-obvious), and, well, what speaks [i.e., Mother] happens to be at least a part. There had to be someone. That's good; it's like that, so it's like that; there's no point being ... It's like that, so it's like that.
Ah, it's only asking to do the work properly, and that's all.
The body is aware of a very deep stupidity, and it realizes that because of that stupidity, the whole entire universe is the way it is.
And its perfect incapacity to get out of it ... It's a question of Grace, that's all .... There are some seconds when everything is so wonderful as to be unbelievable, and then, the next second ...
There. It's better not to talk about it.
(silence)
One would like to help you better.
Mon petit, you are helping me as much as you can. It's very good .... There's one thing: you are the only one I can talk to. And that's good. From a general standpoint, I am very grateful for that -you are the only one I can talk to. The others don't understand.
The others don't understand.
I don't know. I don't know what will happen. There are times when things become so difficult that I wonder if the body will be able to hold out, but I would like ... I would like people not to put me in a box and shove the body ... like that, because it will be aware of it, it will feel it, and that will mean adding one more misery to all those it has had. Let them wait till it deteriorates. I am saying this to you, so you will be able to say it to others if necessary.
Yes, certainly. [[Satprem was still under the illusion that he could "say" something. ]]
<198>
It doesn't desire that, it doesn't fear it - things will be as they will have to be, that's all. Only, it would really like people to understand ... to understand the effort it has made, and not to rush to (gesture of getting rid of a burdensome body) shut it in, with a heap of earth above it. Because even long after doctors will have declared it to be dead, it will be conscious: its cells are conscious.
So there, that's all.
I don't know ... maybe ... You know, there's such a long way to go that it appears ... absolutely miraculous. And the other thing ["death"] seems to me more and more idiotic. So I am like this (gesture in between). It's really a queer condition: you're not alive, you're not dead.
Ah, good-bye, petit.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Sri Aurobindo Faith And Shakti

Sri Aurobindo on faith and shakti

From The Synthesis of Yoga, Part IV, Chapter XVIII, Faith and Shakti.  
rule
 
by Sri Aurobindo
 
Indian Goddess, by Paul Edmonston
    THE three parts of the perfection of our instrumental nature of which we have till now been reviewing the general features, the perfection of the intelligence, heart, vital consciousness and body, the perfection of the fundamental soul powers, the perfection of the surrender of our instruments and action to the divine Shakti, depend at every moment of their progression on a fourth power that is covertly and overtly the pivot of all endeavour and action, faith, Sraddha. The perfect faith is an assent of the whole being to the truth seen by it or offered to its acceptance, and its central working is a faith of the soul in its own will to be and attain and become and its idea of self and things and its knowledge, of which the belief of the intellect, the heart's consent and the desire of the life mind to possess and realise are the outward figures. This soul faith, in some form of itself, is indispensable to the action of the being and without it man cannot move a single pace in life, much less take any step forward to a yet unrealised perfection. It is so central and essential a thing that the Gita can justly say of it that whatever is a man's Sraddha, that he is, yo yacchraddhah sa eva sah, and, it may be added, whatever he has the faith to see as possible in himself and strive for, that he can create and become. There is one kind of faith demanded as indispensable by the integral Yoga and that may be described as faith in God and the Shakti, faith in the presence and power of the Divine in us and the world, a faith that all in the world is the working of one divine Shakti, that all the steps of the Yoga, its strivings and sufferings and failures as well as its successes and satisfactions and victories are utilities and necessities of her workings and that by a firm and strong dependence on and a total self-surrender to the Divine and to his Shakti in us we can attain to oneness and freedom and victory and perfection.  The enemy of faith is doubt, and yet doubt too is a utility and necessity, because man in his ignorance and in his progressive labour towards knowledge needs to be visited by doubt, otherwise he would remain obstinate in an ignorant belief and limited knowledge and unable to escape from his errors. This utility and necessity of doubt does not altogether disappear when we enter on the path of Yoga. The integral Yoga aims at a knowledge not merely of some fundamental principle, but a knowing, a gnosis which will apply itself to and cover all life and the world action, and in this search for knowledge we enter on the way and are accompanied for many miles upon it by the mind's unregenerated activities before these are purified and transformed by a greater light: we carry with us a number of intellectual beliefs and ideas which are by no means all of them correct and perfect and a host of new ideas and suggestions meet us afterwards demanding our credence which it would be fatal to seize on and always cling to in the shape in which they come without regard to their possible error, limitation or imperfection. And indeed at one stage in the Yoga it becomes necessary to refuse to accept as definite and final any kind of intellectual idea or opinion whatever in its intellectual form and to hold it in a questioning suspension until it is given its right place and luminous shape of truth in a spiritual experience enlightened by supramental knowledge. And much more must this be the case with the desires or impulsions of the life mind, which have often to be provisionally accepted as immediate indices of a temporarily necessary action before we have the full guidance, but not always clung to with the soul's complete assent, for eventually all these desires and impulsions have to be rejected or else transformed into and replaced by impulsions of the divine will taking up the life movements. The heart's faith, emotional beliefs, assents are also needed upon the way, but cannot be always sure guides until they too are taken up, purified, transformed and are eventually replaced by the luminous assents of a divine Ananda which is at one with the divine will and knowledge. In nothing in the lower nature from the reason to the vital will can the seeker of the Yoga put a complete and permanent faith, but only at last in the spiritual truth, power, Ananda which become in the spiritual reason his sole guides and luminaries and masters of action. 
    Tnd yet faith is necessary throughout and at every step because it is a needed assent of the soul and without this assent there can be no progress. Our faith must first be abiding in the essential truth and principles of the Yoga, and even if this, is clouded in the intellect, despondent in the heart, outwearied and exhausted by constant denial and failure in the desire of the vital mind, there must be something in the innermost soul which clings and returns to it, otherwise we may fall on the path or abandon it from weakness and inability to bear temporary defeat, disappointment, difficulty and peril. In the Yoga as in life it is the man who persists unwearied to the last in the face of every defeat and disillusionment and of all confronting, hostile and contradicting events and powers who conquers in the end and finds his faith justified because to the soul and Shakti in man nothing is impossible. And even a blind and ignorant faith is a better possession than the sceptical doubt which turns its back on our spiritual possibilities or the constant carping of the narrow pettily critical uncreative intellect, asuya, which pursues our endeavour with a paralysing incertitude. The seeker of the integral Yoga must however conquer both these imperfections. The thing to which he has given his assent and set his mind and heart and will to achieve, the divine perfection of the whole human being, is apparently an impossibility to the normal intelligence, since it is opposed to the actual facts of life and will for long be contradicted by immediate experience, as happens with all far-off and difficult ends, and it is denied too by many who have spiritual experience but believe that our present nature is the sole possible nature of man in the body and that it is only by throwing off the earthly life or even all individual existence that we can arrive at either a heavenly perfection or the release of extinction. In the pursuit of such an aim there will for long be plenty of ground for the objections, the carpings, asuya, of that ignorant but persistent criticising reason which founds itself plausibly on the appearances of the moment, the stock of ascertained fact and experience, refuses to go beyond and questions the validity of all indices and illuminations that point forward; and if he yields to these narrow suggestions, he will either not arrive or be seriously hampered and long delayed in his journey. On the other hand, ignorance and blindness in the faith are obstacles to a large success, invite much disappointment and disillusionment, fasten on false finalities and prevent advance to greater formulations of truth and perfection. The Shakti in her workings will strike ruthlessly at all forms of ignorance and blindness and all even that trusts wrongly and superstitiously in her, and we must be prepared to abandon a too persistent attachment to forms of faith and cling to the saving reality alone. A great and wide spiritual and intelligent faith, intelligent with the intelligence of that larger reason which assents to high possibilities, is the character of the sraddha needed for the integral Yoga. 
    This shraddha — the English word faith is inadequate to express it — is in reality an influence from the supreme Spirit and its light a message from our supramental being which is calling the lower nature to rise out of its petty present to a great self-becoming and self-exceeding. And that which receives the influence and answers to the call is not so much the intellect, the heart or the life mind, but the inner soul which better knows the truth of its own destiny and mission. The circumstances that provoke our first entry into the path are not the real index of the thing that is at work in us. There the intellect, the heart, or the desires of the life mind may take a prominent place, or even more fortuitous accidents and outward incentives; but if these are all, then there can be no surety of our fidelity to the call and our enduring perseverance in the Yoga. The intellect may abandon the idea that attracted it, the heart weary or fail us, the desire of the life mind turn to other objectives. But outward circumstances are only a cover for the real workings of the spirit, and if it is the spirit that has been touched, the inward soul that has received the call, the sraddha will remain firm and resist all attempts to defeat or slay it. It is not that the doubts of the intellect may not assail, the heart waver, the disappointed desire of the life mind sink down exhausted on the wayside. That is almost inevitable at times, perhaps often, especially with us, sons of an age of intellectuality and scepticism and a materialistic denial of spiritual truth which has not yet lifted its painted clouds from the face of the sun of a greater reality and is still opposed to the light of spiritual intuition and inmost experience. There will very possibly be many of those trying obscurations of which even the Vedic Rishis so often complained, "long exiles from the light," and these may be so thick, the night on the soul may be so black that faith may seem utterly to have left us. But through it all the spirit within will be keeping its unseen hold and the soul will return with a new strength to its assurance which was only eclipsed and not extinguished, because extinguished it cannot be when once the inner self has known and made its resolution. The Divine holds our hand through all and if he seems to let us fall, it is only to raise us higher. This saving return we shall experience so often that the denials of doubt will become eventually impossible and, when once the foundation of equality is firmly established and still more when the sun of the gnosis has risen, doubt itself will pass away because its cause and utility have ended. 
    Moreover, not only a faith in the fundamental principle, ideas, way of the Yoga is needed, but a day to day working faith in the power in us to achieve, in the steps we have taken on the way, in the spiritual experiences that come to us, in the intuitions, the guiding movements of will and impulsion, the moved intensities of the heart and aspirations and fulfilments of the life that are the aids, the circumstances and the stages of the enlarging of the nature and the stimuli or the steps of the soul's evolution. At the same time it has always to be remembered that we are moving from imperfections and ignorance towards light and perfection, and the faith in us must be free from attachment to the forms of our endeavour and the successive stages of our realisation. There is not only much that will be strongly raised in us in order to be cast out and rejected, a battle between the powers of ignorance and the lower nature and the higher powers that have to replace them, but experiences, states of thought and feeling, forms of realisation that are helpful and have to be accepted on the way and may seem to us for the time to be spiritual finalities, are found afterwards to be steps of transition, have to be exceeded .and the working faith that supported them withdrawn in favour of other and greater things or of more full and comprehensive realisations and experiences, which replace them or into which they are taken up in a completing transformation. There can be for the seeker of the integral Yoga no clinging to resting-places on the road or to half-way houses; he cannot be satisfied till he has laid down all the great enduring bases of his perfection and broken out into its large and free infinities, and even there he has to be constantly filling himself with more experiences of the Infinite. 
     
 

Faith In The Sensation

July 17, 1965

(Regarding the last conversation, in which Satprem complained about his bad nights.)
But I just can't understand why it's always that side that I remember, always the sewers, the filth.... Because all the same there must be another side, mustn't there?
(Mother laughs) The reason is simple: that side is very, very close to the ordinary consciousness, so you remember; the other ... there isn't a sufficient "connection," so when you wake up, you forget.
That's the discouraging thing, besides, because one always remembers the bad side, not the rest!
Maybe it's to see if we don't lose heart. Just this morning ...[[Mother looks "tired." ]]
(silence)
That must be why: it's to see if we bear up - not even that: to see if our FAITH bears up.
(silence)
If we look at the question from a sufficient height, in order to manifest, this Truth-Power needs a response, you follow, and It doesn't want to have any preference: it matters little whether this point or that point, this or that will manifest It; It goes like this (gesture of a massive, general pressure), It imposes itself on the earth-atmosphere, and what's capable of responding responds. And then, on the point that responds, the Force manifests.
It isn't the Force that selects the point (I don't know if I am making myself understood): it is a global action, and what's capable of responding responds.
As for us, we want It, we aspire for It, we even know, and naturally, because we know, we have a sort of conviction that we are cut out to respond.... But it's not a question of conviction: it has to be a fact.
And for that ... well, we must bear up.
(silence)
On the contrary, I have the feeling that those who know more can do more, and more is asked of them - it isn't that they are asked less: they are asked more.
And this body still belongs almost entirely to the old creation. And its own tendency is to say, "Oh, that's not nice! We have goodwill, and the more goodwill we have, the more is demanded from us." But these are very human notions, very human.... The more goodwill we have, the more is asked of us - not because of some decision or other: spontaneously, quite naturally.
We speak of transformation, even of transfiguration, but there is the passage from the old movement to the new movement, from the old status to the new status, which is a break in equilibrium; and always, for what still belongs to the old creation, a dangerous break in equilibrium is what gives you the feeling that everything eludes you, that you have lost your foothold. And that's when you need unwavering faith. But a faith that isn't like mental faith, which is self-supporting: it is a faith in the sensation. And that (Mother shakes her head) is very difficult.
(silence)
It's always the same thing: the old system of solitude is relatively very easy: you lie down, cut off all connections, remain in deep contemplation, and wait for the crisis to be over. It lasts for a time, you don't know how long. But when you are like this, surrounded with people, work, responsibilities (not moral ones: material ones), with things that materially depend on you, then ... you must find the way to go on, but without having anymore the support of the usual equilibrium.
It's a bit hard.
But it is clear that if we say, "I am here because of You and for
You and at Your service," well, it has to be true, that's all.
***
(Satprem returns to the attack and asks Mother for her permission to publish some of these conversations in the "Notes on the Way":)
No.
I would have made cuts in them, at least.
Oh, but it's more than cuts!
We have to cut the whole lot? All right!
No, but you can take selected passages - if they are impersonal.
Yes, but if we take "selected passages" (it can be done), then it takes on a dogmatic character. It's like declarations. If we remove the occasion on which it was said, it becomes a dogmatic statement.
Yes, but I don't want to give it. That's categorical.
I quite understand. Only, the danger of those extracts is that it looks like a teaching: Mother decides "it's like this and like that" - whereas it's not "like that"!
Yes, yes! (Mother does not want to hear any more.)
***
(A little later, Satprem proposes he could ask E. to buy magnetic tapes to record these conversations:)
Poor E.! Her husband has ruined her.
She nursed her husband, she even almost brought him back to life, and when he recovered speech and consciousness, the first thing he did was to cut off her means of subsistence and discredit her! To thank her, he spread the word that he was no longer responsible for her. Anyway, that's life for you.[[Mother had already spoken of this case in the conversation of 26 June 1965: the man who was cured of a cancer of the brain but still did not believe in the intervention of a higher force. ]]
Would you like to read her letter?
(extract from E.'s letter, in the original English:)
"... I shall always remember, very vividly, the moment when Your Force took hold and created the rally that even the doctor couldn't understand, the rally that lasted so many weeks. May I tell You the little story?
The patient had been in convulsion, the whole right side of the body twitching horribly, speech impossible. There came an easing of it all, and I remember thinking, Why is that brain signaling that body to twitch so - why? And I took hold of Monty's right hand, seated there, on the edge of his bed. And the two right arms became like a big telephone switchboard hook-up - you know, the long cords. So, through the hook-up I called. I called to the Divine Mother, to You specifically, if I may say so, as is my wont. And this time, the You appeared, not above my head, as is usual, but above the patient's head. And to that You I called three times, 'Mother,' as you once taught me to do. That was all. Nothing more complicated than that. You were there, strategically positioned and I pronounced your Name three times. But there was a great current of Force that went through that telephone hook-up, so to speak, a great Power that came down the great long distance from the You through the little man's ailing brain and on down through his then quieting right arm and up through my long right arm to my think machine. And in that there was a deep peace and knowing. Miss Carter was seated on the other side of the bed, it so happened, at that moment, but she did not know that anything took place, even though I quietly closed my eyes for a bit. Odd, isn't it? It seems even odder as I write it. It was so normal as it took place. And it was so normal when, next morning, all trace of the tremor had vanished and all power of speech had returned to the delighted patient. And greater delight of all observers...."
(11 July 1965)
What do you say about that?
It's interesting.
For my part, I was conscious here.
Our letters crossed in the mail.... The day it happened there, I had the experience here and I perceived the Will act: "Now he is going to get better and recover the use of speech and consciousness." It lasted two days, and hup! (gesture of an abrupt cut) it stopped.
It was exactly when she had over there the experience you have just read. Then, a few days later, I received her first letter in which she said that he had recovered and that his first act had been to vilify her with all those who were giving her credit. So I wrote to her: this is my experience; and she answered me what you have read.
And it stopped dead, with the feeling: now the proof has been made, it's enough. He has lapsed into his coma again[[The letter excerpted above also announced the patient's relapse. ]] - I don't think he will now live long.... Just long enough to prove human ingratitude.
***
Satprem rises to leave:
We must bear up. Besides, that's the only thing we can do - what else can we do?... (Laughing) Keep still.
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