Sri Aurobindo and Mother - The Mother continues Sri Aurobindo's Work

The Mother with Jawaharlal Nehru, Kamaraj, Indira Gandhi
and Lal Bahadur Shastri at the playground of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry

5

The Mother Continues Sri Aurobindo's Work

I am only realising what He has conceived.

I am only the protagonist and the continuator of His work.

This is what Mother wrote in answer to some people who wanted to get Mother nominated for the Nobel peace prize. While declining the proposal, she said that she did not want name and fame. As Mother explained:

Some people wanted to get me nominated for the Nobel peace prize; I was asked for a statement and that's what I wrote. I wanted to say that it wasn't this person who did things—it was all Sri Aurobindo.

They had wanted to give the Nobel prize to Sri Aurobindo, but he left the year before the decision was to be made. And as they don't give the prize to 'dead' people, he never got it. Then they wanted to transfer it to me, and I wrote this note, because the last thing I want is name and fame. That's all there was to it. They did not give a peace prize that year....¹

The question has repeatedly been asked as to what exactly was the work of Sri Aurobindo, and how Mother continued that Work. For a full study of this question, a thorough understanding of the relevant writings of Sri Aurobindo and 13 volumes of Mother's Agenda would be necessary. Satprem had made a detailed study of this question in his biography of Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, and in his biography of the Mother in three volumes, Mother or the Divine Materialism, Mother or the New Species, Mother or the Mutation of Death. The reader is recommended to study all these works. What is envisaged here is to put together some of the most Levant passages from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, which could serve as a brief introduction to the study of this question.

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¹ Mother's Agenda, Vol. 3,p. 147.

In a strikingly revealing talk in the Agenda, Mother says that in order to be able to continue the work, the first thing was to continue to be in her body. And for that purpose, she did something which can be regarded as truly drastic and momentous. It was to 'lock' up her psychic being for ten years, until things were ready. As she said:

Well, I saw it all, all those thirty years of life; not for a SECOND did I have any sense of responsibility, in spite of all the work I was doing, all the organising and everything. He had supposedly passed on the responsibility to me, you see, but he was standing behind—HE was actually doing everything! I was active, but with absolutely no responsibility. I never felt responsible for a single minute—he took the full responsibility....

... when he went out of his body and entered into mine (the most material part of him, the part involved with external things) and I understood that I had the entire responsibility for all the work AND for the sadhana¹—well, then I locked a part of me away, a deep psychic² part that was living, beyond all responsibility, in the ECSTASY of the realisation: the Supreme. I took it and locked it away, I sealed it off and said, 'You're not moving until... until all the rest is ready.'

(silence)

That in itself was a miracle. If I hadn't done it I would have followed him—and there would have been no one to do the Work. I would have followed him automatically, without even thinking about it. But when he entered into me, he said, 'YOU will do the work; one of us had to go, and I am going, but you will do the work.'

And that door was opened again only 10 years later, in 1960. Even then, it was done with great care....³

During the next 10 years (1951-1960), Mother made things read In 1951, the School which had started 9 years earlier, was enlarged, and a Convention held in commemoration of Sri Aurobindo declared it to be the Sri Aurobindo International University Centre. Mother

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¹Sadhana: spiritual discipline. 
²The soul or portion of the Supreme in man which evolves from life to life until 't becomes a fully conscious being.
³ Ibid., pp. 26-7.

A new light breaks upon the earth,

A new world is born.

The things that were promised are fulfilled.¹

In a message of 24th April, 1956, she declared:

The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality.

It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blink the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.²

Explaining the meaning of the Supramental Manifestation, the Mother said in an evening class:

What I call a 'descent' is this: first of all, the consciousness climbs in ascent, then you catch the Thing up above and redescend with it. This is an INDIVIDUAL event.

When this individual event has taken place sufficiently to allow a more general possibility to emerge, it is no longer a 'descent' but a 'manifestation'.

What I call a 'descent' is the individual movement in an individual consciousness. But when a new world is manifesting in an old world—as when similarly the mind spread over the earth—I call it a manifestation.

You may call it whatever you like, it makes no difference to me, but we must understand each other.

What I call a 'descent' takes place in the individual consciousness. In the same way, we speak of 'ascent' (there is no ascent really, there is no high or low, no direction: it's all a manner of speaking)—we speak of 'ascent' when we feel ourselves rising up towards something, and we call it a 'descent' when, after having caught this thing, we bring it down into ourselves.

But when the doors are opened and the flood pours in, it can no longer be called a 'descent': it is a Force that spreads everywhere....³

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¹Ibid., p. 74.
²Ibid., p.75.
³Ibid., p. 84.

In the evening class of September 12, 1956, Mother recounted an experience of hers as follows:

... A Supramental entity had entirely possessed me.

Something a little taller than myself: its feet extended below my feet and its head went a little beyond my head.

... A solid block with a rectangular base—a rectangle with a square base—one single piece.

... A light, not like the golden light of the Supermind: rather a kind of phosphorescence. I felt that had it been night, it would have been physically visible.

... And it was denser than my physical body: the physical body seemed to me almost unreal—as though crumbly—like sand running through your fingers.

... I would have been incapable of speaking, words seemed so petty, narrow, ignorant.

... I saw (how. shall I put it?) the successive preparations which took place, in certain anterior beings, in order to achieve this.

... It felt as if I had several heads.

... The experience of February 29 was of a general nature; but this one was intended for me.

... An experience I had never had.

... I begin to see what the Supramental body will be.

... I had had a somewhat similar experience at the time of the union of the supreme creative principle with the physical consciousness. But that was a subtle experience, while this was material—in the body.

... I did not have the experience, I did not look at it: I WAS it.

... And it radiated from me: myriads of little sparks that were penetrating everybody—I saw them enter into each one of those present.

... One more step.¹

In one of her evening classes, she said me following, addressing Particularly the young and youthful:

I invite you to the great adventure. There's no question of spiritually redoing what others have done before, because our adventure begins AFTER THAT. The question is of a new creation, entirely

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¹Ibid., Pp. 85-6.

new with everything it entails of the unforeseen, of risks and hazards—a REAL adventure whose goal is certain victory but whose course is unknown and has to be traced out step by step in the unexplored. Something which has never been in this present universe and which will never again be in the same way. If that interest you... well then, let's embark. What will happen to you tomorrow I don't know. We must leave aside all plans, all projects, all constructions, and... walk into the unknown. Come what may.¹

***

For January 1, 1958, Mother gave the following message:

O Nature, Material Mother,

thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate

and there is no limit

to the splendor of this collaboration.²

During the evening class of that day, when a child asked her to explain the message, she said the following:

There is nothing to explain. It is an experience, something that took place, and when it took place, I noted it down; and it so happens that it occurred just as I remembered that I had to write something for the new year (which at that time was the following year, that is, the year beginning today). When I remembered that I had to write something—not because of that, but simultaneously—this experience came, and when I noted it down, I realized that it was... the message for this year!

(Mother reads the notation of her experience)

During one of our classes (October 30, 1957), I spoke of the limitless abundance of Nature, this tireless Creatrice who takes the multitude of forms, mixes them together, separates them again and reforms them, again undoes them, again destroys them, in order to move on to ever new combinations. As I said, it is a huge cauldron. Things gets churned up in it and somehow something

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¹ The Mother, Questions and Answers, 10.7.57.
² Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 1, p. 131.

emerges; if it's defective, it is thrown back in and something else is taken out... One form, two forms or a hundred forms make no difference to her, there are thousands upon thousands of forms— and one year, a hundred years, a thousand years, millions of years, what difference does it make? Eternity lies before her! She quite obviously enjoys herself and is in no hurry. If you speak to her of pressing on or of rushing through some part of her work or other, her reply is always the same: 'But what for? Why? Aren't you enjoying it?'

The evening I told you these things, I totally identified myself with Nature and I entered into her play. And this movement of identification brought forth a response, a new kind of intimacy between Nature and myself, a long movement of drawing ever nearer which culminated in an experience that came on November 8.

Nature suddenly understood. She understood that this newborn Consciousness does not seek to reject her, but wants to embrace her entirely. She understood that this new spirituality does not stand apart from life, does not timorously recoil before the awesome richness of her movement, but on the contrary wants to integrate all her facets. She understood that the supramental consciousness is not there to diminish her but to make her complete.

Then, from the supreme Reality came this command: 'Awaken, O Nature, to the joy of collaboration.' And suddenly, all Nature rushed forth in an immense bounding of joy, saying, 'I accept! I will collaborate!' And at the same time, there came a calm, an absolute tranquillity, to allow this receptacle, this body, to receive and contain without breaking and without losing anything of the Joy of Nature that was rushing forth in a movement of grateful recognition like an overwhelming flood. She accepted, she saw— with all eternity before her—that this supramental consciousness would fulfill her more perfectly and impart a still greater force to her movement and more richness, more possibilities to her play.

And suddenly, as if resounding from every corner of the earth, I heard these great notes which are sometimes heard in the subtle physical—rather like those of Beethoven's Concerto in D—which come at moments of great progress, as though fifty orchestras were bursting forth all at once without a single discordant note, to sound the joy of this new communion of Nature and Spirit, the Meeting of old friends who, after a long separation, find each other once more.

Then came these words: 'O Nature, Material Mother, thou said that thou wilt collaborate, and there is no limit to the splendor of this collaboration.'

And the radiant felicity of this splendor was perceived in a perfect peace.

Such was the birth of this year's message.

(Then Mother comments)

I have one thing to add: we must not misinterpret the meaning of this experience and imagine that henceforth everything will take place without difficulties or always in accordance with our personal desires. It is not at this level. It does not mean that when we do not want it to rain, it will not rain! Or when we want some event to take place in the world, it will immediately take place, or that all difficulties will be abolished and everything will be like a fairytale. It is not like that. It is something more profound. Nature has accepted into her play of forces the newly manifested Force and has included it in her movements. But as always, the movements of Nature take place on a scale infinitely surpassing the human scale and invisible to the ordinary human consciousness. It is more of an inner, psychological possibility that has been born in the world than a spectacular change in earthly events.

I mention this because you might be tempted to believe that fairytales are going to be realized upon earth. The time has not yet come.

(silence)

We must have a great deal of patience and a very wide and very complex vision to understand how things work.

(silence)

The miracles that are taking place are not what could be called literary miracles, for they do not take place as in storybooks. They are visible only to a very profound vision of things—very profound, very comprehensive, very vast.

(silence)

You first have to be able to follow the methods and the means of the Grace to recognize its action. You first have to be able to

remain unblinded by appearances to see the deeper truth of things.¹

***

There is an element in the Vedic yoga and in the Tantra, which Mother found to be essential at this stage of the Sadhana of the body. This element is that of the japa or repetition of the mantra. 'Mantra' is a sound—or rather the inevitable sound of the syllable or syllables which can express the inmost aspiration of the being, the deepest cry of the being, such as OM, etc. As Mother said:

I have also come to realise that for this sadhana of the body, the mantra is essential. Sri Aurobindo gave none; he said that one should be able to do all the work without having to resort to external means. Had he reached the point where we are now, he would have seen that the purely psychological method is inadequate and that a japa is necessary, because only japa has a direct action on the body. So I had to find the method all alone, to find my mantra by myself. But now that things are ready, I have done ten years of work in a few months. That is the difficulty, it requires time...

And I repeat my mantra constantly—when I am awake and even when I sleep. I say it even when I am getting dressed, when I eat, when I work, when I speak with others; it is there, just behind in the background, all the time, all the time.²

Mother revealed on 16.9.1958 her mantra in the following account of an experience:

For the moment, of all the formulas or mantras, the one that acts most directly on this body, that seizes all the cells and immediately does this (vibrating motion) is the Sanskrit mantra: OM NAMO BHAGAVATE .

As soon as I sit for meditation, as soon as I have a quiet minute to concentrate, it always begins with this mantra, and there is a response in the body, in the cells of the body: they all start vibrating.

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¹Ibid, pp. 1:51-3.
²Ibid., p. 301.

This is how it happened: Y had just returned and he brought back a trunk full of things which he then proceeded to show me, and his excitement made tight, tight little waves in the atmosphere, making my head ache; it made... anyway, it was unpleasant. When I left, just after that had happened, I sat down and went like this (gesture of sweeping out) to make it stop, and immediately the mantra began.

It rose up from here (Mother indicates the solar plexus), like this: Om Namo Bhagavate OM NAMO BHAGAVATE OM NAMO BHAGAVATE. It was formidable. For the entire quarter of an hour that the meditation lasted, everything was filled with Light! In the deeper tones it was of golden bronze (at the throat level it was almost red) and in the higher tones it was a kind of opaline white light: OM NAMO BHAGAVATE, OM NAMO BHAGAVATE, OM NAMO BHAGAVATE.¹

***

From that momentous evening of 29th February, 1956, Mother began to have from week to week, from day to day, various experiences of the Supermind in Matter. On the 3rd February, 1958, Mother had for the first time a radical experience in which she went strolling in a concrete way in an objective supramental world—a world that exists in itself, beyond all subjectivity. In the evening class of the 19th February, 1958, the record of this experience was read out by her as follows:

Between the beings of the supramental world and men, there exists approximately the same gap as between men and animals. Sometime ago, I had the experience of identification with animal life, and it is a fact that animals do not understand us; their consciousness is so constituted that we elude them almost entirely. And yet I have known domestic animals—cats and dogs, but especially cats—who made an almost yogic effort of consciousness to understand us. But generally, when they watch us living and acting, they don't understand, they don't SEE us as we are, and they suffer because of us. We are a constant enigma to them. Only a very tiny part of their consciousness is linked to us. And it is the same for us when we try to look at the supramental world. Only

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¹ Ibid., pp. 194-5.

when the link of consciousness has been built shall we see it— and even then, only that part of our being which has undergone the transformation will be capable of seeing it as it is—otherwise the two worlds would remain as separate as the animal world and the human world.

The experience I had on February 3 proves this. Before, I had had an individual, subjective contact with the supramental world, whereas on February 3, I went strolling there in a concrete way— as concretely as I used to go strolling in Paris in times past—in a world that EXISTS IN ITSELF, beyond all subjectivity.

It is like a bridge being built between the two worlds.

This is the experience as I dictated it immediately thereafter:

(silence)

The supramental world exists in a permanent way, and I am there permanently in a supramental body. I had proof of this today when my earthly consciousness went there and consciously remained there between two and three o'clock in the afternoon. I now know that for the two worlds to join in a constant and conscious relationship what is missing is an intermediate zone between the existing physical world and the supramental world as it exists. This zone has yet to be built, both in the individual consciousness and in the objective world, and it is being built. When formerly I used to speak of the new world that is being created, I was speaking of this intermediate zone. And similarly, when I am on 'this' side—that is, in the realm of the physical consciousness— and I see the supramental power, the supramental light and substance constantly permeating matter, I am seeing and participating' in the construction of this zone.

I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest.

The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that—the light was like that, the people were like that—everything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, 1 could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.

This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, that part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After a while, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and that my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here¹—and in my consciousness, I protested: 'No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see who's there!' I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest... It went on like that until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still

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¹ Indeed, one of the people near Mother had pulled Her out of the experience.

until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.

The nature of objects on this ship was not that which we know upon earth; for example, the clothes were not made of cloth, and this thing that resembled cloth was not manufactured—it was a part of the body, made of the same substance that took on different forms. It had a kind of plasticity. When a change had to be made, it was done not by artificial and outer means but by an inner working, by a working of the consciousness that gave the substance its form or appearance. Life created its own forms. There was ONE SINGLE substance in all things; it changed the nature of its vibration according to the needs or uses.

Those who were sent back for more training were not of a uniform color; their bodies seemed to have patches of a grayish opacity, a substance resembling the earth substance. They were dull, as though they had not been wholly permeated by the light or wholly transformed. They were not like this all over, but in places.

The tall beings on the shore were not of the same color, at least they did not have this orange tint; they were paler, more transparent. Except for a part of their bodies, only the outline of their forms could be seen. They were very tall, they did not seem to have a skeletal structure, and they could take on any form according to their needs. Only from their waists to their feet did they have a permanent density, which, was not felt in the rest of their body. Their color was much more pallid and contained very little red, it verged rather on gold or even white. The parts of whitish light were translucid; they were not absolutely transparent, but less dense, more subtle than the orange substance.

Just as I was called back, when I was saying, 'Not yet... ,' I had a quick glimpse of myself, of my form in the supramental world. I was a mixture of what these tall beings were and the beings aboard the ship. The top part of myself, especially my head, was a mere silhouette of a whitish color with an orange fringe. The more it approached the feet, the more the color resembled that of the people on the ship, or in other words, orange; the more it went up towards the top, the more translucid and white it was, and the red faded. The head was only a silhouette with a brilliant sun at its centre; from it issued rays of light which were the action of the will.

As for the people I saw aboard ship, I recognized them all. Some were here in the Ashram, some came from elsewhere, but I knew them as well. I saw everyone, but as I realized that I would

not remember everyone when I came back, I decided not to give any names. Besides, it is unnecessary. Three or four faces were very clearly visible, and when I saw them, I understood the feeling that I have had here, on earth, while looking into their eyes: there was such an extraordinary joy... On the whole, the people were young; there were very few children, and their ages were around fourteen or fifteen, but certainly not below ten or twelve (I did not stay long enough to see all the detail). There were no very old people, with the exception of a few. Most of the people who had gone ashore were of a middle age—again, except for a few. Several times before this experience, certain individual cases had already been examined at a place where people capable of being supramentalized are examined; I had then had a few surprises which I had noted—I even told some people. But those whom I disembarked today I saw very distinctly. They were of a middle age, neither young children nor elderly people, with only a few rare exceptions, and this quite corresponded to what I expected. I decided not to say anything, not to give any names. As I did not stay until the end, it would be impossible for me to draw an exact picture, for it was neither absolutely clear nor complete. I do not want to say things to some and not say them to others.

What I can say is that the criterion or the judgment was based EXCLUSIVELY on the substance constituting the people—whether they belonged completely to the supramental world or not, whether they were made of this very special substance. The criterion adopted was neither moral nor psychological. It is likely that their bodily substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at that time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different.

When I came back, along with the memory of the experience, I knew that the supramental world was permanent, that my presence there is permanent, and that only a missing link is needed to allow the consciousness and the substance to connect—and it is this link that is being built. At that time, my impression (an f impression which remained rather long, almost the whole day) was of an extreme relativity—no, not exactly that, but an impression that the relationship between this world and the other completely changes the criterion by which things are to be evaluated or judged. This criterion had nothing mental about it, and it gav6 the strange inner feeling that so many things we consider good or bad are not really so. It was very clear that everything depended

upon the capacity of things and upon their ability to express the supramental world or be in relationship with it. It was so completely different, at times even so opposite to our ordinary way of looking at things! I recall one little thing that we usually consider bad... actually how funny it was to see that it is something excellent! And other things that we consider important were really quite unimportant there! Whether it was like this or like that made no difference. What is very obvious is that our appreciation of what is divine or not divine is incorrect. I even laughed at certain things... Our usual feeling about what is anti-divine seems artificial, based upon something untrue, unliving (besides, what we call life here appeared lifeless in comparison with that world); in any event, this feeling should be based upon our relationship between the two worlds and according to whether things make this relationship easier or more difficult. This would thus completely change our evaluation of what brings us nearer to the Divine or what takes us away from Him. With people, too, I saw what helps them or prevents them from becoming supramental is very different from what our ordinary moral notions imagine. I felt just how... ridiculous we are.

(Then Mother speaks to the children)

There is a continuation to all this, which is like the result in my consciousness of the experience of February 3, but it seems premature to read it now. It will appear in the April issue [of the Bulletin], as a sequel to this.

But one thing—and I wish to stress this point to you—which now seems to me to be the most essential difference between our world and the supramental world (and it is only after having gone there consciously, with the consciousness that ordinarily works here, that this difference appeared to me in what might be called its enormity): everything here, except for what happens within and at a very deep level, seemed absolutely artificial to me. Not one of the values of ordinary physical life is based upon truth. Just as we have to buy cloth, sew it together, then put it on our backs in order to dress ourselves, likewise we have to take things from outside and then put them inside our bodies in order to feed ourselves. For everything, our life is artificial.

A true, sincere, spontaneous life, as in the supramental world, is a springing forth of things through the fact of conscious will, a

power over substance that shapes this substance according what we decide it should be. And he who has this power and tl knowledge can obtain whatever he wants, whereas he who dc not has no artificial means of getting what he desires.

In ordinary life, EVERYTHING is artificial. Depending upon chance of your birth or circumstances, you have a more or ] high position or a more or less comfortable life, not because the spontaneous, natural and sincere expression of your way being and of your inner need, but because the fortuity of life's circumstances has placed you in contact with these things. An absolutely worthless man may be in a very high position, and a man who might have marvellous capacities of creation and organization may find himself toiling in a quite limited and inferior positions, whereas he would be a wholly useful individual' if the world were sincere.

It is this artificiality, this insincerity, this complete lack of truth that appeared so shocking to me that... one wonders how, in a world as false as this one, we can arrive at any truthful evaluation of things.

But instead of feeling grieved, morose, rebellious, discontent, I had rather the feeling of what I spoke of at the end: of such a ridiculous absurdity that for several days I was seized with an uncontrollable laughter whenever I saw things and people! Such a tremendous laughter, so absolutely inexplicable (except to me), because of the ridiculousness of these situations.

When I invited you on a voyage into the unknown, a voyage of adventure, I did not know just how true were my words! And I can promise those who are ready to embark upon this adventure that they will make some very astonishing discoveries.¹

The work that Sri Aurobindo had envisaged was now unfolding itself. The question was to find the means of building the link of consciousness between the supramental world and the human world. In her talk recorded in the Agenda (10 May, 1958), she said:

... And actually, to do Sri Aurobindo's work is to realize the Supramental on earth. So I began that work and, as a matter of fact, this was the only thing I asked of my body. I told it, 'Now you shall set right everything which is out of order and gradually

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¹Ibid., pp. 137-43.

realize this intermediate supermanhood between man and the supramental being or, in other words, what I call the superman.'

And this is what I have been doing for the last eight years, and even much more during the past two years, since 1956. Now it is the work of each day, each minute.

That's where I am. I have renounced the uncontested authority of a god. I have renounced the unshakable calm of the sage... in order to become the superman. I have concentrated everything upon that.

We shall see.

I am learning to work. I am only an apprentice, simply an apprentice—I am learning the trade!¹

***

On 7th November, 1958, Mother had an experience which was a further step in the building of the link between the two worlds. Mother described and explained the experience in the following conversation that is recorded in the Agenda:

I found my message for the 1st of January... It was quite unforeseen. Yesterday morning, I thought, 'All the same, I have to find my message, but what?' I was absolutely... like that, neutral, nothing. Then yesterday evening at the class (of Friday, November 7) I noticed that these children who had had a whole week to prepare their questions on the text had not found a single one! A terrible lethargy! A total lack of interest. And when I had finished speaking, I thought to myself, 'But what IS there in these people who are interested in nothing but their personal little affairs?' So I began descending into their mental atmosphere, in search of the little light, of that which responds... And it literally pulled me downwards as into a hole, but in such a material way; my hand, which was on the arm of the chair, began slipping down, my other hand went like this (to the ground), my head, too! I thought it was going to touch my knees!

And I had the impression... It was not an impression—I saw it. I was descending into a crevasse between two steep rocks, rocks that appeared to be made of something harder than basalt, BLACK, but metallic at the same time, with such sharp edges—it seemed

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¹Ibid. . P.155.

that a mere touch would lacerate you. It appeared endless and bottomless, and it kept getting narrower, narrower and narrower, narrower and narrower, like a funnel, so narrow that there was almost no more room—not even for the consciousness—to pass through. And the bottom was invisible, a black hole. And it went down, down, down, like that, without air, without light, except for a sort of glimmer that enabled me to make out the rock edges. They seemed to be cut so steeply, so sharply... Finally, when my head began touching my knees, I asked myself, 'But what is there at the bottom of this... this hole?'

And as soon as I had uttered, 'What is there at the bottom c this hole?' I seemed to touch a spring that was in the very depths—a spring I didn't see but that acted instantly with a tremendous power—and it cast me up forthwith, hurled me out of this crevasse into... (arms extended, motionless) a formless, limitless vast which was infinitely comfortable—not exactly warm, but it gave a feeling of ease and of an intimate warmth.

And it was all-powerful, with an infinite richness. It did no have... no, it didn't have any kind of form, and it had no limit (naturally, as I was identified with it I knew there was neither limit nor form). It was as if (because it was not visible), as if this vast were made of countless, imperceptible points—points that occupied no place in space (there was no sense of space), that were of a deep warm gold—but this is only a feeling, a transcription. And all this was absolutely LIVING, living with a power that seemed infinite. And yet motionless.

It lasted for quite some time, for the rest of the meditation. It seemed to contain a whole wealth of possibilities, and all this that was formless had the power to become form.

At the time, I wondered what it meant. Later, of course, I found out, and finally this morning, I said to myself, 'Ah, so that's it! It came to give me my message for the new year!' Then I transcribed the experience—it can't be described, of course, for it was indescribable; it was a psychological phenomenon and the form it took was only a way of describing the psychological state to oneself. Here is what I wrote down, obviously in a mental way, and I am thinking of using it as my message.

There was a hesitation in the expression, so I brought the paper and I want us to decide upon the final text together.

I have not described anything. I have only stated a fact (Mother reads)

'At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, generator of all creation.'

And it is again one more proof. The experience was absolutely... the English word genuine says it.

Genuine and spontaneous?

Yes, it was not a willed experience, for I had not decided I would do this. It did not correspond to an inner attitude. In a meditation, one can decide, 'I will meditate on this or on that or on something else—I will do this or that.' For meditations, I usually have a kind of inner (or higher) perception of what has to be done, and I do it. But it was not that way. I had decided: nothing, to decide nothing, to be 'like that' (gesture of turning upwards).

And then it happened.

Suddenly, while I was speaking (it was while I was speaking), I felt, "Well really, can anything be done with such material?' Then, quite naturally, when I stopped speaking, oh!—I felt that I was being pulled! Then I understood. Because I had asked myself the question, 'But what is HAPPENING in there behind all those forms?...' I can't say that I was annoyed, but I said to myself, 'Well really, this has to be shaken up a bit!' And just as I had finished, something pulled me—it pulled me out of my body, I was literally pulled out of my body.

And then, down into this hole... I still see what I saw then, this crevasse between two rocks. The sky was not visible, but on the rock summits I saw... something like the reflection of a glimmer—a glimmer—coming from 'something' beyond, which (laughing) must have been the sky! But it was invisible. And as I descended, as if I were sliding down the face of this crevasse, I saw the rock edges;

and they were really black rocks, as if cut with a chisel, cuts so fresh that they glistened, with edges as sharp as knives. There was one here, one there, another there, everywhere, all around. And I was being pulled, pulled, pulled, I went down and down and down— there was no end to it, and it was becoming more and more compressing.¹ It went down and down...

And so, physically, the body followed. My body has been

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¹Later Mother added, 'Stifling, suffocating'.

taught to express the inner experience to a certain extent. In the body there is the body-force or the body-form or the body-spirit (according to the different schools, it bears a different name), and this is what leaves the body last when one dies, usually taking a period of seven days to leave. With special training, it can acquire a conscious life—independent and conscious—to such a degree that not only in a state of trance (in trance, it frequently happens that one can speak and move if one is slightly trained or educated), but even in a cataleptic state it can produce sounds and even make the body move. Thus, through training, the body begins to have somnambulistic capacities—not an ordinary somnambulism, but it can live an autonomous life. This is what took place, yesterday evening it was like that—I had gone out of my body, but my body was participating. And then I was pulled downwards: my hand, which had been on the arm of the chair, slipped down, then the other hand, then my head was almost touching my knees! (the consciousness was elsewhere, I saw it from outside—it was not that I didn't know what I was doing, I saw it from outside.) So I said, 'In any case, this has to stop somewhere because if it continues, my head (laughing) is going to be on the ground!' And I thought, 'But what is there at the bottom of this hole?...

Scarcely had these words been formulated when there I was, at the bottom of the hole! And it was absolutely as if a tremendous,! almighty spring were there, and then... (Mother bits the table) vrrrm! I was cast out of the abyss into a vastness. My body immediately sat straight up, head on high, following the movement. If someone had been watching, this is what he would have seen: in a single bound, vrrrm! Straight up, to the maximum, my head on high.

And I followed all this without objectifying it in the least; I was not aware of what it was nor of what was happening, nor of any explanation at all, nothing: it was 'like that'. I was living it, that's all. The experience was absolutely spontaneous. And after this rather... painful descent, phew!—there was a kind of super-corn fort. I can't explain it otherwise, an ease, but an ease... to the utmost. A perfect immobility in a sense of eternity—but with an extraordinary INTENSITY of movement and life! An inner intensity, unmanifested; it was within, self-contained. And motionless (had there been an outside, it would have been motionless in relation to that) and it was in a... life so immeasurable that it can only be expressed metaphorically as infinite. And with an intensity, a

POWER, a force... and a peace—the peace of eternity. A silence, a calm. A POWER capable of... of EVERYTHING. Everything.

And I was not imagining nor objectifying it; I was living it with ease—with a great ease. And it lasted until the end of die meditation. When it gradually began fading, I stopped the meditation and left.

Later, after I returned (to the Ashram), I wondered, 'What was that? What does it signify?' Then I understood.

That's all.

Now I am going to write it down clearly. Hand me a piece of paper.

(Mother begins recopying her message)

'At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid...' BECAUSE generally, the inconscience gives the impression, precisely, of something amorphous, inert, formless, drab and gray (when formerly I entered the zones of the inconscient, that was the first thing I encountered). But this was an inconscience... it was hard, rigid, COAGULATED, as if coagulated to resist: all effort slides off it, doesn't touch it, cannot penetrate it. So I am putting, '... most hard and rigid and narrow' (the idea of something that compresses, compresses, compresses you) 'and stifling'—yes, stifling is the word.

'...I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless vast, generator of all creation.' It was... yes, I have the feeling that it was not the ordinary creation, the primordial creation, but the SUPRAMENTAL creation, for it bore no similarity to the experience of returning to the Supreme, the origin of everything. I had utterly the feeling of being cast into the origin of the supramental creation—something that is already (how can it be expressed?) objectified from the Supreme, with the explicit goal of the supramental creation.

That was my feeling.

I don't think I am mistaken, for there was such a superabundant feeling of power, of warmth, of gold... It was not fluid, it was like a powdering. And each of these things (they cannot be called specks or fragments, nor even points, unless you understand it in the mathematical sense, a point that occupies no space) was something equivalent to a mathematical point, but like living gold, a powdering of warm gold. I cannot say it was sparkling, I cannot

say it was dark, nor was it made of light, either: a multitude of tiny points of gold, nothing but that. They seemed to be touching my eyes, my face... and with such an inherent power and warmth—it was a splendor! And then, at the same time, the feeling of a plenitude, the PEACE of omnipotence... It was rich, it was full. It was movement at its ultimate, infinitely swifter than all one can imagine, and at the same time it was absolute peace, perfect tranquillity.

(Mother resumes her message)

I do not want to put the word... Unless, instead of putting 'generator of all creation,' I put 'of the new creation...' Oh, but then it becomes absolutely overwhelming! It is THAT, in fact. It is that. But is it time to say so? I don't know...

Generator of the new creation...¹

***

Towards the end of 1958, just a few days before her first illness (which resulted in her withdrawal to her room), Mother came to a precision and formulated the central question that she was exploring: 'How does one FIX the Supermind in the body?' She was looking for a way, for a method. But the entire enterprise was new in the history of the earth, and there were no traces of any past experiments. She was obliged to hew a new path in a virgin forest. In her own words:

Is there a way? Is there a method? Probably not. It is really walking blindly, without any help, in a desert, a desert strewn with every possible trap and difficulty and obstacle—all of them, gathered there together like that. Your eyes are blindfolded, you know nothing and you walk.... I am absolutely in the midst of hewing a road through the virgin forest—worse than a virgin forest.

Then on July 24, 1959, the supramental light entered directly into her body, without going through the intermediate layers of consciousness. Let us go to her own description of the experience:

Shortly before the 15th of August I had a unique experience that exemplifies all this. For the first time the supramental ligh1

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¹ Ibid., pp. 225-30.

entered directly into my body, without passing through the inner beings. It entered through the feet (a red and gold color—marvellous, warm, intense), and it climbed up and up. And as it climbed, the fever also climbed because the body was not accustomed to this intensity. As all this light neared the head, I thought I would burst and that the experience would have to be stopped. But then, I very clearly received the indication to make the Calm and Peace descend, to widen all this body-consciousness and all these cells, so that they could contain the supramental light. So I widened, and as the light was ascending, I brought down the vastness and an unshakable peace. And suddenly, there was a second of fainting.

I found myself in another world, but not far away (I was not in a total trance). This world was almost as substantial as the physical world. There were rooms—Sri Aurobindo's room with the bed he rests on—and he was living there, he was there all the time: it was his abode. Even .my room was there, with a large mirror like the one I have here, combs, all kinds of things. And the substance of these objects was almost as dense as in the physical world, but they shone with their own light. It was not translucent, not transparent, not radiant, but self-luminous. The various objects and the material of the rooms did not have this same opacity as the physical objects here, they were not dry and hard as in the physical world we know.

And Sri Aurobindo was there, with a majesty, a magnificent beauty. He had all his beautiful hair as before. It was all so concrete, so substantial—he was even being served some kind of food. I remained there for one hour (I had looked at my watch before and I looked at it afterwards). I spoke to Sri Aurobindo, for I had some important questions to ask him about the way certain things are to be realized. He said nothing. He listened to me quietly and looked at me as if all my words were useless: he understood everything at once. And he answered me with a gesture and two expressions on his face, an unexpected gesture that did not at all correspond to any thought of mine; for example, he picked up three combs that were lying near the mirror (combs similar to those I use here, but larger) and he put them in his hair. He planted one comb in the middle of his head and the two others on each side, as if to gather all his hair over his temples. He was literally COIFFED with these three combs, which gave him a kind of crown. And I immediately understood that by this he meant that

he was adopting my conception: 'You see, I embrace your conception of things, and I coif myself with it; it is my will.' Anyway, I remained there for one hour.

And when I awoke, I didn't have this feeling of returning from afar and of having to re-enter my body, as I usually do. No, it was simply as though I were in this other world, then I took a step backwards and found myself here again. It took me a good half an hour to understand that this world here existed as much as the other and that I was no longer on the other side but here, in the world of falsehood. I had forgotten everything—people, things, what I had to do; everything had gone, as if it had no reality at all.

You see, it's not as if this world of Truth had to be created from nothing: it is fully ready, it is there, like a lining of our own present world. Everything is there, EVERYTHING is there.

I remained in that state for two full days, two days of absolute felicity. And Sri Aurobindo was with me the whole time, the whole time—when I walked, he walked with me, when I sat down, he sat next to me. On the day of August 15th, too, he remained there constantly during the darshan. But who was aware of it? A few—one or two—felt something. But who saw?—No one.

And I showed all these people to Sri Aurobindo. this whole field of work, and asked him WHEN this other world, the real one that is there, so near, would come to take the place of our world of falsehood. Not ready. That was all he replied.Not ready.

Sri Aurobindo gave me two days of this—total bliss. But all the same, by the end of the second day I realized that I could not continue to remain there, for the work was not advancing. The work must be done in the body; the realization must be attained here in this physical world, for otherwise it is not complete. So I withdrew from that world and set to work here again.¹

* * *

Mother discovered that the repetition of the Mantra was very effective in fixing the Supramental Force in the physical. In the physical, there are several distinguishable elements: the gross physical, the subtle physical, the physical mind and the cellular mind. The gross physical is what we see with our physical eyes and what we touch with our skin and perceive with our physical senses. The subtle physical is

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¹Ibid., pp. 327-9.

what lies behind our gross physical—that which Mother has described in her experience of Sri Aurobindo in his abode of the subtle physical. The physical mind is that part of our mentality which is entirely at the service of the physical, which is rooted in the physical, which makes our perception of sensations possible. It is also called sometimes by Sri Aurobindo mental-physical, since it subserves the physical, and it is as mechanical and repetitive as the physical. The cellular mind is the mind of the cells, the mind which is overtly active in the animals, but which has been overlaid in our human psychology by the physical mind.

The physical mind, as a product of evolution, evolved in Matter under the pressure of difficulties, even, of suffering; hence, there is in it an imprint of pessimism and defeatism. As Mother pointed out:

The big difficulty, in Matter, is that the material consciousness, that is to say, the mind in Matter, was formed under the pressure of difficulties—difficulties, obstacles, suffering, struggle. It was, so to speak, 'worked out' by those things, and that gave it an imprint almost of pessimism and defeatism, which is certainly the greatest obstacle.¹

This pessimism is repeated constantly in the operations of the physical mind, and since the physical mind is like a layer on the mind of the cells, it covers up the normal dumb occult consciousness of the cellular mind; the cellular mind, too, under the magic spell of the physical mind betrays a reflected pessimism. But as Mother discovered, pessimism and the resultant illness, disease or death do not form a normal part of the mind of the cells.

This was a major discovery, paving the way for FIXING the supermind in Matter. If the activities of the physical mind can be clarified, controlled, mastered, silenced, and if the mind of cells can be allowed to function in its purity without being overlaid by the magic spell of the physical mind, then the mind of cells can receive and fix the supramental vibrations, and a new rhythm of supramental functioning in the body can be established. The cellular mind is, in fact, the link between the purely material substance and the physical mind, and it is the real fixer. Under the influence of the physical mind, it fixes in its movements the repetitive operation of pessimism and defeatism; but if—and it is here that the repetition of the mantra

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¹Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 5, pp. 222-3.

finds its justification in the yogic process—a new vibration is applied in the cellular mind, it will fix that new vibration.

The repetition of the mantra is to some extent a mechanical process, but mere mechanical repetition would hardly be effective. The mantra should itself be a cry of the whole being, and if that cry, that aspiration, that vibration of sound is injected repeatedly, the normal defeatist notation can be reversed, and there can come about a deeper change in the physical consciousness. A mantra is a sound and vibration expressive of an aspiration, and, as Mother pointed out, sound has a power in itself, and by forcing the body to repeat a sound, at the same time you force it to receive the vibration. 'I have seen that the mantra has an organising effect on the subsconscient, on the inconscient, on matter, on the body's cells—it takes time, but by persistently repeating it, in the long run it has an effect. It is the same principle as doing daily exercises on piano, for example. You keep mechanically repeating them and, in the end your hands are filled with consciousness—it fills the body with consciousness.¹

Mother's experiences after the 29th February, 1956, related increasingly to the physical mind and to her exploration of fixing the Supermind in the body-consciousness and of the transformation of the body. After 1959, Mother met Sri Aurobindo daily in the subtle physical. There were ecstasies of experiencing the Supreme in the body, and there were excruciating pains when the work had to be concentrated upon the transformation of the subconscient and inconscient. Her discoveries were momentous, particularly in regard to the nature and origin of Pain and Death. Gradually, she was building a new body—material body—of the supramental light and power. And this entire field of experiences and discoveries was like a virgin forest; and it was in this forest that Mother hewed a path and a curve of development. There were experiences from day to day, from hour to hour, and many of them have been recorded in the Agenda. We shall relate here only a few of them, just a few landmarks.

* * *

On January 24, 1961, Mother narrated to Satprem as follows he experience (recorded in the Agenda), which marks an extremely important stage:

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¹Mother's Agenda, Vol. 1, p. 421.

I have something to tell you now.... We'll work later.

In the middle of the night before last, I woke up (or rather I returned to an external consciousness) with the feeling of having a much larger (by larger I mean more voluminous) and much more powerful being in my body than I usually have. It was as if it could scarcely be held inside me but was spilling over; and so COMPACTLY POWERFUL that it was almost uncomfortable. The feeling of: what to do with all this?

It lasted the remainder of the night and all day long I had considerable trouble containing an overwhelming power that spontaneously created reactions utterly disproportionate to a human body and made me speak in a way that.... When something was not going well: wham! Such an instantaneous and strong reply that it looked like anger. And I found it difficult to control the movement—it had happened already in the morning and it very nearly happened again in the afternoon. "That last attack has weakened me terribly!' I told myself, 'I don't have the strength to contain this Power; it's difficult to remain calm and controlled.' That was my first thought, so I insisted upon calm.

Then yesterday afternoon, when I went upstairs to walk,¹ a couple of things occurred—not personal, but of a general nature— concerning, for instance, certain old-fashioned conventions having to do with women and their particular nature (not psychological, physical)—old ideas like that which had always seemed utterly stupid to me suddenly provoked a kind of reprobation completely out of proportion to the fact itself. Then one or two other things² happened in regard to certain people; certain circumstances (nothing to do with me personally: it came from here and there). Then suddenly, I saw a Force coming ('coming', well, 'manifesting') which was the same as that 'thing' I had felt within me but even bigger; it began whirling upon the earth and within circumstances... oh, like a cyclone of compact power moving forward with the intention of changing all this! It had to change. At all

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¹ Mother did her japa while walking back and forth in her room.
² Satprem later asked Mother what she meant by these 'things', and Mother replied:
For example, there was a certain man's attitude with respect to life and to the Divine, and what he thought of himself, and so forth. You see, what came was a whole range of characters and one particular action of one man, and then something else came up.... How to explain?... These are POINTS OF WORK which come to me, things that present themselves in the atmosphere for me to see—things I see and which have to be acted upon.'

costs, it must change!

I was above, as usual (Mother points above her head, indicating the higher consciousness), and I looked at that (Mother bends over, as if looking down at the earth),and said to myself, 'Hmm, this is getting dangerous. If it continues like this, it will result in... in a war or a revolution or some catastrophe—a tidal wave or an earth-quake.' So I tried to counteract it by applying the highest consciousness to it, that of a perfect serenity. And I saw especially that this consciousness has been missioned to transform the earth through the Supermind and by the supramental Force, avoiding all catastrophes as far as possible: the Work is to be done as luminously and harmoniously as the earth would allow, even by going at a slower pace if need be. That was the idea. And I tried to counteract that whirlwind power with this consciousness.

(long silence)

I must say that after this, when I read The Secret of the Veda as I do each evening.... In fact, I am in very close contact with the entire Vedic world since I've been reading that book: I see beings, hear phrases.... It comes up in a sort of subliminal consciousness, a lot of things are from the ancient Vedic tradition. (By the way, I have even come to see that the pink marble bathtub I told you about last time, which Nature had offered me, belongs to the Vedic world, to a civilization of that epoch.¹) There were—there are always—Sanskrit words coming up, sentences, bits of dialogue.... This is of interest, because I realized that what I had seen the other day (I told you about it) and then what I saw yesterday—that whole domain—was connected to what the Vedas call the dasyus—the panis and the dasyus²—the enemies of the Light. And this Force that came was very clearly a power

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¹. A few days later, Mother rectified: 'I have looked at the experience again and realized that it's not Vedic but pre-Vedic. The experience put me into contact with a civilization , prior to the Vedas—the Rishis and the Vedas are a kind of transition between that vanished civilization and the Indian civilization which grew out of the Vedic Age. It was g yesterday [January 26] that I perceived this, and it was quite interesting.' "
². In the Vedas, the panis and dasyus represent beings or forces hidden in subterranean caves who have stolen the 'Riches' or the 'Lights', symbolized by herds of cows. 'with the help of the gods, the Aryan warrior must recover these lost riches, the 'sun in the darkness', by igniting the flame of sacrifice. It is the path of subterranean descent.

like Indra's¹ (though something far, far greater), and at war with darkness everywhere, like this (Mother sketches in space a whirling force touching points here and there throughout the world), this Force attacked all darkness: ideas, people, movements, events, whatever made stains, patches of shadow. And it kept on going, a formidable power, so great that my hands were like this (Mother clenches her fists). Later when I read (I happened to be reading just the chapter concerning the fight against the dasyus), this proximity to my own experience became interesting, for it was not at all intellectual or mental—there was no idea, no thought involved.

The remainder of the evening passed as usual. I went to bed, and at exactly a quarter to twelve I got up with the feeling that this 'presence' in me had increased even further and really become rather formidable.... I had to instill a great deal of peace and confidence into my body, which felt as though... it wasn't so easy to bear. So I concentrated, I told my body to be calm and to let itself go completely.

At midnight I was lying in bed. (And I remained there from midnight until 1 o'clock fully awake. I don't know if my eyes were open or closed, but I was wide awake, NOT IN TRANCE—I could hear all the noises, the clocks, and so forth.) Then, lying flat, my entire body (but a slightly enlarged body, exceeding the purely physical form) became ONE vibration, extremely rapid and intense but immobile. I don't know how to explain this, because it did not move in space but was a vibration (that is, it wasn't motionless); yet it was motionless in space. And the exact form of my body was absolutely the most brilliant white Light of the supreme Consciousness, the consciousness OF the Supreme. It was IN the body and it was as though in EACH cell there was a vibration, and it was all part of a single BLOCK of vibration. It extended this much beyond the body (gesture indicating about six centimeters). I was absolutely immobile in my bed. Then, WITHOUT MOVING, without shifting, it began consciously to rise up—without moving, you understand: I remained like this (Mother holds her two joined and motionless hands at the level of her forehead, as if her entire body were mounting in prayer)—consciously... like an ascension of this consciousness² towards the supreme Consciousness.

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¹ Indra represents the king of the gods, the master of mental power freed from the limitations and obscurities of the physical consciousness.
² The body-consciousness.

The body was stretched out flat.

And for a quarter of an hour, the consciousness rose, rose without moving. It kept rising up, up, up—until... the junction was made.

A conscious junction, absolutely awake, NO TRANCE.

Thus the consciousness became the ONE Consciousness: perfect, eternal, outside time, outside space, outside movement..! beyond everything, in... I don't know, in an ecstasy, a beatitude) something ineffable.

(silence)

It was the consciousness OF THE BODY.

I have had this experience before in exteriorization and trance, but this time it was THE BODY, the consciousness of the body.

It remained like that for a certain time (I knew it was a quarter of an hour because the clock chimed), but it was completely outside time. It was an eternity.

Then, with the same precision, the same calm, the same deliberate, clear and concentrated consciousness (absolutely NOTHING MENTAL), I began to come back down. And as I was descending, I realized that all the difficulty I had been fighting the other day and which had created this illness was absolutely ended, ANNULLED— mastered. Actually, it was not even mastery but the non-existence of anything to be mastered: simply THE vibration from top to bottom; yet there was neither high nor low nor any direction.

And it went on like that. After this, slowly, still WITHOUT MOVING everything went back into each of the different centres of the being. (Ah, let me say parenthetically that it wasn't AT ALL the ascent of a force like the ascent of the Kundalini! It had absolutely nothing to do with the Kundalini movement and the centres, it wasn't that at all.) But while redescending, it was as though WITHOUT LEAVING THIS STATE, without leaving this state which remained conscious ALL the time, this supreme Consciousness began to reactivate the different centres: first here (Mother points to the centre above the head and then touches the crown of the head, the forehead, throat, chest, etc.) then there, there, there. At each there was a pause while this new realization organised everything. a organized and made the necessary decisions, sometimes down to the most minute details: what had to be done in this case or said in that case; and all of that TOGETHER, at once, not one by one but

seen entirely as a whole. It kept on descending—I noted many things, it was extremely interesting—down and down, farther and farther, right to the depths. Everything went on the same time¹, simultaneously, and at the same time this supreme Consciousness was organizing everything separately.²

This descending reorganization ended exactly when the clock struck one. At that moment I knew that I had to go into trance for the work to be perfected, but until then I was wide awake.

So I slipped into trance.

I came out of this trance two hours later, at 3 a.m. And during these two hours I saw... with a new consciousness, a new vision, and above all a NEW POWER—I had a vision of the entire Work: all the people, all the things, all the systems, all of it. And it was... it was different in appearance (this is only because appearances depend upon the needs of the moment), but mainly it differed IN POWER—a considerable difference. Considerable. The power itself was no longer the.same.³

A truly ESSENTIAL change in the body has occurred.

I see that the body will have to—how can I express it?... It will have to accustom itself to this new Power. But essentially the change has been accomplished.

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¹Later, Mother added: 'All the experiences took place one after the other, but the new experience did not cancel the preceding one. The Consciousness—this supreme Unity that I had—remained all the time, to the very end, even while the other centres were awakening. And each centre that awakened was a kind of addition, taking away nothing from what had come before. So at the end it was all simultaneous: a kind of global consciousness—total and simultaneous—of everything.... You see, while rising up (one is obliged to say "rising" and "descending" for otherwise one would never be understood), while "rising up" to reach this supreme Consciousness, all the rest was annulled, there was only That. When the supreme Consciousness was realized, it remained ALL the time, continuously, to the very end, it did not move; but meanwhile, the other centres began to awaken one after another. And each awakening centre assumed its place but cancelled nothing either of what had come before or of what was about to come, so that when I reached the end, all of it together was a simultaneous whole—the Supreme Consciousness.' When Satprem asked if this Supreme Consciousness was the 'New Consciousness,' Mother replied, 'Not "new"! One can't say new"—Supreme Consciousness.'
². This entire experience and Mother's insistence that it all happened 'without moving', unlike the experience of the ascent of the Kundalini, suggests that it is the supramental consciousness concealed in the depths of the cells, that somehow emerges and travers6s all the layers until the junction is made with the most material body-consciousness.
³. Later, Mother added: 'The Power that was acting was no longer the power that had been acting previously.'

because illness implies some important inner factor such as an attack or the necessity for some transformation, many different things), but the outer expression of a disorder, such as swollen legs or a malfunctioning liver—not an illness, a disorder, a functional disorder. Well, it was all utterly unimportant: IT IN NO WAY CHANGES THE BODY'S TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS. Although we are in the habit of thinking that the body is very disturbed when it's ill, when something is going wrong, it's not so. It isn't disturbed in the way we understand it.

Then what is disturbed if not the body?

Oh, it's the physical mind, this stupid mind! It makes all the trouble, always.

It isn't the body at all?

No! The body is VERY enduring.

Then what suffers?

Suffering also comes through the physical mind, because if this entity is calmed down, we no longer suffer—exactly what happened to me!

The physical mind, you see, makes use of the nervous substance; if we withdraw it from the nervous substance, we no longer feel anything, for that's what gives us the perception of sensation.... We know something is wrong, but we no longer suffer from it.

This was a very important experience. Afterwards (especially yesterday afternoon and this morning), I gradually began to realize that this kind of indifferent detachment is the ESSENTIAL condition for the establishment of true Harmony in the most material Matter—the most external, physical Matter
(Mother pinches the skin of her hand).

This experience has been like a stage—an indispensable stage for establishing this complete detachment; an indispensable stage so that the harmony of the body-consciousness (which came with the body's experience of the Divine) might have its effect upon the most external, superficial part of the body.

(silence)

This is the logical consequence of the research I have been doing for a long time now on the cause of illnesses and how to overcome them.

This ought to be noted down. Because it's important. It hag seemed all the more important to me these last two days. Beginning yesterday evening, there was a whole series of experiences, and this morning I came to a certain conclusion, whose starting point, I realized, was that experience I had upon coming out of trance....

The rest .will come later.

It was the very moment I was coming out of the trance, 3.a.m.—I came out of it with that;¹ it was the first contact.

I had forgotten to mention this to you because it took importance only very recently.²

Mother again spoke of the above-mentioned experience, which had triggered a backlash of subconscious difficulties:

A great deal has been brought to light since that experience..! It has been the starting point for such turmoil, even physically) such strong jolts that I might have wondered, 'Was I dreaming or was it real...?' And more and more I am coming to understand that this is the INDISPENSABLE preparation in the most material world for that experience to become definitively established, to express itself outwardly, constantly—this is obvious.

If the experience remained permanently, it would be something very close to omnipotence. I felt at the time that there was no such thing as an impossibility: it was truly the sensation of omnipotence. It is not omnipotence, because there is always a greater Omnipotence (one knows this only in the higher realms). But in terms of the material world, it was clearly something very, very different from all that has ever been seen or heard or told by all extant traditions—it all seems like the babbling of a child in comparison. At that moment itself there was only the 'Something which sees, decides—and it is done.

(silence)

______________________________
¹That = the perception of the almost total unimportance of the external, material expression of the body's condition.
²Mother's Agenda, Vol. 2, pp. 52-4.

It did not remain. It has remained above, but not here.

It has given the physical consciousness a certain self-confidence in the sense that when I see something now, I am sure of it, there are no hesitations: 'Is this right or not? Is this true, is this....' All that has vanished—when I see, there is certainty. That is, there has really been a great change in the material CONSCIOUSNESS; but that formidable power is not there. I tell you, had that power stayed here, had I remained constantly as I was during those hours that night, well, many things would obviously have changed.

All this must be a preparation; there is a lot to be cleared out before the experience can be firmly established. That's logical, it is quite natural.

What's natural also—and annoying—is that people know nothing, understand nothing, even those who see me all the time, like the doctor. He still hasn't been able to understand and he suddenly grew worried, thinking I was on my way to the other side! All this makes a mess of the atmosphere—it just doesn't help! Their faith is not sufficiently... (how to put it?) enlightened for them to keep still and simply say, 'Well, we shall see,' without questioning. They are not beyond questioning and this complicates matters.

I have a feeling (but these are old ideas) that if I were all alone somewhere and didn't have to look after these people and things, it would be easier. But that would not be the TRUE thing. For when I had the experience [of January 24] all that is normally under my care was present: the whole earth seemed to be present at the experience. There is no individuality (Mother indicates her body). I have difficulty finding an individuality now, even in my own body. What I do find in this body are the subconscious vibrations (conscious as well as subconscious) of a WORLD, a whole world of things. So it can be done ONLY on a large scale, otherwise it's the same old story... but then it's not the power HERE [in matter]—one simply quits this world. Oh, these people can't imagine what it is! They have made such a fuss over their 'departure'. They have wanted us to believe it was something quite extraordinary. But it's infantile, it's child's play, it's nothing at all to quit this world! One simply goes 'poff!' like diving into water—a little kick and one resurfaces, and that's all there is to it, it's done (Mother laughs).

And the same goes for their stories about attachments and desires—my god! there's nothing to it! Imagine, with anything concerning my body, through all this horror of the subconscient, NOT

NCE have I had to bear the consequence of a desire; I have always had to bear the consequences of the battle against life's unconscious and malicious resistances, but not once has something come up like that(gesture of something resurging from below) to tell me, 'You see! You had a desire, now here's the result of it!' Not once—very, very sincerely.

That's really not the difficulty—the difficulty is that the world is not ready! The very substance one is made of (Mother touches her body} shares in the world's lack of preparation—naturally! It's the same thing, the very same thing. Perhaps there is a tiny bit more light in this body, but so little that it's not worth mentioning—it's all the same thing.... Oh, a sordid slavery!

(silence)¹

* * *

Since March l6, 1962, Mother went through a grave ordeal that threatened her physical existence. Practically one full month was perilous. However, on the night of April 12-13, she had suddenly a formidable and decisive experience. On April 13, around ten in the morning, she gave her message as follows:

Night of April 12-13.²

Suddenly in the night I woke up with the full awareness of what we could call the Yoga of the world. The Supreme Love was manifesting through big pulsations, and each pulsation was bringing the world further in its manifestation. It was the formidable pulsations of the eternal, stupendous Love, only Love: each pulsation of the Love was carrying the universe further in its manifestation.

And the certitude that what is to be done is done and the Supramental Manifestation is realized.

Everything was Personal, nothing was individual.

This was going on and on and on and on....

The certitude that what is to be done is DONE.

All the results of the Falsehood had disappeared: Death was an illusion, Sickness was an illusion, Ignorance was an illusion—

______________________________
¹. Ibid., pp. 91-3.
².Mother gives the first part of this message in English.

something that had no reality, no existence.... Only Love, and Love, and Love and Love—immense, formidable, stupendous, carrying everything.

And how, how to express in the world? It was like an impossibility, because of the contradiction.... But then it came: 'You have accepted that this world should know the Supramental Truth... and it will be expressed totally, integrally.' Yes, yes....

And the thing is DONE

(long silence)

The individual consciousness came back, just the sense of a limitation, limitation of pain; without that, no individual.¹

And we set off again on the way, certain of the Victory.

The heavens are ringing with chants of Victory!

Truth alone exists; Truth alone shall manifest. Onward!... Onward!

Gloire à Toi, Seigneur, Triomphateur suprême!²

(silence)

And now, to work.

Patience... endurance... perfect equanimity. And absolute faith.

(silence)

Compared to the experience, whatever I say is nothing, nothing, nothing but words.

And our consciousness is the same, absolutely the same as the Lord's. There was no difference, no difference at all....

We are That, we are That, we are That.

(silence)

Later on, I will explain it more clearly. The instrument is not yet ready. It is only the beginning.

______________________________
¹Here Mother begins speaking French.
²Glory to You, Lord, Triumphant One supreme.

Mother later added:

The experience lasted at least four hours.

There are many things I will speak of later.¹

Mother enlarged upon the above experience on May 13, 1962, follows:

I was at the Origin—I WAS the Origin. For more than two hours, consciously, here on this bed, I was the Origin. And it was like gusts—like great gusts ending in explosions. And each one of these gusts was a span of the universe.

It was Love in its supreme essence—which has nothing to do with what people normally understand by that word.

And each gust of this essence of Love was dividing and spreading out... but they weren't forces, it was far beyond the realm of forces. The universe as we know it no longer existed; it was a sort of bizarre illusion, bearing no relation to THAT. There was only the truth of the universe, with those great gusts of color—they were colored—great gusts colored with something that is the essence of color.

It was stupendous. I lived more than two hours like that, consciously.

And then a Voice was explaining everything to me (not exactly a Voice, but something that was Sri Aurobindo's origin, like the most recent gust from the Origin). As the experience unfolded, this Voice explained each gust to me, each span of the universe; and then it explained how it all became like this (Mother makes a gesture of reversal): the distortion of the universe. And I was wondering how it was possible, with that Consciousness, that supreme Consciousness, to relate to the present, distorted universe. How to make the connection without losing that Consciousness? A relationship between the two seemed impossible. And that's when that sort of Voice reminded me of my promise, that I had promised to do the Work on earth and it would be done. 'I promised to do the Work and it will be done.'

Then began the process of descent,² and the Voice was explaining it to me—I lived through it all in detail, and it wasn't pleas"

______________________________
¹Mother's Agenda, Vol. 3, pp. 131-2.
²As we will see, 'descent' is not the right word

ordinary consciousness.

That's it exactly. 'Descent' doesn't convey the actual sensation—there was no sensation of descent. None. Neither of ascent nor descent. None at all. Those creative gusts had no POSITION in relation to the creation; it was.... There was ONLY THAT. THAT ALONE existed. Nothing else.

And everything happened within That.

Really, it was.... There was neither high nor low nor within nor without—none of those existed any more. There was only THAT.

It was... 'something' expressing itself, manifesting itself through these gusts. Something that was EVERYTHING. There was nothing else, there was really nothing but THAT. So to speak of high, low, descent won't do at all.

If you like, we could put 'the process of return’....

Of return to the body-consciousness.

Or of materialisation.¹

On May 15, 1962, Satprem read out to Mother his notes from the above conversation, and asked for further details on the April 13 experience:

About that promise you received....

It didn't receive a promise—this Voice made me remember a promise I had made. I was saying to myself, 'How to connect this true Consciousness to the other one—it's impossible!' And just then I seemed to hear... not Sri Aurobindo exactly, because then you immediately think of a particular body, but that sort of Voice saying to me, 'Your promise. You said you would do the Work.' So that's when I said, 'Yes, I shall do the Work.' And from that moment on the process of materialization began, the entire transition from the true Consciousness to the ordinary consciousness.

I didn't receive a promise, but a reminder of the promise I had made.

And was that what allowed you to say, "The thing is done”?

______________________________
¹Ibid., pp. 138-40.

No—it was the experience.

The experience. When.... I haven't told you this part.

(long silence)

When I was those gusts, those gusts of Love.... When I was conscious of the last one, the one organized outwardly, as it were, by Sri Aurobindo—materializing as the avatar Sri Aurobindo—then came the absolute certainty that the thing was done, that it was decreed.

And the moment I became aware that it was decreed, I thought, 'But how can THAT be translated into that? How can the two be joined?' That was when the words came: 'You promised to do it, therefore you will do it;' and slowly the transition began, as if I were again being sent back to do it. Yes, as if... 'You promised to do it and you will do it;' well, that's what I meant by a promise. And I came back towards this body to do it.

I said [on April 3] the body was the battlefield, that the battle was being waged IN this body. And then in that experience [of April 13] I was sent back into the body, because the thing—that last creative gust—had to be realized through this body.

(silence)

The experiences are going on....

For instance, I am walking a little now, with someone's assistance, to get the body used to it again. And when I started walking. I became aware of a rather peculiar state... I might describe it as: what gives me the illusion of a body (Mother laughs).... I entrust it to the person I walk with. In other words, it's not my responsibility: the other person has to make sure it doesn't fall, doesn't bump into anything—you see what I mean. And the consciousness is a limitless consciousness, like a material equivalent or expression of these gusts—it's like waves, but waves with no.... Not separate waves, but a MOVEMENT of waves; a movement of what might be called material, corporeal waves, as vast as the earth, but not... not round, not flat.... Something giving a great sense of infinity but moving in waves. And this wave movement is the movement of life. And the consciousness (the body-consciousness, I suppose) floats along in this, with a sensation of eternal peace.... But it's not an expanse—that's not the word for it. It is a

limitless movement, with a very harmonious and very tranquil rhythm, very vast, very calm. And this movement is life itself.

I walk around the room, and that is what is walking.

And it is very silent—there is no thought; there is barely, barely the ability to observe.... And all kinds of movements, an infinity of movements and vibrations of something that could be the essence of thoughts, move there, rhythmically, in a movement of waves without beginning or end, with a condensation like this (gesture from above down), with a condensation like that (horizontal gesture), and a movement of expansion (gesture like a pulsating ocean). That is, a sort of contraction, concentration, and then expansion, diffusion.

Yesterday I had the total experience—I let myself go completely. It lasted something like forty minutes as I walked around the room.

And actually, apart from the fact of suffering (you know, an ache here, an ache there, a pain here, a pain there, giving the sense of bodily individuality), apart from that, that great undulating movement of life is my normal consciousness. Meaning that I... what I call Me (gesture high above), my consciousness, is completely outside the body. That's what the consciousness of the body is (what I've just been describing), with only points of pain as reminders of what a body usually is: an ache here, an ache there, another ache here.... That's what it's like. And this pain has a small and extremely limited life; it's not general, it's not a body that suffers: it is suffering that suffers. It's a point, a point of pain—a scratch here, a sore there, things like that. That's what is individual and suffers—it's not the body that has a sore, you understand.

It is difficult to express.

But that's my experience. Yesterday I observed it with special care, to be able to tell you about it.

But are you making a distinction between the body-consciousness and the physical consciousness?...

Oh yes! The physical consciousness is something very complex; it includes the whole physical, conscious world.

My physical consciousness has been universalized for a long, long time, it encompasses all terrestrial movements;¹ but the body

______________________________
¹To illustrate this, Mother added: 'I was always BATHED in the atmosphere of the people around me—their thoughts, their ways of feeling and seeing and understanding..

is limited solely to this small concentration of substance (Mother touches her body)—that's what I call the body-consciousness.

And when I said, 'I have left the body,¹ it certainly didn't mean I have left the physical consciousness—my overall contact with the terrestrial world has remained the same. It concerns only the purely bodily aspect, the specific concretization or concentration of substance giving each of us a different body—a different APPEARANCE.

And a rather illusory appearance, besides. As soon as you rise to a certain height (I saw it quite clearly during that progressive reconcretization ²), this appearance quickly loses its reality. Our external appearance is very, very illusory. Our particular form (this one's form, that one's form), the form we see with our physical eyes is very superficial, you know. From the vital world onwards, it's completely different.

Well.... I think that's all I can say for today.³

On May 18, 1962, Satprem asked for a further clarification on a startling statement that Mother had made during her recent conversation.

The other day you said, 'What I call Me high above, my consciousness, is completely outside the body.' And on April 3, you also said something that gave me a kind of jolt: 'I am no more in this body. 'Why?.... Have you really left this body?

(very long silence)

How can I explain it?...

(long silence)

I don't know how to explain it....

I could almost tell it as a joke; for years and years I felt my consciousness to be outside my body—I always used to say it was there (gesture above the head), and not in my body. But from the time of that first experience [April 3], when the doctor said the heart had been physically affected and would stop working if I

______________________________
¹ On April 3, Mother said: 'I am no more in my body.'
² The experience of April 13, which Satprem had mistakenly called the 'descent' towards the body-consciousness.
³ Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 3, pp. 144-6.

wasn't careful, from that moment on I felt... I felt that my body was outside me! It sounds like a joke, but that's how it is.

So to be understood I said, 'I am no more in my body.' But it isn't that. I hadn't been in my body, my consciousness had been outside my body, for quite a long time! But there was a kind o connection, you know, something that made me feel it as 'my body'. (If I spoke carelessly, I could now say 'what used to be my body,' although I know well enough it's still alive!). Well, from April 3 on, when everyone claimed I was so sick and I was forbid den to get out of bed, I had the impression that what was called my body was now outside me.

There was a relation, I kept a link with it, but it took some days to get established (I don't know how many, because for a long time I couldn't keep track of anything). After some days (say ten days, twenty days, I don't know), the will began to function, the body was again under the control of the will. But that didn't happen right away—for some days, the will that deals with the body was annulled (I was entirely conscious and alive, but not in my body). The body was merely something moved around by the people looking after me. Not that it was separate, but I couldn't even say, 'it's a body'—it wasn't anything any more! Something.... Having undergone so much preparation, the universalization of the body-consciousness and all that, the experience didn't even seem strange to me (in fact, it was certainly the result of all that preparation). The body was... 'something' like a mass of substance being driven by the will of the three people looking after it. Not that I was unaware of it but.... I wasn't much concerned with it, to tell the truth; but as far as my attention was turned to it, it was a corporeal mass being moved around by a few wills. The supreme Will was in full agreement; the body had been entrusted, in a way (I don't know how to express this)... yes, it was like something entrusted, and I was simply looking on—I watched it all for I don't know how many days, with hardly any interest.

The one really concrete link was... pain. That's how the contact was kept.

When you said, 'I am no more in this body,’ I thought that because of the necessities of the Work some part of you had withdrawn drawn.

Oh, no! Nothing withdrew—it had already withdrawn a long

time ago. The consciousness wasn't at all centered in the body. When I said 'I', for instance, it NEVER occurred to me that 'I' was this (Mother points to her body). I, the I who spoke, was always a will ENTIRELY independent of the body, entirely independent.

But there has been a strange phenomenon [since April 3].... Before, I used to say, 'I am outside my body.' It was always 'I am outside my body.' But this time, the body seemed to have been consigned or entrusted—more like entrusted....

It has gradually come back, in the sense that actively.... No, I can't even say that—it's not true. What has come back is the increasingly precise memory of how I had organized the life of this body, the whole formation I had made, down to the smallest details—for the things I was using, how I was making use of them, how I had organized all the objects around the body, all that. What has come back is the memory—is it memory? The awareness of all that has returned, as if I were putting the two back into contact. And so, instead of the body being left totally in the hands of those around me, the formation I had made is coming back, with certain changes, certain improvements and simplifications (but mind you, I had neither the intention nor the will to change anything—those things are simply coming back into the consciousness like that, with certain changes made). In short, it's a kind of conscious formation recrystallizing around this body.

And I have the perception... a sensation, really, the sensation of... something not at all me, but entrusted to me. More and more now, there is the feeling of something being entrusted to me in the universal organization for a definite purpose. That's really the sensation I have now (the mind is very calm, so it's difficult to express—I don't 'think' all these things, they are more like perceptions). And it's not the usual kind of sensation: the ONLY (I insist on this), the ONLY sensation that remains in the old way is physical pain. And really, those points of pain... they seem like the SYMBOLIC POINTS of what remains of the old consciousness.

Pain is the one thing I sense the way I used to. Food, for instance, taste, smell, vision, hearing—all that's completely changed. They belong to another rhythm. And this condition has come progressively, like a crystallization of something behind the senses that doesn't come from here—in taste, smell, vision, hearing, touch.... Except this one point.... Even the sense of touch is different now—but PAIN....

Pain is the old world.

It's quite odd, you know; pain is like the symbolic (and rather too concret!) sign of life in the Ignorance.

And even there I have had an instant (but it was like a flash— the flash of a new experience), an instant when pain disappeared into something else. It has happened three or four times. The pain suddenly became... something completely different (not a pleasant sensation, not that at all): another state of consciousness.

If that state remained, I would truly be free of the world as it is.

Nonetheless, people can still hear me, can't they? And I can still see, but in a peculiar way—a very peculiar way. At times I see with greater precision than ever before (generally, as I told you the other day, I seem to see from behind a veil; that's constant). I hear things that way too. Certain sounds.... On one occasion I noticed a sound, a seemingly imperceptible sound, coming from about a hundred yards away, and it seemed to be right here. All this has changed—I mean the whole way the organs function. Have the organs themselves changed, or is it their functioning? I don't know. But they all obey another law—absolutely.

And I have the definite impression that that so-called illness was the external and ILLUSORY form of an indispensable process of transformation; without that so-called illness there could be no transformation—it is not an illness, I KNOW it: when people speak of 'illness', something in me laughs and says, 'What a bunch of geese!'

It is not an illness.

A disengagement?

Perhaps.

Perhaps.

It was a bit violent! (Mother laughs)... And yet not so violent, because.... There's something I have never told anyone, but when the doctor was called.... I was constantly fainting, you know: t would take a step and—plop! So the doctor was called and they began watching over me (everything was supposedly going wrong, all the organs, everything breaking down), and he declared I was sick and wasn't to stir from my bed (for a while I wasti1 even supposed to talk!).... Well, at that point, something (not exactly what you would call my consciousness; it was far, far more eternal than my consciousness—my consciousness is the

consciousness of one form of the Manifestation—well, it was far more than that, beyond that)... something said YES, And if 'That' had not agreed, I could have gone on living almost as usual. 'That' decreed, 'That' decided—I have never said anything about it.

Otherwise, you know, I would not have consented. If 'That' had not agreed, I would have said to my body, 'Go on, keep going, move'—and it would have gone on. It stopped because 'That' said yes. And then I understood that that whole so-called illness was necessary for the Work. So I let myself go. And then what I told you about happened: this body was consigned to the care of three people, who looked after it marvellously, by the way—really, it filled me with constant admiration—a selflessness, a care... oh, it was wonderful! I was saying to the Lord the whole time, 'Truly, Lord, You have arranged all the material conditions in an absolutely marvellous, incredible way, bringing together whatever is necessary, and placing around me people beyond all praise.' For at least two weeks, they had a hard time of it—quite hard. The body was a wreck, you know! (Mother laughs). They had to think of everything, decide everything, take care of everything. And they looked after it very, very well—really very well.

It's a wonderful story, seen as I see it. And I have observed it very carefully: it isn't an ordinary story seen with an exceptional knowledge, but a true Knowledge and a true Consciousness witnessing an exceptional story. Those three people may not be aware of how utterly exceptional it is, but that's simply because their consciousness is not sufficiently awake. But they too have been, and continue to be, exceptional.

The whole story is a fairy tale.

And the only concrete thing left in this world—this world of illusion—is pain. Its seems to me the very essence of Falsehood.

But what feels it feels it very concretely!... I clearly see it's false, but that doesn't stop my body from feeling it—and there is a reason: it is the battlefield.

I have even been forbidden to utilize my knowledge, power and force to annul the pain in the way I used to (and I used to do it very well). That has been totally forbidden. But I have seen that something else is in sight. Something else is in the making.... It can't be called a miracle because it's not a miracle, but it's something wonderful—the unknown.... When will it come? How will it come? I don't know.

But it's interesting.

(silence)

Something really radical has happened, in the sense that.... I tried once just to see if I could do it (I had wisely been told not to try) and I didn't succeed: I can't go back to the old way of relating to my body. It's impossible.

What is coming back is the way 'objects'—the whole mass of material substance making up this body's environment—had been organized; that's what is coming back, with some small changes (none of this comes through the head; the head has nothing to do with it). It is a sort of formation reconcretizing itself for life's outer organization.

The old way of relating no longer exists at all.

(silence)

It can truly be said that for a short while the body went out of my consciousness completely. I didn't leave my body; the body left the consciousness.

There you have it.

I hope you can cope with this—it's the first time I have tried to explain it. In fact, it's the first time I am looking at it. And it's interesting. An interesting phenomenon.¹

* * *

Things are becoming more and more incomprehensible. During a course of conversation with Satprem on 12 June 1962, Mother said: 'I don't know whether I am dead or alive.' In her own words:

That whole way of seeing, feeling and reacting belongs really to another world. Really to another world... to such a degree that if I had no regard for people's peace of mind I would say, 'I don't know whether I am dead or alive.' Because there is a life, a typ6 of life vibration that is completely independent of.... No, I'll put i1 another way: the way people ordinarily feel life, feel that they af6 alive, is intimately linked with a certain sensation they have o1 their bodies and of themselves. If you totally eliminate that sensation, the type of relation that allows people to say 'I am alive'...

______________________________
¹Ibid., pp. 149-53.

well, eliminate that, but then how can you say, 'I am alive', or 'I am not alive'? The distinction NO LONGER EXISTS. Well, for me, it has been completely eliminated. That night [April 12-13J, it was definitively swept out of me. It has never come back. It's something that seems impossible now. So what they mean by T am alive' is... I can't say 'I am alive' the way they do—it's something else entirely.

Better not keep this—in the end they'll be worrying about my sanity! (Mother laughs)

But that doesn't matter either!

(silence)

You get such a feeling of power, SO tremendous, so FREE, so independent of all circumstances, all reactions, all events—and it doesn't depend on whether the body is this way or that. Something else.... .Something else....

Only one thing depends on the body: speech, expression... who knows?... (Mother gazes at Satprem for a long time, as though she were considering an unknown possibility.) Ah, that's enough for today!¹

One of the important processes of physical transformation that Mother spoke of was that of the fusion of the subtle physical and the ordinary physical. Mother spoke of this process as follows:

That's one thing that's happening. The two [the ordinary physical and the subtle physical] seem to be fusing more and more.

I have already explained this to you on several occasions: instead of SHIFTING from one to the other, it's as if one were permeated by the other, like this (Mother slips the fingers of her right hand in between the fingers of her left hand), and you can almost feel both simultaneously. It's one of the results of what's going on these days. A very slight concentration, for example, is all it takes to feel both at the same time, which leads me to a near conviction that true change in the physical results from a kind of PENETRATION. The most material physical substance no longer has that unreceptive sort of density, a density that resists penetration: it is becoming porous, and thus can be penetrated. Several times, in

______________________________
¹Ibid. pp 211-2.

fact, I've had the experience of one vibration quite naturally changing the quality of the other—the subtle physical vibration was bringing about a sort of... almost a transformation, or in any case a noticeable change in the purely physical vibration.

That seems to be the process, or at least one of the most; important processes.

And it's growing more and more prominent. I spend almost every night in that realm; and even during the day, as soon as the body is motionless, there's this perception of the two vibrations, and of the physical vibration almost becoming porous.

It seems to be the process, or certainly one important process for the physical transformation.

(silence)

You see, the subtle physical seems to DOSE OUT its power and light and capacity of consciousness according to the amount of receptivity in the purely physical vibration. That's why the effects stretch over a long period of time. It's being done very, very gradually. But it's an almost continuous work. Only when there's some bodily activity and the consciousness must turn outwards (not in the same way as before, that's impossible, but still in a way that seems like a continuation of the old consciousness), then, if the work continues at all, it's invisible—and maybe it doesn't continue.... I don't know. But as soon as all activity stops and the body is concentrated or immobile—perhaps no more that simply passive—that penetration is perceptible: it's visible. Visible. And it's not like something more subtle penetrating something less subtle without altering it; the essential point is that this penetration actually changes the composition. It's not merely a degree of subtlety, it's a change in the internal composition. Ultimately, this action probably has an effect on the atomic level. And that's how the practical possibility of transformation can be accounted for.

It's an experience I have all the time.

At times it's a bit new or a bit extreme, and you have to be careful the body doesn't panic. But then you see how everything is dosed out and maintained in a way that...(Mother laughs) nothing falls to pieces!

On the surface, it's a very humble work, nothing sensational. There are no illuminations filling you with joy and.... All that is fine for people seeking spiritual joys—it belongs to the past.

It's a very modest work, very modest, even from a purely intellectual vantage point. It's different from the sensation of knowing things because you ARE them, which gives you joy, a sense of progress. It's not even like that! It is VERY humble, a very humble and unglamorous work, but which keeps on very regularly, with extreme regularity and STUBBORNNESS.

It will surely stretch over a long period of time.

And at each step, it's as though you had to take great care that nothing gets thrown off balance. The new combinations of vibrations, especially, are difficult for the body—it must be very, very quiet, well under control, very peaceful, or else it panics. Because it's used to vibrations whose effects follow a regular pattern, so if the pattern changes there's a kind of frightened jolt. That must be avoided, the body has to be very gently kept under control.

What the mind thinks, what it expects to see, looks so childish in comparison, like... yes, like theatrics, really. It's the difference between some grand extravanganza and the very modest life of each minute. Exactly that.

All the powers, all the siddhis, all the realizations, all these things are... the grand extravaganza—the great spiritual spectacle. But this isn't like that. It's very modest, very modest, very unobtrusive, very humble, nothing showy about it. It takes years and years and years of silent, quiet and extremely careful work before there can be any visible and tangible results, before anything can be noticed, even for the [Mother's] individual consciousness.

As for those who want to go quickly, if they try going quickly in this realm, they'll be thrown off balance.

You can't go quickly.

Once, when I saw how it was, I complained a bit to the Lord:

"Lord. why did you make the body this way for doing this kind of work? Just look at it!' He answered me (laughing), 'It's the best that could be done.' So I said, Thank You' and kept quiet.

And that's probably true! It has some good points: what they call stubborn in English—you know (Mother plants down her two fists and holds them motionless). Andstubbornness is an essentially British quality, so there's no other word for it. The body is stubborn; and that's what is needed.

All right.¹

* * *

______________________________
.¹. Ibid. PP. 320-2.

haemorrhage, or some such suggestion (I mention haemorrhage because it will soon come into the picture). Under the higher Influence, the body consciousness rejects it. Then begins the battle (all this takes place all the way down in the cells, in the material consciousness) between what we could call the 'will for haemorrhage', for example, and the reaction of the body's cells. But it's very like a real battle, a real confrontation. And all of a sudden, there's something like a general issuing a command and saying, 'What's this!'... You understand, that general is conscious of the higher forces, the higher realities and the divine intervention in Matter; and after trying to use the will, this reaction, that feeling of peace and so on, suddenly he is SEIZED by a very strong determination and issues a command—in no time the effect begins to make itself felt, and little by little everything returns to order.

All this takes place in the material consciousness. Physically, the body has all the sensations—but not the haemorrhage, you understand. But it does have the sensations, that is, the effects: all the sensory effects. It goes on for a while and then follows a whole curve. All right. Once the battle is over, I take a look and wonder (I observe the whole thing, I see my body, which has been fairly shaken, mind you), I say to myself, 'What in the world is all this?' But just for a second, then I forget about it.

A few days afterwards, I receive a letter from someone very close, who has an ardent faith and really holds on to me with almost perfect faith, exceptional. In the letter: the whole story, the attack, the haemorrhage, how suddenly the being is SEIZED, the consciousness is SEIZED with an irresistible will, and hears words—the very words that were uttered HERE. The result: saved (he was dying), saved, cured.

Just enough time for the letter to reach me.

I remembered my episode... and began to understand that my body is everywhere!!

You see, it's not a question of just these cells here: it's a question of cells in, well, quite a lot of people, hundreds, maybe thousands—all that clings anywhere and in any way to the higher Consciousness. And since my mind is silent (I deliberately keep the mind absolutely still, trying not to react to all that constantly comes to it from 'outside', or trying to react almost subconsciously), nothing is there to think, 'Oh, it's this one's body, it's that one's body'—it's THE Body! That's what is so difficult for people to understand. It is THE body—this (Mother touches her body) is not

my body any more than other bodies (a bit more, in the sense it is more directly the object of the concentration of the Force). everything, all the sensations, the movements of consciousness the battles, all of it is everywhere. And suddenly, with this little affair, oh, I understood a fantastic number of things—and also difficulty, mon petit!... The difficulty... because really, after t experience, the body was not ill but very tired. But then it is seized with such things all the time! All the time, all the time, the time, you know, they spring up, brrm! pounce on it, brrm! from this side, that side, every which way. So I have to keep (gesture of stopping, silent, in the midst of other activities), then I start waging the battle.

(silence)

Which means the body has got its own difficulties (no aggregate of cells is free from difficulties in the present conditions of life), and I think that its capacity to keep still (to an extent) is its only safeguard... but that doesn't reduce the difficulties at all, since the contact doesn't even depend on the physical presence!¹ But then what tremendous, prodigious power has to be EMBODIED in the physical cells to withstand all that!...

But there too, a shift is taking place (what I told you once: those abrupt experiences that do not settle in but are first contacts ²). After the lesson was drawn from this story, suddenly something arose in the body consciousness—which isn't ONE body's consciousness but a general body consciousness—an aspiration, something so pure, so sweet... so sweet... something like an entreaty that Truth and Light may at last be manifested here, in this. Not 'here in this' (Mother touches her own body): it was everywhere.

Then there was a contact ³—there was a contact—and a pale blue Light, very sweet, very bright, and an Assurance.

It lasted only a second, but it was like a new chapter suddenly opening up.

Mon petit, you are the only person to whom I say all this there is not one, not one! Not one able to simply understand Which makes things more difficult, because I am constantly

______________________________
¹ The contact with other bodies (which in fact are not 'other").
² See Mother's Agenda, Vol. 3, pp. 85-9.
³ Gesture of junction between the Supreme and this general body consciousness.

weighed down by the stupidity of people's thoughts (stupidity in the sense of incomprehension), the thoughts of all those around me, who think I am ('I', what they call 'I', you know, 'me'), who think I am ill and... I can't tell them a thing! If I hadn't spoken to you today, it would be gone. I would never have said anything. Well, that's the way it is.

So looking at it from an ordinary viewpoint, it's so... fantastic, it means such a... colossal work. Of course, it's the Lord who does it, but will this hold out? (Mother touches her body) I can't say.

If He wants, certainly He will find a way for it to hold out. But the thing is rather new....

(silence)¹

The question was often raised by Mother whether the process of transformation would continue uninterruptedly and produce a new 'divine' body or whether it may be dissolved at a certain stage. On this question Mother made several statements from time to time, but she never indicated that she had any full assurance that a new 'divine' body would emerge from her body or that her body would not be dissolved. One of the important statements in this connection is in the following conversation recorded in the Agenda (July 31, 1963):

Mother seems quite shaken and tired, though smiling as always

I've made a discovery—not positively a discovery, but a confirmation. A rather interesting observation.

There was a sort of periodicity in the attacks—can I call them 'physical'?... They're not physical, although they're on the body. They didn't recur at exactly regular intervals, because the periods of time in between weren't always the same, but there was a sort of analogy, of similarity in the circumstances. And now I have come to a kind of certainty.

The work consists, I could say, in... either removing or transforming (I am not sure which of the two) all the body's cells that are or have been under the influence of Falsehood (not 'lie' but falsehood), of the state contrary to the Divine. But since probably a radical purge or transformation would have resulted in nothing but the body's dissolution, the work goes on in stages, progressively

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¹Mother's Agenda, Vol.4, pp. 109-11.

(I am going very far back in time, to my first attacks). So the sequence is the following: first, a series of activities or visions (but those visions are always activities at the same time: both activities and visions) in the subconscious domain, showing in a very living and objective way the Falsehood that has to be removed (transformed or removed). At first, I took them as adverse attacks, but now I see they are 'states of falsehood' to which certain elements in the physical being are linked (at the time, I thought, 'I am brought into contact with that because of the correspondence in me,' and I worked on that level—but it's another way of seeing the same thing). And it produces... certainly there is a dissolution—there is a transformation, but a dissolution too—and that dissolution naturally brings about an extreme fatigue or a sort of exhaustion in the body; so between two of those stages of transformation, the body is given time to recover strength and energy.¹ And I had noticed that those 'attacks' always come after the observation (an observation I made these last few days) of a great increase in power, energy and force; when the body grows more and more solid, there always follows the next day or the day after, first, a series of nights I could call unpleasant (they are not, for they're instructive), and then a terrible battle in the body. This time I was conscious—naturally, I am conscious every time, but (smiling) more so every time.

I had observed lately that the body was getting much stronger, much more solid, that it was even putting on weight (!), which is almost abnormal. Then, I had a first vision (not vision: an activity,! but very clear), then another, and then a third. Last night, I was fed a subtle food, as if to tell me that I would need it because wouldn't take any physical food² (not that I thought about it, I

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¹A few days later, Mother added: There is also something I left unsaid: an urgent need to cease all material activity in order to enable the body to receive fully—as fully as possible—the divine Force that will replace what has been removed. There is something absolute about that need: to stay totally still, quiet, letting the Force descend–permeate the body, rather. All physical activity must be suspended in some way, and if the material organization, or the habit, tends to make it continue, a kind of material impossibility, an excessive fatigue or discomfort, comes to oblige the body to keep still. Because simply to remove or change what shouldn't be there won't do; it must also be replaced by what SHOULD be there. Otherwise, there would be a dwindling or gradual reduction of substance resulting in dissolution. What has been sublimated or removed has to be replaced by something which is the true Vibration, the one that comes straight from the Supreme....'
² Mother did not eat anything this morning.

simply noticed I had been fed, given certain foods). And with the visions I had the two preceding nights, I knew that at issue were certain elements forming part of the body's construction (psychological construction), and that they had to be eliminated. So I worked hard for their elimination. And today, the battle was waged.

But then, as I had worked hard for the elimination, the battle was quite formidable—when it exceeds a certain measure, the heart has trouble, and then I need to rest. That's how it happened. But it was so clear, so obvious! And the entire process was SEEN from the beginning, every single step of it, it's... a marvel! A marvel of consciousness, of measure, of dosage, to allow the purification and transformation to take place without disrupting the balance, so that dissolution does not occur. It's based on the capacity to endure and withstand (naturally, if the body were unable to endure, that work couldn't be done).

And now the body KNOWS (in the beginning it didn't, it thought it was 'attacks' from the outside, 'adverse' forces; and it can always be explained like that, it was true in a certain way, but it wasn't the true truth, the deepest truth), now the body KNOWS where it all comes from, and it's so marvellous! A marvel of wisdom.... It puts everything in its place, it makes you REALIZE that all that play of the adverse forces is a way of seeing things (a necessary way at a given time, maybe—by 'necessary', I mean practical), but it's still an illusion; illnesses are a necessary way of seeing things to enable you to resist properly, to fight properly, but it's still an illusion. And now, the BODY itself knows all this—as long as it was only the mind that knew it, it was a remote notion in the realm of ideas, but now the body itself knows it. And it is full not only of goodwill but also of an infinite gratitude—it always wonders (that's its first movement), 'Do I have the capacity?' And it always gets the same answer, 'It isn't YOUR capacity.'

"Will I have the strength?'—'It isn't YOUR strength.' Even that sense of infirmity disappears in the joy of infinite gratitude—the things is done with such goodness, such insight, such thoughtfulness, such care to maintain, as far as possible, a progressive balance.

It came with a certitude, an OBVIOUSNESS: this is the process of transformation.

But this time, there was a voluntary collaboration, so maybe it will go faster.

I was unable to do my work:¹ the jolt was too strong. But I said I would see you because I wanted to tell you about it.

(silence)

It's odd, when I am in that state, I feel as if to make myself heard I have to lift a staggering weight. I feel (for a few days now as if I have to speak very, very loudly to be heard; it's almost like a mass... yes, as though I were buried underground and had to shout very loudly in order to be heard.

Am I speaking very loudly?

No.

Because, with everybody, I feel as if I had to shout in order to be heard—and it's an effort, a considerable effort. There is a sort of mass, the color of brownish earth, weighing down on me, as though I were buried and had to shout. All the while I was speaking to you just now, I felt as if I were making an enormous effort to be heard.

Am I shouting or...?

No.

Not at all?

No, it must be the thickness of consciousness that you're feeling?

Yes! Yes.

Yes, it's the air-it's in the air.

(long silence)

And I was told something this morning (I think it was this morning, or in the night, I don't remember); it was said to the body, not to me. The body was told that it would go on till complete purification, and that AT THAT POINT it will have the choice between continuing its work or... You see, once it has attained complete purification from the cellular point of view (not what people call physical 'purity', that's not it), from the point of view of the

______________________________
¹Mother did not receive the secretaries this morning.

divine Influence, which means that each cell will be under the exclusive influence of the Supreme (that's the work under way now), the body was told that that work would be done, and once it was completed, the body ITSELF, entirely under the Supreme's influence, would decide whether it wants to continue or be dissolved.

It was very interesting, because... dissolution means a scattering, but to scatter (that's easy to understand) is a way to SPREAD the consciousness over a very large area. So the cells will be given the choice either to act in that way (gesture of diffusion) or to act in agglomeration (Mother makes a fist).

(silence)

It's the first time the problem has been envisaged from that angle, that is to say, from the standpoint of a general work.

But I don’t see how the scattering... If it is scattered, if it is dissolved, the whole work is dissolved, isn't it?

No, each cell is perfectly conscious.

Then they would go into other bodies?

(Mother remains thoughtful a moment) What happens from the material point of view?... Do they know if it reverts to inert Matter, or what? Does it become dust—what does it become?

Dust, yes.

Dust....

They're not cells any more?

No, I don't think so.

Then that's not it, because according to what I was told, they Were cells—they remained cells.

It must be something new.

They remained cells, it was the cell that was given the choice either of staying in its present agglomeration or of spreading.

I don't know, but it seems to me they could persist only in

agglomeration with other living beings.

Are the cells in the human body different from the cells in other bodies, in animals, for instance? Or are they the same?

Except for certain specialized cells, the other cells aren't different, I believe.

But the specialized cells must be the ones 'in question, because those in question are fully conscious cells—they are specialized cells.)

So I don't see that they could go into animals, I don't think they're the same kind.

They could only go into other human organisms.

Human, yes.

Maybe "it's the difference between ONE being and many beings?...¹

It must be something in preparation. We'll see. So mon petit, I'll let you go now, because...

A few days afterwards, Mother added this reflection:

It is clearly (according to external logic) a new way of dying that must be possible—no longer death as we regard it. But that... for the moment, all we could say would be speculative, not a concrete experience.

We'll see.²

* * *

Here is an interesting account of one of Mother's cellular experiences:

... last night, I had a series of fantastic cellular experience, which I cannot even explain and which must be the beginning of

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¹ Mother means: between an agglomerated individual action and an action spread in many beings. 
² Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 4, pp. 246-51.

have faith and open themselves in surrender and faith, the work will be done automatically.¹ As long as he was here, mon petit, all the thirty years I spent with him working, NOT ONCE did I have to make an effort for a transformation. Simply, whenever there was a difficulty, I repeated, My Lord, my Lord, my Lord... I just thought of him—hop! it went away. Physical pain: he annulled it. You know some things that were hampering the body, some old habits that had come back. I only had to tell him: off they would go. And through me, he did the same for others. He always said that he and I did the Work (in fact, when he was here, it was he who did it; I only did the external work), that he and I did the Work, and that all that was asked from the others was faith and surrender, nothing more.

If they had trust and gave themselves in perfect trust, the Work was done automatically.

In your body's cells, it is therefore a universal progress that is being made, it's the earth that progresses.

Yes.

(silence)

This body was built for that purpose, because I remember very well that when the war—the First World War—started and I offered my body up in sacrifice to the Lord so that the war would not be in vain, every part of my body, one after another (Mother touches her legs, her arms etc.), or sometimes the same part several times over, represented a battlefield: I could see it, I could feel it, I LIVED it. Every time it was... it was very strange, I had only to sit quietly and watch: I would see here, there, there, the whole thing in my body, all that was going on. And while it went on, I would put the concentration of the divine Force there, so that all—all that pain, all that suffering, everything—would hasten the preparation of the earth and the Descent of the Force. And that went on consciously throughout the war.

The body was built for that purpose.

At the time, there was still a lot of mental activity, and those

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¹When Satprem suggested publishing this passage in the Bulletin... she observed, 'I don't want to speak of that now, it isn't yet time. We need not tell them too clearly that the work is being done for them, they know it only too well! (Laughing) No need to insist!'

experiences took all the forms the mind gives to things—very nice, very literary! Now, all that is over—happily, thank God! A complete silence—I don't make speeches on the thing. But the experience of last night!... And to think that when an experience lasts half an hour, three quarters of an hour, one hour, it's considered extraordinary—it lasted from 8:30 till 2:15, nonstop.

A sort of ubiquity in the cells?

Yes, yes. A oneness—the sense of Oneness.

(silence)

It is clear that if this experience becomes natural, spontaneous and constant, death can no longer exist: even for this, I mean (Mother touches her body).

There's something I SENSE there, without being able to express or understand it mentally. There must be some difference, even in the behaviour of the cells, when you leave your body. It must be another phenomenon that takes place.¹

* * *

Between 1962 and 1967, Mother had numerous experiences of the mastery over and liberation from the hold of the physical mind. At the same time, she underwent the training of the cells resulting in the growth and development of the mind of the cells. These five years were marked by nonstop illness and countless heart problems which led her to find the key to the functioning of the cells. In order that the cells could function 'purely'—without any intrusion of factors foreign to its substance, the body had to be emptied completely of its old habits and its old coatings. This meant a direct contact of the Supermind with the cells without the need to pass through the layers of the intellectual mind, the vital mind, the sensory mind and the Physical mind. All the protective walls of the species had to disappear so that the new species can emerge.

Indeed, as we have seen above, the first radical turning point was in 1962. As Mother said:

______________________________
¹ ibid., pp. 270-72.

It began when the doctors declared I was seriously ill [1962] that was the beginning. Because the entire body was emptied of its habits and forces....

I couldn't take a step without fainting: if I wanted to walk from here to there, poff! I would faint on the way; I had to be held up so my body wouldn't drop to the ground.... But as for me, not for one minute did I lose consciousness! I would faint but remain conscious, I would see my body and know I had fainted; I didn't lose consciousness, the body didn't lose consciousness. So now I understand! The body was cut off from the vital and the mind and left to its own means....¹

In 1965, she had said;

I had always been under the impression of what Sri Aurobindo said: This instrument [the physical mind] is useless, it can only be got rid of....' It was very difficult to get rid of it because it was so intimately linked to the aggregate of the physical body and its present form... it was difficult; and when I tried and a deeper consciousness tried to manifest, it used to cause fainting. I mean that the union, the fusion, the identification with the Supreme Presence without that, without this physical mind, by annulling it, caused fainting. I didn't know what to do....²

Let us study certain other 'important' experiences in the same domain:

• I am on the border of a new perception of life.... As if certain parts of the consciousness were in a metamorphosis from the caterpillar state into the butterfly state, something like that.³

• These last few days (yesterday or the day before), there was this: a sort of completely decentralized consciousness (I am always referring to the physical consciousness, of course, not at all to the higher consciousness), a decentralized consciousness that happened to be here, there, there, in this body, that body (in what people call 'this person' and 'that person', but that notion doesn't quite exist anymore), and then there was a kind of intervention or a universal consciousness in the cells, as though it were asking

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¹ Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 8., pp. 378 and 382. 
² Mother's Agenda, Vol. 6, p. 187-8.
³ Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 5, p 197.

these cells what their reason was for wanting to retain this combination (if we may say so) or this aggregate [Mother's present body]... while in fact making them understand or feel the difficulties that come, for example, from the number of years, wear and tear, external difficulties—from all the deterioration caused by friction, wear and tear. But they seemed to be perfectly indifferent to that!...

... the universal Consciousness... [was] saying, 'But here are the obstacles....' And those obstacles were clearly seen: that kind of pessimism of the mind (a formless mind that's beginning to be born and organized in these cells). But the cells themselves didn't care a whit! To them it was like a disease, they said, 'Oh, that...' (the word distorts, but it was felt as a sort of 'accident' or an 'inescapable disease' or something that DID NOT FORM A NORMAL PART of their development and had been forced on them), 'Oh, that, we don't care about it!' And then, at that moment, a sort of LOWER power to act on that mind was born; it gave the cells a MATERIAL power to separate themselves from that and reject it.

... something truly decisive had taken place. There was a sort of trusting joy: 'Ah! We're free from that nightmare'...

And at the same time, a relief—a physical relief—as if the air were easier to breathe.... Yes, it was a bit like being shut inside a shell—a suffocating shell—and... at any rate, an opening has been made in it. You can breathe....

It was a totally, totally material and cellular action.¹

•... A transfer of power.

The cells, the whole material consciousness, used to obey the inner individual consciousness—the psychic consciousness most of the time, or the mental (but the mind had been silent for a long time). But now this material mind is organizing itself like the other one, or the other ones, rather, like the mind of all the states of being—do you know, it is educating itself. It )p learning things and organizing the ordinary science of the material world.... That's very interesting. It wants to know. You see, all the memory that came from mental knowledge went away a long, long time ago, and I used to receive indications only like this (gesture from above). But now it's a sort of memory being built from below....

It's like a shift in the directing will.... It's no longer the same thing that makes you act—'act' or anything, of course: move,

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¹Ibid. PP. 224-5.

walk, anything....

The most difficult part is in the nerves, because they are so habituated to that ordinary conscious will that when it stops and you want the direct Action from the heightest height, they seem to become mad. Yesterday morning I had that experience, which lasted for more than an hour, and it was difficult; but it taught me many things—many things. And all this is what we may call the 'transfer of power': it is the old power that withdraws. But then, until the body adapts to the new power, there is a period which is, well, critical. As all the cells are in a state of conscious aspiration, it's going relatively fast, but still... the minutes are long....

... this material, cellular mind, I can assure you that it's absolutely new! Absolutely new.¹

• It's rather strange, this eyesight. There always seems to be a veil between me and things, constantly; I am so used to it; I see everything very well, but as if there were a slight veil [We will discuss this 'veil' later; it is probably the cellular barrier separating us from the other state]. Then all of a sudden, without any apparent reason (an outwardly logical reason, I mean), a thing becomes clear, precise, sharp (gesture: leaping to the eyes)—the next minute, it is over. Sometimes it's a word in a letter or written somewhere, sometimes it's an object. And it is a different quality of vision, a vision... (how can I explain it?) as if light were shining from within things instead of shining on them: it isn't a reflected light. It isn't luminous, it isn't like a candle, for instance, or a lamp, not that, but instead of being lit by a projected light, things have their own light, which doesn't radiate.

It's becoming more and more frequent, but with perfect illogic. Which means that I don't understand the logic of it at all.... And the vision is so precise! Extraordinary, with the full understanding of the thing seen while you are seeing it....

For instance, I noticed this while washing early in the morning. I go into the bathroom before turning the light on.... and suddenly, I saw that phenomenon of a bottle in the cupboard becoming so clear, so... with an inner life (gesture as if the bottle lit up from inside). 'Oh!' I said—the next minute, it was over....

... this is clearly the preparation for a vision through the inner light rather than projected light. And it is... oh, it's warm, living intense—and of such precision! You see everything at the same

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¹Mother's Agenda, Vol. 6, pp. 224-5 and 230-1.

time, not only the color and shape, but the character of the vibration: in a liquid, the character of its vibration—it's marvelous.¹

• ... all kinds of little disorders come, but to the consciousness they are clearly disorders related to the transformation, so you see to that particular point, you want order to be restored; at the same time, something knows full well that the disorder came to make the transition from the ordinary automatic functioning to the conscious functioning under the direct Direction and the direct Influence of the Supreme [of 'that', of the other state].... And when that point has reached a certain stage of transformation, you move on to another point, then on to another, and on to another again. So nothing is done, no work is definitively done until... everything is ready....

And everything is a question of changing the habit. The whole automatic habit of millenia must be changed into a conscious action, directly guided by the supreme Consciousness.²

• There is a new activity.... At times I find myself (I catch myself doing something, to be precise) talking with people whom most of the time I don't know, then describing a scene: they can get such and such a thing done, they can be advised to do this thing or that thing, and it will end with such and such a thing. They are kinds of scenes from a book or scenes from a movie. Then, the same day or the next, someone suddenly tells me, 'I received a message from you and you told me to write to so-and-so and tell him such and such a thing!'... And I am not doing it mentally... not at all: I live—I live a scene or narrate a scene, and it is received by someone else (and I am not at all thinking of that someone else), it's received by 'someone', this or that or this person, as a message in which I tell him to do this or that thing. And it is happening here, in France, in America, everywhere.

It's becoming amusing!

Someone writes to me, 'You told me this,' and it's one of my 'scenes'! One of the scenes I lived—not 'lived', lived and created at the same time! I don't know how to explain it. It's like a work of... (Mother seems to feel an invisible substance between her fingers, as if fashioning it)....

There are stories of countries, stories of governments; I don't know the result there—maybe we'll see after some time.

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¹ Ibid., pp. 111-3.
²Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 7, p.24.

And in this type of activity, I have all kind of knowledge that I don't have! Sometimes even medical knowledge or technical knowledge that I don't at all have—yet that I have, of course, since¦ I say, This is how it is, that is how it is....' It's rather amusing.¹

* * *

Mother's body had become a living and conscious laboratory the new species. Sri Aurobindo had written long ago:

The animal is a living laboratory in which Nature, it is said,] worked out man. Man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman....²

Three simultaneous and inter-related processes were going on in Mother's body. Firstly, there was a progressive dissolution of the Inconscience at its utmost bottom. Secondly, there was the infiltration permeation and invasion of the Supermind in the cellular consciousness and in the physical consciousness so as to counteract the Falsehood in Matter, Life and Mind. Thirdly, there was the gradual transformation of the body by means of the collaboration and change of the physical mind and by means of radical changes in various functionings of organs and faculties.

At the collective level, too, some radical changes were appearing in the functioning of the Ashram. Mother was placing individuals more and more into conditions where synthesis, unity and harmony would become increasingly imperative. A greater and greater stress was laid on the creation of collective consciousness. There were deeper imperatives, too. Already we find, in the Agenda of 1961, certain indications of the idea of an ideal city which could be a habitation of a collective life and which could serve as the embryo or seed of the future supramental world. In the words of Mother:

What I myself have seen... was a plan that came complete in all details, but that doesn't at all conform in spirit and conscious ness with what is possible on earth now (although, in its most material manifestation, the plan was based on existing terrestrial

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¹Ibid., pp. 201-2.
²Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Centenary Library, Vol, 18, pp. 3-4.

conditions). It was the idea of an ideal city, the nucleus of a small ideal country, having only superficial and extremely limited contacts with the old world. One would already have to conceive (it's possible) of a Power sufficient to be at once a protection against aggression or bad will (this would not be the most difficult protection to provide) and a protection (which can just barely be imagined) against infiltration and admixture.... From the social or organizational standpoint, these problems are not difficult, nor from the standpoint of inner life; the problem is the relationship with what is not supramentalized—preventing infiltration or admixture, keeping the nucleus from falling back into an inferior creation during the transitional period.¹

... The realization under community or group conditions would clearly be far more complete, integral, total and probably more perfect than any individual realization, which is always, necessarily—necessarily—extremely limited on the external material level, because it's only .one way of being, one mode of manifestation, one microscopic set of vibrations that is touched.²

In due course, something of this idea of an ideal city began to take shape, and Mother took a decision to establish a small international township (about 10 km away from Pondicherry). Mother named it Auroville.

On 28th February, 1968, youths from 124 countries came to deposit a handful of earth from their countries into the urn at the centre of the proposed city. And Mother gave the Charter of Auroville:

1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole.

But to live in Auroville one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.

2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.

3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.

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¹Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 2, pp. 270-1.
²Ibid, p. 272.

4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.

In the first few years, Auroville grew rapidly under Mother's guidance, and its significance came to be recognized not only by India but also by UNESCO and various countries of the world.

* * *

In the meantime, there was a great turning-point in the yoga of the Mother between 10th August and 22nd August 1968. On the 22nd August, Mother sent a note to Satprem (with packets of soup!) in which she had written:

Here are some soups, you must not have any left.

This time, it is TRULY interesting—but a bit total and radical.

How far, far away we are from the goal....

I will try to remember.¹

On the 28th August, when Satprem met Mother, he was given a few notes by her, one of which described a radical operation that was effected:

The vital and the mind sent packing so that the physical may truly be left to its own resources.²

Another note said:

For several hours, the landscapes were wonderful, perfectly harmonious....

Each thing with a precise reason and purpose, to express non-mentalized states of consciousness.

Constant visions.

Landscapes.

Constructions.

Cities.

The whole thing immense and very diverse,

covering the entire visual field and expressing

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¹Mother's Agenda, Vol. 9, p. 226.
²Ibid., p. 229.

states of consciousness of the body.

Many, a great many constructions,

immenses cities being built....¹

Mother commented on this as follows:

Yes, the world being built, the future world being built. I couldn't hear anymore, couldn't see anymore, couldn't speak anymore: I was living inside that all the time, all the time, night and day.

There was also a note of the night of 26th to 27th August: 'Powerful and prolonged penetration of the supramental forces into the body, everywhere at the same time....'

While commenting on this note, Mother said:

Penetration into the body. Yes, penetrations of currents I had had several times, but that night (two nights ago, that is), what came all of a sudden was as though there was nothing anymore except a supramental atmosphere. Nothing remained except that. My body was in it. And it was PRESSING to enter, from everywhere, but everywhere at the same time—everywhere. You understand, it wasn't a current flowing in, it was an atmosphere penetrating from everywhere. It lasted for at least four or five hours....

It's the first time. For hours. Only That remained. And this (the body) was like a sponge soaking up....

Ah! I noticed that the cells, everywhere, you know, constantly, all the time, were repeating, OM NAMO BHAGAVATE, OM NAMO BHAGAVATE... constantly, all the time.²

This entire experience was crucial and radical. One has to imagine a true body growing up in an old body at the very cellular level, where there is no intermediate between the supermind and psychic, on the one hand, and the cellular consciousness of the body, on the other. The cellular consciousness was liberated from all the intermediate levels, including the physical mind. Here was now the possibility of infusing a new genetic code in the cells—the code of the supramental vibration of knowledge, power, harmony and immortality.

This is the phenomenon that took place in Mother's body. A new

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¹ibid., pp. 228-9.
² Ibid., pp. 232-6.

mind in matter began to work, a new mind of the cells. The key to transform the body was turned.

On 23rd November, 1968, Mother spoke of a central experience. She said:

... I've spent days when I really lived all the horrors of the creation (and in the consciousness of their horror), then that brought about this experience, and... the whole horror vanished.

It wasn't moral things at all: it was mostly physical sufferings. Especially THE physical suffering. And that physical suffering, I saw it: a physical suffering that lasts—unceasing, going on night and day. And all at once, instead of being in that state of consciousness, you are in the state of consciousness of this exclusive divine Presence—the pain is gone! And it was physical, quite physical, with a physical reason. You understand, doctors might say: 'It's for this reason, that reason...'—quite a material thing, absolutely physical: poff! gone.... Your consciousness changes—it comes back.

And if you stay long enough in the true consciousness, the appearance, that is, what we call the physical 'fact' itself, disappears, not just the pain.... I have the feeling of having touched... (there's no mind to understand, thank God!), of having touched the central experience.

But it's a very small beginning.

One would have the impression or certitude of having touched the supreme Secret only if the physical were transformed.... According to the experience (the experience in tiny details), that's how it should be. But then, would there first be ONE body in which this Consciousness was expressed, or must everything, but everything be transformed?... That I don't know....¹

As we shall see, the question of the receptivity, collaboration and transformation of the collectivity will become more and more imperative. One single body, it seems,—without the support of the minimum collective transformation—cannot sustain full transformation. So Mother's work was constantly double: work on her own body (which had already become the body of the earth) and the collectivity around her. This work was proceeding rapidly with increasing acceleration.

* * *

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¹ Ibid, p. 326.

On 1st January, 1969, Mother had an experience of 'new consciousness', which was later on described by her as the consciousness of the superman, an intermediate between the human and the supramental being.

Speaking of this, Mother said: ;

On the first, something strange has happened... And I was not j the only one to feel it, several people felt it. It was just after midnight, but I felt it at 2 o'clock, and other people felt it at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was.... I told you a few words about it last time, but what was surprising is that it corresponded to absolutely nothing that I was expecting (I was not expecting anything), nor to other things that I had felt. It was something very material, I mean to say that it was very external—very external—and it was luminous, with a golden luminosity. It was very strong, powerful; but its characteristic was of a smiling kindness, a peaceful joy, and a kind of blossoming joy and light. And it was like a 'happy new year', like a good wish. Personally, I was taken by surprise.

It lasted—I felt it at least for three hours. Afterwards I did not pay attention to it, I do not know what had happened. But I told you a few words about it and I told two or three people: they all had felt it. Because it was VERY material. They all had felt like that, a kind of joy, but a pleasant joy, powerful, and... oh! very, very sweet, very smiling, EXTREMELY KIND... something.... I do not know what it is. I do not know what it is, but it is a kind of benevolence; therefore, it was something very close to mankind. And it was so concrete! So concrete. As if it had a taste, so concrete it, was. Afterwards I did not bother about it, except that I told two or three people about it: all of them had felt it. At present, I do not know if it has mingled around or if... It has not gone, the impression is not of something that has come and is about to leave.

It was something much more external than what I usually feel, much more external... hardly mental, I mean to say that there was not the feeling of a 'promise' or... No. It was rather... My own impression was the impression of an immense personality, immense (I mean to say that, for it, the earth was small, the earth was:(Mother holds a small object in her hands, like a ball), an immense personality, very, very kind, coming to... (Mother seems to lift the small ball gently in her hands). The impression was of a personal god (and yet it was.... I do not know), coming to help. And so–so strong! And at the same time so sweet, so understanding.

And it was very external: the body felt it, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere (Mother touches her face and hands), everywhere like that.

What has become of it? I don't know.

It was the beginning of the year. As if somebody with the dimension of a god (that's to say quite somebody) came to say 'happy new year', with all the power to make it a happy new year. It was like that.

But what was it?...

So concrete...

I don't know.

Is it... Is it the personality (because it had no form, I was not seeing any form, there was only what it was bringing—Mother feels the atmosphere—the sensation, the feeling: these two, sensation and feeling), I wondered if it was not the supramental personality?... who will then manifest later in material forms.

The body—this very body—has felt since that moment (it penetrated into it everywhere, very much), it has felt much more joyful and less concentrated, more lively in a happy, smiling expansion. For example, it speaks more easily. There is a note... a constant note of benevolence. A smile, isn't it, a benevolent smile, and all of that with a GREAT FORCE.... I do not know.

Didn't you feel anything?

I had a feeling of contentment that day.

Ah! That's it. Yes, that's it.

Is it the supramental personality?... which will incarnate in all those who will have a supramental body....

It was luminous, smiling, and so benevolent BECAUSE OF POWER; I mean to say that kindness, in human beings, is generally something rather weak, in the sense that it does not like to fight, it does not like to struggle; but it is not that at all. A benevolence which imposes itself (Mother bangs her two fists on the arms of her armchair).

It interested me because it was totally new. And so concrete! Concrete like that (Mother touches the arms of the armchair), like what, usually, the physical consciousness considers as 'the others', concrete like that. It means that it did not pass through some inner being, through the psychic being: it came DIRECTLY to the body.

What is it.... Yes, maybe; perhaps that... The body feels a kind

of certitude since it happened; a certitude as if now it were no longer anxious or uncertain to know. 'What will it be? What will it be, this Supramental, PHYSICALLY? What will it be physically? the body asked. Now it does not bother anymore, it is content.

Good.

It is something which will permeate the bodies which are ready

Yes.... I think, yes. My impression is that it is the formation which will permeate and which will express itself—permeate and express itself—in the bodies... what will be the bodies of the supramental.

Or perhaps... perhaps the superman, I don't know? The intermediary between the two. Perhaps the superman: it was very human but human with divine proportions, isn't it.

A human without weaknesses and without shadows: it was light—all light and smiling and... sweetness at the same time.

Yes, perhaps the superman....¹

Mother continued on the 8th January her comments on the experience of the 1st January:

And this descent of the superman's consciousness...

Did I tell you that I had identified it afterwards?

When you talked to us last time, you bad identified it.

Yes, but I had said 'the supramental consciousness'.

Yes, you had said perhaps the superman?’

Yes, that's it. It is the descent of the consciousness of the superman. I got the assurance afterwards.

It was on the 1st January after midnight. I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning surrounded by a consciousness, but so concrete, and NEW, in the sense that I had never felt it. And it lasted, absolutely concrete, present, for two to three hours, and afterwards, it spread around and went to find all the people who could receive it. And, at the same time, I knew that it was the consciousness

______________________________
¹Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 10, 4.1.1969.

come out on the surface. Mother said that she saw all this all the time, for small things as well as for big things, for the political affairs of the country as well as for the organisation of a household.¹

In the beginning of 1970, Mother spoke of the replacement of knowledge-processes in her body by a new perception which was total, something that comprehended at the same time hearing, vision and knowledge. There was, she said, no differentiation among her organs. She pointed out that die new consciousness insisted on surpassing all divisions and all exclusiveness, including the great division of life and death. Mother discovered 'over-life', which is at once life and death, or which is rather something that cannot be described either as life or as death, but some other third state in which the contradiction of life and death is overcome.

* * *

The question of death had begun to receive Mother's attention more and more pointedly during the last several years. In fact, as Mother had said, the problem of death was the problem that "was given to her to solve. One aspect of the problem was the waste that death would entail by cutting short the continuing process of the permeation of the supramental force in the cells. Mother had spoken of this problem as far back as 1964:

You see, for our consolation we are told in every possible way that the work done isn't lost and that all this action on the cells to make them conscious of the higher life isn't lost—that's not true, it is absolutely lost! Suppose I leave my body tomorrow; this body (not immediately, but after a time) reverts to dust; then all that I've done for these cells is perfectly useless! Except that the consciousness will come out of the cells—but it always does!...

... it's a pure waste....

On the physical level, it's a pure waste. The mind and vital are another affair, that's not interesting: we have known for a very long time that their life doesn't depend on the body.... I am speaking of the body, that's what interests me: the body's cells. Well, death is a waste and that's that....

That is to say, before this body dissolves, a new creation should be there....

... a certain quality of cells should be able to allow the form to

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¹Ibid., 19.3.69, 19.4.69, 7.5.69, 23.8.69.

become different (the form can change, it changes all the time, it's never the same), but with the conscious interrelationships of the cells persisting.¹

No solution to this problem was found for several years. In the meantime, she made several experiments. In February 1966, Mother said that she was trying to find out the secret of the process of death so that one could undo it. A fortnight later, she said: 'I am like a dead person who lives on the earth.' She said that it was a different way of living, independent of physical laws, but dependent exclusively on the Supreme Will. Two months later, she spoke of a curve of experiences which demonstrated repeatedly the difference between being in the body and being without the body as far as the consciousness is concerned. Then came the question of eating. She said that she could no more eat; in fact, this problem would remain right till the end—it was very difficult for her to eat, as though eating would mean swallowing the difficulties of the external world. She was rapidly proceeding towards preparing the cells that would be capable of sustaining the Supramental consciousness. This required, she found, an utter plasticity that is impossible in the skeleton with all the rigidity of the bones. Indeed, the supramental body which would be a condensation or densification of 'some stuff could be utterly plastic, but the question was how to graft that body in the body that we can see and touch. The gulf between the two was too great to be covered except by several intermediate stages.

Could this process be accelerated by recourse to a cataleptic trance? Mother had felt the need of such a trance from time to time, but she had always considered it to be the method of inertia and laziness. However, on l4th January, 1967, she dictated a note in which she said that she might need to enter into a cataleptic trance and that her body should be left in peace. This could last several days, perhaps weeks or even more.' But she preferred that the need for immobile repose be replaced by the power of an inner concentration.

She began to perceive two states of Matter more and more persistently, the state of Matter as we ordinarily see, and the state of what she called the true Matter, a luminous Matter, Matter of multi-colored light associated with the shades of all the colors.

This gave rise to the possibility of a transition so that the outer body would be gradually replaced by the new body of true matter.

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¹Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 5, pp.175-6.

Mother found that a local or momentary manifestation would not be impossible; but more and more she felt that there had to be a sufficient collective transformation for achieving durable manifestation.

During the first months of 1968, Mother had repeated experiences of a state that determines the rupture of the equilibrium, the dissolution of the form which we call death. This was at one extreme; and at the other extreme, she had repeated experiences of the state of unmixed Bliss. She said that the fusion of these two states would mean the supreme Power and that if That would be realised physically, the problem would end. The work consisted of bringing about that fusion, and this required the change of the consciousness of all the cells. Indeed, this was a gradual process, and it proceeded by taking up groups of cells or parts of faculties, one after the other.

It was against this background that Mother had an important experience in early February 1969.

It was—never ever has the body felt so happy! It was the complete Presence, absolute freedom and a sense of certitude. [Its death] didn't matter in the least: these cells, other cells—there was life everywhere, consciousness everywhere.

It was absolutely wonderful.

It came without effort; it went away simply because.... I had too many other things to do.... And this is the DIVINE SENSE, you know, it means having a divine sense. During those few hour; (three or four), I understood absolutely what it meant to have a sense of the divine consciousness in the body. And whether it was this body, that body or another body (Mother made a gesture all around her, indicating the body of this person, that person) didn't matter at all: it just went from one body to another, totally free and independent, with the full knowledge of the limitations or possibilities of each body—absolutely marvellous, I had never ever had that experience before. Absolutely marvellous. It went away because I was so busy that...

And it lasted several hours. Never has this body, in the ninety one years it has been on earth, felt such happiness: freedom absolute power, and no limits—no limit, no impossibilities, nothing. It was... all bodies were this body; there was no difference.¹

About a month later, Mother said:

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¹ Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 10, 15.2.1969.

The body-consciousness has become at the same time individualised and independent, such that it can enter into other bodies and feel itself absolutely at ease. I made an experiment one day ('I made it', it is not that the body made it, it is: 'it was made to do it', it is just that Consciousness which made it do that experiment) to enter into three or four persons, like that, one after the other, and then, in each one, to feel what was the manner of being OF THE BODY: it was not at all a vital or a mental entry, it was a physical entry. And then, it was really very interesting....

And this changes absolutely the attitude of the body towards the solutions; indeed, there is no more attachment or sense of disappearance, because the consciousness... it is the corporeal consciousness which has become independent. And that, it is very interesting. This means that in any physical substance which is sufficiently developed so as to receive it, it can manifest itself there.¹

A week later, Mother said the following:

One question kept coming back: 'All this work of transformation of the cells, of the consciousness in the cells, in the ordinary way, it seems it will have to be wasted since the body will disintegrate.' Then, this came, in an absolutely precise manner, almost concrete: there is a way, which is to prepare within oneself, before death, a body with all the transformed, illumined, conscious cells—to assemble and form them into a body with the maximum number of conscious cells—and once that work is completed, the full consciousness enters that body and the other can dissolve—it doesn't matter any more.²

When Sri Aurobindo left his body, the accumulated result of all his physical consciousness was transmitted to Mother's body, and thus there was no waste. But now, apart from Mother's body, there was no other body which was so developed that it could receive, if Mother left her body, the accumulated result of her physical consciousness. This was a formidable problem. But as we see from what she said, this Problem was now resolved. Even if she left her body, the work would not be spoilt, there would be no waste. The work could continue.

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¹Ibid., 12.3.1969.
²Ibid, 19.3.1969.