The entire consciousness immersed in divine contemplation, the whole being enjoyed a supreme and vast felicity.

  Then was the physical body seized, first in its lower members and the next the whole of it, by a sacred trembling which made all personal limits fall away little by little even in the most material sensation. The being grew in greatness progressively, methodically, breaking down every barrier, shattering every obstacle, that it might contain and manifest a force and a power which increased ceaselessly in immensity and intensity. It was a progressive dilatation of the cells until there was a complete identification with the earth: the body of the awakened consciousness was the terrestrial globe moving harmoniously in ethereal space. And the consciousness knew that its global body was moving in the arms of the universal Being, and it gave itself, it abandoned itself to It in an ecstasy of perfect bliss. Then it felt that its body was absorbed in the body of the universe and one with it; the consciousness became the consciousness of the universe, immobile in its totality, moving infinitely in its internal complexity. The consciousness of the universe sprang towards the Divine in an ardent aspiration, a perfect surrender, and it saw in the splendour of the immaculate Light the radiant Being standing on a many-headed serpent whose body coiled infinitely around the universe. The being in an eternal gesture of triumph mastered and created at one and the same time the serpent and the universe that issued from him; erect on the serpent he dominated it with all his victorious might, and the same gesture that crushed the hydra enveloping the universe gave it eternal birth. Then the consciousness became this Being and perceived that its form was changing once more; it was absorbed into something which was no longer a form and yet contained all forms, something which, immutable, sees, – the Eye, the Witness. And what It sees, is. Then this last vestige of form disappeared and the consciousness itself was absorbed into the Unutterable, the Ineffable.

The return towards the consciousness of the individual body took place very slowly in a constant and invariable splendour of Light and Power and Felicity and Adoration, by successive gradations, but directly, without passing again through the universal and terrestrial forms. And it was as if the modest corporeal form had become the direct and immediate vesture, without any intermediary, of the supreme and eternal Witness.

                                                               *

Sri Aurobindo wrote,

‘The experience you have described is Vedic in the real sense, though not one which would easily be recognised by the modern systems of Yoga which call themselves Vedic. It is the union of the “Earth” of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our earth, that is to say, the physical being and consciousness of which the world and the body are only images. But the modern Yogas hardly recognise the possibility of a material union with the Divine.

 

Reproduced from: The Mother’s Collected Works, Volume 1, pages 308 and 309.

        India is not the earth, rivers and mountains of this land

 neither is it a collective name for the inhabitants

 of this country.  India is a living being,

 as much living as, say, Shiva.
India is like a goddess.  If she likes, she can manifest

in human form.

*

In the whole of creation the earth has its place

of distinction, because unlike any other planet it is evolutionary

with a psychic entity at its centre.

In it, India, in particular, is a divinely chosen country.

*

India must be saved for the good of the world

since India alone can lead the world

to peace and a new world order.

*

India is the country where the psychic law

MUST rule and the time has come for that HERE.

Besides, it is the only possible salvation for this country

whose consciousness has unfortunately been warped

by the influence and domination of a foreign nation,

but which, in spite of everything, possesses a

unique spiritual heritage.

*

The soul of India is one and indivisible.

India is conscious of her mission in the world.

She is waiting for the exterior means of manifestation.

*

…the division (Partition) was not decreed,

it was a human deformation.  Unquestionably it was

a human deformation.

The Mother

(The outline of a study project, ‘On the Spiritual History of India’, was read to the Mother. She commented the following.)

No! It won’t do. It is not to be done that way. You should begin with a big BANG! You were trying to show the continuity of history, with Sri Aurobindo as the outcome, the culmination. It is false, entirely. Sri Aurobindo does not belong to history; he is outside and beyond history.

Till the birth of Sri Aurobindo, religions and spiritualists were always centred on past figures, and they were showing as the goal the negation of life on Earth. So, you had a choice between two alternatives: either

– life in this world with its round of petty pleasures and pains, joys and suffering, threatened by hell if you were not behaving properly, or

– an escape into another world, heaven, nirvana, moksha… Between these two there is nothing much to choose, they are equally bad.

Sri Aurobindo has told us that this was a fundamental mistake which accounts for the weakness and degradation of India. Buddhism, Jainism, Illusionism were sufficient to sap all energy out of the country.

True, India is the only place in the world which is still aware that something other than matter exists. The other countries have quite forgotten it: Europe, America and elsewhere… That is why she still has a message to preserve and deliver to the world. But at present she is splashing and floundering in a muddle.

Sri Aurobindo has shown that the truth does not lie in running away from life but in remaining in it, to transform it, divinise it, so that the Divine can manifest HERE, in this PHYSICAL WORLD.

You should state this all at the first setting. You should be square and frank…like that!

[The Mother outlines a large square on the table.]

Then, when this is told, strongly, squarely, and there is no doubt about it – and only then – you can go on and amuse yourself with the history of religions and religious or spiritual leaders.

Then – and only then – you will be able to show the seed of weakness and falsehood that they have harboured and proclaimed.

Then – and only then – you will be able to discern, from time to time, from place to place, an ‘intuition’ that something else is possible. In the Vedas, for instance (the injunction to descend deep into the cave of the Panis)…in the Tantras also – a little light burning.

Published in The Advent, August 1978

You felt nothing special on Darshan Day?

No

Sri Aurobindo was there from the morning till the evening. For, yes, for more than a hour he made me live, as in a concrete and living vision of the condition of humanity and of the different strata of humanity in relation to the new or supramental creation. And it was wonderfully clear and concrete and living…. There was all the humanity which is no longer altogether animal, which has benefitted by mental development and created a kind of harmony in its life – a harmony vital and artistic, literary – in which the large majority are content to live. They have caught a kind of harmony, and within it they live life as it exists in a civilised surrounding, that is to say, somewhat cultured, with refined tastes and refined habits. And all this life has a certain beauty where they are at ease, and unless something catastrophic happens to them, they live happy and contented, satisfied with life. These people can be drawn (because they have taste, they are intellectually developed), they can be attracted by the new forces, the new things, the future life; for example, they can become disciples of Sri Aurobindo mentally, intellectually. But they do not feel at all the need to change materially; and if they were compelled to do so, it would be first of all premature, unjust, and would simply create a great disorder and disturb their life altogether uselessly.

This was very clear.

Then there were some – rare individuals – who were ready to make the necessary effort to prepare for the transformation and to draw the new forces, to try to adapt Matter, to seek means of expression, etc. These are ready for the yoga of Sri Aurobindo. They are very few in number. There are even those who have the sense of sacrifice and are ready for a hard, painful life, if that would lead or help towards this future transformation. But they should not, they should not in any way try to influence the others and make them share in their own effort; it would be altogether unfair – and not only unfair, but extremely maladroit, for it would change the universal rhythm and movement, or at least the terrestrial movement, and instead of helping, it would create conflicts and end in a chaos.

But it was so living, so real that my whole attitude (how to say it? – a passive attitude which is not the result of an active will), the whole position taken in the work has changed. And that has brought a peace – a peace and a calmness and a confidence altogether decisive. A decisive change. And even what seemed in the earlier position to be obstinacy, clumsiness, inconscience, all kinds of deplorable things, all that has disappeared. It was like the vision of a great universal Rhythm in which each thing takes its place…everything is all right. And the effort for transformation, reduced to a small number, becomes a thing much more precious and much more powerful for the realisation. It is as though a choice has been made for those who will be the pioneers of the new creation. And all those ideas of ‘spreading’, of ‘preparing’, or of ‘churning Matter’…are a childishness. It is human restlessness.

The vision was of a beauty so majestic, so calm, so smiling, oh! …it was full, truly full of the divine Love. And not a divine Love that ‘pardons’ – it is not at all like that, not at all! Each thing in its place, realising its inner rhythm as perfectly as it can.

It was a very beautiful gift.

Well, all these things people know in some part, intellectually, like that, an idea; they know all that, but it is quite useless. In the experience of each day, one lives in accordance with something else, a truer understanding. And there, it was as if one touched these things – one saw them, touched them – in their higher order.

It came after a vision of plants and the spontaneous beauty of plants (it is something so wonderful!), then of the animal with so harmonious a life (as long as men do not intervene), and all that was in its right place. Then of the true humanity as humanity, that is, the maximum of what a mental poise can create of beauty, harmony, charm, elegance of life, taste of living…a taste of living in beauty, and naturally suppressing all that is ugly and low and vulgar. It was a fine humanity – humanity at its maximum, but lovely. And which is perfectly satisfied with its humanity, because it lives harmoniously. It is perhaps also like a promise of what almost the whole of humanity will become under the influence of the new creation: it seemed to me that it was what the supramental consciousness could make of humanity. There was even a comparison with what humanity has made of the animal species. (It is extremely mixed, naturally, but some things have become perfected, some improvements, more complete utilisations.) Animality under mind’s influence has become another thing, which is naturally something mixed, because mind was incomplete. In the same way there are examples of a harmonious humanity among well-balanced people, and this seemed to be what humanity could become under the supramental influence.

Only it is very far ahead. One should not expect it to happen immediately – it is very far ahead.

It is clearly – even now – a transitional period, which may last a long time and which is rather painful. But the effort, sometimes painful (often painful) is compensated by a clear vision of the goal to be attained, the goal that will be attained: an assurance, yes, a certainty. But it [the supramental influence] would be something that would have the power to eliminate all error, all deformation, and the ugliness of mental life – and then a humanity very happy, very satisfied with being human, not at all feeling the need of being anything other than human, but with a human beauty, a human harmony.

It was very charming. It was as though I lived in it. The contradictions had disappeared. It was as though I lived in this perfection. And it was almost like the ideal conceived by the supramental consciousness, of a humanity that had become as perfect as it could be. And it was very fine.

This brings a great relaxation. The tension, the friction, all that had disappeared, and the impatience. All that had completely disappeared.

That is, you concentrate the work instead of diffusing it a little everywhere.

No, it may be difficult materially, because the individuals are not necessarily collected together. But they are few in number.

The idea of a pressing need to ‘prepare’ humanity for the new creation, this impatience has disappeared.

It must first of all be realised in some.

Quite so.

For example, take a book like yours [The Adventure of Consciousness] – but I knew this from the beginning – a book like that would completely fulfil its purpose even if it reaches a dozen people. It does not need to be sold by the millions. If it reaches a dozen people, it will have fulfilled its purpose. It is like that.

I was seeing. I saw that in such a concrete way. Apart from those who are fit to prepare the transformation and the supramental realisation, and whose number is necessarily very restricted, there must develop more and more, in the midst of the ordinary mass of humanity, a superior humanity which has toward the supramental being of the future or in the making the same attitude as animality, for example, has towards man. There must be, besides those who work for the transformation and who are ready for it, a superior humanity, intermediary, which has found in itself or in life this harmony with Life – this human harmony – and which has the same feeling of adoration, devotion, faithful consecration to ‘something’ which seems to it so high that  it does not even try to realise it, but worships it and feels the need of its influence, its protection, and the need to live under this influence, to have the delight of being under this protection. It was so clear. But not this anguish, these torments of wanting something that escapes you because – because it is not your destiny yet to have it, and because the amount of transformation needed is premature for your life and it is that then which creates a disorder and suffering.

For example, one of the very concrete things that illustrates the problem well: humanity has the sexual impulse in a way altogether natural, spontaneous and, I would say, legitimate. This impulse will naturally and spontaneously disappear with animality, as for example the need to eat and perhaps to sleep in the way we sleep now. But the most conscious impulse in a superior humanity, which has continued as a source of…bliss is a big word, but joy, delight – is certainly the sexual activity, and that will have absolutely no reason for existence in the functions of Nature when the need to create in that way will no longer exist. Therefore. the capacity of entering into relation with the joy of life will rise by one step or will be oriented differently. But what the spiritual aspirants of the past had sought on principle – sexual negation – is an absurd thing, because this must be only for those who have gone beyond that stage and who no longer have animality in them. And it must drop off naturally, without effort and without struggle. To make of it a centre of conflict, of struggle and of effort is ridiculous. My experience with the Ashram has fully proven this to me, because I have seen all the stages, and that all these ideas, these prohibitions are absolutely useless, and that it is only when the consciousness ceases to be human that it falls away naturally. In this there is a transition which can be a bit difficult, because the beings in transition are always in an unstable equilibrium; but there is inside a sort of flame and a need which makes it not painful – it is not a painful effort, it is something one can do ‘smiling’. But to wish to impose this on those who are not ready for such a transition is absurd. I was criticised for having encouraged certain people to get married; there are many children to whom I say, “Get married! Get married! People say. ‘What? You are encouraging them?’ – But it is common sense.

It is common sense. They are human, but they shouldn’t pretend not to be.

It is only when, spontaneously, the impulsion becomes impossible for you, when you feel it is something tiresome and contrary to your profound needs that it becomes easy. At that moment, well, externally you break the bonds, and then it is finished.

It is one of the most convincing examples.

It is the same thing with food – it will be the same thing. There will probably be a transition when there will be food less and less purely material. This is what they are seeking now: all their vitamins and pills, it is an instinctive search for a less down-to-earth food and which will surely serve as a transition.

There are many things like that. Since the 24^th [the day of the Darshan] I live in that new consciousness and I saw the scenario of many things. There were even experiences which I had before and which I understood now. Like, for example, when I fasted for ten days (completely, without even a drop of water), without even a thought given to food (I didn’t have the time to eat), and it was not an effort: it was a decision. At that time there was a capacity which developed little by little, and, for example, when I smelled flowers it was nourishing. I saw that: one is nourished in a more subtle way.

However, the body is not ready. The body is not ready and it deteriorates; that is, it eats itself. So that proves that the time had not come and it was only an experience – an experience which teaches you something, which teaches you that it mustn’t be a brutal refusal to enter into relation with the corresponding matter or an isolation (one cannot isolate oneself, it is impossible), but a communion on a more elevated or more profound plane.

The message that was distributed for the 24^th, it was Sri Aurobindo who told me to keep it for the 24^th; it was very clear and categorical, and I didn’t know why. But now he showed me why clearly, and I have understood. Because this Power is becoming more and more evident – the Power of Truth. And naturally human thought, which is infantile (it has the same relation to the supramental which one could call animal thought or feeling has with human thought or feeling), has almost a need for superstition (…superstition is a bad word for something that is not bad: it is a faith, ignorant, candid and very confident). Well, that faith, as soon as you feel the influence of a Power, makes you believe in miracles, and makes you believe that now the Supermind is going to manifest and we are going to be supramental, and then…

It is as if we were to tell a dog: ‘Do not believe at all that I am the way you imagine me to be, that I am all-powerful, all-knowing.’ If one told it the truth, as one humanly is, the poor dog would be very disappointed! He believes you are the all-powerful being who knows all, can do anything. Well, it is the same thing. One cannot tell a dog, “You are superstitious.’

(silence)

Those who have reached higher regions of intelligence but who have not dominated the mental faculties in themselves, have a candid need for the whole world to think as they do and be able to understand as they understand; and when they see that others cannot, do not understand, their first reaction is to be horribly shocked. They say, ‘What an imbecile!’ But they are not imbeciles; they are different, they are in another region. One cannot say to an animal, ‘You are an imbecile’. One says, ‘It is an animal.’ Well, we say, ‘He is a man.’ He is a man’, except that there are those who are not men anymore and who are not yet gods, and these are the ones in a very…in English they say ‘awkward’…position.

But it is so comforting, so sweet, so marvellous, that vision – each thing expresses its species so naturally.

And then, the Flame… When the Flame is illumined everything becomes different. But that Flame is something entirely different; it is entirely different from the religious feeling, from the religious aspiration, religious adoration (all that is very good, it is the maximum man can do and it is very good, excellent for humanity); but that Flame, the Flame of Transformation is another thing.

I just remembered that Sri Aurobindo had made me recall something I wrote in Japan (which is included in the ‘Prayers and Meditations’) and I never understood what I had written. I always sought to know and I told myself, ‘What the devil could I have wanted to say? I don’t know at all.’ It came like that and I wrote it directly. There was the question of a ‘child’ and it was said, ‘Do not approach him too closely because it burns’, (I cannot remember the words anymore): and I always said to myself, ‘Who is that child whom I speak of? …And it is necessary not to approach too closely???’ Then suddenly just yesterday or the day before yesterday I understood. Suddenly Sri Aurobindo showed me; he said, ‘It is this: The ‘child’ is the beginning of the new creation, still in the infant stage, and do not touch it if you do not want to be burned – because it burns.’

(silence)

It is quite evident that with the wideness and the totality of the vision, something like a compassion that understands comes – not that pity of superior to inferior: the true divine Compassion which is the total understanding that each one is what he should be.

The only thing left is the deformations. There was also the explanation of the deformations. It is a decisive seeing which puts each thing in its place. A true revelation.

All these things…they have been said a thousand times, they have been written I don’t know how often, they have been thought and expressed – all that is fine, up there. But this, it came in the material plane itself, felt, lived, breathed, absorbed. It is another thing entirely. It is an understanding that has nothing to do with an intellectual understanding.

(after a long silence)

Sri Aurobindo continues telling me things… It is truly very interesting.

There is a sort of instinct to want everything to agree with our experience. But it is a tendency to uniformity, the uniform unity of the Supreme, which is the non-manifest Supreme, identical to Itself eternally, in contrast to the innumerable multiplicity of all the expressions of that Unity. And instinctively there is always a (gesture of retreating)

recoil into the Non-Manifest, instead of (the Mother opens her two hands) an acceptance of the manifestation in its totality. It is very interesting.

It is the first effect of the return to the Origin.

The first effect of the return to the Origin is simplification, identity, the Unique – the identical Unique. And there is the movement of the manifestation (gesture of expansion); the multiple Immensity.

It is instinctive.

L’Agenda de Mere, Vol. 6, 27 November 1965

The idea of sin is something I do not understand, I have never understood. ‘Original sin’ seemed to me one of the most monstrous ideas men have ever had – sin and me do not go very well together! So, naturally I agree with Sri Aurobindo completely, that there is no sin – that is clear, but…

There are certain things one could call ‘sins’ if one wants, like cruelty; well, I find only this explanation: it is the deformation of the taste or need for an extremely strong sensation. I observed in cruel people that it is then that they feel an ‘ananda’, they get from it an intense joy. Consequently, this legitimises it. Except that it is in such a deformed state that it is repugnant.

About the idea that things are not in their place, that, my child, is something I had understood even when I was little. And I found the explanation with Theon [the Mother’s teacher in occultism], because in his cosmogony he explained the successive ‘pralayas’ [destructions of the worlds] saying that in each universe it was an aspect of the Supreme that was manifesting; that each universe was constructed around an aspect of the Supreme, and that all, one after another, had returned to the Supreme (he enumerated all the aspects which had successively manifested, and with a logic in the succession that was extraordinary! I kept it somewhere but I don’t know where it is). And this time it was (I don’t even remember the number in the succession any longer), but this should be the universe that would not be withdrawn, that would follow a progression in the becoming which would be, so to say, indefinite. And that universe was the Equilibrium (not a static equilibrium but a progressive one). Equilibrium, that is (he explained), each thing in its place, exactly: each vibration, each movement in its place, each…and then, as one descends: each form, each activity, each element exactly in its place with respect to the whole.

That interested me very much because Sri Aurobindo said the same thing, that there is nothing ‘bad’: simply things are not in their place – their place, not only in space but in time; their universal place, their place in the universe, beginning with the worlds, the stars, etc, and each thing exactly in its place. And then, when each thing would be exactly in its place, from the most formidable to the most microscopic, the totality would express the Supreme PROGRESSIVELY without the need to be withdrawn and emanated once again. It was on this point that Sri Aurobindo based the fact that it is in this creation, this universe, that this sort of perfection of a divine world could manifest – what Sri Aurobindo called the Supramental.

Equilibrium is the essential law of that creation and that is what permits a perfection to be realised in the manifestation.

According to that idea, things ‘in their place’, another question came to me: with the descent of the Supermind, what would be the very first things that the supramental force would want to dislodge or try to dislodge?

The first things that it would dislodge?

     Yes, individually and cosmically, in order for everything to be in its place.

Would it ‘dislodge’ anything?… If we accept Sri Aurobindo’s idea, it would put each thing in its place, that’s all.

There is something that must necessarily cease: it is the Deformation, that is, the veil of falsehood covering the Truth, because that is what is responsible for everything we see, everything that exists here. If that is removed, things would be entirely different, necessarily: they would be as we feel them, when we come out of that consciousness. When one comes out of that consciousness, when one enters into that Truth-Consciousness, one is astonished that there can be anything like suffering and misery and death and all that; there is a sort of astonishment in the sense that…one cannot understand how this can happen (when one is pushed to the other side). But then that state of consciousness is always associated with the experience of the irreality of the world as we know it; whereas Sri Aurobindo says that that perception of the irreality of the world does not need to exist for the supramental consciousness: it is only the irreality of the Falsehood, not the irreality of the world. And that is very interesting. That is, that the world has a reality in itself, independent from the Falsehood.

I suppose that this will be the first effect of the Supermind – the first effect perhaps even in the individual, because it will start first with the individual.

That state of consciousness…probably must become constant, but then there is a problem: how can one remain in contact with the world as it is in its deformation? Because I have noticed something: when that state is strong in me, so strong that it resists anything that bombards it from outside, if I say something, people understand NOTHING! – nothing. Consequently, it must do away with a useful contact.

How would a small supramental creation be, like a nucleus of action and radiation on Earth, for example (taking the Earth alone)? Is it possible? …One can easily conceive of a nucleus of a superhuman creation…that is, men who have been men and who, through evolution and transformation (in the true sense of the word) have come to manifest supramental powers; but their origin is human, so while their origin is human there is forcibly a contact; even if everything is transformed, even if the organs are transformed into centres of force, there is still something human which remains, like a colouring. It is those beings, according to tradition, who would discover the secret of the supramental creation directly, without passing through the process of ordinary Nature. And so, it is through them that the real beings from the supramental world would be born, those who must, necessarily, live in a supramental world. But then, how would the contact be between those beings and the ordinary world? How to conceive of a sufficient transformation of nature for that supramental creation to be produced on earth? – I don’t know.

Naturally one knows that for such a thing to happen a considerable length of time is required, and there will probably be stages, degrees, faculties which will appear and which, for the moment, we do not know or we cannot conceive of, and which will change conditions on Earth – that is looking several thousand years ahead.

The problem remains: is it possible to use that idea of space – I mean space on the globe? Is it possible that there is a place in which this embryo or seed of a future supramental world can be created?

What I had seen… The plan had come in all its details: but it was a plan that, in its spirit and consciousness, is not at all in conformity with what it is possible to realise terrestrially right now (but in its most material manifestation, it was based on the existing earthly conditions). That idea of an ideal city which would be the nucleus of a small ideal country and which would only have purely superficial and extremely limited contacts in its dealings with the old world. One must therefore already conceive of (and this is possible) a Power sufficient to be at once a protection against aggression or bad will (that would not be the most difficult protection to get), and a protection against infiltration; the mixture… But that, one can, if need be, conceive of it. From the social point of view, from the point of view of organisation, the point of view of interior life, these are not difficult problems; the problem is the relation with what is not supramentalised, to impede infiltration, mixture; that is, to prevent this nucleus from falling into an inferior creation – it is a period of transition.

                                               (Silence)

All those who have thought about the problem have always imagined something unknown to the rest of humanity, in a place like a pass in the Himalayas, a place unknown to the rest of the humanity. But that is not a solution. That is not a solution at all.

No, the only solution is occult power. But that… Then that would mean already a creation of a certain number of individuals who had arrived at a great perfection of realisation, before anything could be done… But if that could be done, it is conceivable that one could have, cut off from the external world (there are no contacts, isn’t that so), a place where everything is exactly in its place, as an example. Each thing is exactly in its place, each person exactly in his place, each movement exactly in its place, and in its place in an ascending movement, progressive, without relapse (that is, just the contrary to what happens in ordinary life). So, naturally that would mean a sort of perfection; it also means a sort of unity. It means that the different aspects of the Supreme can be manifested; and necessarily an exceptional beauty, a total harmony; and a sufficient power to keep the forces of Nature under control: for example, even if that place is surrounded by the forces of destruction, those forces have no power to act – the protection is sufficient.

All of this demands an extreme, extreme degree of perfection in those individuals who would be the organisers of such a thing.

                                    (Long silence)

This must be similar to what happened for the appearance of the first man.

Finally, no one knows how the first men were formed, the first mental realisation. Is it known whether they were isolated individuals or if it was in groups? If this took place in the midst of others or isolated? I don’t know. There could be an analogy with the future case of the supramental creation.

In the solitude of the Himalayas or in the solitude of a virgin forest, it is not difficult to conceive of an individual who begins to create his small supramental world around him – that is easy to conceive. But the same thing is necessary: he must have arrived at such a degree of perfection that his power would act automatically to prevent intrusion from outside.

      Because he would be automatically exposed to attacks from outside?

They would automatically have to be protected; that is, all foreign or opposing elements must be prevented from approaching.

One does hear of stories like that, of people who live in an ideal solitude. That is not impossible to imagine at all. When one is in contact with the Power, when it is in you, one can see…that is child’s play! To the point even of being able to change certain things, to exert an influence on the environing vibrations and the environing forms which, automatically, would begin to be supramentalised. All that is possible – but it is on the individual scale. Whereas, let us take the example of what happens here: the individual who stays right in the middle of the chaos – that is where the difficulty lies!… Is it that, because of this fact, to arrive at a sort of perfection in the realisation is impossible? But the other also, the one isolated in the forest, it is always the same thing; it is the example that doesn’t prove at all that the rest will be able to follow. Whereas what happens here would already be a far more radiating action. This must happen at a certain point – it MUST happen. But the problem still remains: can this take place at the same time or before the other thing is realised: the individual, the one supramentalised individual?

                                                (Silence)

It is evident that in the conditions of community or group the realisation is far more complete, integral, total and probably more perfect than any individual realisation, which is always necessarily, NECESSARILY, on the external, material plane absolutely limited, because it is only one mode of manifestation, a microscopic aggregate of vibrations that are touched.

But from the point of view of facility of work, I think there is no comparison!

                                                (Silence)

So the problem remains. All those people like Buddha and the others, they FIRST realised, and then they returned to a contact with the world. Well that is very simple. But for what I envision, isn’t remaining in the world an indispensable condition in order for the realisation to be total?

That…

           (The Mother remains a long while absorbed, looking before her)

I am constantly seeing images! – not images: living things, as answers to the questions. There was a magnificent peacock being formed (the peacock is the symbol of victory here), and then his tail opened up like this, and on his tail a construction appeared, like the construction of that ideal place… It is a shame that we cannot photograph that world! There should be sufficiently sensitive plates – they have tried. That would be very interesting because it was moving like a cinema: they are not stills, they move.

(18 July 1961)

              From L’Agenda de Mere, Volume 2, 1961

                                    Institut de Recherches Evolutives, Paris, 1978

      *

[While the Peacock is the national bird of India and is indeed the symbol of Victory, it acquires this qualification because it is the vehicle of the God Kartikeya, Shiva’s Son, the War God of Victory. This is the same Godhead referred to in our work as the Fourth Power of the Solar Line, the Son Principle in the descent of powers for the supramental transformation. Since ‘the City’ is the domain of that Fourth Power, it is not at all surprising that the Mother should have had this first vision of that ‘ideal place’ with the backdrop of the Peacock’s Tail.]

‘I have just set off a crisis of indignation! Because almost without exception all the people around me and who profess to want only what I want, are apparently completely obedient, but their instinct is just the opposite. For example, when I see someone, I see how he is, what he is capable of doing, etc, and when I see it is a man one cannot count on, their instinct is: “Oh, what an admirable man!” And it is their INSTINCT – that is, the spontaneous movement of their being is in constant contradiction with my consciousness.

‘So, this means…I cannot say that it is hypocrisy but it is purely a mental attitude which does not correspond to the consciousness of their being. For me there is a sure indication: when I do not say anything to someone (that is, I do not make use of the mental intermediary), but I see that his sensation, impression, state of consciousness are in harmony with mine, I know all is well. And when that person tells me, “Yes, I want what you want,” it is true. But when it is simply a mental poise, superficial, and that because I say “It is like this” they reply externally ‘It is like that”, but internally everything is in ferment because they feel differently…

‘For example, precise problems, a decision that needs to be taken, I am presented with the problem; I do not answer materially right away – I send the answer like this [gesture of inner communication]. Then I wait. Well, it happens (quite rarely but it does happen) that the person writes me, “I received the reply. It is this”…then I say “It is good.” But when I write and because I write the words they say the same thing, it proves nothing. It is an artificial obedience.

‘And I am not talking about those who immediately feel, “Oh, the Mother is wrong.” I am not even speaking of them. I am talking about those who really have goodwill but who are full up to here [gesture to her mouth], even to here [gesture to her forehead] of the Ignorance and Falsehood and who put on a cover of acquired knowledge but not felt…

‘How will the world change? It is not possible.

‘No, I am not speaking of the enormous mass of those who imagine that I am always mistaken but who say, “Oh, the poor old lady, one shouldn’t contradict her!” I am not even speaking of them. I am speaking about those of goodwill, mentally: they have put on a mask of goodwill, but the inner vibration belongs still to the world of Falsehood.   [16.10.1965, L’Agenda de Mere, Volume 6, pages 285-6]

‘The [Superman] Consciousness which has been active since January, insists very much on becoming aware that one must do things by an act of will. That one is born at will, dies at will, that one falls ill at will – that it is the will which is the dominant principle. It insists very much on this.

            ‘I think this will change many things’. [9.8.1969, L’Agenda de Mere, Volume 10, page 304]

‘…There is a background (it is that, above all) a background of unconscious Negation which is behind everything, everything, everything. It is still everywhere: one eats, breathes – and receives this Negation… In order for everything to be transformed, it is still a colossal work. But when one is – how to put it? – on “the other side” (they are not “sides”), but in the other state, it seems so natural, so simple that one asks why it is not like that, why does it seem so difficult? And then, as soon as one is on the other side, it is (the Mother holds her head between her hands) …the mixture is still there, unquestionably.

            ‘Truly the ordinary state, the old condition, is consciously…(that is, it is a conscious perception)…it is death and suffering. And then in the other state, death and suffering seem absolutely…unreal things.’ (18.10.1969, the birthday of the great Negator(!) L’Agenda de Mere, Volume 10, pages 413-4)

‘I have had a revelation!

‘That is, I was totally silent and it came suddenly. And, as usual, it insisted until I noted it down.

‘It followed a question, “What is death?” But the reply is not on the ordinary plane – that is, the mind was totally silent.

‘It came like this, imperatively: (The Mother reads):

Death is the consequence of the

decentralisation of the Consciousness

contained in the cells composing the body.

‘With a host of perceptions at the same time, like a general Earth-consciousness, with examples showing that it is only when the consciousness contained in the cells is decentralised that that takes place. Otherwise nothing, not even the stopping of the heart can make one die.

‘That decentralisation comes from innumerable natural causes, but they are causes which one could call psychological. And the cells contained in the body or which constitute the body, are held together in a form by a centralisation of the Consciousness that is in them and while that power of concentration is there the body cannot die; it is only when the power of concentration disappears that the cells disperse. And then one dies, then the body dies.

‘And the rest was like this (the Mother picks up another note) …The usual concentration of Nature (produced by Nature) is a mechanical concentration, and it is subject to all sorts of mechanical laws – but, also…(the Mother reads her note) This is what came:

                        The very first step toward immortality

                        is to replace the mechanical centralisation

                        by a willed centralisation.

…which comes from the inner Presence, that is, the divine Presence, by its will, concentrates the cells. Then:

                        Decentralisation produced by Nature

                        is mechanical. It must be replaced by

                        a willed centralisation.’

                                                                                      17.12.1969, L’Agenda de Mere, Volume 10, pages 508-9