‘It will be because it IS, not because of any reaction.
This is the difference when one is centred. There is no reaction, nothing ‘desiring’ because that implies peripheral poise. In this matter even to say something comes because one no longer desires it is wrong. That is reactionary, and life is not like that. What comes comes because IT IS. Only in our off-centred beings do things come because of ‘anything else’.
Real power is born when one remains centred. No energy is wasted, drained. Every action is true to itself. One acts not to attain something, but because it must be done because IT IS. Truly the message of the Gita: slay because they are already slain! If one becomes centred in that which IS, then every action is perfectly accomplished.
The human being has always longed to know the future, what will be. He should rather have concentrated on WHAT IS. That is the vision of the Transcendent. But we are conditioned not by time and space but rather by our limited understanding of time and space. We have not known Simultaneous Time, and therefore we see the play-out linearly; therefore we feel that in order to attain a goal we must DO SOMETHING, – that the attainment relies exclusively on this action. The goal then is conditioned by our action, one way or another.
Reality is quite different though. Only what IS can ‘become’. If we centre ourselves in what IS, then there are no energies dispersed and there is the possibility of becoming the instrument for a greater destiny. One moves forward in time centred, and this is the experience of Simultaneous Time, which leads us to the Whole Time experience.
The problem in the past has been a wrong positioning: one reached out to the future. One sought to know by EXTENDING the vision. But this brought a further off-centred poise because the consciousness lost its power of concentration. The Chamber of the Mother shows us the true poise, and hence the experience of Simultaneous Time is a property of that Chamber.
Spirituality realised that a problem existed and this reaching out was condemned, – by obliterating time and space and all concern for the future. Yet that concern is, in a way, legitimate. One seeks to contain the energy somehow, by knowing what is to come. This is meant to facilitate and enhance the lived experience in the present.
But the new poise is a centering, in the present so to speak. Yet it really means a centering IN WHAT IS. That is, – in the Real, the True. Then the lived experience is a contained concentration. And this generates real Power, the new Power. This is the poise of the Sun – or the Truth-Consciousness. And then one is able to control the periphery, or the ‘extension’, because it is not a linear extension. It is spherical – which is just how life itself is, the true nature of Reality. Poised linearly we cannot appreciate the spherical reality of creation, of living. This too is what imprisons us in the belief that we can determine our destinies, that we are ‘free’, that we have ‘free will’. None of this is true, as we comprehend these matters. Freedom, in the truest sense of the word comes ONLY when one is centred in Simultaneous Time. But the word acquires a different meaning: Freedom is CONTROL. It is the generation of a power which permits a person so centred to control the peripheral activity of his/her life, – that the circumstances of life conspire to fulfil that Will at the centre.
This is the true quality of the Gnostic Being: centred in Simultaneous Time…and therefore FREE. That is, one creates one’s own conditions. One is not conditioned and limited, but creative and centred. Hence there can be no limitations in one who is ever poised centrally. One cannot condition or limit the Centre. It creates its own boundaries and controls the periphery of its destiny which is an extension of itself; its system. Not something incorporated from outside and imposed on the Centre.
The Gnostic Being generates the power to be able to create the conditions for his/her central incarnate divine Will to fulfil itself. Or else, one poises one’s consciousness in such a way as to allow the Supermind to work through us, the Truth-Consciousness, so as to control and generate the POSITIVE circumstances for its harmonious fulfilment in life.’
It is really interesting because I remembered that experience of the Mother. I had written in the Commentaries (of The Magical Carousel):
‘…on 25 April, 1961, [the Mother] described the consciousness of Absolutes, the central realisation of Capricorn and the initiation of the mountain’s inner chamber. But the experience was of such an unusual nature, so unrelated to the common spiritual experience that at the end of the talk the Mother expressed the wish to have it kept secret. The decisive aspect of the experience was the absence of movement toward a goal…’ (p. 110)
Do you remember that?
No purpose.
You see, what she meant by purpose…it isn’t in the sense that I use the word. It means: do this to attain that. Exactly what I was writing.
The whole thing of cause and effect.
Yes, that’s what she says: no cause and effect…
‘Now it is a sort of absolutism of each and every second, each movement, from the most subtle, the most spiritual, to the most material.’ She says the connecting chain has disappeared, to do this in order to do that. And she asks, ‘Is this what the Supreme sees?’ (Ibid.)
Here again, I had this experience a few nights back. The same kind of thing. Yes, this is the vision of the Supreme. This is the Transcendent. That is, only what IS can become. So, obviously to find out what will happen, what will become, you must only find out what is. You must only have that vision of the Supreme.
And they were going in the opposite direction. Now, she was… this was the beginning. It’s interesting. This was the beginning of that breakthrough, of reversing this whole process.
‘It is perhaps the perception, the supreme perception: an absolute. It is strange. An unnameable and perpetual absolute, simultaneous.’ (Ibid.)
You see? Really these are memorable because they were the experiences that give birth to the Chamber. This was the beginning.
‘She describes how cause and effect disappear…’
That is the same thing I saw recently – again: yes, it is not like that. Life, reality is not like that. It is not a reaction. It is not a process of reaction.
It IS, therefore it will become. It will be. It is not the reverse. It is not, if I do this then only will da-da-da-dah. You see?
In other words, the goal does not at all depend on… Yes, there is no cause and effect process. This is the great shift in the human being. Then that marks a before-and-after between all other spiritual and religious experiences. Because they are all based on that.
Not only that, but it completely changes ones whole conception of karma.
That’s what I mean. Because karma, at least in all Eastern religions, is the one fundamental…almost dogma.
And it is misunderstood.
Well, because the poise was wrong. As I say, by continuing to extend the vision, to reach out to the future, even if you are doing it in terms of your own life, saying ‘I will attain this in the next life’, it is the same kind of process.
For thousands of years the human being has sought to know the future. To this day; it has always been like this. It is the plague of humanity. The human being wants to know, and because he has had experiences of knowing…he’s had dreams, he’s had previsions…so, he knows that in some dimension everything is. And it can be known.
And so, instead of staying rooted in the core and seeing what is in the seed of That, he simply tried to extend into the future and find out. In consciousness, you understand? It is a poise of consciousness, that’s the difference.
This is why it is so difficult to understand, so difficult to pinpoint; because you say. How does it express itself? Yes, somebody seeking to know the future is extending… But, it is not that. It is a poise of consciousness that is reaching out. And therefore it is seeking through that Becoming rather than in what is. That is where the concentration suffers, you see. Because that is the Chamber; that is what [the Mother] meant by concentration: Learn to concentrate because you are contained in WHAT IS.
Then to see the future really all you do is extend your being, in a sense.
Well, then the problem is that you are reaching into ‘possibilities’. Then you get into another series of problems also.
But let’s leave all that aside. Let’s say, legitimate knowing. You’re still extending the consciousness outward to the periphery through the Becoming rather than in Being.
‘She describes how cause and effect disappear, belonging as they do to the world of time and space. But she has difficulty in identifying the element, and she says it cannot be called a ‘movement’, a ‘state of consciousness’, a ‘vibration’… [This latter in the original French is ‘vibration’, mistakenly written ‘revelation’ in the Commentaries.] (pp. 110-11.)
You see how she was having the same problem. How do you define this? How do you describe it?
‘So, one must say ‘thing’. Each ‘thing’ carries within itself its absolute law.” (Ibid.)
And that’s the whole key! Can you imagine – what came out of this kind of an experience! Then the Chamber became the physical manifestation of this Vision.
Here it was. And she gave this to humanity. She had this…and then she was able to describe it PHYSICALLY. In a form. It is phenomenal. Who can do that? Something that she hadn’t even fully understood yet!
‘Hereafter the Mother wishes to clarify that the experience eliminates the chained succession of events in the consciousness, of “purpose”… [You see, this is what she meant by purpose.]… In order to do this she insists that it is not a horizontal movement’… [No extension, you see.] …and to further stress the difference she makes a gesture explaining the experience which the disciple describes as: a vertical gesture that dominates and embraces at the same time. Thus the Mother seems to have clearly given her experience the symbol-shape of the Mountain, for Omanisol’s consciousness is experienced by the children as precisely dominating all and carrying everything into her protective embrace.
‘In a succinct definition that thoroughly captures the Capricorn realisation, the Mother says the experience can be translated as an “infinitesimal point, which is a physical body and all that is dependent upon it, but which is exactly equal to the Supreme Point and all that is dependent upon it.”’ (Ibid.)
Isn’t this fantastic! that ‘centre’ that is everywhere. Central to every thing in creation.
‘It is a question of perception, a different vantage-point of the vision…’ (Ibid.)
You see, it is exactly what I was saying. The vision is not outside but at the centre. This is the whole point.
‘…a different vantage-point of the vision which alters everything. But though she stresses the apparent immobility of the nature of the experience, – no cause and effect, no goal, no purpose…”a sort of Absolute”, she is emphatic in her insistence that it is not Nirvana, that it is far beyond Nirvana. It does not exclude the creation. It contains all, Nirvana included. And the Mother concludes by again describing the experience in the form of a vertical rise that embraces and dominates, which is obviously the shape of a triangle that in its base contains all and then rises to a peak.’ (Ibid.)
This is where I was writing about the Mountain-Chamber and her vision. (Some of these things in the French are so beautiful…) ‘The normal state of consciousness is to do something in order to, or for something else…’ You see, this was so clear to me. I don’t know why it hit me. It had to do with these latest things: Skambha*, the land, the dimensions. And that energy that is wasted in an anxiety over things that… And yet, as I say, it is legitimate because if you knew what is, then you do not waste that. It’s a vicious circle because how do you come to know that then. We haven’t that kind of poise anymore. We’ve all lost that.
So, we’ve got to find the way back to that centre, actually.
[After reading in French, the dialogue continues.]
This Point, this Supreme Point that doesn’t occupy space… Incredible. All of this brought up so many different perceptions. Again this insistency all the time now to help people to perceive this ‘changed poise’, that that is the only way.
And you see, that man in Madras candidly wrote, ‘I can’t see how this work can give you a practical grip on life.’ This is the problem. Now, this man is a sincere fellow. There is something in him that would really like to do something. To bring about a change. Be it only a ‘Lonely-Hearts Club’ or whatever. And yet, you understand, that if we really do not find out what the root problem is, all of this is useless, worthless. And goes on and on and keeps the ball rolling like that…
But it is such an unusual happening. Because again, what is it? As I say, it is nothing but a vision. But that is what she is saying here: This is the Supreme’s vision.
Now, that is exactly what I am talking about. I’m saying, Let’s really bring that Transcendent’s vision here: the real thing. Not what people have imagined it is by these projections outside and beyond. But the real thing. In order to do that you have to go to the Centre; you have to find that point where one can enter into that Supreme Vision. Then you come to the Core, to the Centre, to all of that….
And so, there you have the Chamber with this magnificent Vision of Simultaneous Time. This Chamber where… Naturally she would have spoken about it in terms of ‘concentration’ because what she meant was containment in what is.
It is not even the present. It is wrong to say… You know, it is a way of saying ‘in the Now’, in the present; but it is also wrong. It is misleading. It is a containment in what is. It is not even a question of past/present/future – anything of that sort. It is a containment in what is, and that is that special ‘concentration’ that she was talking about. That is where everything begins to change.
Look at what is happening now in this work as of the last two years. And this year, the work of this year is clear. Last night I really saw the movement very clearly, again with respect to the Temple; because last year I saw it was Saturn, and I knew we were extending; there was that horizontal dimension. You were extending [the floor of the Chamber]. And then the trip to America and establishing things there was clearly those pillars. And that was the Moon [USA]. To me it was so evident.
And this year? Well, this year it is Uranus, and what is the work of this year? Yet there is an enormous difference from what it has been in the past, when I was working with the Shaft, the real ‘heart’ of the thing. It is very different now. I’m not working against anything…over there. This is something completely contained here now. Whereas before, because that reversal hadn’t occurred, there were all those forces that were able to crush this thing. And you felt it, that you couldn’t really get anywhere. Very different now, as of ’83, ’84.
And then there is this process of ‘repelling’, and I could see how the ones who can’t make that ‘shift’ have to go and that you don’t even have to do anything because the System repels…
But another thing is the way – as I have written in the 3rd volume [of The New Way] – the way that Point holds the whole thing together and utilises every element, negative or positive, for its own designs and ‘purpose’. For that becoming of Itself. You see?
So, it’s that Point that sustains, that repels, that attracts – but that even the negative is used…to help establish the work. But if you don’t make that ‘reversal’, there is no centre.
Okay, we understand that, because the Centre, that ‘point’ comes into being precisely when this Reversal takes place in the consciousness, in all. All right. When that happens it is only then that this ‘system’ comes into being, and this action of repelling. Otherwise, before that there is always this ‘caving in’ – a caving in.
When I review the past I can see it… In those days I didn’t have the kind of power to sustain that force. It wasn’t only a question of power (Here again, the time wasn’t right)… The problem resides in the fact that it was Knowledge separated as yet from Power. But at the same time, that is obviously all that could be done. And all of those events gradually built up to allow this very Reversal to take place.
But it’s clear that something like that [the problem The New Way faced] couldn’t really happen now. That is, those elements couldn’t really be victorious as they were at that time. Because, you see, the System simply would not allow it. I mean, it would so immediately use their negativity, you see, that it would become something entirely different; as it always has now.
And so, you get now this ‘attraction process’, and you get these elements coming in. Now remember that one of the characteristics that I said of this change that comes about – this Reversal – was that those people who were not able to make the shift and go along with it simply could not remain in the atmosphere of this ‘thing’. And remember we started out like that right away in 1984 when I was alone and then gradually all the bits…
It is like that all the time now: you go along with it, yes, but you go along in the sense that you know if something is negative it will find its solution.
And this is the difference. This is where the question of trust comes in very strongly; because, again, I can’t know by extending the vision. This is not possible for me. So, I can BE, in that Consciousness, and with the ab-so-lute certainty that that Consciousness will arrange all the circumstances. This was the dream that I had…remember? That certainty: NO, this cannot be. It will not be. I’ll never forget that dream. It was such a profound experience. The moment when I took hold of that Certainty, and said, This is it.
Well, this is what I feel has to become a very solid realisation right now. This kind of certainty. And you see, again I had to use that, I had to tap that: It is clear, Skambha IS. It has its dimensions. I mean, if it is…
Now, this is the question, where the attainment of that supreme Vision comes in. But what is it? It is not a vision that you ‘acquire’. What is that vision? It is a state of being. That is what the Supreme’s Vision is: a condition of Being. It is BEING. It is Sat [Sanskrit for ‘being’]. That is what the sign of Capricorn is: SAT.
And so, one thinks of it in terms of a ‘seeing’, a ‘vision’ like that, in which… Again, it’s like looking out, projecting, you understand? This is our idea of it. But the Supreme’s Vision is a state of….
It is everywhere.
Yes, and that is how it can be everywhere, because it is a state of Being. It is Being, not even a ‘state’.
You see how interesting? You see how everything starts shifting then…and then you realise, Well, yes, we’ve been all off. And for many thousands of years we’re off.
That is why no one can really conceive of what it is going to be like in the future. You can’t until you attain that state of being.
That ‘banal’ statement: Until you change your consciousness. But what does that mean? These are words, that’s all: the ‘new consciousness’… People haven’t a clue, – because they would have to give up so much. And it’s not giving up in terms of worldly possessions, in terms even of attachments. All that is banal. It is not that. It is giving up this precious falsehood, really, of extension beyond…of, yes, also of being lost in the Becoming.
But then even that is another trap. Separateness. That is it.
Okay, the Buddhists have seen that. You know, the scourge of the human being is this separateness. But, you see, that is the hardest – for those people it is even harder; because they’ve come close, really close to grasping that. The real thing is that BEING; and they ‘fell into’ the Void. They came very close to that, because when the Buddha says it is in the Now, or the Taoists, they are very close, – but yet, somehow, still…. Because why? The ‘centre’ had not come into existence [cosmically, in the evolution]. Because this very work, the Yoga of the Chamber had never been done. That is the only reason why they could always go around that void, and then always skirt this.
There is that secret of the Fourth that is there.
That is it. And even for myself, how far would I have gotten if I hadn’t realised that? I mean, look at the tremendous difference in this work from 1983 and ’84. And what was it? It was simply that realisation.
Now, before that, look at how much I had seen, look at how much Knowledge there was. But this power to really bring it down, that ‘power of crystallisation’, that power then of concentration…that came only then, you see. And still, without that you couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t establish anything.
Now the Centre is there. It grows from within and gradually strengthens…. So, what does that mean? It means simply that there is no caving in. This is the simplest way to explain it: there is no caving in anymore.
It is so fundamental this change. It makes all the difference in the world, – for the whole world eventually. I mean, eventually it has got to be this process. There is not going to be another process. Somehow, however it comes about for the world at large, I don’t know yet, but it is this very process…this arresting of the caving in.
So, last year it was evident what it was. Last year the [‘construction work’] was just up to the Pillars: it was Saturn, it was taking on those responsibilities which at the same time are ‘supports’ if they are done properly. And the connection, of course, with America, this ‘relay station’, as I have always called those Pillars. There it was. It all came together last year. Wonderful.
Then we go on to this year. And what is the big event of this year, apart from the fact that we are ‘extending the boundaries’ now to 24 acres [at Skambha] – and the Chamber’s diameter is 24 metres(!). The interesting element is that you come to those walls. And really I was going very deeply into this situation that has arisen in the USA which is…very serious, in the sense that you can’t take this flippantly. And why?
You know, if you go over the letter they sent, there is one thing that is very clear and that the Mother already experienced in the Temple episode, precisely at that point of those ‘walls’. In other words, that is where the outer imposed its measure. And there was no Centre then, and it could not ‘hold’, and it succeeded, it succeeded in…. That is the only thing in the temple [in Auroville] that is totally irreparable. I mean, that destroyed that thing there: it was the fact of the measurement of those walls [24 metres]. And I have always spoken of it in terms of this outer form crushing, pressing in…and imposing its measure, rather than the thing developing as this Yoga of the Chamber has: from the Centre. You contrast that Shaft first with the Core. And then THAT determines the Measure. It is on the basis of that.
Now, look at the letter that they’ve sent me, where the whole thing is geared to destroy that central Purpose and the central Measure. You understand?
Now, people can’t see this. You know, if they would consciously… If they would see what they are instruments of, obviously they would not be able to act like that. But, you see, nobody really realises what is going on!
But then there are these telltale lines in their letter. And the final line is phenomenal: ‘If these proposals that we are giving you’, – okay, as far as they are concerned this is legitimate: We are going to be legal; we’ve got our lawyer, he says this, that, the other thing: ‘If these proposals are not acceptable, perhaps you can come up with some suggestion that will be consonant with the legal parameters governing….’
So look at the implications. In other words, that determines what you are going to do and the measure of the Whole…. That is exactly what is in that letter. Now, it is very interesting because, as I say, this is exactly the Yoga of the Year. The kernel of it is right now…. Leave aside whether it is true or false what their lawyer has written, whether they are off or not. I’m just talking about a process right now. And I can see that this is something one has to face all along, that it is always going to be this kind of attack to crush the Centre. This is what has to be right now.
And it is going to be the old forms. They are going to try and impose the old forms on this Centre, from where the new forms have to come about.
(Pause)
What I am trying to do is something entirely different. Even amidst the old I am trying to create these new Forms that will be responsible only to that inner central Measure. You understand? This is the big thing. This is the kernel, as I say, of the whole Yoga of the Chamber of this year.
So, this thrust comes from there – and with such a power in it: determination. It is going to be like this. You are going to have to come to terms with us and with… You have to conform to the way things are run here.
Now, it is clear that this is the instrument for this year in order to make me come to terms with this Yoga of the Chamber. And that we have reached that point where… You’ve reached the walls, and as the Mother said, we learn from the first temple we build, and the second…. And there I am learning! And I say ‘Oh, isn’t this interesting. It’s exactly the same thing!’
Now, never in a thousand years could they imagine that they would be instruments and embodying that very same consciousness that the architects had, and the role that they played with the Mother then.
And you see, if I can say that what happened to The New Way in the Ashram could never happen now because of this realisation, think of the Mother, when this happened to her. There was no hope at all at that time of rescuing anything. Look at how she left it. She just had to succumb. And not only that. She succumbed to such an extent that they actually built the thing like that; and that nothing I could do could change it. With all the power of truth in the world. I mean, I had every weapon, you know, every possible means to do that. And it was useless. Completely useless. I could not, once that consciousness had established its power to determine, to crush…once that ‘void’ was there, huh? Once they had established that ‘hole’ in the centre [of the Chamber], it was the signal that there was no centre. And in fact there was none.
At the same time then this Power uses…because, as I have always said, it was precisely that ‘hole’ that allowed me to do this Yoga of the Chamber in the ‘80s, and that filled that Void, you see.
Even so there is this power working. But, look. These people cannot imagine that there is any relation, that they are acting in the same way as those other people. Why? Because, ‘Oh, it’s two different things! This has nothing to do with the temple!’ You understand? These are legal matters, where is the relation? Yet look how absolutely exact.
(Pause)
You know, at this point, when that ‘thing’ – as the Mother said, let’s call it a ‘thing’ because you can’t call it a realisation! [Laughter] Let’s call it a ‘thing’. Okay, when that Thing is there, this changes everything. And then, you know, all your reactions… Some times I get these reactions, and then after I think, Oh my gosh, maybe that was a little bit…rash. [Laughter] Or maybe I should have been a little kinder, or… But then you realise that you too are an instrument; and, by gosh, you’re an instrument to repel also, when you have to.
And nobody can come and stay in the precincts of this work, the way it is getting established now, if they are not able to make this kind of shift. If there is not that suppleness, you know, it is really just a suppleness. It is not rigidity. I saw this last night – this rigidity.
In any case, in this work it is this suppleness where…this kind of softness. The real quality of the soul, that allows itself to be carried along into the New. And that trust….
A sort of Devic [of the Gods] quality, rather than…
That is it. That is perhaps the most important thing that the Gods have to offer, it is that softness…which, in the Puranas, in all the mythologies, was their weak point! Because they didn’t have that ‘strong will’.
And what is this now? Again it is a battle of the wills, but with a difference now. Here I am talking about the possibility of allowing the new forms to manifest and that if we are not very careful in the beginning we are going to kill….
Or create a monster!
And we are going to say, ‘Why must we begin again, again, and again!’ I’m certain that I don’t have time to waste.
(Pause)
But it is the correspondences, you see. This is what I have found: that the ordinary person cannot see how things are the same! They see the outer forms, they see this was the Temple, this was a problem of the architects, this was a problem with concrete and stone… But this here is such-and-such. And yet they can’t see that the one is the other.
In the same way that if you tried to explain to those architects their attitude at that time, they would have all sorts of similar… It wasn’t black and white.
But that’s what happened! Don’t you remember how much they ridiculed me? Saying, ‘Ha! Ha! She thinks that because we’re putting this, we’re doing it like this, it’s going to cause disaster in the world, etc.’ And the major point, their whole argument against me was that I was ‘superstitious’ and that I was imagining all these kinds of correspondences.
It is interesting, because out of that ‘imagining’, out of that ‘imagination’ look what has come. And look at it there: sterile. Just sterile. So wrapped up in themselves…
You see, this was the problem: When the vision went, when the poise was lost, then it allowed for this intensification of the ego. That was its biggest boon, you know.
(Pause)
But how much steadier thing are now. Sometimes at night I have this impression of steadiness. Well, it is almost like the Mountain. That solid mass. And I think we’ve come a long way. We’ve come a long way to be able to sit here and discuss these things in these terms. Look at the difference from the Talk I have just read of the Mother, where she had that experience but in no way, at that time, could she apply it to the work she was involved in. In no way. There was no connection. It was an experience, or a realisation. But there wasn’t the method by which you could apply it to the work.
And this is what Sri Aurobindo was talking about when he said, ‘Supermind organised for Earth use’. That this is what we have to find, that this is what we are seeking, what we are bringing down: Supermind to be organised for Earth use. This is what I mean.
This experience of the Mother is a gem! I mean, it is the seed of it. But it wasn’t…you couldn’t apply it.
And did she know that nine years later she was going to be faced with the…results of precisely the opposite to what she had had in that experience? That the true poise which she described, the lack of which was going to create those problems in the Temple. Obviously, if she were around now she’d have no difficulty at all in understanding! But how was it possible then? There was no way to make these ‘links’ then. She didn’t have those ‘laws’.
Isn’t it something to rejoice about? Yes, there are difficulties in the work, blockages that… There is definitely a dimension that is totally closed. But there is also so much….
Many of the difficulties are developmental difficulties. They are problems on the positive side rather than the negative.
Well, the point is that you can see now a blockage, a problem, in its rightful place. In the context of the larger dimensions. Remember what the Mother said about…that she felt that in the process that she was involved in there was this ‘supreme wisdom’, these ‘laws of a supreme wisdom’ guiding it; but that she was in the middle of this arc and therefore she could not speak of it or describe it or understand it even. But that it was only after the arc was closed, let’s say, that she could.
This is what now has changed, because you see this blockage, you see this difficulty – as, for example, I’ve seen exactly what is happening in the USA, what role these people are playing. We’re right on top of it. I mean, I don’t have to wait even until the end of the year. I know what we have to work with. And isn’t that a quality of the Supermind? That is the way Sri Aurobindo was describing it; you go from truth to greater truth. Which means that in this transitional phase you are still able to proceed with a certain amount of light. That is, if sometimes I get desperate because there can’t be a breakthrough, at least I know what breakthroughs there must be! I know that in the physical dimension there is this blockage. I don’t know how to deal with it yet. But I know that this is the process, and we are in the middle of it; and while we are in the middle of it we can understand and move along with it.
This is an enormous difference. This is really when you come to the ‘third point’, when you come to the Individual. This is the quality of that…that possibility.
(Pause)
The other day I was talking about the new Power. That’s it, you know. That ‘thing’ that has the capacity to repel, to attract, to control the play of circumstances.
And this pernicious effort that one is going to have to grapple with constantly of these forces seeking to crush out of existence that Centre.
Maybe that is the idea of Skambha going down like that. It really gives the impression that at any moment it could all come tumbling down on your head! It’s an unusual landscape.
X had a dream experience like that: there was this feeling of things crashing down, but somehow it didn’t come, it didn’t happen. There was also that dream experience of yours? What was that experience of yours, of water?
You mean the one on the train coming back from Madras? Of going on crests, and then going into… Oh yes, I will never forget that. It was so impressive, those enormous waves! You know, it was like ‘slow motion’. I saw it coming…You’ve been in the ocean and you’ve had that happen to you. You know, where you are overtaken by an enormous wave. You see it coming and you can’t do a thing… And here goes!
Well, this thing coming… It was very clear water though, I remember that. Seeing it come, and then somehow I went into it – but not into the wave. Almost…I went into another dimension. And then I was carried like that on the crest. It is difficult to explain. I wasn’t really on the crest. It was like carried through but via some other dimension, or another power. And these waves kept coming but they never overtook me. Yet I saw them there, I said. ‘Oh, my gosh!’
I remember when I awoke (I was on the train coming back here) and I thought, What does this bode?! [Laughter] Because it was so powerful. It was like the one with the electrical current (after that experience). It was the same, exactly the same message in this dream. Finally I had to gather myself together and I said, ‘Well, wait a minute, what actually happened in the dream. You weren’t overcome.’ That was the whole point of the dream. It was that in fact somehow you managed to get into a ‘space’ where these could not overcome you, overtake…
And that’s probably, I would say, the key to the remaining years in this millennium. It is finding that poise, that state of consciousness which will allow us to ride through any storm, through whatever….
That is the secret of that new Power of protection, you see?
Now, it is evident that this is a very important turning point – this moving to Skambha. Evidently this is probably one of the major moments of this work, – the fact that that actually will come about. Because you know the symbol that that has always been – of this searching for this permanent spot… And then of course coming there; and you have this ancient land, but all the forms have to be new. Nothing there. Not even the road, do you realise? You have to even do that. Find your own access, your own entry. And it’s clear that this is significant.
Oh, last night too, what was so beautiful was, again, the image of the one entry into the Room. I said, Well, how can these people… You know, how can you help people to come to this. People who are really so blocked; but at the same time you know they should find their way to this work, or whatever. Yet again, you can do nothing but hold your own poise. That is it.
But then the point is that when you come into that Room, from the moment you start coming up those 15 steps, you’re seeing that Ray. And as you move you follow that Ray… In other words, you have to have your vision always on THAT, and the Core. Otherwise there is no way to enter. And this is what keeps people out. What I was saying: that outer cannot impose its measure on it; and you can’t come in from the darkness and pretend to find your way. You really have to have it in your heart from the beginning. You have to be open to that. This is what is so difficult for people to come to terms with. And when there is not that suppleness, then the system rejects…
And it makes you wonder about this development now, because it is clear that there must be souls who have incarnated for this particular phase of the work and that at some point…let’s call it, this arousal has to happen.
Yes, and down there [Skambha] one has to have a strong physical. There is such a power down there that would just ‘break’ anything that is not…
Very powerful. But it is a ‘power point’. So it must energise.
And how does it energise? It energises by what we are all feeling, what everybody has felt. Everybody comes back from there so happy. There is that psychic joy.
So, the energising quality is that soul power – not in terms of the ‘equal rights movement’! I mean the real thing, where there is that sweet Power that sustains and that leaves you with this…happiness, this joy….
Added at the time of printing [22 March 1987]:
The Mother has provided us with a visual image of this revolutionary realisation, the realisation that will introduce a higher species on Earth. The Temple of her original plan is the method to lay the first foundations of this new way. The core is that true Centre which comes into being on the basis of a perfect axial balance, a new alignment. This is the new Axis, the higher one that the practitioner of the Integral and Supramental Yogas forges in his/her consciousness-being. A rise comes about. The pivot is shifted from the sex centre (the present pivot of the human species) to a higher position which then liberates energies by a process of integration. The practitioner becomes the Temple, is the Temple.
I would like to reproduce a footnote which the disciple who edited the dialogue of the Mother that I have referred to above added at the time of publication, in the collection he entitled L’Agenda de Mere (Volume 2, 1961). Since the Mother told him when she was describing her unusual experience that she wanted it kept secret, he was obliged to give some sort of explanation, it seems, for disregarding her request and printing this dialogue nonetheless. Thus he wrote:
‘…and this “secret” is probably part of the Secret that this entire Agenda is trying to trace. Therefore, where does one stop? And if we are indiscreet, who knows if the secret of man was not the indiscretion of some monkey?’ (p. 209.)
The disciple was quite correct in appreciating that this dialogue held perhaps the key he was searching for in the Agenda. But he was unable to see that this experience was directly related to the vision of the Temple nine years later, that the Temple was the consolidation of this very experience. Indeed, he missed the ‘secret’ entirely when he saw in the architect’s vision of the temple the ‘birth of Auroville’, rather than in the Mother’s.
The ‘secret of the Temple’ is a new being perfectly centred, having brought about a shift in the bodily axis to a higher balance. This perfect centrality is what eliminates the accumulation of karma, because there is no separation, no distance: a complete integration of all parts of the being around this new and true Centre. It is then that the Being and the Becoming are harmonised because this Centre holds the extension of events to itself in an organised relatedness, in a field of oneness. It is then that the Gnostic Being stands as a Sun in the midst of a universal field. The Gnostic Being recreates in his/her own being the planetary harmony once this Sun is realised within by this new axial balance. It is a ‘centre that holds’ and a cosmos is born of the chaos.
This is the distinguishing feature of the gnostic race: there are no ‘gaps’ in the different layers of consciousness-being which allow waves to rise and obscure the consciousness, as is the case with our present race of Ignorance.
When the Centre comes into being via the new axial balance, the Truth-Consciousness is able to manifest through a new and integrated instrument. Then only is Truth our base. From that truth-conscious Base the Gnostic Being perceives Reality. This entirely new perception becomes the foundation of action in the world.
Thea
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* Sanskrit: cosmic pillar or axis mundi; the name given to the land for the Aeon Centre of Cosmology in South India.