(At the beginning of this conversation, Mother expresses her strong displeasure that her so-called note on Arabs and Israelites was published in "Mother India" under the title "The Jews and the Arabs." Mother protests against the use of the word "Jew," which corresponds to only one Israelite tribe and has taken on a pejorative meaning.)
[See conversation of June 21, 1967. This was not a note by Mother, but the rough transcription noted by a disciple, which was published outright as being Mother's words.]
The word has so often been used as an insult….
Anyway, thanks to that, probably because that note was published, things have been brought back into the atmosphere, and this morning there was a very, very concrete experience somewhere….
It’s a strange thing, it’s as if you suddenly emerge from a conventional atmosphere of thought, which is like a terrestrial atmosphere (I don’t mean it’s an ordinary thought, I mean it’s in the field of human mentality), and then there is, above, something that sees things quite differently. As if … Yes, things are ordinarily seen like this (gesture from below upward), while “that” sees like this (gesture from above downward), so when you enter there, you see things that you know here (you know them, they aren’t new), but you see them with a totally different look. And naturally, the notation is also done differently…. (Mother looks for a note)
It came in two ways. Those things are SEEN, you understand, seen. Words come afterwards to try and transcribe what was seen. The first thing that came was thus:
“Christians divinize suffering to make it a means of the earth’s salvation.”
Then it came with just a small difference—these are subtleties, but … From an intellectual standpoint, these are subtleties without value, but up there you seem to be almost touching the heart of things, that is, the essence—the deeper essence of events. So then, it came quite simply, like this:
“Christianity DEIFIES suffering to make it the instrument of the earth’s salvation.”
It’s hard to explain because it’s the state of consciousness that is different…. Now it’s a memory, but at that moment it was a vision—a very, very deep vision, very sharp, naturally exceeding all that occurred on earth, but also all the ways of expressing what occurred. The personality of Christ and so on—it was all so different! And it became, yes, I might say symbolic, but that’s not it…. At the same time, it placed this religion among all the others, in a very defined place in the earth evolution—in the evolution of the earth CONSCIOUSNESS.
The experience lasted for half an hour, but everything, everything was different—different not in its appearance, different in its deeper significance…. Was the difference in my active consciousness? I don’t know. I mean, did I make contact with a region of consciousness that was new to me? Possibly. But it seemed to me a wholly different vision of the earth and man’s history.
During the experience I remembered what Sri Aurobindo had written: “Men love suffering, therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem.”1 And that was like … (smiling) a sort of froth of thought quite on the surface, all the way up, bathed in the light from above, and like the intellectual way of expressing what I was seeing (gesture from above downward), which came from above…. From the point of view of light, it was a very interesting experience.
And seen from above, what was the story like?
You see, Sri Aurobindo says, “Man loves suffering, therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem,” then I said, Christianity (I mean the universal, or anyway terrestrial, origin of what expressed itself on earth as the Christian religion), the action of this religion on earth has been to “deify suffering” because it was NECESSARY for men to understand—not only to understand but to feel and adhere to the raison d’être (the universal raison d’être) of suffering on earth as a means of evolution. Basically, we could say that they sanctified suffering so it may be recognized as a means indispensable to the evolution of the earth.
So now, that action has been exploited to the full and more, and ought to be gone beyond, and that’s why it must be left behind in order to find something else.
You also said once, “It is not a crucified but a glorified body that will save the world.”2
Yes. Then a Christian sent me a picture of Christ on the cross, and just above, the risen Christ in his ascent heavenward—that’s how they take it!
It all happens on the heights.
Yes, heavenward.
(long silence)
Have you sometimes had that kind of very global vision in time and space, in which each thing has its place and everything is coordinated by a total consciousness?… (It must be new only to me.) It is a knowledge-vision. My consciousness, the consciousness there (gesture above and around) is constantly a consciousness of action. Since the beginning of those creative bursts of Love, it has been a consciousness of action, always action—action, action, perpetual action. In fact, constant creation. But this morning, it wasn’t action: it was (laughing) the “observation,” I could say, the observation of that action as a sort of vision, as you would look at a picture, you know. Instead of being on the highest intellectual plane, that of absolute comprehension and that puts each thing in its place, it was … (how can I explain it?). It’s a knowledge through subjective vision. Not the vision of something foreign to you: it’s the same state of consciousness as that of the doer, but instead of only doing, it sees at the same time. That was this morning’s experience. It was rather new in the sense that I only had it now and then, like that, but never with that totality, that clarity and that sort of absoluteness. It is the sensation of a self-evident, absolute, indisputable knowledge—it’s not “trying to express something”: it’s SEEING. Seeing, really seeing, but seeing … not one thing after another: seeing everything at once, a totality in space and in time. And seeing every detail with total precision, which makes it possible to write a thing like this (the note on Christianity).
To be clear, I should tell the whole thing. Yesterday I had an opportunity to speak to someone about this constant presence of Sri Aurobindo, here, who sees, says, does, all the time. Then, after I had spoken, I wondered, “How is it that this brain …” Because, I think I told you, when Sri Aurobindo left his body, several times, several days in a row, I stood near his bed for one or two hours, and I felt—MATERIALLY felt—what came out of his body enter mine. To such a point that I remember having said, “Well, if anyone denies afterlife, I have proof it exists.” So I thought, “Why does this brain (Mother’s) go on working according to its usual routine now that the consciousness of the Presence is constant?” Then this morning I had this experience, and while having the experience, I felt, “This is how Sri Aurobindo used to see!” (Laughing) That must be it!… And for some time I have noticed that as soon as, for this body or for other bodies, for events, for … as soon as something is formulated (it’s neither a desire nor an aspiration, but something like the living perception of a possibility that SHOULD be realized—it comes sometimes), it gets done! It gets done automatically and immediately. So this morning, for, oh, half an hour, the impression was so charming, so pleasant: “Ah, there we are! THIS IS HOW we should see things!”
Afterwards I had to be busy with other things, but it’s there. And the question was, “Why? Why isn’t there in this brain the capacity to perceive and transcribe things … as he had it?”
And so the conclusion. I’ve always heard it said (I don’t know if it’s true) that men think in a certain way and women in another. On an external level, the difference is not visible, but the attitude—the mental attitude—is perhaps different. The mental attitude on the Prakriti side is always action, always action; the mental attitude on the Purusha3 side is conception: conception, overall vision, and also observation, as though it observed what the Prakriti had done and saw how it was done. Now I understand that. That’s how it is. Naturally, no man (here on earth) is exclusively masculine and no woman is exclusively feminine, because it has all been mixed together again and again. Similarly, I don’t think any one race is absolutely pure: all that is over, it’s been mingled together (it is another way to re-create Oneness). But there have been TENDENCIES; It’s like that note about Israelites and Muslims, it’s just a manner of speaking; if I were told, “This is what you said,” I would reply, “Yes, I said that, but I can also say something else and many other things!” It’s a way of selecting certain things and bringing them to the fore with an action in view (it’s always with an action in view). But for the moment, everything is like that, everywhere mixed and mingled together with a view to general unification—no one nationality is pure and separate from the others, that no longer exists. But to a certain vision, each thing has its essential role, its raison d’être, its place in universal history. It’s like that very strong impression that the Chinese are lunar, that when the moon grew cold, some beings managed to come to the earth, and those beings are at the origin of the Chinese nation; but now there only remains a trace—a trace which is the memory of that distinctiveness. And it’s everywhere the same thing: if you look at the individuals of every nation, you find in every nation that everything is there, but with the memory … the memory of a specificness which has been its raison d’être in the great terrestrial unfolding.
(Mother goes into contemplation)
He was here, so present, so concrete—Sri Aurobindo. Did you feel him?
I stopped because of the time.
When he comes like that, you are inside—not outside, but inside. He is like that, enfolding. You are inside.
A part of your atmosphere (gesture above the disciple’s head) is absolutely, absolutely one, like that, without any difference.
Aphorism 36: "Men are still in love with grief; when they see one who is too high for grief or joy, they curse him and cry, 'O thou insensible!' Therefore Christ still hangs on the cross in Jerusalem." ↩
See Agenda I, January 1, 1957. ↩
Prakriti-Purusha: the two eternal principles, feminine and masculine, which can be translated as the Becoming and the Being, Nature and Soul, Force and Consciousness.... ↩
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