The last few nights, I have spent almost the whole night, several hours of it, in a place which must certainly belong to the subtle physical and where material life is being reorganized. It’s immense—immense—and the crowd innumerable; but they are individualities, not a crowd, which means that I deal with each one of them. And there are also types of documents and writing tables, but there are no walls! It’s a strange place. A very strange place.
I have often wondered if the memory of physical forms is what makes me see that world in that way, or IF IT IS really like that. Sometimes there is no doubt because it has its own specific character, but at other times I have a doubt and wonder if it’s not in the active memory. Because at that moment I am very conscious, everything is extremely natural, you understand; and it’s permanent: I find the same things in the same places again, sometimes with slight differences, but differences made necessary by action. That is to say, it’s a coherent world, not wild imaginings. But to what extent are those forms the reflection of material forms? To what extent ARE they really like that, or do we SEE them that way? I am not very sure yet. I had the same problem in the past when I used to go into the Overmind and see the Gods: I always had a kind of hesitation as to whether they really are like that, or whether we perceive them like that because of our physical habits…. There, after a time I reached a conclusion, but here, physically? …
Strangely, there are no doors, no windows, no ceiling or floor, all that is self-existent and does not appear to be subject to the law of gravity, that is, there isn’t the earth’s magnetic attraction, yet what you write with (laughing) looks like a fountain pen! What you write on looks like paper; the documents are placed in what look like filing cabinets…. You do feel that the substance isn’t the same, but the appearance is very close. And I am still wondering about that appearance: is it because of our ordinary cerebral function that we put the appearance upon things, or is it really like that?
I meet almost everyone there. I told you that you are there quite regularly, and we work. As for you, you don’t remember. There are others who remember, but their memory is … (Mother twists her finger slightly) just slightly off, that is, not identically what I saw. And when they tell me, my impression is, yes, it’s because of the transcription in their brain…. The objective reality of the material world stems from the fact that if you see the same object ten times over, ten times it looks like itself, with differences that are logical, or that may be, for instance, differences of wear and tear—but there too it’s like that! If you study carefully, even in the physical world no two people see things in exactly the same way. There, it may be more pronounced, but it seems to be a similar phenomenon….
The explanation becomes very simple and very easy when you enter the consciousness in which it’s the material reality that becomes an illusion—it’s illusory, inexact: the inner reality is truer. Then, in that case, it’s simple. Maybe it’s only our mind that is astonished?
Take writing, for instance: I haven’t noticed in detail, but when you write over there, you seem to write much more easily…. I don’t know how to explain it … it takes much less time. And things are noted down on paper, but is it paper? It looks like paper, but things are noted down much more directly…. It’s perhaps the similarity, like when, for example, you use a fountain pen or a pencil: it’s not exactly a fountain pen or a pencil, it’s something that looks like it and is … (what should I say?) the prototype or principle of that object. But what I mean is that if we were still at the time of the quill or the twig that you dip into ink, I would probably see it like that!… It’s the ESSENCE or principle of the thing, which in the memory, is translated as a similarity.
But it’s an action. I am aware of the time only when I return, because I have made it a habit to look at the time when I come back to the material consciousness (there is a watch beside my bed and I look at it), and that’s how I can say, “It lasted an hour” or “It lasted two hours.” But there, you don’t have the sense of time at all, it’s not the same sense at all—what matters is the CONTENT of the action, and during those hours, many, many things are done, so many. I meet you very regularly, but many others too, and I am at many places at the same time! And when someone tells me, “Oh, I saw you last night, you did this and that,” then somewhere up above I say, “Oh, it’s true indeed.” There’s a tiny (same gesture of twist), tiny little difference, but the essence of the thing is the same.
And I have noticed that with those things that are very close to the physical, if you wake up abruptly, and especially if you move upon waking, or if you stir or turn over, they go away. It’s only if later I have a very quiet moment and go within myself that I can slowly make contact again with that state. Therefore I am not surprised that most people don’t remember. Experiences in the vital, in the mind, are much more easily remembered, but that, that which is very close to the physical …
And its character is such that if you kept the consciousness of it when you woke up, you’d look a little mad. I had that experience two days ago, and it taught me a lot—I looked, studied and studied until I had understood. It was during the afternoon rest (I don’t sleep at all in the afternoon, but just enter the inner consciousness), and I had decided beforehand that I would “wake up,” that is, get up, at such and such a time. When the time came, I was still very much in my action and it went on, the state of consciousness went on with open eyes; and in that state of consciousness there was … (I can’t say “I” because it’s not the same “I,” you understand; at such times I am many people), but the “I” of that moment was in the habit (not here materially but “up there”) of wearing a gold watch (gesture to the wrist) and had forgotten to put that watch on; and looked and noticed it: “Ah, I forgot to put my watch on, what’s happened to it? Why did I forget?” Like that. So then, when I woke up (I don’t wear any watch here, as you know), when I came back, the two consciousnesses were simultaneous, and I said aloud, “Where is my watch? I forgot to put my watch on.” And it’s only when I had said that (laughing) that I realized! So it left me thinking, I studied carefully, looked carefully, and clearly saw that at that moment the two consciousnesses were absolutely (Mother closely superposes her two hands), but absolutely simultaneous.
It’s very interesting. Oh, all kinds of problems have been solved with that experience. For instance, the problem of many people who are called mad, and who are simply in that subtle consciousness (same superposed gesture): at certain times it prevails, which makes them say things that are meaningless here but have a very clear meaning over there, and so the consciousness is like this (superposed gesture, almost merged). That explains many cases of so-called madness. Certain cases of apparent insincerity are also like that, because the consciousness sees clearly in that region, and that region is so close that you can give things the same names (they seem to have the same shapes or very similar ones), but it’s not what is conventionally called here “tangible reality”: materially, outwardly, things aren’t exactly like that. And so, there are cases of so-called insincerity that are simply too close a mingling of the two consciousnesses—too close for an active discernment.
Oh, a whole region has been clarified, and not only clarified but with the key to the cure or the transformation. From the psychological, internal point of view, it has explained a great deal of things—a great deal. It brings down considerably the number of cases of real mental derangement and cases of real lies, that is, the cases when one deliberately and consciously says the contrary of what is—that must not be as frequent as we think. Many people say incorrect things like that (floating gesture), but they have perceptions in another world than the purely material world, with too close a mingling and without sufficient discernment to be aware of the mingling…. Sri Aurobindo used to say that real bad will, real hostility and real falsehood are fairly rare cases (“real” in the sense of absolute in themselves, and conscious, deliberate—deliberate, absolute, conscious); that’s rare. And that, he said, is what is described as hostile beings. But all the rest is a sort of illusion of the consciousness, consciousnesses that interfere with one another (Mother intertwines the fingers of her two hands in a to and fro movement), but without a precise discernment between the different consciousnesses, which are like this (same gesture), intermingled, each going in and out of the other.
(silence)
So the result has been to see the immensity of the problem to be solved, of the path to be followed, and of the transformation to be worked out…. When you look at it from the purely psychological standpoint, it’s relatively easy and swift, but when you come down to this (Mother touches her body), to the outer form and so-called matter, oh, it’s a whole world! Each lesson … it’s as if you were given lessons, and it’s so interesting! Lessons with all the consequences and explanations. You spend one day or two days like that over a tiny little discovery. And you see that after that, after that day or those hours of work, there is a change in the body consciousness: the light is there, it’s changed—changed, the reactions are not the same. But … (Mother gestures to express a world of toil).
And the Presence—the Presence becomes more and more intimate, more and more concrete, and at such times … at times (Mother makes a gesture like a swelling) it’s so concrete as to be as if absolute. Then (gesture of being covered again) another state of consciousness comes and everything has to begin all over again.
Interesting.
And it’s so clearly to teach you … High-sounding words, great attitudes, remarkable experiences are all very fine up above, but here … nothing spectacular—everything is very modest, very quiet, very unassuming. Very modest. And that’s the condition for progress, the condition for the transformation.
There, mon petit.
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