(Sujata gives Mother a flower called "New Birth.")
[Origanum Majorana.]
(To Satprem) Tell me, what is a new birth?
Being radically different.
(After a silence) Becoming new at each moment.
This morning again, for, oh, more than two hours, a completely new person. And each time, with the work, the contact with the world … [it fades away]. But it doesn’t come back quite the same, something is gone. For two hours this morning, it was still more than the other day, but not the same thing—never the same thing, never the same experience twice.
But it was … At one point I thought of you and said to myself if he were here and could note this down, it would be interesting….
***
(Mother goes and sits at her table, then laughs at the improbable accumulation of objects on it—precariously balanced packets, stocks of envelopes, paper, pens….)
Here everything is arranged: if you have the slightest unconscious gesture, it means disaster! There are little beings that have been assigned to keeping watch, and that’s the funniest of all: if you have an unconscious movement like that, they snatch the thing you are holding from you and send it flying far away! It has happened to me countless times. In my case, of course, I just laugh, I know what’s going on: they take the thing and poff! send it flying through the air as if you had made a violent gesture. It happens constantly. This table has been PURPOSELY arranged for that—it wasn’t me who arranged it: I was MADE to arrange it. And that’s how it is: if you make an unconscious gesture, something tumbles down—naturally! (Mother points to the piles of envelopes)
Your table is alarming!
Yes, but each thing has its purpose and its usefulness.
I also have deities (Mother catches hold of three bronze statuettes, immersed with some others under a flood of papers): this is a standing Ganesh; this is Garuda, Vishnu’s attendant; and this is Shiva’s bull. And there (a little farther on the table), I keep three Ganeshas: a tiny little silver Ganesh, between the legs of this deity (a modern-looking one), then another Ganesh, I don’t know what it’s made of, and finally a bronze Ganesh. And in there (Mother points to a drawer in which she keeps money), I have three other Ganeshas: a bronze one, a silver one and a gold one! It’s because he promised me that he would give me all the money I need, so this way (laughing) he can’t say I forget him (or his promise either!).
This particular Ganesh (on the table) was given to me by a little boy maybe two and a half years old. When that little boy was a few months old and till the age of one, his mother always brought him to me and he would cry and scream and make scenes—the parents were desperate. Each time I would tell them, “Don’t worry, all will be well, we’ll be very good friends. Then the parents would look at me in disbelief. Now he is two and half or three, and as soon as he is in the stairway, waiting—“Mother, Mother, Mother!…” (or “Ma,” I don’t know). But when he comes in (he is the first of the family to enter the room), he comes with a flower; and it was he who gave me this Ganesh, but with such consciousness! He is wonderful. Yesterday, he was absolutely exquisite: he comes in first, so self-assured, so joyful, then gestures to me as if to say, “Everything is just fine, don’t worry!” And I speak to him—he doesn’t understand a thing of what I say, but he approves gravely. Absolutely exquisite.
There is great progress among children.
***
(Soon afterwards, concerning the “Durga puja” or festival and ceremony to the Universal Mother, which had taken place this same morning.)
This morning I had a visit from Durga. She pays me a visit every year, but this morning it was interesting because she explained to me her point of view, how she feels existence, and at the same time…. You know that she came last year, I told you the story. (Previously, when I used to go downstairs to give darshan, she would not only come but stay there for the whole time.) But when she came last year I told her, “Very good, it’s very good, you fulfil your universal function very well, but you are missing something….” And I explained to her what it means to be in conscious and attentive contact with the Supreme Will and she understood. She understood and adhered, she said yes. And during the year she must have tried, because when she returned this morning, there was really a difference, especially a difference in the understanding, and she explained it to me. Then I spoke to her about the physical human nature and its infirmity, and she told me, “There is in this body something we—all of us up above—do not have and cannot have: the possibility of a constant Presence and of a constant contact with the Divine.” She had never thought of it before! It is since last year And she said it with such intensity—such intensity and understanding and meaning…. It was as though all human miseries immediately disappeared in front of this EXTRAORDINARY thing—that one could feel the divine Presence in each cell.
It was really interesting. The morning was really interesting.
She stayed here while I was bathing, and she told me, “See, you can do all this, and not for a minute, not for a second do you lose the contact with That, with the supreme wonder. And we who are full of power, and of … without any of your petty miseries, any of your petty difficulties, we are so used to our way of being that we don’t see the value of it, it’s something obvious, almost inevitable.” And she said (Mother smiles), “We never think of the Divine, because we ARE the Divine…. So there isn’t that will to progress, that thirst for ever better, ever more—we totally lack it.”
It was really interesting. I am putting it into words (of course, she didn’t speak to me in French!), but it was very simple, the contact was very simple (gesture of inner exchange), and very natural, very spontaneous. At one point I even asked her (laughing), “Do you enjoy all this worship people give you?” She said no. “No, I don’t care.” She is too used to it, she doesn’t care.
***
Later, on the subject of Auroville
I met Y. They’re preparing an issue on Auroville, and she came with a list of questions this long (gesture), saying, “I don’t know Auroville’s sociology too well.” I told her (laughing), “Neither do I!” Then she asked me questions (very intelligent ones, mind you), and I answered her. But there was one thing about the selection of people and admissions to Auroville … I told her that naturally, the essential condition to be able to select people was that preferences, attractions and repulsions, likes and dislikes, all moral rules, all of that must have completely disappeared—not that one should be on the way to overcoming it, it’s not that: it must have disappeared (laughing), there must be no more ego! Then I told her, “It’s not a judgment, it’s not that you look at people and judge whether they are fit to be there or not, if they are destined to be there or not, it’s not that at all—you don’t ‘judge’….” And after she left, I noted the end of the thing (Mother takes a note and reads):
“The Force is put on all, identical and supreme …
The Force is identical for all (uniform gesture all over the earth) and supreme, that is … well, it means supreme, like this (same even, spreading gesture). Whoever they are, whatever their attitude, the Force is put on all identically—and THEY are the ones who classify themselves; it’s not that you decide that such and such person goes here or there or there: they classify THEMSELVES according to …
“… And everyone classifies himself, by himself, according to his own receptivity and the quality of that receptivity—or else his refusal or incapacity.”
All degrees are there, of course. When it’s refusal or incapacity, then the person HIMSELF flees, saying, “They’re fools, they are trying to do something impossible and unrealizable.” (I know many such people, they think they have superior intelligence.) But even to place themselves, it’s they themselves who do it…. She came with the idea of a hierarchy. I said yes, everything is always according to hierarchy, especially all conscious individuals, but there is no arbitrary will that classes them: it’s the people themselves who spontaneously take their place without knowing it, the place they must have. It’s not, I told her, it’s not a decision, we don’t want categories: this category, that category, and so this person will go here, that person will go there—all that I said, is mental constructions, it’s worthless!” The true thing is that NATURALLY, according to his receptivity, his capacity, his inner mission, everyone takes up the post which in the hierarchy he truly and spontaneously occupies, spontaneously without any decision.
What can be done to facilitate the organization is a sort of plan or general map, so that everyone need not build his position but will find it all ready for him—that’s all.
It was amusing, but very interesting.
(Mother gives her note to the disciple) But water from the flowers fell on it, so it’s half erased!
The danger with all those people is that they want to codify things.
Oh, they want to build a mental construction, like that, square like a prison, it’s awful.
But you know … when she comes, she is very nice, very kind, very receptive and open, and quite ready to receive and listen, at least in her outer attitude, but it seems she has a “group” over there, and in that group … (I heard it through some sincere people who went there) it’s terrible! Harsh judgments, you know. And a crushing superiority.
It’s a pity.
I also heard (she didn’t say anything to me or show anything), but anyway I heard that the Bulletin is old hat.
That came to me.
Ah?
And strangely, it came to me as coming from Y.
Well, well!
The very words you used. I don’t know why, one morning something said, “Oh, the Bulletin is old hat.” And it was as if Y. was on the line. It’s funny.
(Mother remains silent) Sri Aurobindo is already “the past”!
She goes fast!
But I know that, because I got a letter from her which gave a hint of it. She said that the Mother in her four Aspects, as in Sri Aurobindo’s book, was “all very well for today’s creation” (let’s not yet say “yesterday’s”, let’s say “today’s”!), “but for tomorrow’s creation, there must be the Mother’s aspect of Love, which hasn’t yet manifested.” And it was put very cleverly, but in such a way it was impossible not to understand that it was this lady who was to manifest That….
As for me, I said, “Very well!” (Mother laughs) I said, “What the Lord wants will be.” But since then, I have been treating her as … (what should I say?) more than an equal—as a superior, and with assertions … that are crushing for her. And I never miss an opportunity to tell her that in order to do this or that, or to manifest That or … one must SPONTANEOUSLY AND DEFINITIVELY be above all desires, all ambitions, all preferences—every time, like this (Mother makes a hammering gesture).
Nothing in her apparently budges, but… Very well (laughing), if she stands the “test,” we’ll see.
There is something very hard in her.
Hard, yes, very hard—merciless.
She is like the caricature of something else.
Exactly that.
(silence)
She brought me a little poem in French on “The Beloved and His Beloved” (all that up above), which, I must say, was very pretty. So she read it to me, and when it was over I told her, “But Love—this Beloved and his Beloved—is not a person, these are not persons; they are not human beings, not even symbolic human beings….” And at that point something opened up above, and I told her what it was.
She was gripped at the throat so strongly that afterwards I almost lost my voice.
We’ll see. Everyone can change, no? I give her her FULL chance.
You know, it’s so wonderful, in fact…. Where That manifests doesn’t matter in the least; whether It manifests here, there, or there, doesn’t matter in the least, it’s always the same thing manifesting everywhere. And wherever That chooses to manifest, which is where That must necessarily best manifest, there That manifests. The only thing—the only thing—is not to allow illusion and deceit to mix in, to hold them ruthlessly in their place, otherwise … None of the ego’s mischief—we don’t want any of it; because it’s petty, mean, stupid, useless and a waste of time, and because it causes unnecessary turmoil in the atmosphere. But apart from that … whether That manifests here or there or there …
(silence)
Some people are completely taken by Y. But there are others who are conscious and went to her group once never to set foot there again.
From the start I’ve had a sense of recoil from her…. The ego’s hardness, that’s it.
Yes, with a wholly benevolent mask.
Very interesting.
(long silence)
But the gods have a divine ego. That’s what was really interesting this morning…. They feel they exist in themselves, by themselves, for themselves (Mother clenches her fist). Only, of course, there’s no comparison with the sordidness of the human ego.
But that’s what was so interesting this morning…. Once these divine egos have abdicated, and depending on the extent of that abdication, it will mean an EXTRAORDINARY transformation in the creation. It was like a vision being worked out slowly (Mother closes her eyes), almost with images, as if you saw the entire earth (gesture like a hall) and the image of Durga (gesture enveloping the earth), and the two together, it was quite lovely.
The earth in her arms …
(silence, with eyes closed)
And in those visions (let’s take this one, for instance), Durga has a visible, defined form, while this body (Mother’s) isn’t there because this body belongs here, on earth; so it’s a radiating centre of white light that can take a form (but doesn’t have a form), a radiance of light, a vibration of light, of consciousness—of conscious light. And that’s very interesting…. (Mother remains with her eyes closed) It was as if to see how this—this consciousness, this light—can manifest in feasible forms on earth without losing something of the purity and radiance of the consciousness….
(Mother goes into a long contemplation)
There was there (gesture between Mother and the disciple), like that, one of those kinds of lamp stands, like the ones they make with snakes, you know—but it was high, this high (gesture about one metre fifty centimetres). It was in copper, with inlays, designs in it, and at the top was a ball that contained all the lights, as if each snake’s head was a light—it was magnificent! Really magnificent. And it was burning. There were “Power” flowers (red hibiscus) forming garlands around the base. And then, someone said, “Isn’t this more beautiful than material reality?…”
And that was the artistic construction—mental, artistic—which was “more beautiful than reality.” That’s it, the guiding idea of the person in question. That’s it you see; “Isn’t this more beautiful than real nature?” There.
It was very beautiful, a beautiful thing, but … it’s the mental fossilization of the Thing. It was very interesting—unexpected, I didn’t expect to see that: a shape of a coiled snake, in bronze, with bronze inlays, but magnificently wrought! And the burning lamps, the burning light … superior to reality: “Isn’t this superior?”
And the symbol of it was so clear to me that I was astounded.
It is, so to speak, the acme of mental evolution.
(silence)
The Lord makes use of everything, and He has no fear. He makes use of everything.
It’s interesting, very interesting.
How He has used the gods, how He uses everything, how He has used the Adversaries … everything…. It’s all ways of being, and everything leads … where we must go.
***
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