No, the feeling is that unless something miraculous happens in the way men understand it, well, it will take many centuries.
But you never expected it not to take any time!?
Evidently not.
But I never believed, I never believed it could come quickly. First of all, if one tries, as I do, with one’s own body, to see the difference between matter as it is, its constitution as it is, and … well, and what we can conceive of as a divine existence—“divine,” that is, not tied down every second to the darkness of a nearly unconscious matter…. How long will it take? How long did it take to change the stone into the plant, the plant into the animal, the animal…? We don’t know, but the way things are going … Now that they are so smart in calculating, when do they reckon the earth was formed? How many billions of years ago?1 All that time just to be where we are.
Naturally, the farther we go, the faster things move, that’s understood, but fast … How fast?
If the process is to be “natural,” well, it will take an eternity.
No! It’s not a question of natural. Nature has organized things progressively for the manifestation of consciousness, which means that the whole work has been to prepare the Inconscient in such a way that it may become conscious. Now, of course, the consciousness is there at least to a great extent; so things are moving much faster, that is, the greater part of the work is done. But still, as I said, when you see to what extent we are bound to Unconsciousness, to a semi-vague consciousness, and how those who don’t know still feel “fatality,” “fate,” what they call “Nature” and all that dominates and governs them, well, for the final change to take place, all that must become fully conscious, and not merely in the mental way—that’s not enough—but in the divine way! So, much remains to be done.
That’s precisely what I see every day with this poor little body and everything around it (seething gesture), all this substance, oh … nothing but illnesses, miseries, disorders, oh! All that has nothing to do with the Divine! An unconscious mass.
You mean, unless something comes and changes that BY FORCE?
Yes.
But Sri Aurobindo said (I read it two days ago, I don’t know where he wrote it because it was a quotation) that if the divine Consciousness, the divine Power, the divine Love, the Truth, were to manifest on earth too rapidly, the earth would be dissolved! It couldn’t bear it … brrf!
I am interpreting, but there’s the idea!
Well, maybe not the high divine dose, but a small divine dose!
(Mother laughs) The small dose is always there, there’s always a small dose! Even a rather strong dose, and if one looks at That one feels a sense of marvel. And it’s precisely because of That that one still sees … how things are.
You know, not a day passes without the observation that, not a dose, but a tiny little drop, an infinitesimal drop of That can cure you in a minute (“it can,” it CURES you, it’s not that “it can”), that you are constantly in precarious balance and the slightest faltering means disorder and the end, while just a drop of That … and it becomes light and progress. The two extremes. The two extremes side by side.
It’s something one observes at least several times a day.
Naturally, if the purpose of this instrument (Mother) were to observe, explain, describe, it could speak marvels, but you see … I think … I don’t know, but it seems to be the first time that the instrument, instead of being made to bring the “News,” the “Revelation,” to give a flash of light, was made … to try and realize: to do the work, the obscure task. So it observes, but it doesn’t go blissfully into the joy of observation, and it is forced to see at each minute how much work, IN SPITE OF THAT, remains to be done!… And so it won’t be able to rejoice until the work is done—what does “the work is done” mean? Something is ESTABLISHED. This divine Presence, this divine Consciousness, this divine Truth manifests like that, in flashes, and then … everything goes along in its own sweet way—there is a change, but an imperceptible one. Well, for it (the body), it’s all very well, I suppose that’s what gives it heart and a kind of smiling peace despite the result being quite unsatisfying; but that can’t satisfy it, it will only be satisfied … when the thing is done, that is, when what is now a revelation—a dazzling but short-lived revelation—becomes an established fact; when there really will be divine bodies, divine beings who will deal with the world in a divine way. Then … then it will say, yes, that’s it, but not before. Well, I don’t think that can be for right now.
Because I see, I clearly see what is now at work…. I told you, there are things which, yes, if I were destined to speak and explain and prophesy, we could build a whole teaching—with just ONE of those experiences, and I have at least several of them every day. But it’s useless, of course, I know that!
It’s not impatience, it’s not even a lack of satisfaction, it’s not that at all, it is … a Force, a Will advancing step by step, which won’t stop to discourse and take pleasure in what has been done.
(silence)
Is there somewhere on earth a really divine being, that is to say, not ruled by any law of Unconsciousness?… It seems to me we’d know it. If he existed and I didn’t know it, I would have to tell myself that, if that is the case, I must have a really great insincerity somewhere.
To tell the truth, it’s not a question I ask myself.
In all those who are known, all those who have taken the stand of “revealers of the new world” or “realizers of the new life,” in all of them the proportion of inconscient is still far larger than mine, so … But that’s only what is publicly known: is there somewhere a being unknown to all? … I would be surprised if there were no communication. I don’t know.
There are many, many of them you know, a whole crop of new Christs, Kalkis,2 supermen, ooh! so many of them, but generally, communication is made somehow or other, at any rate their existence is known; well, among them, among all those with whom I have been in contact either invisibly or visibly, there isn’t one who has … (how should I put it?) less inconscient than there is in this body—but I acknowledge there is a lot, oh!
What I don’t see is the process to break out of this inertia or unconsciousness.
Process, what process? The process of transformation?
Yes, it is said that the consciousness must act to awaken all this …
But that’s what it’s doing!
Yes, it’s doing it, but …
It never stops doing it!
I tell you, the response is like this: there is a sudden perception (oh, all these things are very subtle, very subtle—but precisely, for the consciousness they are very concrete), the perception of a sort of disorganization, like a current of disorganization; at first the substance making up the body feels it, then it sees the effect, then everything starts being disorganized: that disorganization is what prevents the cohesion necessary for the cells to constitute an individual body, so then you know, “Ah (gesture of dissolution), it’ll be the end.” Then the cells aspire, there is a sort of central consciousness of the body which aspires intensely, with as complete a surrender as it can make: “Your Will, Lord, Your Will, Your Will….” Then there is a kind of … not something thunderous, not a dazzling flash, but a sort of … well, the impression is of a densification of that current of disorganization; and then something comes to a halt: first there is a peace, then a light, then Harmony—and the disorder has vanished. And once the disorder has vanished, there is instantly IN THE CELLS a sense of living eternity, of living for eternity.
Well, that experience, such as I’ve told you, with the whole intensity of concrete reality, occurs not only daily, but several times a day. At times it’s very severe, that is, like a mass; at other times, it’s only like something that touches; then, in the body consciousness, it’s expressed like this, with a sort of thanksgiving: one more progress made over Unconsciousness. But those aren’t thunderous events, the human neighbour isn’t even aware of them; he may note a sort of cessation in the outward activity, a concentration, but that’s all.3 So of course, you don’t talk about it, you can’t write books about it, you don’t do propaganda…. That’s how the work goes.
None of the mental aspirations are satisfied with that.
It’s a very obscure work.
(Mother goes into a long contemplation)
There were two tall candles, like this, and three small ones, all lit…. What could it mean? All five were burning. What can it mean? I don’t know. Two were tall like this, burning, and it was all in a colour … neither red nor yellow, it was orangey, but transparent, and they were like candles burning between us.
Two tall ones and three small ones. I don’t know what it signifies.
They were burning slowly, like this (still gesture), without any air current, very quietly.
It remained for a long time.
(long silence)
One or two days ago, I don’t know, there was a sort of general vision of this striving of the earth towards its divinization, and someone seemed to be saying (not “someone”: it was the witness-consciousness, the consciousness observing, but it gets formulated in words—very often it’s formulated in English and I have a kind of impression that it is Sri Aurobindo, his active consciousness, but sometimes it gets translated into words only in my consciousness), and these last few days, it was something saying, “Yes, the time of proclamations, the time of revelations is past—now, on to action.”
Proclamations, revelations, prophecies, all that is after all very comfortable, it gives a sense of something “concrete”; now it’s very obscure, there is a sense that it’s very obscure, invisible (it will be visible only in results far, far ahead), and not understood.
Not understood, of course…. Someone, C., wanted to translate Notes on the Way and A Propos into Hindi, in one volume. He spoke to R. about it, and R. wrote to me, “People don’t understand anything,” and he feels “the human language is unfit to express that, so how will it turn out in a translation?—A platitude. It would be better to wait.” I fully agree, I told him it would be better to wait. But it gave me the exact measure. Because R. and C. are people who are expected to understand, and they clearly don’t understand anything. And then, Nolini was there, I gave him the letter to read, and he said, “Oh, yes!”—For him too it’s the same thing, he hasn’t understood! So it’s general. Because many people quote to me what I have said, or experiences they’ve had, explanations they give “in accordance with” those Notes on the Way, and every time I see that they haven’t understood ANYTHING.
So it seems to me to be a general incomprehension.
(silence)
It belongs to a region which isn’t yet ready to be explained, manifested in words.
It’s obvious, I see it clearly, you know: it’s because they are all quite nice and full of respect that they don’t allow their mind to say, “This is drivel,” but for them it belongs to the incomprehensible.
And in fact, insofar as it’s truly new, it is incomprehensible. What I say doesn’t correspond to a lived experience in the one who reads.
I see clearly, so clearly the little work, like this (gesture of reversal), which would turn the thing into a prophetic revelation! A little work, a slight reversal in the mind—the experience is wholly outside the mind, so what can be said about it is… (Mother shakes her head). Precisely because it’s not mental, it’s nearly incomprehensible, and for it all to become (oh, it’s visible), for it all to become accessible, it would take just (same gesture) a slight reversal in the mind, and then it would become prophetic. But that … isn’t possible. It would lose its truth.
Well, it’s on the way.
Four and a half billion years ago, they say. ↩
The last Avatar, in Hindu tradition. ↩
At such times, Mother would become white and could often be seen placing the palms of her hands over her eyes. ↩
***
November 10, 1967
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