There is obviously a will to abolish the sense of time, because … It’s very interesting, there are all kinds of experiences like that. I have work that would normally take thirty-six hours out of twenty-four, so naturally, I get later and later every day: I go to bed later and later, and I have to do the night’s work, so sometimes I am late in the morning, at times I’ve been as much as one hour late. Then in the morning, with a certain concentration, in half an hour I do what would normally take me an hour. I have learned a lot in that respect.
Now, at this time (10:45 A.M.), I can see that the only fatigue is the sense of being late, otherwise one can work indefinitely. There is something to be learned. I mention it to you because it’s just occurred to me: it occurs to me that the purpose is to find the key to the mastery over time; not to be regular, but to do everything over a more or less longer or shorter time, in a contracted or expanded time—so time loses its concrete reality.
For me it would be very easy. The difficulty is all the people, all those around me, whose life (laughing) is like this (chaotic gesture), without meaning. It looks incoherent. I can’t tell someone, “I’ll see you at such and such time,” because that’s not true! I don’t know at what time I’ll see him. And so, as people are used to eating, sleeping, working at regular hours and all that is regulated, it causes a dreadful confusion—but what’s to be done?
It’s not easy. When you are alone, it doesn’t matter, but when you are with many, many people, it’s very difficult.
There is the sense of the elasticity of time, which is to say that it has no concrete reality; what gives it a concrete reality is human organization…. That would leave only the sun, but for the moment it’s not a big disturbance because what I do doesn’t need daylight; you can rest at any time and work at any time, but a life organized such as it is…? I don’t know.
Something has to be found.
But the thing to be found is perhaps to be able to shorten sleep and remove fatigue.
That’s not enough. It’s not enough, because it’s an experiment I have tried: I was able to rest for only two hours at night, and it was absolutely useless—absolutely. The more time you have, the more work you get.
True!
But it’s a sort of feat, something meant to abolish all that’s regarded as the normal and natural rules. So there.
That’s not to explain to you why I was late, because I did try to be on time! That’s not the reason, it’s not that I let myself go like that, not at all; but there is a will certainly far more effective than mine.
(Then Mother gives flowers)
This is “Divine Purity.”1 What does “Divine Purity” mean? … It means that the Divine receives the divine influence alone!… I understand! Or else, the individual receives nothing but the divine influence—here, mon petit. (Mother gives the flower)
***
Soon afterwards
Then, did I tell you about the message for February 21? No? Wasn’t it with you that it came?…
It’s meant to break formulae, you know, thought formulae, mental categories, and it’s not my fault (I mean I didn’t do it deliberately). It came like that (Mother reads her message):
“The best way to hasten the manifestation of the Divine’s Love is to collaborate for the triumph of the Truth.”
So to the superficial mind … On our part, we know it’s true because, as Sri Aurobindo said, the Truth has to be truly established and to reign for Divine Love to be able to manifest in all its power and glory without … without demolishing everything. Sri Aurobindo put it even more strongly, he said it would “destroy” everything.
So that’s the message I am going to give.
***
Then Mother reverts to the beginning of the conversation:
Oh, the correspondence has become something fantastic! Twenty-four, twenty-six, thirty, sometimes forty letters a day. So naturally, try as I may … When it’s just a line, it’s all right, but I can barely reply to eight or ten a day: I have only an hour and a half, that’s not much—not even that much! No, no, the “hour” is too much: I have half an hour! But I extend it: I have from 7 to 7:30 in the evening, but every day I extend it till 8. Dinner is supposedly at 7: 30, I take it at 8. Supposedly too, I go to bed at 9:30 and get up at 4:30, but when I went to bed last night it was almost 11—10:30 is frequent, which means an hour late. So from time to time I get up late. You understand, between about 1 and 2 A.M. (around 12:30, 1, or 2), I complete the first stage of concentration to give the body a good rest; after that I start working, and before working, a little concentration so that whatever the work, I should be back at 4:30; but sometimes it’s later sometimes it’s 4:45. Then, afterwards, I have a certain time in the morning for washing and dressing, and that’s when there have been really interesting experiences: with a certain concentration (which has nothing to do with willpower or anything of the kind: it’s a concentration, a certain type of concentration and making contact with the Presence—and the sense of the relativity, the very considerable relativity of material time), with an intensity of concentration, you can do the same thing much faster. I eventually found out that simply by concentration you can reduce the time by more than half. And you do things in exactly the same way, but they don’t take time—how?… Well, the secrets haven’t been revealed yet. But the phenomenon exists.
The same principle is at work (it’s not a “principle,” it’s a way of doing or a way of being), is at work for all things: with fatigue, the onset of illness, that is, the cause of the illness (the internal disorder or the receptivity to the disorder from outside), it works also in the same way. If you add to it the intensity of faith or adoration, then it’s much easier, but it works in the same way. So what exactly takes place? To the inner perception, the perception of the consciousness, it is a sort of principle of disorder—a principle, almost a taste for disorder, I don’t know, it’s between a habit and a preference for disorder—which gets replaced by … yes (to be as general as possible), by a vibration of harmony. But that vibration of harmony is full of light, of sweetness, of … warmth, intensity, and so wonderfully CALM! So when “that” takes the place of the other, then all that belongs to the world of disorder is dissolved. AND the rigidity of time disappears.2 Time … perhaps we could say (it’s just a way of speaking), we could say that time is replaced by a succession … (Mother remains absorbed for a long time).
And that belongs specifically to the material world.
I take the simplest and most concrete things like, for instance, brushing one’s teeth; it’s extremely flexible and things are done, not out of habit but by a sort of choice based on personal experience and routine, so there is no necessity for a special concentration (the real purpose of routine is to avoid the need for a special concentration: things can be done almost automatically). But that automatism is very flexible, very plastic, because depending, as I said, on the intensity of the concentration, the time varies—the time varies: you can (you can know by looking at your watch before and after), you can certainly reduce the time by more than half, yet things are done in exactly the same way. That’s right: you don’t do away with anything, you do everything in the same way. To make sure, you can, for instance, count the number of times you brush your teeth or the number of times you rinse your mouth—I am DELIBERATELY taking the most banal thing, because in other activities there is a natural suppleness that allows you to spread yourself and concentrate (and so it’s easier to understand with such things). But it works in the same way with the most concrete and banal things too. And there isn’t any “Oh, I won’t do this today” or “I am neglecting that”—there’s none of that, nothing at all: everything is done in the same way, BUT with a sort of concentration and constant call—the constant call is always there. The constant call which might find a material expression in saying the mantra, but it’s not even that: it’s the SENSE, the sense of the call, of the aspiration—it’s above all a call. A call. You know, when the mind wants to make sentences, it says, “Lord, take possession of Your kingdom.” For certain things, I remember, when there are certain disorders, something wrong (and with the perception of a consciousness that has become very sharp, you can see when that disorder is the natural origin of an illness, for example, or of something very serious), with the call, the concentration and the response … [the disorder is dissolved]. It’s almost a surrender, because it’s an uncalculating self-giving: the damaged spot opens to the Influence, not with an idea of getting cured, but like this (gesture like a flower opening out), simply like this, unconditionally—that is the most potent gesture.
But the interesting part is that formulating it in words makes it sound artificial—it’s much more sincere, much truer, much more spontaneous than anything expressed or expressible by the mind. No formula can render the sincerity—simplicity, sincerity, spontaneity, something uncalculating—of the material movement. There was a time when expressing or formulating caused a very unpleasant sensation, like putting something artificial on something spontaneously true; and that unpleasantness was cured only, to begin with, by a higher knowledge that all that is formulated must be surpassed. For instance, every experience expressed or described CALLS FOR a new progress, a new experience. In other words, it hastens the movement. That has been a consolation, because in fact, with the old sensation of something very stable and solid and immobile because of inertia (a past inertia, which is now being transformed but has left marks), because of that inertia there is a tendency to prefer things to be solid; so there is a thrill at being forced to … “No, no! No rest, no halt, go on!”—farther and farther and farther on … When an experience has been very fruitful and highly pleasant, let us say, when it’s had a great force and a great effect, the first movement is to say, “We won’t talk about that, we’ll keep it.” Then after comes, “We’ll say it in order to go farther on”—to go farther on, ever farther, ever farther….
There is a stability in the resolve and in the aspiration, a stability that can be found nowhere as much as here (Mother strikes the ground). That’s a characteristic of Matter. And you know, when it has given itself and has faith, it becomes so stable, so constant, and … the joy, that sort of widening, of luminous expansion—it becomes such a perpetual need that in no other part of the being has it ever been like that. It’s something ESTABLISHED. And established effortlessly, established spontaneously, naturally, normally. So we can foresee that when this Matter will become truly divine—truly divine—its manifestation will be infinitely more complete, more perfect in the details, and more stable than anywhere else.
***
(Towards the end, Mother takes up the English translation of her message of February 21, and hesitates over a turn of phrase:)
I’ve noticed that if you ask an Englishman today, they are much more supple than those who learned English in Victorian times, which was a much more rigid English.
Generally I only have to listen, and Sri Aurobindo speaks to me…. Sri Aurobindo’s English was very supple; purists used to argue over certain formulations, and I remember, about certain criticisms he would tell me, “But that’s because they don’t understand! If I put it this way, it means one thing, and if I put it that way, it means something else. And if I move one word to another place in my sentence, it changes the meaning.” He was very exact.
If you take little words like this one (Mother hesitated between “collaborate to the triumph of the Truth” and “collaborate for”), there is a subtle difference in meaning whether you use one or the other. And the classic formula generally gives the more banal meaning, the more ordinary, the more superficial.
Lobelia longiflora. ↩
It is quite noteworthy that the same principle is at work for the rigidity of time as well as for illnesses. ↩
***
December 16, 1967
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