Two nights ago, I spent more than three hours with Sri Aurobindo, and I showed him all that was going to descend for Auroville. It was rather interesting. There were games, there was art, there was even cooking! But all that was very symbolic. I explained it to him as if on a table, in front of a large landscape; I explained the principle on whose basis physical exercises and games were going to be organized. It was very clear, very precise, I even did a demonstration, as if showing him on a very small scale: a representation on a very small scale of what was going to be done. I moved people, things… (gesture as if on a chessboard). But it was very interesting, and he was interested: he gave kinds of broad laws of organization (I don’t know how to explain).
There was art and it was lovely, it was fine. And how to make houses pleasant and beautiful, with what principle of construction. And cooking too, it was very amusing! There were the different manners of presenting a dish; take a fish, for instance, with the different ways of preparing it, and everyone came with his own invention…. It went on for more than three hours (three hours of the night, that’s huge). I woke up at 4 o’clock with that (4 o’clock, and I had gone back to bed at I o’clock: I to 4 is three hours—I can still calculate!). Very interesting.
Yet the conditions on earth seem very far from all that….
No… It was just there, it didn’t seem “foreign” to the earth. It was a harmony A conscious harmony behind things: a conscious harmony behind physical exercises and games; a conscious harmony behind decoration and art; a conscious harmony behind food…
I mean that all this looks poles apart from what is now on earth.
Not…
No?
Today was Y’s birthday She came, and (smiling) started telling me that the latest scientific discoveries are “absolutely wonderful,” that they have found how thoughts are formed and travel from one person to another… (Mother laughs). I couldn’t help telling her, “Yes, that’s what yogis already knew!”
Well, indeed. Really!
And she also told me that animal psychology can lead us to the knowledge of the superman’s psychology.
Good.
There’s something true there…. But anyway, it’s…
It’s seen from below.
So I told her that the whole artistic, athletic, even culinary organizations, and all others, are ready in the subtle physical—ready to descend and incarnate-and I said, “All that is needed is a little soil (gesture in the hollow of the hand), a little soil to let the plant grow….” I said that to her, “I am telling you because we have to find a little soil to let it grow….” I don’t know if she understood!
(silence)
I don’t know if this perception is correct, but for several months I have felt that the earth has never been in such darkness. I have a sense of a tremendous darkness.
Yes, yes. But both are there. It’s true. A CONFUSION—it’s a confusion—a dark confusion, yes. A dark confusion, but that’s what Sri Aurobindo always said: the confusion becomes much more intense and dark just when the light is to come. That’s correct. It looks like a dark chaos. And especially in this country… terrible, oh, unbelievable things. It’s because serious people said them to me (they aren’t newspaper gossip) that I am obliged to believe them. There are really dreadful things going on in the government and in the organization—dreadful. Unbelievable. And the Chinese…
But Mother, do you know in the West, the influential books (not only influential, they’re read and devoured by all the young) are those of Mao Tse-tung?
Of…?
Mao Tse-tung.
What’s that?
…He’s the great Chinese, the great Chinese mandarin—Mao Tse-tung.
And what does he say, that man?
That man… says that “Power flows from the barrel of a gun.”
(Mother remains silent)
That’s what they read in the West. And the latest bestseller is a book titled something like “The Wretched,” which is an apology of violence: “Power must be seized through violence.” That’s what is successful in the West, what all the students are devouring.1
Oh, an apology of violence…
A gospel of violence.
That’s the vital in full swing.
Yes.
Ooh! That explains all the visions I’ve had. I thought… I put the blame on my body, thinking this poor body has an unfortunate atavism: constantly dreadful, frightful imaginations—but they weren’t imaginations, it was conscious of what was going on…. Oh!…
Oh, what you’re telling me is very interesting, because yesterday (these last few days, these last three days), faced with the horror of the perception of things, this body (which is quite the opposite of sentimental, it’s never, never been sentimental) started weeping…. It didn’t weep materially, but it was… And with an inner intensity, it said, “Oh, why does this world exist?” Like that, it was so… awful, sad, miserable… so miserable and… so horrible, you know, oh!… But it instantly gets the Response—not a response with words, it’s simply… like an immensity opening in the Light. Then, there’s nothing more to say.
But how can That, that immensity, become this?… I don’t know. The question is, “How did That become this?…” That’s how it came: “How could That, the Wonder, become this—this hideous, monstrous thing?”
But the process to change this back into That is what I don’t know… The process is… abdication (what word should we use?), self-giving (that’s not it). But the body felt everything, everything to be so… horrible. There was a very, very difficult day.2 And curiously, I knew at that time that it was the exact repetition of the experience Buddha Siddhartha had, and that it was IN this experience that he said, “There is only one way out: Nirvana.” And at the SAME TIME, I had the true state of consciousness: his solution and the true one. That was really interesting. How the Buddhistic solution is only ONE step taken on the path—one step. And BEYOND that (not on another path, but BEYOND that) is where the true solution lies. It was a decisive experience.
(long silence)
But what’s this creation?… You know, separation, then wickedness, cruelty (the thirst to cause harm, we might say), then suffering, again the joy of causing suffering, and then all disease, decomposition, death—destruction. (All that is part of a single thing.) What happened?… The experience I had was the UNREALITY of those things, as though we had stepped into an unreal falsehood, and when you step out of it, everything vanishes—it DOES NOT exist, it isn’t. That’s what is frightful! What to us is so real, so concrete, so dreadful, all that does not exist. It’s… stepping into Falsehood. Why? How? What?…
But never, never in this body’s whole, entire existence, not once—not once—has it felt such a… total and profound sorrow as on that day… Oh, something that made it… (Mother has a lump in her throat). And at the end of it all, Bliss. And then, pfft! it faded away, as if to say, “Not yet, not yet, the time hasn’t come yet.” But as if all this, which is so awful, did not exist.
After all, it’s probably… probably only on the earth (that I don’t know). It doesn’t seem to be like that, because for the moon, it’s very concretely a sense of devastation. Anyway, there’s nevertheless a very strong, very concrete sensation that what’s like that, in this Falsehood, is something limited. And unreal. And that we are all in Falsehood and Unreality—that’s why things are as they are. And the interesting point was that that escape into Nirvana wasn’t the solution, it was only a remedy—a remedy for a time (how can I explain? I don’t know)… a partial remedy. A partial and, we might almost say, momentary remedy.
So that’s a paroxysm at a certain point. Afterwards comes the long path: one must go on and on with the PROGRESSIVE work of transformation. Then, the next minute, there is what Sri Aurobindo called the supramental being. It’s like the transition from the one towards the other.
But how will all this change? I don’t know.
Yes, the other day, I had a perception (I don’t have the gift of vision), but such a concrete perception, that the earth was as if beneath a black cloak—what you call Falsehood or Illusion. It was something COVERING the earth.
Yes, yes.
I felt that, but very concretely: a black coat.
Yes, exactly.
Only, it would have to be pulled back FOR EVERYONE.
(After a silence) I can’t say (it’s inexpressible), it was something that contained horror, dread, sorrow—and a compassion, oh, intense!… Never, never had the body felt things like that. Besides, that put it in a rather… critical state for a few hours. Afterwards, it was as if everything, everything came—every single thing—with a Smile and a resplendent Light; as if (to put it into children’s words), as if the Lord were saying, “See, I am everywhere. See, I am in all things.” It was unbelievable—unbelievable…. But there’s no communication between the two.
You understand, that was when the body said, “What? Shall we have to go on and on with that? Must we… go on and on with that? The world, people, the whole creation—go on and on with that?…” It seemed… I suddenly understood: “Ah! That’s what they expressed as ‘perpetual hell’.” That’s it. It was someone who had that perception.
And all the methods—which we may call artificial, Nirvana included—all the methods to get out of it are worthless. Beginning with the fool who kills himself to “Put an end” to his life: that’s… of all stupidities, that one is the biggest, it makes his case still worse. From that up to Nirvana (where one imagines one can get out of it), all of it, all of it is worth NOTHING. Those are different stages, but they’re worth NOTHING. And then, after that, when you really have a sense of perpetual hell, all of a sudden… (nothing but a state of consciousness, it’s nothing but that), all of a sudden, a state of consciousness… in which all is light, splendor, beauty, happiness, goodness…. And all that is inexpressible. It comes like that: “Oh, here it is,” and then pfft! It shows itself, and hop! it’s gone. Then the Consciousness, which sees, imposes itself, and says, “Now, the next step.” So it’s in the presence of all this that the body had… never, never in its whole life had it felt such a sorrow, and even now… (Mother touches her heart).
Is this, is this the lever?… I don’t know. But salvation is PHYSICAL—not at all mental, but PHYSICAL. I mean it’s not in escape: it’s… HERE. That I felt very strongly.
But the body had a few very difficult hours. And to it, that’s always indifferent, it says, “All right,” it’s fully ready for dissolution or… There was no question of that; there was no question of that, the question was to… know how to receive the Cure. And what is the Cure like?—Inexpressible with our means.
But it’s not that it’s veiled or hidden or anything: it’s HERE. Why? What in the whole deprives you of the power to live THAT? I don’t know. It’s here, HERE! All the rest, including death and everything, really becomes a falsehood, that is to say, something that does not exist.
Yes, it’s a cloak that has to be drawn back.
If it were only that, it would be nothing!
No, I mean that all this Illusion is like a cloak to be drawn back off the earth.
Yes, that’s it. But of course, that’s it! But is it only off the earth? I don’t know… They’re going tip there to find out!
All I know, the impression I have, is that it’s concentrated here. The concentration is here, the work is here. But it may be… the whole solar system, I don’t know.
(silence)
But one can’t get out all alone.
Of course!… Mother, the other day you said something. You said, “The time has come to take one’s stand.” You said, “The body has taken its stand,” but you didn’t dare urge others to do it, and you added, “Now the time has come to take one’s stand.”
Yes, I think so.
But what do you mean by “taking one’s stand”?
This, the awareness the body now has that all this is unreal.
If you asked the body, it would say, “I don’t know if I am alive, I don’t know if I am dead.” Because that’s really how it is. For a few minutes it absolutely has the feeling of being dead; at other times, it has the feeling of being alive. The body is like that. And it feels that exclusively depends on… whether the Truth is perceived or not.
(silence)
What does it depend on?…
(silence)
According to what others say or write or experience, I have seen that what the vast majority of humanity fears the most is this perception of the Falsehood of it all, and all that leads to it. I know people (they’ve written to me) who just these last few days have had terrible frights, because all of a sudden they were forcibly seized, something was beginning to touch them: the perception of the unreality of life. So that shows the immensity of the path still ahead. Which means that any hope of a solution near at hand seems childishness. Unless… things take place differently.
If things must follow the movement they’ve followed till now… How many centuries and centuries and centuries there have been…. So the superman would only be one more stage, and after him there would be many other more things….
Every time I think of that, I always get the impression that the only solution is for you to have a glorified body, visible to all. Then everyone would come and see—come and see what the Divine is like!
(Mother laughs a lot) That would be quite convenient!
It would so much upset all their notions….
Yes, of course! That would be really convenient. Will it be like that?… That’s for sure, I wholly agree! And I would be very happy if it were anyone, I don’t have the least desire that it should be mine!
Come and see what the Divine is like!
Yes, what it’s like! (Mother laughs)
Oh, you should write that….
Write it, write that.
(Mother remains “gazing” for a long time, with an unbelievable expression. The clock strikes….
The book is The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon, whose central theme is "Violence alone pays" (quoted in The Indian Express of May 30). An extract: "The practice of violence binds men together as a whole, since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain, a part of the great organism of violence which has surged upward." The book is prefaced by Jean-Paul Sartre, who says even more explicitly, "Irrepressible violence... is man recreating himself." It is "mad fury" through which "the wretched of the earth" can "become men." "To shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone... there remains a dead man and a free man." ↩
On Thursday 29th May. On the 30th too, mother received no one. This is probably the course of experience that began a little before Pavitra's departure (see conversation of May 17). ↩
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