Oh, I’ve received this from little S.U., again in relation to your book:
(Mother holds out a letter)
Sweet Mother,
What is the idea behind this sentence from the “Adventure”: “Unfortunately, the West has too much intelligence to have much clear vision to translate outwardly, while India, too full within, is not demanding enough to match what she lives with what she sees”?
(Mother smiles and dictates straight off)
It means that in the West (especially in France), the intellectual development has prevailed over the spiritual development and the contact with higher regions, while in India, the inner knowledge has remained more developed than the intellectual field.
We could put the sentence thus:
The West expresses more than it really knows.
India knows more than it really can express.
Enough!
***
(Then Satprem reads out to Mother the article he has written for Italian television.)
It’s for Paolo, for Italian television.
Maybe you could read it to me….
Does it interest you?… I have entitled it, “The Great Sense.”
(Satprem reads)
“This is the time of the Great Sense.
“We look to the right or to the left, we build theories, reform our Churches, invent super-machines and go out in the streets to break the Machine that stifles us—we struggle in the small sense. When the terrestrial ship is sinking, does it matter whether the passengers drown to the right or to the left, under a flag black or red, or celestial blue? Our Churches have already sunk: they are reforming their own dust. Our patriotisms are crushing us, our machines are crushing us, our schools are crushing us, and we build more machines to break out of the Machine. We go to the moon, but we do not know our own heart nor our terrestrial destiny. And we want to improve what is—but the time for improvements is past: can one improve rot?…
(Mother holds back a laugh)
“…This is the time for SOMETHING ELSE. Something else, which is not the same thing with improvements.
“But how shall we proceed?
“They preach violence to us, or nonviolence. But these are two faces of the same Falsehood, the yes and no of the same impotence: the little saints have gone bankrupt with the rest, and others want to seize power—what power? That of the statesmen? Are we going to fight over the prison keys? Or to build another prison? Or do we really want to get out of it? Power does not flow from the barrel of a gun, neither does freedom flow from the bellies of the dead—for thirty million years now, we have been building on corpses, on wars, on revolutions. And the drama is enacted over and over again. Perhaps the time has come to build on something else and find the key to the true Power?…
It’s magnificent, mon petit!
“…So let us look at the Great Sense.
“Here is what the Great Sense tells us:
“It tells us that we were born so many million years ago—a molecule, a gene, a quivering bit of plasma—and we have produced a dinosaur, a crab, an ape. Had our eyes stopped halfway along the road, we could have said with good reason (!) that the Baboon was the summit of the creation and nothing better could be done, except perhaps to improve our simian capacities and create a United Kingdom of Apes…. And we may be committing the same error today in our jungle of concrete. We have invented enormous means at the service of microscopic consciousnesses, splendid devices at the service of mediocrity, and still more devices to be cured of the Device. But is man truly the goal of all these millions of years of striving?—The secondary school for all and the washing machine?
“The Great Sense, the True Sense, tells us that man is not the end. It is not the triumph of man that we want, not an improved version of the intelligent dwarf—it is another man on the earth, another race in our midst.
“‘Man is a transitional being,’ Sri Aurobindo said. We are right in the middle of this transition, it is bursting forth on every side: in Biafra, in Israel, in China, on the Boul’Mich’.1 Man is uncomfortable in his skin.
“And the Great Sense, the True Sense, tells us that the only thing we can do is to set to work to prepare that other man and collaborate in our own evolution instead of going round in circles in the old dead-end humanhood and grabbing false powers…
Listen, you say, “To prepare that other man,” but wouldn’t it be better to put, “To prepare another BEING”?
Yes!
“…to set to work to prepare that other being and collaborate in our own evolution instead of going round in circles and grabbing false powers to rule over a false life.
“But where is the lever of this Transmutation?
“It is within.
“There is a Consciousness within, there is a Power within, the very power that strained and strove in the dinosaur, in the crab, in the ape, in man—it strives still, presses farther on, clothes itself in a more and more perfected form as its instrument grows, and creates its own form. If we grasp the lever of that Power, it will itself create its new form, for it is itself the lever of the Transmutation. Instead of letting evolution unfold through millennia of fruitless, painful attempts and useless deaths and fake revolutions that revolutionize nothing, we can hasten the time, we can make a concentrated evolution—we can be the conscious creators of the New Being.
“In truth, this is the time of the Great Adventure. The world is closed, there are no more adventures outside: only robots go to the moon and our borders are guarded everywhere—in Rome or in Rangoon, the same functionaries of the great Machine are watching us, punching our cards, checking our faces and searching our pockets—there is no more adventure outside! The Adventure is with in—Freedom is within, Space is within, so is the transformation of our world by the power of the Spirit. Because, in truth, that Power was always there, supreme, all-powerful, prodding evolution on: it was the hidden Spirit growing to become the Spirit manifest upon earth, and if we have trust, if we want that supreme Power, if we have the courage to descend into our hearts, everything is possible, for God is in us.”
It’s unfortunate that there can’t be another word than “God.”
Yes.
Can’t we find something else?
It’s magnificent, it’s really excellent…. Only that word…
(silence)
Wouldn’t “the ONE” do?
When they hear it, people won’t understand…. Or perhaps “the supreme hidden Light”?
But it becomes very small.
It’s magnificent, mon petit, you know, it’s inspired. There’s only the question of that single word…. For such a long time I’ve been there, racking my brains to find a word!
ONE, with a capital O, when it’s written, it’s fine, but when it’s heard…
Dieu [“God,” in French] is a terrible word. God is an even more terrible word (!) And in Italian, what is it going to become!
(silence)
Is “the Divine” too impersonal?
No, we could put, “The hidden Divine”…. Or else, “It was the hidden Wonder growing to become the Wonder manifest upon earth…”?
Yes, “the Divine,” or “the Wonder.” But I always think about the translations—since it’s going to be translated…. I don’t know.
Ask Paolo, have him choose between “the Wonder” and “the Divine.” Explain the idea to him. In English, it’s certain that the Divine is infinitely better than God.2
Yes, certainly!
It’s a question of keeping the idea without keeping the word!
But it’s very good…. Just what needed to be said.
The famous Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris, in front of the Sorbonne university, which was the scene of the students' revolt in May 1968. ↩
Satprem finally left the word "God." ↩
***
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