(The beginning of this conversation took place in Nolini's presence.)
Have you received yesterday’s Aphorisms?… Nolini might have something to say….
407—I am not a Bhakta [lover of the Divine], for I have not renounced the world for God. How can I renounce what He took from me by force and gave back to me against my will? These things are too hard for me.
(Mother laughs) So T. asks me what he means. Then, there is another.
411—After I knew that God was a woman [laughter], I learned something from far-off about love; but it was only when I became a woman and served my Master and Paramour that I knew love utterly.
What exactly does he mean? Do you know when he wrote that?…
I replied to T.:
“I cannot answer because as long as he was in a body, he never told me anything on this subject.
“If someone knows the exact date when he wrote it, that may give some indication.
“Nolini may be able to tell you when it was written or whether Sri Aurobindo told him anything about it.”
(To Nolini:) Do you know?
(Nolini:) At the beginning, when he came to Pondicherry [in 1910].
At the very beginning…. But then, what does he mean when he says, “When I knew that God was a woman”!
(Nolini:) He always used to say that Krishna and Kali were one and the same being. Ramakrishna, too, once became a woman: God was Krishna and he became a woman; for a long time he had that impression.
Naturally, for me, the answer is this sense of humor! (Mother laughs)
(Satprem:) Yes, you write to T., “Sri Aurobindo had the genius of humor and one only has to admire and be silent.”
That was my first reply, but after that, T. asked me, “Why exactly did Sri Aurobindo put it that way?…” It depends on the date when it was written.
(Satprem:) It looks like the same experience as Ramakrishna’s.
(Nolini:) At the time he used to sign letters not “Sri Aurobindo” but “Kali.”
Oh!
(Nolini:) Yes, always…. All the letters he wrote to Motilal were signed that way.
But the way he puts it!… (general laughter)
***
Soon afterwards
This morning, for HOURS I had (the BODY—the body) this experience that nothing exists except the Divine. And then, the two are like this (Mother slips the fingers of her right hand through those of the left). But for hours… The discomfort about very small things1 is much greater than in ordinary life, and the well-being is wonderful, and the two are like this! (same gesture indicating a close fusion) One needs to be very, very, very still. It’s bearable only in an inner peace.
For the body it’s bearable only when the time has come for it to be convinced that the Divine is the only Truth; then it’s fine. Because it knows that the discomfort, however intense it may be, is sure to pass. So its at peace…. That’s what I have learned…. It began yesterday evening and lasted the whole morning—in fact, until you came, but it’s still there.
(long silence)
Yes, this Consciousness seems to be intensifying all things so as to make them more perceptible: all the circumstances of life. Fantastic affairs, fantastic!… Unbelievable. Diseases, misunderstandings, quarrels, everything but everything has become acute, so acute, as if to really force people to see them.
(silence)
One funny thing: a woman who was here (she left) wrote a letter which came in an envelope (an envelope that came in the mail with stamps and postmark from Geneva): a letter abusing the Ashram for the way she was treated here. At the same time (that letter came yesterday), this morning, a wire from Bombay thanking me for her stay! I mean, a telegram full of gratitude, saying, “I am leaving on Saturday for Geneva” (that is, today). And the letter from Geneva came earlier—yesterday—while the telegram reached today!… (Mother laughs) Impossible to understand. And there was the date on the telegram, of course. And the same names. The one full of abuse, the other full of thanks!… It’s not the only example—this one is more recent, which is why I mention it.
There is clearly a will to upset all our so-called habitual knowledge.
(long silence)
Ah, it will have to take a long time yet…. But things are going as fast as possible. Only, there is a lot of work.
Mother's cheek is swollen by a dental abscess. ↩
***
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