(Mother tries to read with difficulty a few lines from Savitri specially written for her in large characters.)
It’s a curious phenomenon: it’s F. who writes this, and she doesn’t understand well: for her it’s just words—and I can’t read!
Yes, I understand. It’s the consciousness she put into it.
***
(Then Mother listens to a few letters of Sri Aurobindo.)
(Question:) X asked me if in the course of rebirths a woman can become a man, and a man a woman. He thought of certain feminine traits in him that could be explained thus. I would also like to know if there is in the psychic being itself something like sex?
(Answer:) Not sex exactly, but what might be called the masculine and feminine principle. It is a difficult question [whether sex is altered in rebirth]. There are certain lines the reincarnation follows and so far as my experience goes and general experience goes, one follows usually a single line. But the alteration of sex cannot be declared impossible. There may be some who do alternate. The presence of feminine traits in a male does not necessarily indicate a past feminine birth—they may come in the general play of forces and their formations. There are besides qualities common to both sexes. Also a fragment of the psychological personality may have been associated with a birth not ones own. One can say of a certain person of the past, “that was not myself, but a fragment of my psychological personality was present in him.” Rebirth is a complex affair and not so simple in its mechanism as in the popular idea.
11 January 1936
Letters on Yoga, 22.447-448
He says it’s “fragments”?
Yes, that there may be fragments.
That’s my experience. For instance, I have a fragment from Murat. And I found again the whole experience of that fragment1—but that was all, there was only that.
It [Sri Aurobindo’s explanation] must be correct, it fits with my own experience.
The psychic, that’s true, has masculine and feminine tendencies, but it’s not “man” or “woman”: the psychic is sexless.
And as he says, it’s quite a complex affair; there are all possibilities. There’s nothing one can declare to be impossible.
(silence)
Now I want to hear your chapter.
(Satprem starts reading half a dozen pages of the sixth chapter: “The Tearing of Limits,” then must stop as he still has a sore throat.)
Mother, I can’t go on, it’s too long for me.
You’re tired. The next time.
Its very good… very good.
It makes me go out completely…. I lose all contact, it’s strange. It’s the second time it has done this to me. Everything disappears: I go into a formation of that, and it’s the only thing left. A very odd phenomenon. The whole world disappears. And when you stopped, it was as if I suddenly FELL from somewhere. It’s strange.
Very interesting.
I feel I am entering what will replace the mind. An atmosphere that will replace the mind, the atmosphere of the new creation…. I had it very strongly last time, but it was the first time—I was utterly nonplused, I thought it depended on my condition. But today I listened quite as usual, and all of a sudden, without my even noticing it, I was transported into an atmosphere… an atmosphere of comprehension. And when you stopped ([laughing] gesture of falling to the ground)… Strange.
It’s like a world being built.
It’s very interesting.
I understand ELSEWHERE, you understand? It’s no longer the same thing. I understand elsewhere. And “understand,” it’s wonderfully clear and expressive. Strange! It’s interesting. I had forgotten it had happened last time, and exactly the same thing recurred. It’s very interesting.
Is it half of the chapter?
Hardly: a third.
Oh, it’s quite, quite an experience.
Because the mind isn’t there, it’s… In reality, it’s the psychic understanding of things.
Oh, it’s interesting.
(Laughing) When you stopped, I seemed to fall back into something—something usual—and to come from another world. It belongs to another world.
It’s very, very interesting.
(long silence Mother’s breathing is hoarse2)
Do you think it will be finished for February?
I think I’ll have finished next month.
Oh!
It’s going very fast. But maybe I’ll have to revise afterwards just the same.
Why? Oh, NO!
What I read you here is just as I wrote it.3
I for one find it perfectly fine, perfectly fine. Ah no, you mustn’t change it.
I mustn’t?
No, it’s something exceptional. It’s something that seems to come like this (gesture of descent as a whole).
Ah, that’s true, I feel it’s given me.
Yes, yes, it’s ready-made. You mustn’t touch it.
Yes, I tend to feel it’s “ready-made,” that’s true.
(Mother remains silent, shaking her head)
Ah, no, that would humanize it—you mustn’t.
Yes.
It’s not human. You mustn’t humanize it, even, even if the outward being thinks certain things… [need to be modified or clarified or developed]. Because I know, I know where I go. No.
At night, I go there, and sometimes some things happen that are as if reflected on all that goes on during the [following] day.
It’s very strong, it’s really a new world under preparation.
It’s very strong.
(silence)
I’ll be very interested to see the end, your last chapter.
(Mother remains “gazing” for a long time)
Murat's victory, galloping at the head of armies. See Agenda III of 30 June 1962 and Agenda VII of 3 November 1966. ↩
Curiously, while Satprem read, Mothers breathing was normal throughout. ↩
Satprem actually reads his manuscript for the first time when he reads it out to Mother. ↩
***
October 28, 1970
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