Death of Death

This bodily appearance is not all; The form deceives, the person is a mask; Hid deep in man celestial powers can dwell. — Sri Aurobindo

1. Define Death

Sri Aurobindo:

This bodily appearance is not all;

The form deceives, the person is a mask; Hid deep in man celestial powers can dwell.

Life and Death

Life, death, — death, life; the words have led for ages Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages

Are opened, liberating truths undreamed. Life only is, or death is life disguised, —

Life a short death until by life we are surprised. (From Collected Poems)

On life was laid the haunting finger of Death. Savitri, Sri Aurobindo

Death is the question Nature puts continually to Life and her reminder to it that it has not yet found itself. — Sri Aurobindo

…the cells contained in the body, or composing the body, are held in form by a centralization of the consciousness in them, and as long as that power of concentration is there, the body cannot die. It’s only when the power of concentration disappears that the cells scatter. And then one dies. Then the body dies. (Mother’s Agenda, 17.12.69)

Death is the phenomenon of decentralization and scattering of the cells making up the physical body. Consciousness is, in its very nature, immortal, and in order to manifest in the physical world, it clothes itself in material forms that are durable to a greater or lesser degree. (Mother’s Agenda, 18.5.68)

But people are so ignorant! They make such a fuss over death, as if it were the end — this word ‘death’ is so absurd! I see it as simply passing from one house into another or from one room to another; you take one simple step, you cross the threshold, and there you are on the other side — and then you come back.

The Mother: Life and Death are the same thing

- Pushing this knowledge to its limit: life and death are the same thing, simultaneous. It’s only the consciousness that moves back and forth. But it’s fantastic!

- Death might be that the consciousness hasn’t been brought back to its true position fast enough.

Existence of Death

Satprem: One day I asked her if one could have “the experience of death without dying”? With her usual sense of humour, she replied:

The Mother: Surely! You can even have the experience materially if … if death is brief enough not to give the doctors time to declare you dead!

Sri Aurobindo: Life and death are in fact one, and we may say from different points of view that all death is only a process and change of life or that all life is only an activity of death. Really both are one energy whose activity presents to us a duality of aspects.

2. Death as a Stepping-Stone Towards Immortality

The Mother:

Death is not a solution. We are after another solution

• It’s only if you are very attentive to the vibration of the cells, that you can see the supramental movement. It’s not a feeling, not even a sensation, even less a thought; so if you aren’t very attentive you don’t notice it. You must be very, very detached from the movement of thought to notice it.
• There is always something that comes from a very absolute region which makes me feel the uselessness of death: death is not a solution. So we are after another solution. There must be another one.
• In reality, the will to progress is still quite impregnated with desire: there isn’t the smile of Eternity behind it.

The Mother: Actually, as long as there is death, things will always end badly. It’s almost as if it were the question given me to resolve.

The Mother: There’s a difference between immortality and the state without death. Sri Aurobindo explained it very well in Savitri. The state without death is what we can envision in the future for the human physical body: it is constant rebirth. Instead of slipping back and disintegrating for want of plasticity and from incapacity to adjust to the universal movement, the body is broken up in a forward movement, as it were.

There is an element that remains constant: in each type of atom, the inner arrangement of the elements is different, and that’s what makes the difference in the substance. In the same way, maybe each person has a different and particular way of arranging the cells of his body, and that particular way is what persists throughout every outer change; everything else is broken up and rebuilt

– but broken up in a forward movement instead of sinking backward into death, and rebuilt in a constant aspiration to follow the progressive movement of the divine Truth. (11/25/59)

Sri Aurobindo: … Not only is death a seeming, but life itself is a seeming, and beyond life and death there lies a condition which is truer and therefore more permanent than either.

The Mother: There’s still a colossal work for everything to be transformed. But when you are on what could be called “the other side” (there are no “sides,” but …), in the other state, it looks so natural, so simple, that you wonder why things aren’t that way, why it is so difficult. And the moment you are back on this side, it’s … (Mother takes her head between her hands). Clearly, there’s still some mixture.

Truly, the ordinary state, the old state, is conscious death and suffering (I mean, I have a conscious perception of that). While in the other state, death and suffering seem to be totally unreal. (10/18/69)

3. How to Disallow the Law of Death

The great stars burn with my unceasing fire And life and death are both its fuel made. Life only was my blind attempt to love:

Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory. — Savitri

3.1 Conquer Death to Conquer Life

The Mother: Life and death are the fuel, then, In my blind attempt LIFE ONLY was my attempt to love.1 Because m y attempt to love was blind, I limited it to life — but I won the victory in death.

It’s very interesting. (Mother repeats:) Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory.

Q. Yet, earth should see the victory? The victory should be on earth, shouldn’t it?

The Mother: Yes, but she couldn’t win the victory on earth because she lacked heaven — she couldn’t win the victory in life because she lacked death and she had to conquer death in order to conquer life.

That’s the idea. Unless we conquer Death, the victory isn’t won. Death must be vanquished, there must be no more death. It’s very clear.

That’s very clear.

(silence)

3.2 Only Love has the Transforming Power

The great stars give light because they burn; they burn because they are

under the effect of Love.

…the last thing as one rises — the last thing beyond light, beyond

consciousness, beyond… — the last thing one reaches is love.

According to the the last thing to manifest now in its purity,

and it is the one that has the transforming power.

That’s what he appears to be saying here: the victory of Love seems to be the final victory.

3.3 Work in the Cells Level

Mother’s only work (if one may say so!) was to put more and more material substance in contact with that supramental light.

The Mother: The education of the physical consciousness (not the body’s global consciousness, but the consciousness of the cells) consists in teaching them, first, that there is a choice (it appears as a choice): to choose the divine Presence, the divine Consciousness, the divine Power (all this without words), the “something” that we define as the absolute Master. It is a choice of every second between Nature’s old laws, together with some mental influence and the whole life such as it is organized — a choice between that, the rule of that, and the rule of the supreme Consciousness. And it’s every second of the day (it’s infinitely interesting), with practical examples — for instance, the nerves: If a nerve obeys this or that law of Nature, together with the mental conclusions and all that — all that machinery — then the pain starts up; but if it obeys the influence of the supreme Consciousness, then a curious thing happens: it isn’t like something getting “cured”; rather, it’s as if it disappeared as a sort of unreality.

Sri Aurobindo:

Although God made the world for his delight,

An ignorant Power took charge and seemed his Will And Death’s deep falsity has mastered Life.

The body’s tissues thrill apotheosised, Its cells sustain bright metamorphosis … As if reversing a deformation spell

Sri Aurobindo:

It is Thy rapture flaming through my nerves And all my cells and atoms thrill with Thee; My body Thy vessel is and only serves

As a living wine-cup of Thy ecstasy.

3.4 Three Conditions of Physical Transformation

The important conditions that the Mother discovered for the physical transformation are purification, universalisation and impersonalisation of the physical consciousness. In her con•versation with Satprem on April 6, 1963, the Mother gave a very interesting and instructive account of the progress in the impersonalisation of the physical consciousness as follows:

There is progress in the impersonalization of the physical, bodily consciousness, with consequences that are probably interesting, but impossible to explain to people who don’t understand. For instance,

I am conscious of the body, but it isn’t the consciousness of this body (Mother touches her body): it’s the consciousness of THE Body — it may be anyone’s body. I am conscious, for instance, of vibrations of disorder (most often they come in the form of suggestions of disorder) in order to see whether they are accepted and have an effect.

The body was told that it would go on till complete purification, and that AT THAT POINT it will have the choice between continuing its work or … You see, once it has attained complete purification from the cellular point of view (not what people call physical “purity,” that’s not it), from the point of view of the di•vine Influence, which means that each cell will be under the exclusive influence of the Supreme (that’s the work under way now), the body was told that that work would be done, and once it was completed, the body ITSELF, entirely under the Supreme’s influence, would decide whether it wants to continue or be dissolved.

It was very interesting, because … dissolution means a scattering, but to scatter (that’s easy to understand) is a way to SPREAD the consciousness over a very large area. So the cells will be given the choice either to act in that way (gesture of diffusion) or to act in agglomeration (Mother makes a fist).

3.5 Cells Should Seek Only the Divine Sri Aurobindo:

A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell

And take the charge of breath and speech and act And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns

And every feeling a celestial thrill. Often a lustrous inner dawn shall come

Lighting the chambers of the slumbering mind; A sudden bliss shall run through every limb And Nature with a mightier Presence fill.

Thus shall the earth open to divinity

And common natures feel the wide uplift, Illumine common acts with the Spirit’s ray Nature shall live to manifest secret God, The Spirit shall take up the human play, This earthly life become the life divine.

The Mother: The cells must learn to seek their support only in the Divine, until such time as they can feel they are the expression of the Divine… This is what I am experiencing now. I do have the experience of changing the effect of things, but it isn’t materialized, so I can’t express it in words. But, truly, what is

important is that the cells should feel, first, that they are entirely governed by the Divine (which is translated by the state of “what You will, what You will …”), then a sort of receptivity (what shall I say? …), not immobile, but … one could probably call it a passive receptivity. (Mother opens her hands in a smile) I don’t know how to explain. All words are wrong, but one could say: “You alone exist.” The cells should feel: “You alone exist.” Like that. But all this seems so hard — the words harden the experience. It’s a sort of plasticity or suppleness (a trusting, very trusting suppleness): what You will, what You will….

The work, you see, consists in changing the conscious base of all the cells — but not all at once! That would be impossible. Even little by little, it’s very difficult. The moment the conscious base changes, it’s — there’s almost like a panic in the cells and the feeling: “Oh, what’s going to happen to me?” So from time to time, it’s difficult. They are taken in groups, almost by faculty or part of faculty, and for some it’s a little difficult. Sometimes there is almost an anguish, you know. You’re suspended in nothing. It may last a few seconds, but those few seconds are terrible.

The Mother: Death isn’t something inevitable; it’s an accident that has always happened up until now — at least it seems to have always happened — and we have got it into our head and will to conquer and overcome that accident. But this is such a terrible battle, so gigantic, against all the laws of Nature, all the collective suggestions, all the terrestrial habits that, unless you are totally fearless and a first-class warrior, you had better not begin the battle. You need to be an absolutely dauntless hero, because at every step and every second you have to do battle against everything that is established. So it isn’t easy. And even individually, you have to fight with yourself, because, if you want your physical consciousness to be in a state that permits physical immortality, you must be free of everything that the physical consciousness now stands for. So it’s a struggle at every second. All the feelings, all the sensations, all the thoughts, the reflexes, the attractions and repulsions, all that exists and makes up the very fabric of our physical life must be overcome, transformed and freed from all its habits. That means struggling every second of the day against thousands and millions of adversaries.

3.6 Impersonalisation in the Physical Cells

One step on one side and one step on the other side. The impersonality

• “Death,” it’s so absurd ! It’s like passing from one room to another: you take one step like this, you cross the threshold, and then you are on the other side, and then you come back.
• This sort of impersonalisation of the material individuality is very important for the exactness of the Action. The perfect equanimity takes on its true meaning only in the body: when it becomes a mechanical action of vibration. At that point one understands why it must be like it is. A mechanical comprehension of the vibration. We are on the right track.

3.7 Role of Mind of Cells

Undo death. It is the Mind of the cells that will find the key.

• Death: I am after the process that will lead to the power to undo what was done.
• Is it not necessary to feel or live how it got twisted this way in order to straighten it out? That’s the question.
• I have the experience of the two vibrations, but the transition from one to the other is still a mystery. Because it cannot be explained either when it goes this way or when it goes that way.

3.8 Omnipresence / Universalisation at Cellular Level

Sri Aurobindo:

I have drunk the Infinite like a giant’s wine.

The Mother: It’s a state, a state of intense vibration where you have at once a feeling of omnipotence, even in this (Mother pinches the skin of her hand), in this old thing, and … a luminous omnipotence. And always with something comparable to goodness, benevolence, but far beyond those things (they seem like ridiculous distortions in comparison). This (gesture of expansion) and static at the same time. In other words, there’s a feeling of eternity in the cells. (4/23/69)

The Mother: The ubiquity of the cells. Something else must take place after death

• I had a series of fantastic cellular experiences: you become a forest, a mountain, a house …And it’s the sensation of the body. A sort of ubiquity in the cells.
• It is clear that if this becomes natural, death can no longer exist. There must be some difference, even in the behaviour of the cells, when you leave your body. It must be another phenomenon that takes place.

3.9 Rise Above the Negation of All Kinds of Mental Props

The Mother: It’s day after day, you know, with something new every day; and always the same immediate conclusion: I know nothing, I understand nothing, I am nothing. The negation of EVERYTHING. All the mental props of the human consciousness are gone. And for little things, for big things — for everything. (5/10/69)

3.10 Overcome the Obstacles from Subconscient and Falsehood

The Mother: Because of physical death, the subconscious is defeatist. You see, whatever progress has been achieved, whatever effort has been exerted, the subconscious has a feeling that things will always end that way, because they have always ended that way until now. — The Mother

All our ills are false, our pain is false, our ignorance and weaknesses are false, and even our “laws” are false. We are merely shut inside a “room” of unreality, which exists solely by the recognition we lend to it. We just have to get out — or stop believing in it — and that’ll be it. However, one does not get out in one’s head, or through transcendental meditation; one gets out in one’s cells. Unless we go down to that level, we will keep building castles in the air.

The Mother: From the negative standpoint — I am talking of the difficulties to be overcome — one of the most serious obstacles is the legitimacy that the ignorant and false external consciousness, the ordinary consciousness, gives to all the so-called physical laws, causes, effects and consequences — to all that science has discovered in the material and physical realm. All that is indisputable reality for the consciousness, a reality that stands independent and absolute in the face of the eternal divine Reality. And it is so automatic that it’s unconscious.

The moment the body becomes conscious, it becomes conscious of its own falsehood! It becomes conscious of this law, that law, that third law, that fourth law, that tenth law — everything is “laws.” “We are ruled by the physical laws: such a thing will produce such a result, and if you do this, such and such will happen, etc.” Why, it oozes from every pore! I know it. I know it very well. It exudes falsehood. In the body, we have no faith in the divine Grace — none, none, none whatsoever! If we have not undergone tapasya [yogic discipline] the way I have, we say, “Well, all the inner, moral things, all the feelings and psychology are all very well; we want the Divine and we are ready to do anything; but, nonetheless, material facts are material facts; they are concrete and real: an illness is an illness, food is food, and the consequence of all we do is a consequence, and if — blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!”

We have to understand that this isn’t true — it isn’t true. It’s a lie. It’s nothing but a big lie. It isn’t true — it is NOT true!

The Mother: As a result of that intensity of aspiration [in the body], I have a very clear and almost constant perception of the extent to which the material substance is made of falsehood and ignorance. As soon as the consciousness is quiet, at peace, in the luminous vision, it’s as if all the falsehood came from everywhere. It isn’t an active perception in the sense that I do not “try” to see: things come spontaneously before the consciousness. And you realize what tremendous power of Truth-Energy is necessary to clear up and transform all that! (2/26/64)

3.11 Stop All Attachments to External Things

All the constraints, all the attachments to external things, all that is finished, completely over with, completely over — absolute freedom. I mean, there’s only That left, the Supreme Master, who is master. From that standpoint, it can only be a gain. It is such a radical realization. It seems like an absolute of freedom, something considered impossible to realize while living a normal life on earth. It’s equivalent to the experience of absolute freedom one has in the higher parts of the being when the dependence on the body has been removed. But what’s remarkable (I want to emphasize this) is that it’s the consciousness of the body that experiences all this — and a body that is visibly still here!

The Mother: And it isn’t the result of an aspiration or research, an effort or a tapasya [discipline], nothing of the kind — it comes: plop!

… And there is no imitating it. What’s wonderful is that it can’t be imitated! Everything else — for example, all ascetic realizations — can be imitated. But that cannot be imitated, because there’s no equivalent anywhere.

… All your aspiration, your tapasya, your effort, all that is individual — absolutely no effect. It comes, and that’s it.

You can do only one thing, which is to ANNUL YOURSELF AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. If you can annul yourself completely, the experience is total. And if one could keep that blank state constantly, then the experience would remain there constantly. (2/25/61)

3.12 Body Must Realise The Divine Not the Ego

Mother was really the focal point of an impossible contradiction. Through a body constituted and formed in the ordinary way, she was in touch with a world totally contrary to the ordinary way, a world where our good and evil no longer had the same meaning, where the fixity of our laws, the sense of finiteness, distance, and even time, became something different, … which Mother liked to call “the Lord,” that is, a “something” one still cannot name without using circumlocutions, yet which seemed endowed with a very concrete reality since “He” directed everything in the body at every second of life.

The Mother: But the body has learned that, even without ego, it is what it is; for it is that by the divine Will and not at all by the ego — we exist by the divine Will and not by the ego. The ego has been a means — a centuries-old means. Now it is worthless; its time is over. It has had its time, its usefulness — it’s over, it’s the past, far back in the past.

Now … (Mother lowers her fist) it’s consciousness, it’s the Divine — individuality is the Divine.

And this body has clearly understood, felt, “realized,” as they say in English, that the sense of being a separate personality is totally unnecessary, TOTALLY unnecessary, not in the least indispensable to its existence. It exists by another power and another will, which is not individual or personal — the divine Will.

And it will become what it is supposed to be only when it feels there’s no difference between it and the Divine. That’s all. Everything else is falsehood — false, false, false — and a falsehood that must go. There’s only one reality, only one life, only one consciousness (Mother lowers her fist) — the Divine. (6/9/71)

There was such a sense of warmth, of intimacy, of … sweetness, and such a power at the same time, oh, so concrete! The whole atmosphere, the whole atmosphere had become concrete: everything, but everything tasted like the Lord. I don’t know how to explain that. It was completely material, as if I had a mouthful of it! It was everywhere, in everything. And so PHYSICAL! Like — you could compare it to the most delicious taste you can experience (it had a very, very material feel and taste to it). It’s as if you could feel something solid in your hand when you closed it — such a warm and sweet and powerful vibration, so powerful, so concrete!

3.13 The Body Transformed Impacts the Universe

I have the feeling that if I last till I am a hundred (which means another six years), much will be accomplished — much. Something important and decisive will be accomplished. I am not saying that the body will be capable of transformation itself (I have no indication of that), but the consciousness — the physical, material consciousness becoming … “supramentalized.” That’s it; that’s the work being done now. And that’s what’s important.

The first was that new way of being on earth was clearly contagious from one body to another. Fortunately, our bodies are not shut in separate little boxes the way our heads are! Made from the same mold, our cells have their own means of communication, and whatever is acquired by one is sooner or later passed on to another. Thus, there was “contagion” around Mother.

(Mother:) Look, if they are happening in one body, they can happen in all bodies! I am not made of anything different from others. The difference is consciousness. That’s all. This body is made exactly the same way, with the same things. I eat the same things, and it was formed in the same way, absolutely. And it was as stupid, as obscure, as unconscious, as stubborn as all the other bodies in the world.

It all began when the doctors declared that I was very ill — that was the beginning [in April 1962]. Because the body was then completely drained of its habits and strength, which allowed the cells slowly, very slowly to awaken to a new receptivity and open themselves directly to the divine Influence. Each cell is vibrating.

Otherwise, it would be hopeless! If this substance, which began as — even a stone has already some form of organization — it was certainly worse than a stone: absolute, inert unconsciousness. Then it slowly, very slowly, awakens….

For the animal to become a man, it took nothing but the infusion of a consciousness — a mental consciousness — and what’s happening now is the awakening of the consciousness that was in the depths, all the way down in the depths. The mind was withdrawn, the vital was withdrawn, everything was withdrawn — when I was supposedly ill, the mind was gone, the vital was gone, and the body was left on its own — on purpose. And it’s just because the mind and vital were gone that there was that impression of a serious illness. But in the body left on its own, the cells slowly began to awaken to consciousness (ascending gesture of aspiration). After both the mind and vital were gone, the consciousness that had been infused into the body BY the vital (from the mind into the vital and from the vital into the body) slowly began to emerge. It began with that explosion of Love all the way up above, at the extreme supreme altitude, and it slowly, very slowly came down into the body. And that sort of physical mind — something really quite stupid that used to go round and round, forever repeating the same thing, the same thing a hundred times — gradually became enlightened, conscious, organized, and fell silent. And from that silence rose an aspiration expressed by prayers.

This is the complete denial of all past spiritual assertions: “If you want to live a fully conscious divine life, you must leave your body; the body cannot follow.” Well, Sri Aurobindo came and said, “Not only can the body follow, but it can be the basis for manifesting the Divine.”

The work remains to be done….

But it’s all ONE SINGLE substance, exactly the same everywhere, which was unconscious everywhere. And what’s remarkable is that, automatically, some very unexpected experiences are happening here and there (gesture indicating scattered points throughout the world), in people who don’t even know anything. (11/22/67)

I’ll soon become dangerously contagious, you know! (4/4/70)

But once it is done — that’s what Sri Aurobindo had said — once one body has done it, it becomes capable of passing it on to others. And, as I mentioned, there is now (I am not speaking of a total and detailed phenomenon, certainly not), but there is here and there (gesture showing scattered points on the earth) one experience or another suddenly happening in people. It’s contagious. I know it! And that’s the only hope, because if everybody had to go through the same experience…

3.14 Transformed Body Becomes Immortal

Satprem: The second factor comes to light through experience: When the body was in the harmonious position, the erosion of time no longer existed. There was no more friction with life’s circumstance, no “jagged edges” anywhere; everything became a vast and harmonious — “divine” — unfolding, like great undulating waves, from morning breakfast to the swarm of disciples who still had to be seen every day. The body thus seemed to be able to last an eternity.

The Mother: The conditions for prolonging the body almost indefinitely are known or almost known (they are more than just an inkling; they are known). And they are learned through the work necessary to counteract the EXTREME FRAGILITY of the physical balance of the body in transformation. It’s a study of each minute, as it were, almost of each second. (4/17/65)

You see, my body is beginning — beginning — to understand that the divine side means a life that is … (Mother opens her arms in an immense gesture) progressive and luminous. But there’s the accumulation of past experiences that says, “Oh, this isn’t possible!” That’s it. And that stupid “not possible” is what delays and spoils things.

It’s based on the fact that the minute the body leaves the true attitude it becomes painful: everything starts to hurt, to be laborious — you have the feeling of death and dissolution in everything. And this is what strengthens … matter’s stupidity. (8/30/72)

Sri Aurobindo had said, “The intermediate stage will be prolongation of life at will.” And my impression is that it’s possible. But on the condition that … the body itself have only one idea: transformation. It has to be quiet, concentrated … I can stay for hours like that, in a sort of receptive contemplation, and it seems like a second. Time, yes, is curious. There is a certain receptive contemplation in which … (suspended gesture with a smile) time ceases to exist. (9/14/71)

But every time I ask my body what it would like, all the cells say, “No, no! We are immortal; we want to be immortal. We are not tired; we are ready to fight for centuries if necessary. We have been created for immortality and we want immortality.” I am realizing that the nearer you get to the cell, the more the cell says, “But I am immortal!” (10/16/62)

3.15 Impact of Supramental on the Universe

Thus, one could hope that the contagion would spread, first in the human bodies around Mother, then perhaps at greater distances around the earth.

And since the body could in principle last indefinitely, one could look forward to a constant progression, a “densification” of the new Possibility, which would gradually, at its own rhythm, carry out the necessary bodily mutations and change our human world into an entirely supramental world in a continuous and harmonious fashion.

But this is perhaps too human and “logical” a way to envision the transformation of the world into a world of harmony. The Supramental has its own laws, which are infinitely flexible and wise. The Supramental is also infinite compassion; it takes the present conditions of the earth into account in all its operations. It does not destroy, does not break; it simply puts things before their content of truth … until they have had enough of their current falsehood. It is not in a hurry, for it is supreme. It is at the heart of all things, their springs and intimate hope. If evolution cannot follow this path, well, it will follow another! We are all going there anyway, for everything is going there.

Sri Aurobindo: The obscuration of earth will not prevail against the supramental truth-consciousness, for even into the earth it can bring enough of the omniscient light and omnipotent force of the spirit to conquer. All may not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever does open must to that extent undergo the change. That will be the principle of transformation.

What the supramental will do the mind cannot foresee or lay down. The mind is ignorance seeking for the Truth, the supramental by its very definition is the Truth-Consciousness, Truth in possession of itself and fulfilling itself by its own power. In a supramental world imperfection and disharmony are bound to disappear. But what, how, by what degrees it will do it, is a thing that ought not to be said now — when the Light is there, the Light will itself do its work — when the supramental Will stand on earth, that Will will decide. It will establish a perfection, a harmony, a Truth-creation — for the rest, well, it will be the rest – that is all.

The Mother: I have here all the examples, a small sampling of all the attitudes, and I clearly see the reactions; I see the same Force, the same unique Force, acting in that sampling and producing naturally different results, but for a more profound vision those “differences” are very superficial: it’s only “they like to think that way, so let them think that way.” But the actual inner progress, the inner development, the essential vibration, is not affected — not in the least. One person aspires with all his heart for Nirvana, another aspires with all his might for the supramental manifestation, and in both the vibratory result is about the same. It’s all one single mass of vibrations getting more and more prepared to receive what has to be. (5/19/65)

We consider this appearance (Mother points to her body) as…. for the ordinary consciousness, it seems to be the most important — it’s obviously the last thing that will change. For the ordinary consciousness, it’s the last thing that will change because it’s the most important: that will be the surest sign. But it isn’t that way at all! Not at all. It’s the changes IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS — which has taken place — that is the important thing. All the rest is consequences. But here, in this world, this material world, it seems the most important because it’s — it’s completely upside down. For us, when the body can be visibly other than it is now, we will say, “Ah now the thing is done.” Not so — the thing IS done. This [the body] is a secondary consequence.

3.16 Battle at the Universal Level

Satprem: In any case, very practically, Mother’s body was the site of a gigantic battle extending far beyond the limits of a small human body. In her body was being played out something like the future of the world.

The Mother: It’s really interesting. It’s as though my body were the site of a battle between what wants obstinately to hang on and what wants to take its place. There are truly marvelous moments — glorious moments — and the next second or next minute such a violent attack! That’s the situation. And my body is … For food, for example, there are times when I eat without even noticing that I am eating, except that everything tastes delicious; and the next second, I can’t swallow a thing! It’s like this (gesture of being pulled from one side to the other). So my only solution is to be as quiet as possible. As soon as I am quiet, it calms down. Suddenly, you get the feeling you’re about to die, and the next minute it’s … eternity. It’s truly an extraordinary experience. Extraordinary.

There comes a moment when everything, absolutely everything seems to be full of confusion and darkness — there’s no hope, no chance of seeing things clearly — and the next minute, everything is crystal clear. (11/13/71)

The Mother: You see, the little body … the little body is like a point, but it feels like the expression of a tremendous power, and yet it is rather …: no capacity, no expression, nothing — and rather … miserable. And yet … it is like a condensation — the condensation of a TREMENDOUS power! Sometimes it’s even difficult to bear. (9/2/70)

The Mother: I am absolutely convinced (because I have had experiences to prove it) that the life of this body — what makes it move, evolve — can be replaced by a force. I mean, it’s possible to achieve a sort of immortality, and the wear and tear can also disappear. These are the two things possible: the force of life can come and the wear and tear can disappear. And it can come psychologically, through complete obedience to the divine Impulsion, which means that at each instant you have the force that is necessary, you do the thing that is necessary — all these are certitudes. Absolute certitudes. It is not hope, not imagination; it’s a certitude. It’s just a question of education and slow transformation, of changing the habits. It’s possible — all this is possible. The only thing is, how long will it take to eliminate the necessity of a skeleton (to take only this example)? That seems to me to be still very far ahead. I mean, it will still require many intermediate stages. Sri Aurobindo said that one can prolong life indefinitely. That part is clear. But we are not yet built with a substance that completely escapes dissolution, the necessity of dissolution.

The bones last a long time; in favorable conditions, they can even last a thousand years, but that doesn’t mean immortality in principle. I can conceive of a perpetual change; I could even conceive of a flower that would not wither. But this principle of immortality That is, a life basically escaping the necessity of renewal, a life in which the eternal Force manifests itself directly and eternally, and yet in a body that is physical (Mother touches the skin of her hands). I can readily accept a progressive change that would make this substance into something capable of eternally renewing itself from inside out — and that would be immortality — but it seems to me that many steps would be necessary between what exists now, what we are at present, and that other life mode. For instance, if you asked these cells, with all the consciousness and experience they now have, “Is there anything you are incapable of doing?,” in all sincerity they will reply, “No! Whatever the Lord wants, I can do.” That’s their state of consciousness. But in the appearance, it’s different. My personal experience is this: all I do with the Presence of the Lord, I do without effort, without difficulty, without fatigue or wear and tear, like this (Mother extends both arms in a great harmonious Rhythm), but it’s still open to outside influence, and the body is obliged to perform tasks that are not directly the expression of the supreme Impulsion, hence the fatigue, the friction. Yet a supramental body suspended in a world that is not the earth would hardly be a solution, would it! We need something that has the power to resist the contagion. Man can’t resist the contagion of the animal — he can’t; he is in constant relation with it. So what will that being do? It would seem that for a long time — a long time — the law of contagion will prevail.

3.17 The End of Old Habits

Satprem: What battle did she not wage! What victory did she not win over the old human habit! It was night and day nonstop.

The Mother: I have made interesting discoveries. Illnesses, accidents, catastrophes, wars — all that is because the human material consciousness is so small, so narrow that it has a mad taste for drama. The seed of the problem is that smallness, that extreme smallness of the physical consciousness — the material physical consciousness — which has an absolutely perverse taste for drama. Drama — the least thing has to turn into a drama: you have a toothache, it’s a drama; you bump into something, it’s a drama; two nations are at loggerheads, it becomes a drama — everything becomes a drama. A taste for drama. You have a little bodily disorder, a little thing that should have remained absolutely unnoticed — well, it creates a big hullabaloo, a drama! …

The same teeth that I have had for so long (so long in the same state, that is!), which haven’t given me any trouble for years — all of a sudden they, too, have decided it was time to stir up drama! So, raging toothache, swelling — completely and utterly ridiculous!

The Mother: And that discovery about drama did not come as a thought, you know, not as an observation; it was something acutely experienced, caught as one catches a thief. I caught it. And it’s universal, all over the earth The minute I understood that, it started to quiet down But death, too, is the result of a taste for drama — what a lovely drama, phew! (6/14/67)

The Mother: We are making an experiment: finding how to go from the old method to the new one, and so it’s The body knows nothing. It is completely ignorant — it has no experience and doesn’t know anything; it just has a good will (Mother opens her hands). It has (laughing) a number of sensations about what’s happening, which are not always very pleasant, and that’s all. It doesn’t know. It doesn’t know the effect — how, why, and all that. Naturally — that is part of what’s demanded — it must eat; but in what proportion and how? The transition — how does one make the transition? The pace of the transition, the process of the transition? It knows nothing. This poor body can’t say anything because it doesn’t know anything. Everything it thought it had learned in ninety years has been clearly proven to be totally worthless (Mother laughs), and now everything has to be learned again. (12/20/69)

The Mother: In the body (in the cells, in the consciousness of the body) there is a great, constant battle between all the materialistic ideas and the true consciousness, and that creates a … (grating gesture). In fifteen minutes, everything starts to grate — you’re in pain, you feel uncomfortable, as if everything were going to be torn, with unbearable contradictions — and suddenly, with the pressure of the true consciousness, suddenly, brrm! everything disappears in a minute and it becomes … a marvel. But it isn’t something stable: the battle goes on.

But it’s truly interesting. (3/7/70)

The Mother: I had the impression of being all the suffering of the world — all the suffering of the world felt at once. There is a place, a sort of place, where there is such a dreadful anguish…. Do you hear how difficult it is for me to breathe? That’s it. It’s constant. It’s here (Mother draws a line across the top of her chest). It’s here. There’s a sort of interdiction to (Mother makes a gesture of rising to join with the Origin above the head). As if I absolutely had to find something Strangely, it’s from here to here (gesture from the waist to the knees), but mainly here (waist). I can’t say what it is, but it’s a dreadful anguish. When it comes here (chest), I scream. It’s in the legs down to the knees. Now I can hardly walk. It’s extremely physical, material. I have absolutely no doubt that it will be conquered, you understand, but, the point is, has the time come? … That doubt is what’s really torturing me. (9/9/70)

A little body that seemed to embody all human difficulty, all human weight and inertia.

The Mother: It’s the feeling of being constantly between life and death, and the minute you take the right attitude — the minute the part concerned takes the right attitude — everything is fine. It’s extraordinary. But it’s formidable because there’s constant danger. I don’t know, maybe a hundred times a day, the sensation of: life or — for the cells, you understand — life or disintegration. And if they tense up, as they usually do, it becomes quite nasty. But they are learning to (Mother opens her hands in a gesture of abandon). And then everything is all right. (3/8/72)

The Mother: It’s really curious. At the same time — not one inside the other or one with the other, but one AND the other — at the same time (Mother puts the fingers of her right hand between the fingers of her left hand): a marvel and a horror. Life as it is, as we perceive it in our ordinary consciousness — as it

is for humans — seem so … dreadful that one wonders how it’s possible to live such a thing even for a minute. And the other, AT THE SAME TIME — a marvel. A marvel of light, of consciousness, of power — marvelous! Oh, and a power! … It isn’t the power of one person (Mother pinches the skin of her hand); it’s something — it’s something that is everything. You just can’t express it. (8/28/71)

The Mother: There’s truly something new — it’s no longer as it was. All our common sense, our logic, our practical sense — shattered, finished, no more power. No more reality. It no longer corresponds to reality.

It’s truly a new world. (5/6/72)

Satprem: When will we take flight with our true, promised wings? When will we get an earth in the image of our dreams? It isn’t Mars or Venus that holds the key to our future, but ourselves, here. One would need to understand what is happening, what was happening inside a little body quietly seated in a remote corner of the globe, a little body staring at a certain point in front of it with a terrifying and pathetic intensity.

The Mother:) These last few days I’ve had the feeling, a sort of perception, of a TREMENDOUS power! A power, you know, that seemed capable of reviving a dead person. A tremendous power that uses this (the body) without any conscious identification but completely naturally, without — as though there were no resistance. It’s a natural condition, and it isn’t one thing or another but … EVERYTHING (gesture indicating an immense movement) that … acts according to circumstances. (4/22/70)

Satprem: Everything was contained there, in that unwavering look. She was staring at “the problem.” Or perhaps, sometimes, the happy azure fields where we will gambol, at last free and light in a physical body.

The Mother: There’s really something different in the world. Naturally, it will take time to be fully established. That’s the battle. From every side, at every level, things are pouring in and externally saying, “Nothing is changed.” But that’s not true. It isn’t true; the body knows it isn’t true. Now it knows — it knows the direction. (3/14/70)

3.18 The Resistance from the Unprepared World

There was “That,” and “this.” And how does one go from one to the other? The process had begun, that marvelous and so surprising Supramental was there, active on earth, but a human body was still a human body.

The Mother: The problem — the problem is that the world is not ready! The substance we are made of (Mother touches her own body) partakes of the lack of readiness of the world — of course, since it’s the same thing! It’s all the same, one and the same thing. There may be in this body a little more light, but so little it’s not worth mentioning — it’s all the same. Oh, a vile slavery!

(2/18/61)

The Mother: The system has begun not to want to function in the old way. So what do you do when it comes to eating? Food doesn’t have the least attraction for me — none whatsoever. It seems a completely stupid thing, and yet it “has” to be taken. And the doctors want everything to function as usual — it’s impossible. It puts me in a state of — it creates a sort of conflict in the nature. You see, things are going too fast, and at the same time the old nature is resisting — encouraged by doctors and habits. Of course, I can see that if the transformation took place like lightning, it would be terrifying for people. (1/30/71)

3.19 End of All Great Divisions from Physical to Universal Level

Indeed, that would be really to misjudge the Supramental and forget what Sri Aurobindo had so often repeated. To begin with, it is not to create another teaching or external movement that Sri Aurobindo had toiled all those years (nor to do miracles), but to bring upon the earth a new principle of consciousness, another way of living life (and death). He had done his work thoroughly, honestly: he had prepared the ground, drawn down the new seed, watched day after day over the first tender roots.

For her part, Mother had grown a first plant above the ground and in the open air of everyday life, established a firm root system that withstood earthly conditions. Sri Aurobindo and Mother had demonstrated that a truly new life was possible on earth.

What more could we ask? There only remained to try it. The living had a third choice after all.

Sri Aurobindo: It is not intended to supramentalise humanity at large, but to establish the principle of the supramental consciousness in the earth- evolution. If that is done, all that is needed will be evolved by the supramental power itself. It is not therefore important that the mission should be widespread. What is important is that the thing should be done at all in however small a number; that is the only difficulty. (22:11)

The Mother: I don’t know, but it seems to be the first time that the

instrument, instead of being intended to bring the “News,” the “Revelation,” the spark, has been intended to … to realize — to do the work, the hidden labor. And indeed, it acknowledges it, but it doesn’t blissfully go into the joy of that acknowledgement, and every minute, despite what is done, it is forced to see how much work remains to be done! So the body will only rejoice when the work is done. What does it mean, “the work done”? It means something ESTABLISHED. (11/15/67)

Satprem: It is now up to us humans to take over, to understand what they have done and follow the marks and signposts they have left. After all, a new world, a new way of being on earth, is worth some effort. Unless we wish to continue in the old way? It’s always a possibility. The choice is entirely ours. That, they cannot do for us. A little commitment is necessary on our part.

The Mother: The step that humanity must take immediately is to overcome exclusivism once and for all. To be supple enough and wide enough to combine everything together. This is what I keep knocking against these days, in every domain — every domain In the body, too. The body has the habit of:

“This and not that, this OR that, this or that…. ” No, no, no — this AND that.

The great division, you know: life versus death. That’s the long and the short of it. And everything is a consequence of that. Well-words are stupid, but — overlife is life AND death together. (1/3/70)

The Mother : You see, it isn’t that death disappears (death as we conceive of it, as we know it, and as compared to life as we know it) — it isn’t like that, not like that at all. BOTH are in the process of changing into something we still don’t know, which seems both extremely dangerous and totally marvelous. Dangerous, because the slightest wrong move has frightfully serious consequences. And marvelous. This is the consciousness, the true consciousness of immortality — it isn’t “immortality” as we conceive of it; it’s something else. We tend to want certain things to be true (what we perceive as favorable) and others to disappear — it doesn’t work that way! It doesn’t work that way. It’s that EVERYTHING becomes different. (7/12/72)

Sri Aurobindo: No one is a god, but each man has a god within him. To manifest him is the aim of the divine life. That everyone can do. I admit that certain individuals have greater or lesser capacities. But whatever the capacity, if once God places his finger upon a man and his spirit awakes, greater or lesser and all the rest make little difference. The difficulties may be more, it may take more time, what is manifested may not be the same — but even this is not certain. The god within takes no account of all these difficulties and deficiencies; he forces his way out. Were there few defects in my mind and heart and life and body? Few difficulties? Did it not take time? Did God hammer at me sparingly — day after day, moment after moment? Whether I have become a god or something else I do not know. But I have become or am becoming something — whatever God desired. This is sufficient. And it is the same with everybody. (letter from Sri Aurobindo to his younger brother, April 7, 1920)

Sri Aurobindo: It is not to be supposed that all humanity would rise in a block into the supermind; at first those only might attain to the highest or some intermediate height of the ascent whose inner evolution has fitted them for so great a change or who are raised by the direct touch of the Divine into its perfect light and power and bliss. The large mass of humanity might still remain for long content with a normal or only a partially illumined and uplifted human nature. But this would be itself a sufficiently radical change and initial transformation of earth-life; for the way would be open to all who have the will to rise, the supramental influence of the truth-consciousness would touch the earth-life and influence even its untransformed mass and a hope would be there and a promise eventually available to all which now only a few can share in or realise.

The Mother: After speaking of the descent of the Supramental, he [Sri Aurobindo] said that we have to evolve an intermediate being between our present mental condition (even the most elevated mind) and the supramental region, because he said that if we entered the Gnosis directly, the change would be so abrupt that the constitution of our physical being would not be able to bear it — some intermediate being is necessary. In view of what I have experienced, I am totally convinced of it: twice, there was an actual possession by the supramental world, and twice the body — the actual physical body — felt it was going to be completely disintegrated by … what could almost be called the opposition of conditions.