Difference between immortality and the deathless state

November 25, 1959

There is a difference between immortality and the deathless state. Sri Aurobindo has described it very well in Savitri.

The deathless state is what can be envisaged for the human physical body in the future: it is constant rebirth. Instead of again tumbling backwards and falling apart due to a lack of plasticity and an incapacity to adapt to the universal movement, the body is undone 'futurewards,' as it were.

There is one element that remains fixed: for each type of atom, the inner organization of the elements is different, which is what creates the difference in their substance. So perhaps similarly, each individual has a different, particular way of organizing the cells of his body, and it is this particular way that persists through all the outer changes. All the rest is undone and redone, but undone in a forward thrust towards the new instead of collapsing backwards into death, and redone in a constant aspiration to follow the progressive movement of the divine Truth.

But for that, the body - the body-consciousness - must first learn to widen itself. It is indispensable, for otherwise all the cells become a kind of boiling porridge under the pressure of the supramental light.

What usually happens is that when the body reaches its maximum intensity of aspiration or of ecstasy of Love, it is unable to contain it. It becomes flat, motionless. It falls back. Things settle down - you are enriched with a new vibration, but then everything resumes its course. So you must widen yourself in order to learn to bear unflinchingly the intensities of the supramental force, to go forward always, always with the ascending movement of the divine Truth, without falling backwards into the decrepitude of the body.

That is what Sri Aurobindo means when he speaks of an intolerable ecstasy*; it is not an intolerable ecstasy: it is an unflinching ecstasy.

* Thoughts and Aphorisms: 'Cruelty transfigured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy ... '

Prayers of the Consciousness of the Cells (1951 - 1959)

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Love can change the Law

Nov 12, 1960

But it's explained very well in Savitri! All these things have their laws and their conventions (and truly speaking, a really FORMIDABLE power is needed to change anything of their rights, for they have rights - what they call 'laws') ... Sri Aurobindo explains this very well when Savitri, following Satyavan into death, argues with the god of Death.' 'It's the Law, and who has the right to change the Law?' he says. And then comes this wonderful passage at the end where she replies, 'My God can change it. And my God is a God of Love.' Oh, how magnificent!

And by force of repeating this to him, he yields ... She replies in this way to EVERYTHING.

It's all right for winning a Victory, but not for stopping the rain for one day!

So I'm trying to come to an understanding, to reach an agreement - these are very complicated matters (!). For it's a whole totality ... You see, we are trying something here which really is contrary to all those laws and practices, something which disturbs everything. So 'they' propose things that have me advancing like this (sinuous motion), without disturbing things too much, and without having to call in forces ... (Mother makes a gesture of a lance thrust into the pack) forces a bit too great, which may disturb things too much. Like that, we can keep tacking back and forth.

A while ago ... You know that I have TREMENDOUS financial difficulties. In fact, I have handed the whole matter over to the Lord, telling Him, 'It's your affair; if you want us to continue this experience, well, you must provide the means.' But this upsets some of 'them,' so they come along with all kinds of suggestions to keep me from having to ... to resort to something so drastic. They suggest all kinds of things; some time ago they said, 'What about a good cyclone, or a good earthquake? A lot of damage to the Ashram, a public appeal - that would bring in some funds!' (Mother laughs) Yes, it's of this order! And it's all quite clear and definite - we have veritable 'conversations'!

1. Yama: the god of Death. He is also the guardian of the Law.

I listen, I answer. 'It's not satisfactory!' I told them. But they've kept to their idea, they like it. When that first storm came some time back (you remember, with those terrible bolts of lightning and that asuric being P.K. saw and sketched): 'Don't you want us to destroy something? ...' I got angry. But it was ... This influence was so close and acute that it gave you goose bumps! The whole time the storm lasted, I had to hold on tight in my bed, like this (Mother closes her fists tight as in a trance or deep concentration), and I didn't move - didn't move - like a ... a rock during the entire storm, until he consented to go a bit further away. Then I moved. And even now, it comes - from others (there's not just one, you see, there are many): 'How about a good flood?' A roof collapsed the other day with someone underneath, but he was able to escape. So roofs are collapsing, houses ... 'Arouse public sympathy, we must help the Ashram!' 'It's no good,' I said. But maybe that's what's responsible for this interminable rain. And they offer so many other things ... oh, what they parade past me! You could write books on all this!

But generally - and this is something Theon had told me (Theon was very qualified on the subject of hostile forces and the workings of all that 'resists' the divine influence, and he was a great fighter - as you might imagine! He himself was an incarnation of an asura, so he knew how to tackle these things!); he was always saying, If you make a VERY SMALL concession or suffer a minor defeat, it gives you the right to a very great victory.' It's a very good trick. And I have observed, in practice, that for all things, even for the very little things of everyday life, it's true - if you yield on one point (if, even though you see what should be, you yield on a very secondary and unimportant point), it immediately gives you the power to impose your will for something much more important. I mentioned this to Sri Aurobindo and he said that it was true. It is true in the world as it is today, but it's not what we want; we want it to change, really change.

He wrote this in a letter, I believe, and he spoke of this system of compensation - for example, those who take an illness on themselves in order to have the power to cure; and then there's the symbolic story of Christ dying on the cross to set men free. And Sri Aurobindo said, 'That's fine for a certain age, but we must now go beyond that.' As he told me (it's even one of the first things he told me), 'We are no longer at the time of Christ when, to be victorious, it was necessary to die.'

I have always remembered this.

But things are PULLING backwards - phew, how they pull! ... 'The Law, the Law, it's a Law. Don't you understand, it's a LAW, you can't change the Law.'

- 'But I CAME to change the Law.'

- 'Then pay the price.'

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Forever love, oh beautiful slave of God

Jan 12, 1961

I am going downstairs on the 21st, for Saraswati Puja. (Saraswati represents the universal Mother's aspect of Knowledge and artistic creativity. On this occasion, Mother would go down to the Meditation Hall and the disciples would silently pass in front of her to receive a message. This year they would receive a folder containing five photographs of Mother.) They have prepared a folder with a long quotation from Savitri and five photos of my face taken from five different angles.

The title of the folder is the line from Savitri that gave me the most overpowering experience of the entire book (because, as I told you, as I read, I would LIVE the experiences - reading brought, instantly, a living experience). And when I came to this particular line .. I was as if suddenly swept up and engulfed in ... ('the' is wrong, 'an' is wrong - it's neither one nor the other, it's something else) ... eternal Truth. Everything was abolished except this:

For ever love, O beautiful slave of God

(Savitri, Vol. 29, XI.I.702)

That alone existed.

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Salvation of the world

Jan 22, 1961

But all of that is wonderfully, accurately expressed and EXPLAINED in Savitri. Only you must know how to read it! The entire last part, from the moment she goes to seek Satyavan in the realm of Death (which affords an occasion to explain this), the whole description of what happens there, right up to the end, where every possible offer is made to tempt her, everything she must refuse to continue her terrestrial labor ... it is my experience EXACTLY.

Savitri is really a condensation, a concentration of the universal Mother - the eternal universal Mother, Mother of all universes from all eternity - in an earthly personality for the Earth's salvation. And Satyavan is the soul of the Earth, the Earth's jiva. So when the Lord says, 'he whom you love and whom you have chosen,' it means the earth. All the details are there! When she comes back down, when Death has yielded at last, when all has been settled and the Supreme tells her, 'Go, go with him, the one you have chosen,' how does Sri Aurobindo describe it? He says that she very carefully takes the SOUL of Satyavan into her arms, like a little child, to pass through all the realms and come back down to earth. Everything is there! He hasn't forgotten a single detail to make it easy to understand - for someone who knows how to understand. And it is when Savitri reaches the earth that Satyavan regains his full human stature.

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The origin of sound described in Savitri

Jan 27, 1961

I told you something concerning the power of the will, didn't I?...

Well, yesterday I saw R. He was asking me questions about his work and particularly about the knowledge of languages (he's a scholar, you know, and very familiar with the old traditions). This put me in contact with that whole world and I began speaking to him a little about what I had already said to you concerning my experience with the Vedas. And all at once, in the same [absolute] way as I told you, when I entered into contact with that world a whole domain seemed to open up, a whole field of knowledge from the standpoint of languages, of the Word, of the essential Vibration, that vibration which would be able to reproduce the supramental consciousness. It all came, so clear, so clear, luminous, indisputable - but unfortunately there was no tape recorder!

It was about the Word, the primal sound. Sri Aurobindo speaks of it in Savitri: the essence of the Word and how it will express itself, how it will bring in the possibility of a supramental expression that will take the place of languages.... I began by speaking to him about the different languages, their limitations and possibilities; and I warned him against the deformations imposed on languages with the idea of making them a more flexible means of expressing something else. I told him how completely ridiculous it all was, and that it didn't correspond at all to the truth. Then little by little I began ascending to the Origin. So yesterday again, I had this same experience: a whole world of knowledge, of consciousness and of CERTAINTY - precluding the least possibility of contradiction, discussion, or opposition; the possibility DOES NOT EXIST, it doesn't exist. And the mind was absolutely silent and immobile, listening with obvious pleasure because these things had never before come into my consciousness; I had never been concerned with them in that way. It was completely new - not new in principle but completely new in action.

The experiences are multiplying.

A sound that can bring in the supramental Force?

Yes. While speaking, you see, I went back to the origin of sound (Sri Aurobindo describes it very clearly in Savitri: the origin of sound, the moment when what we called 'the Word' becomes a sound). So I had a kind of perception of the essential sound before it becomes a material sound. And I said, 'When this essential sound becomes a material sound, it will give birth to the new expression which will express the supramental world.' I had the experience itself at that moment, it came directly. I spoke in English and Sri Aurobindo was concretely, almost palpably, present.

Now it has gone away.

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Many of my own experiences have been incorporated in Savitri

July 4, 1961

(Mother remarks in passing that the inspiration coming to her from Sri Aurobindo when she writes is sometimes in French and sometimes in English, and adds:)

Sri Aurobindo told me he had been French in a previous life and that French flowed back to him like a spontaneous memory - he understood all the subtleties of French.

How is your work going?

Tomorrow I'll begin on 'Savitri.'

O lucky man! What joy!

You know, Savitri is an exact description - not literature, not poetry (although the form is very poetical) - an exact description, step by step, paragraph by paragraph, page by page; as I read, I relived it all. Besides, many of my own experiences that I recounted to Sri Aurobindo seem to have been incorporated into Savitri. He has included many of them - Nolini says so; he was familiar with the first version Sri Aurobindo wrote long ago, and he said that an enormous number of experiences were added when it was taken up again. This explained to me why ... suddenly, as I read it, I live the experience - line by line, page by page. The realism of it is astounding.

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The more you read, the more marvellous it becomes

July 7, 1961

The experience I described the day I said 'I have something to tell you' [January 24, 1961] was truly very pleasant and I did try to relive it - but I never could. Whenever I try, whenever something in me insists on recapturing the experience, I always see a Smile and something tells me, 'No, no! Let go! You'll see, you'll see. So I let go. All right, that's enough-enough for you! And you - what are you doing?

I'm re-reading 'Savitri.'

Lucky man! I would love to read it again. And the more you read, the more marvelous it becomes.

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The direct intervention of the Supreme’s Will

July 15, 1961

In the final analysis, everything obviously depends upon the Supreme's Will because, if one looks deeply enough into the question, even physical laws and resistances are nothing for Him. But this kind of direct intervention takes place only at the extreme limit; if His Will is to be expressed in opposition, as it were, to the whole set of laws governing the Manifestation - well, that only comes ... at the very last second. Sri Aurobindo has expressed this so well in Savitri, so well! At least three times in the book he has expressed this Will that abolishes all established laws, all of them, and all the consequences of these laws, the whole formidable colossus of the Manifestation, so that in the face of it all, That can express itself - and this takes place at the very last 'second,' so to speak, at the extreme limit of possibility

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The experience of Mind

July 28, 1961

Take the experience of Mind, for example: Mind, in the evolution of Nature, gradually emerging from its involution; well - and this is a very concrete experience - these initial 'mentalized forms,' if we can call them that, were necessarily incomplete and imperfect, because Nature's evolution is slow and hesitant and complicated. Thus these forms inevitably had an aspiration towards a sort of perfection and a truly perfect mental state, and this aspiration brought the descent of already fully conscious beings from the mental world who united with terrestrial forms - this is a very, very concrete experience. What emerges from the Inconscient in this way is an almost impersonal possibility (yes, an impersonal possibility, and perhaps not altogether universal, since it's connected with the history of the earth); but anyway it's a general possibility, not personal. And the Response from above is what makes it concrete, so to speak, bringing in a sort of perfection of the state and an individual mastery of the new creation. These beings in corresponding worlds (like the gods of the overmind, [In Sri Aurobindo's terminology, the 'Overmind' represents the highest level of the mind, the world of the gods and origin of all the revelations and highest artistic creations - the world that has ruled mental man till now. in his gradations of the worlds, Sri Aurobindo speaks of two hemispheres, the upper hemisphere and the lower. The Overmind is the line between these two hemispheres, 'This line is the intermediary overmind which, though luminous itself, keeps from us the full indivisible supramental Light, but in receiving it divides, distributes, breaks up into separated aspects, powers, multiplicities of all kinds.' In the words of the Upanishad, 'The face of the Truth is covered by a golden lid.'] or the beings of higher regions) came upon earth as soon as the corresponding element began to evolve out of its involution. This accelerates the action, first of all, but also makes it more perfect - more perfect, more powerful, more conscious. It gives a sort of sanction to the realization. Sri Aurobindo writes of this in Savitri - Savitri lives always on earth, with the soul of the earth, to make the whole earth progress as quickly as possible. Well, when the time comes and things on earth are ready, then the divine Mother incarnates with her full power - when things are ready. Then will come the perfection of the realization. A splendor of creation exceeding all logic! It brings in a fullness and a power completely beyond the petty shallow logic of human mentality.

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Earth is a representative and symbolic world

July 28, 1961

The earth is a representative and symbolic world, a kind of crystallization and concentration of the evolutionary labor giving it a ... more concrete reality. It has to be taken like this: the history of the earth is a symbolic history. And it is on earth that this Descent takes place (it's not the history of the universal but of the terrestrial creation); the Descent occurs in the individual TERRESTRIAL being, in the individual terrestrial atmosphere.

Let's take Savitri, which is very explicit on this: the universal Mother is universally present and at work in the universe, but the earth is where concrete form is given to all the work to be done to bring evolution to its perfection, its goal. Well, at first there's a sort of emanation representative of the universal Mother, which is always on earth to help it prepare itself; then, when the preparation is complete, the universal Mother herself will descend upon earth to finish her work. And this She does with Satyavan - Satyavan is the soul of the earth. She lives in close union with the soul of the earth and together they do the work; She has chosen the soul of the earth for her work, saying, 'HERE is where I will do my work.' Elsewhere (Mother indicates regions of higher Consciousness), it's enough just to BE and things Simply ARE. Here on earth you have to work.

There are clearly universal repercussions and effects, of course, but the thing is WORKED OUT here, the place of work is HERE. So instead of living beatifically in Her universal state and beyond, in the extra-universal eternity outside of time, She says, 'No, I am going to do my work HERE, I choose to work HERE.' The Supreme then tells her, 'What you have expressed is My Will.'.... 'I want to work HERE, and when all is ready, when the earth is ready, when humanity is ready (even if no one is aware of it), when the Great Moment comes, well ... I will descend to finish my work.'

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This blossoming into poetry of his prophetic revelation

September 23, 1961

This analogy between the ancient form of spiritual revelations and Savitri, this blossoming into poetry of his prophetic revelation is ... what could be called the most exceptional part of his work. And what is remarkable (I saw him do it) is that he changed Savitri: he went along changing it as his experience changed.

It is clearly the continuing expression of his experience.

There were whole sections he redid completely, which were like descriptions of what I had told him of my own experiences. Nolini said this. When I recently reread Savitri, some phrases were very familiar and I said to Nolini, 'How odd, these are almost my very words!' And he replied, 'But this has been changed, it was written differently; it has BECOME like this.' As the thing became more and more concrete for him, he changed it. The breath of revelatory prophecy is extraordinary! It has an extraordinary POWER!

What struck me is that he never wanted to write anything else. To write those articles for the Bulletin [Mother had asked Sri Aurobindo to write something for the Ashram 'Bulletin.' It was later published as The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth.] was really a heavy sacrifice for him. He had said he would complete certain parts of The Synthesis of Yoga, [The third section, 'The Yoga of Self -Perfection,' which was never completed.] but when he was asked to do so, he replied, 'No, I don't want to go down to that mental level'! Savitri comes from somewhere else altogether. And I think that Savitri is the most important thing to speak about.

From time to time I use a line from 'Savitri,' placing it in the book like an open window. That's all I can do.

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What the white gods had missed

January 24, 1962

(In connection with a  preceding conversation on antidivine forces.)

I read a passage in Savitri which seems to link up exactly with what you were saying....

Ah, read it to me!

I'd rather you read it yourself, because my English.... I found it really striking - these four lines here....

(Mother reads:)

Not only is there hope for godheads pure;
The violent and darkened deities
Leaped down from the one breast in rage to find
What the white gods had missed: they too are safe;
A Mother's eyes are on them and her arms
Stretched out in love desire her rebel sons.

Savitri, Book X, Canto 2 (Cent. Ed. XXIX.613)

Yes, that's it.

"What the white gods had missed...."

I didn't remember it. But that's it exactly. It's strange; when I read I see only what's needed at the moment. The rest seems to go unnoticed. And then as soon as it's needed, it comes back - as happened with what you just showed me.

Yes, that's it - that's what just happened.

It's exactly like pulling open a curtain: everything is waiting there behind.

It's difficult for me to speak during these experiences because French comes to me more spontaneously, and the experiences all happen in English - Sri Aurobindo's power is so much with them....

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What the white gods had missed

January 27, 1962

I'd like to ask you a question about those lines from Savitri I showed you the other day. I don't know if you remember - the passage about the "white gods."

What did you want to ask? What was it that "the white gods had missed"? But Sri Aurobindo has written it all down in full, right here in the Aphorisms. He has mentioned everything, taken up one thing after another: "Without this, there would not have been that; without this, there would not have been that ..." and so on. )88 - This world was built by Death that he might live. Wilt thou abolish death? Then life too will perish. Thou canst not abolish death, but thou mayst transform it into a greater living. 89 - This world was built by Cruelty that she might love. Wilt thou abolish cruelty? Then love too will perish. Thou canst not abolish cruelty, but thou mayst transfigure it into its opposite, into a fierce Love and Delightfulness. 90 - This world was built by Ignorance and Error that they might know. Wilt thou abolish ignorance and error? Then knowledge too will perish. Thou canst not abolish ignorance and error, but thou mayst transmute them into the utter and effulgent reason. 91 - If Life alone were and not death, there could be no immortality; if love were alone and not cruelty, joy would be only a tepid and ephemeral rapture; if reason were alone and not ignorance, our highest attainment would not exceed a limited rationality and worldly wisdom. 92 - Death transformed becomes Life that is Immortality; Cruelty trans. figured becomes Love that is intolerable ecstasy; Ignorance transmuted becomes Light that leaps beyond wisdom and knowledge.)

But I also remember reading The Tradition, before I met Sri Aurobindo (it was like a novel, a serialized romance of the world's creation, but it was very evocative; Théon called it The Tradition). That was where I first learned of the universal Mother's first four emanations, when the Lord delegated his creative power to the Mother. And it was identical to the ancient Indian tradition, but told like a nursery story; anyone could understand - it was an image, like a movie, and very vivid.

So She made her first four emanations. The first was Consciousness and Light (arising from Sachchidananda); the second was Ananda and Love; the third was Life; and Truth was the fourth. Then, so the story goes, conscious of their infinite power, instead of keeping their connection with the supreme Mother and, through Her, with the Supreme, instead of receiving indications for action from Him and doing things in proper order, they were conscious of their own power and each one took off independently to do as he pleased - they had power and they used it. They forgot their Origin. And because of this initial oblivion, Consciousness became unconsciousness, and Light became darkness; Ananda became suffering, Love became hate; Life became Death; and Truth became Falsehood. And they were instantly thrown headlong into what became Matter. According to Théon, the world as we know it is the result of that. And that was the Supreme himself in his first manifestation.

But the story is easy to understand, and quite evocative. On the surface, for intellectuals, it's very childish; but once you have the experience you understand it very well - I understood and felt the thing immediately.

And once the world has become like that, has become the vital world in all its darkness, and they, from this vital world, have created Matter, the supreme Mother sees (laughing) the result of her first four emanations and She turns towards the Supreme in a great entreaty: "Now that this world is in such a dreadful state, it has to be saved! We can't just leave it this way, can we? It has to be saved, the divine consciousness must be given back to it. What to do?" And the Supreme says, "Thrust yourself into a new emanation, an emanation of the ESSENCE of Love, down into the most material Matter." That meant plunging into the earth (the earth had become a symbol and a representation of the whole drama). "Plunge into Matter." So She plunged into Matter, and that became the primordial source of the Divine within material substance. And from there (as is so well described in Savitri), She begins to act as a leaven in Matter, raising it up from within.

And as She plunged into the earth, a second series of emanations was sent forth - the gods - to inhabit the intermediary zones between Sachchidananda and the earth. And these gods (laughing) ... well, great care was taken to make them perfect, so they wouldn't give any trouble! But they are a bit ... a bit too perfect, aren't they? Yes, a bit too perfect: they never make mistakes, they always do exactly as they're told.... In short, rather lacking in initiative. They do have some, but....

In fact, they were not surrendered in the way a psychic being can be, because they had no psychic in them. The psychic being is the result of that descent. Only human beings have it. And that's what makes humanity so superior to the gods. Théon insisted greatly on this: throughout his story, humans are far superior to gods and should not obey them - they should only be in contact with the Supreme in his aspect of perfect Love.

I don't know how to put it.... To me, those gods always seemed ... (not those described in the Puranas, they're different ... well, not so very different!) but the way Théon presented them, they seemed just like a bunch of marshmallows! It's not that they had no power - they had a lot of power, but they lacked that psychic flame.

And to Théon, the God of the Jews and Christians was an Asura. This Asura wanted to be unique; and so he became the most terrible despot imaginable. Anatole France said the same thing (I now know that Anatole France had never read Théon's story, but I can't imagine where he picked this up). It's in The Revolt of the Angels. He says that Satan is the true God and that Jehovah, the "only God," is the monster. And when the angels wanted Satan to become the one and only God, Satan realized he was immediately taking on all Jehovah's failings! So he refused: "Oh, no - thank you very much!" It's a wonderful story, and in exactly the same spirit as what Théon used to say. The very first thing I asked Anatole France (I told you I met him once - mutual friends introduced us), the first thing I asked him was, "Have you ever read The Tradition?" He said no. I explained why I had asked, and he was interested. He said his source was his own imagination. He had caught that idea intuitively.

Well, if you speak this way to philosophers and metaphysicians, they'll look at you as if to say, "You must be a real simpleton to believe all that claptrap! " But these things are not to be taken as concrete truths - they are simply splendid images. Through them I really did come in contact, very concretely, with the truth of what caused the world's distortion, much better than with all the Hindu stories, far more easily.

Buddhism and all similar lines of thought took the shortest path: "The desire to exist is what has caused all the trouble." If the Lord had refrained from having this desire, there would have been no world! It's childish, very childish, really a much too human way of looking at the problem.

To see it from the angle of delight of being is qualitatively far superior, but then there's still the problem of why it all became the way it is. The usual reply is: because all things were possible, and this is ONE possibility. But it's not a very satisfying feeling: "Yes, all right, that's just the way it is, it's a fact." People used to ask Théon too, "Why did it happen like this? Why ...?" "Wait till you get to the other side, then you will know. And meanwhile do what's necessary to get there - that's the most urgent thing."

But there is one advantage: without those beings, without the world's distortion, many things would be lacking. Those beings potentially embodied certain absolutely unique elements - understandably so, since they were the first wave. And precisely because they still WERE the Supreme to such a great extent, each one felt he was the Supreme, and that was that. Only it wasn't quite sufficient, for the simple reason that they were already divided into four, and one single division is enough to make everything go wrong. It's readily understandable: it's not something essentially evil, but a question of wrong FUNCTIONING; it's not the substance, not the essence. The essence isn't evil, but the functioning is faulty.

But if you understand....

The words are so childish that if you tell this story to intelligent people, they look at you with pity - but it gives such a concrete grasp of the problem! It helped me a lot.

It was written in English and I am the one who translated it into French - into horrible French, perfectly ghastly, because I put in all the new words Théon had dreamed up. He had made a detailed description of all the faculties latent in man, and it was remarkable - but with such barbarous words! You can make up new words in English and get away with it, but in French it's utterly ridiculous. And there I was, very conscientiously putting them all in! Yet in terms of experience, it was splendid. It really was an experience - it came from Madame Théon's experiences in exteriorization. She had learned what Théon also taught me, to speak while you're in the seventh heaven (the body goes on speaking, rather slowly, in a rather low voice, but it works quite well). She would speak and a friend of hers, another English woman who was their secretary, would note it all down as she went along (I think she knew shorthand). And afterwards it was made into stories, told as stories. It was all shown to Sri Aurobindo and it greatly interested him. He even adopted some of the words into his own terminology.

The divisions and subdivisions of the being were described down to the slightest detail and with perfect precision. I went through the experience again on my own, without any preconceived ideas, just like that: leaving one body after the other, one body after the other, and so on twelve times.... And my experience - apart from certain quite negligible differences, doubtless due to differences in the receiving brain - was exactly the same.

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Savitri has come to kick out all the rules

February 3, 1962

Besides, if you remember the beginning of Savitri (I read it only recently, I hadn't known it), in the second canto, speaking of Savitri, he says she has come (he puts it poetically, of course!) to (laughing) kick out all the rules - all the taboos, the rules, the fixed laws, all the closed doors, all the impossibilities - to undo it all.

I went one better; I didn't even know the rules so I didn't need to fight them! All I had to do was ignore them, so they didn't exist - that was even better.

But now I have first to undo and then redo - a sheer waste of time.

In the lower mind there was a whole world of difficulties I was unaware of. In the vital I knew, because I'd had to do battle there - which was fine with me! Just imagine, this time I have been given a warrior as my vital being. A magnificent warrior, neither male nor female, and as tall as this room [About 15 feet high.] - he is splendid. I was so happy when I first saw him. "Well," I thought, "that's worth my while!"

Yes, there are battles galore there!

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No, there are still too many battles to wage on earth

February 17, 1962

A line from Savitri constantly haunts or assails me - it's when the Lord proposes that she come live a blissful life above, and she replies, "No, there are still too many battles to wage on earth.

I climb not to thy everlasting Day ...
Earth is the chosen place of mightiest souls;
Earth is the heroic spirit's battlefield...
Thy servitudes on earth are greater, king,
Than all the glorious liberties of heaven ...
Oh, to spread forth, oh to encircle and seize
More hearts till love in us has filled thy world! ...
Are there not still a million fights to wage?

Savitri, XI,1 (Cent. Ed. XXIX.686)

That went deep into me, and it returns each time difficulties arise, as if to say, "Don't complain."

And there are plenty!

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Like the story of Savitri  -  I was always there

June 27, 1962

I said one day that in the history of earth, wherever there was a possibility for the Consciousness to manifest, I was there

"Since the beginning of the earth, wherever and whenever there was the possibility of manifesting a ray of the Consciousness, I was there." March 14, 1952.;

this is a fact. It's like the story of Savitri: always there, always there, always there, in this one, that one - at certain times there were four emanations simultaneously! At the time of the Italian and French Renaissance. And again at the time of Christ, then too.... Oh, you know, I have remembered so many, many things! It would take volumes to tell it all. And then, more often than not (not always, but more often than not), what took part in this or that life was a particular yogic formation of the vital being - in other words something immortal. [Each of these formations had an independent, immortal existence.] And when I came this time, as soon as I took up the yoga, they came back again from all sides, they were waiting. Some were simply waiting, others were working (they led their own independent lives) and they all gathered together again. That's how I got those memories. One after the other, those vital beings came - a deluge! I had barely enough time to assimilate one, to see, situate and integrate it, and another would come. They are quite independent, of course, they do their own work, but they are very centralized all the same. And there are all kinds - all kinds, anything you can imagine! Some of them have even been in men: they are not exclusively feminine.

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Comment on previous statement

June 30, 1962

But with this present incarnation of the Mahashakti.... She is the Supreme's first manifestation, creation's first stride, and it was She who first gave form to all those beings. Now, since her incarnation in the physical world, and through the position She has taken here in relation to the Supreme by incarnating in a human body, all the other worlds have been influenced, and influenced in an extremely interesting way. [Some days later, the disciple again brought up the above passage, asking whether the Mother hadn't been active on earth since the beginning of time and not merely "with this present incarnation of the Mahashakti." The reply: "It was always through EMANATIONS, while now it's as Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri - the Supreme tells Savitri that a day will come when the earth is ready and 'The Mighty Mother shall take birth'.... But Savitri was already on earth - she was an emanation. So they were all emanations? They were all emanations, right from the beginning. So we have to say: 'With the PRESENT incarnation.'"] I have been in contact with all those gods, all those great beings, and for the most part their attitude has changed. And even with those who didn't want to change, it has nonetheless influenced their way of being.

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The Mother starts translating Savitri

September 18, 1962

I don't have far to go on my translation of The Synthesis of Yoga (it's going very quickly), and I have found what I'll do next.... It will be something like those notebooks [Prayers and Meditations]. I am going to take the whole section of Savitri (to start with, I'll see later) from "The Debate of Love and Death" to the point where the Supreme Lord makes his prophecy about the earth's future; it's long - several pages long. This is for my own satisfaction.

I am going to translate it line by line (not word by word - line by line), leaving a space between each line; and when I've finished I will try to recapture it in French (gesture of pulling down from above).

I am not doing it to show it to people or to have anyone read it, but to remain in Savitri's atmosphere, for I love that atmosphere. It will give me an hour of concentration, and I'll see if by chance.... I have no gift for poetry, but I'll see if it comes! (It surely won't come from a mentality developed in this present existence - there's no poetic gift!) So it's interesting, I'll see if anything comes. I am going to give it a try.

I know that light. I am immediately plunged into it each time I read Savitri. It is a very, very beautiful light.

So I am going to see.

First of all, I'll concentrate on it just as Sri Aurobindo said it in English, using French words. Then I'll see if something comes WITHOUT changing anything - that is, if the same inspiration he had comes in French. It will be an interesting thing to do. If I can do one, two, three lines a day, that's all I need; I will spend one hour every day like that.

I don't have anything in mind. All I know is that being in that light above gives me great joy. For it is a supramental light - a supramental light of aesthetic beauty, and very, very harmonious.

So now I don't mind finishing The Synthesis. I was a little bothered because I have no other books by Sri Aurobindo to translate that can help me in my sadhana: there was only The Synthesis. As I said, it always came right on time, just when it was needed for a particular experience.

When this new translation is finished (because I know Savitri, I know what it is), I know that when it's finished ... either I'll be there or else things will take a very long time.

All his other books that could help me are already translated. And with Savitri, the idea isn't to make a translation, but to SEE. To try something. To give me the daily experience of that contact.

I had some magnificent experiences when I read it the first time (two years ago, I believe). Wonderful, wonderful experiences! And since then, each time I read those lines, the same thing happens - not the same experience, but I come in contact with the same realm.

It will be an interesting thing to do.

It's more interesting than listening to everybody's stories! Oh .. (Mother raps her head). That's all.

(These are the last lines of Savitri Mother translated. They were found in her notebook under the date July 1, 1970.)

But how shall I seek rest in endless peace
Who house the mighty Mother's violent force,
Her vision turned to read the enigmaed world,
Her will tempered in the blaze of Wisdom's sun
And the flaming silence of her heart of love?
The world is a spiritual paradox
Invented by a need in the Unseen,
A poor translation to the creature's sense
Of That which for ever exceeds idea and speech,
A symbol of what can never be symbolised,
A language mispronounced, misspelt, yet true.

Here are the three following lines, which Mother never translated:

Its powers have come from the eternal heights
And plunged into the inconscient dim Abyss
And risen from it to do their marvelous work.

(X.IV.647)

(Mother's translation)

1.7.1970

Mais comment puis-je chercher le repos dans une paix sans fin
Moi qui abrite la force violente de la formidable Mère,
Sa vision attentive à lire le monde énigmatique,
Sa volonté trempée par le brasier du soleil de la Sagesse
Et le silence flamboyant de son coeur d'amour?
Le monde est un paradoxe spirituel Inventé par un besoin dans l'Invisible,
Une pauvre traduction pour les sens des créatures
De Cela qui à jamais dépasse l'idée et la parole,
Un symbole de ce qui ne peut jamais être symbolisé,
Un langage mal prononcé, mal épelé, pourtant vrai.

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Translating Savitri

October 30, 1962

My translation [of The Synthesis of Yoga] will be finished soon - I'll miss it.

But aren't you going to start on Savitri?

It suddenly seemed terribly ambitious to me.... (Laughing) My stock of words isn't so great!

(silence)

H.S. [A Chinese disciple who translates Sri Aurobindo into Chinese.] has written to me, and there was a sentence in his letter that brought a certain problem to my attention. He said, "I have done so many hours of translation - it's a mechanical task." I wondered what he meant by "mechanical task" because, as far as I am concerned, you can't translate unless you have the experience - if you start translating word for word, it no longer means anything at all. Unless you have the experience of what you translate, you can't translate it. Then I suddenly realized that the Chinese can't translate the way we do! In Chinese, each character represents an idea rather than a separate word; the basis is ideas, not words and their meanings, so translation must be a completely different kind of work for them. So I started identifying with H.S., to understand how he is translating Sri Aurobindo's Synthesis of Yoga into Chinese characters - he's had to find new characters! It was very interesting. He must have invented characters. Chinese characters are made up of root-signs, and the meaning changes according to the positions of the root-signs. Each root-sign can be simplified, depending on where it's placed in combination with other root-signs - at the top of the character, at the bottom, or to one side or the other. And so, finding the right combination for new ideas must be a fascinating task! (I don't know how many root-signs can be put in one character, but some characters are quite large and must contain a lot of them; as a matter of fact, I have been shown characters expressing new scientific discoveries, and they were very big.) But how interesting it must be to work with new ideas that way! And H.S. calls it a "mechanical task."

The man's a genius!

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The dark half of Truth

November 23, 1962

(A disciple reads a passage from his manuscript in which he says in particular: "We cannot take one step up without taking one step down.")

That's what I am experiencing in my body now - exactly what you say: each step forward forces you to make ... not a step backward, but a step into the Shadow. And on the physical level it's terrible.

(silence)

But your book shouldn't give the impression that it's always that way - that the Light can't be established on earth until all the Shadow is transformed. In fact, the very work of transformation is to change all this shadow into its aspect of light. [Mother is alluding to the passage in Savitri where Sri Aurobindo speaks of "the dark half of Truth."]

Not to reject it: to transform it.

(silence)

It's very, very true [one step up, one step down], very true, because it's true even for the most material body-consciousness. And you realize the difficulties that represents.... As soon as the body becomes more conscious of the divine Presence and Light, it's immediately as though you touched the dregs of unconsciousness and ... yes, of unconsciousness and material inertia. And that makes the work very hard, very hard.

And just last time, when I told you I wasn't very well, it happened during the night, and it was the equivalent of what you write here, but purely material, in the body. In your book you describe it rather psychologically, like a phenomenon of consciousness, that is; but here it's a phenomenon of the cells.... So hurry to bring me the triumph! (Mother laughs) I was telling myself just this morning how exhausting it was, this perpetual battle - oh, what a battle....

So when you write of the victory, perhaps I too will do a victory dance!

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Thou shalt bear all things, that all things may change

December 25, 1962

What have you brought? Your book? Do you have your book?

A bit of it, yes.

All right, begin with that.

It's getting to be heavy going, you know....

Oh!

I'm under a lot of pressure ... I'm thinking of the "Bulletin," of everything that remains to be done.

No.

But I have to!

Just let it come naturally, like that. Don't think ahead. Just put a piece of paper in front of you and let it come.

Otherwise you give yourself a headache.

All right, I am listening; read what you've brought.

It's not perfect yet.

No problem.

I am perfecting it - all I have to do is hear it.

!?

You don't believe it, do you? But I can assure you!

Actually, words serve only to put people in contact with something else, a knowledge, a light, a force or an action, or ... whatever. So as long as you manage to put one into the other, [The force or the light into the words of the book] that's all that's necessary.

If you knew.... You can't imagine how stupid people are! They put exactly what they want into what they read or hear, whatever they have in their heads. Only when you have the power to break that can something get in - and that can happen through any word at all, it doesn't matter.

That's what I try to bring in when I listen to your book.

So go ahead now, I am listening.

(After the reading:)

There's just one thing ... I don't know ... it's when you say Sri Aurobindo "succumbed" on December 5, 1950. He didn't "succumb." It's not that he couldn't have done otherwise. It's not the difficulty of the work that made him leave; it's something else. You can't mention this in your book, of course, it's impossible to talk about for the moment, but I would like you to use another word. What was your sentence again?

I said: "Sri Aurobindo succumbed to this work on December 5, 1950."

He didn't succumb.

We have to use another word, not "succumb." It was truly his CHOICE - he chose to do the work in another way, a way he felt would bring much more rapid results. But this explanation is nobody's business, for the moment. So we can't say that he succumbed. "Succumbed" gives the idea that it was against his will, that it just happened, that it was an accident - it CANNOT be "succumbed."

Yes, I understand.

You could simply say that he did the work up to that moment , .. that's all, giving no reason.

We could simply say: "Sri Aurobindo left this life on December 5, 1950."

Read the beginning of the passage again.

"The seeker of transformation must thus face all the difficulties, even death, not to vanquish but to change them - one cannot change things without taking them upon oneself. 'Thou shalt bear all things,' says Savitri, 'that all things may change.' Sri Aurobindo succumbed to this work ..."

Can't you just put "that's why," without giving any explanation?... That's why Sri Aurobindo left his body. That's much more powerful. You said "even death," so just put: "That's why Sri Aurobindo left his body."

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All earth shall be the Spirit's manifest home

December 28, 1962

(A disciple reads Mother one last passage from his manuscript:)

Evolution does not move higher and higher, into an ever more heavenly heaven, but deeper and deeper; and each cycle or evolutionary round comes to completion a little further down, a little nearer the Center where the Supreme High and Low, heaven and earth, will finally join. Thus for the two poles to actually meet, the pioneer must cleanse the mental, vital, and material middle ground. When the junction is made, not merely mentally and vitally but materially, Spirit will emerge in Matter, in a total supramental being and supramental body, and ...

All earth shall be the Spirit's manifest home.

[Savitri, Cent. Ed., XI.I.707]

This cleansing of the middle ground is the whole story of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ... "I had been dredging, dredging, dredging the mire of the subconscious.... The supramental light was coming down before November, [1934] but afterwards all the mud arose and it stopped." [Dilip K. Roy, Sri Aurobindo Came to Me, p. 73] Once again Sri Aurobindo verified, not individually this time but collectively, that if one pulls down too strong a light, the violated darkness below is made to moan. It is noteworthy that each time Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had some new experience marking a progress in the transformation, this progress automatically materialized in the consciousness of the disciples, without their even knowing anything about it, as a period of increased difficulties, sometimes even revolts or illnesses, as though everything were grating and grinding. But then, one begins to understand the mechanism. If a pygmy were abruptly subjected to the simple mental light of a cultivated man, we would probably see the poor fellow traumatized and driven mad by the subterranean revolutions within him. There is still too much jungle beneath the surface. The world is still full of jungle, that's the crux of the matter in a word; our mental colonization is a minuscule crust plastered over a barely dry quaternary.... And the battle seems endless; one "digs and digs," said the Rishis, and the deeper one digs, the more the bottom seems to recede: "I have been digging, digging.... Many autumns have I been toiling night and day, the dawns aging me. Age is diminishing the glory of our bodies." Thus, thousands of years ago, lamented Lopamudra, wife of Rishi Agastya, who was also seeking transformation.... But Agastya doesn't lose heart, and his reply is magnificently characteristic of the conquerors the Rishis were: "Not in vain is the labor which the gods protect. Let us relish all the contesting forces, let us conquer indeed even here, let us run this battle race of a hundred leadings." (Rig-Veda 1.179)

(For a long time, Mother remains pensive)

Well, we have another year of "digging" ahead of us. Happy New Year

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Savitri translation

January 30, 1963

What are you going to read to me today? Nothing? Nothing at all?

Well, I have something, then.

I have finished my translation [of the Synthesis]. When you have finished your book and we have prepared the next Bulletin and we have a nice quiet moment, we'll go over it again. And then I've begun Savitri - ah! ... As you know, I prepare some illustrations with Huta., and for her illustrations she has chosen some passages from Savitri (the choice isn't hers, it's A.'s and P.'s and made intelligently), so she gives me these passages one by one, neatly typed (which is easier for my eyes). It's from the Book I, Canto IV.

And then, as I expected, the experience is rather interesting.... I had noticed, while reading Savitri, that there was a sort of absolute understanding, that is to say, it can't mean this or that or this - it means THAT. It comes with an imperative. And that's what led me to think, "When I translate it, it will come in the same way." And it did. I take the text line by line and make a resolve (not personal) to translate it line by line, without the slightest regard for the literary point of view, but rendering what he meant in the clearest possible way.

The way it comes is both exclusive and positive - it's really interesting. There's none of the mind's ceaseless wavering, "Is this better? Is that better? Should it be like this? Should it be like that?" No - it is LIKE THIS (Mother brings down her hand in a gesture of imperative descent). And then in certain cases (without anything to do with the literary angle or even the sound of the word - neither sound nor anything, but meaning), Sri Aurobindo himself suggests a word. It's as if he were telling me, "Isn't this better French, tell me?" (!)

I am simply the recording machine.

It goes with fantastic speed, meaning that in ten minutes I translate ten lines. On the whole, only three or four times are there a couple of alternative possibilities, which I jot down immediately. Once, here (Mother shows a passage with erasures in her manuscript), the correction came, absolute. "No," he said, "not that - THIS." So I erased what I had written.

Here, read the English first.

Above the world the world-creators stand,
In the phenomenon see its mystic source.
These heed not the deceiving outward play,
They turn not to the moment's busy tramp,
But listen with the still patience of the Unborn
For the slow footsteps of far Destiny
Approaching through huge distances of Time,
Unmarked by the eye that sees effect and cause,
Unheard mid the clamour of the human plane.
Attentive to an unseen Truth they seize
A sound as of invisible augur wings....

(Savitri I.IV.54)

I didn't reread my translation, I am doing it now for the first time.

(Mother reads aloud her translation up to:
"They turn not to the moment's busy tramp")

Here, there was some hesitation between de 'instant [the instant's] and du moment [the moment's]. Then he showed me (I can't explain how it takes place), he showed me both words, moment and instant, and he showed me how, compared to moment, instant is mechanical; he said, "It's the mechanism of time; moment is full and contains the event." Things of that sort, inexpressible (I put it into words but it loses all its value). Inexpressible, but fantastic! There was some hesitation between instant and moment, I don't know why. Then he showed me instant: instant was dry, mechanical, empty, whereas moment contained all that takes place at every instant. So I wrote moment.

(Mother reads the end of her translation)

It isn't thought out, it just comes. It's probably not poetry, not even free verse, but it does contain something.

So I made a resolve (because it's neither to be published nor to be shown, but it's a marvelous delight): I will simply keep it the way I keep the Agenda. I have a feeling that, later, perhaps (how can I put it?) ... when people can be less mental in their activity, it will put them in touch with that light [of Savitri] - you know, immediately I enter something purely white and silent, light and alive: a sort of beatitude.

This other passage is what I translated the first time:

In Matter shall be lit the spirit's glow,
In body and body kindled the sacred birth;
Night shall awake to the anthem of the stars,
The days become a happy pilgrim march,
Our will a force of the Eternal's power,
And thought the rays of a spiritual sun.
A few shall see what none yet understands;
God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep;
For man shall not know the coming till its hour
And belief shall be not till the work is done.

(Savitri I.IV.55)

Here there were a few more erasures. It will probably go on improving. But what a wonder, this passage, what beauty!

(Mother reads aloud her translation up to:
"God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep")

Splendid!

(Mother reads her translation of the last two lines.)

Oh, I love this: "God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep."

So, I'll continue.

I may even keep the manuscript in pencil: the temptation to correct is very bad. Very bad because it's the surface understanding that wants to correct - literary taste, poetical sense and all those things that are down there (gesture down below). You know, it's as if (I don't mean the words themselves), as if the CONTENT of the words were projected on a perfectly blank and still screen (Mother points to her forehead), as if the words were projected on it.

The trouble is writing, the materialization between the vision and the writing; the Force has to drive the hand and the pencil, and there is a slight ... there's still a very slight resistance. Otherwise, if I could write automatically, oh, how nice it would be!

There may be (I can't say, it's all imagination because I don't know), there may come a few ... somewhat weird things. But there is an insistence on the need to keep to each line as though it stood all alone in the universe. No mixing up the line order, no, no, no! For when he wrote it, he SAW it that way - I knew nothing about that, I didn't even know how he wrote it (he dictated it, I believe, for the most part), but that's what he tells me now. Everything comes to a stop, everything, and then, oh, how we enjoy ourselves! I enjoy myself! It's more enjoyable than anything. I even told him yesterday, "But why write? What's the use?" Then he filled me with a sort of delight. Naturally, someone in the ordinary consciousness may say, "It's very selfish," but ... And then it's like a vision of the future (not too near, not extremely near - not extremely far either) a future when this sort of white thing - white and still - would spread out, and then, with the help of this work, a larger number of minds may come to understand. But that's secondary; I do the translation simply for the joy of it, that's all. A satisfaction that may be called selfish, but when he is told, "It's selfish," he replies that there is no one more selfish than the Lord, because all He does is for Himself!

There.

So I will go on. If there are corrections, they can only come through the same process, because at this point to correct anyhow would spoil it all. There is also the mixing (for the logical mind) of future and present tenses - but that too is deliberate. It all seems to come in another way. And well, I can't say, I haven't read any French for ages, I have no knowledge of modern literature - to me everything is in the rhythm of the sound. I don't know what rhythm they use now, nor have I read what Sri Aurobindo wrote in The Future Poetry. They tell me that Savitri's verse follows a certain rule he explained on the number of stresses in each line (and for this you should pronounce in the pure English way, which somewhat puts me off), and perhaps some rule of this kind will emerge in French? We can't say. I don't know. Unless languages grow more fluid as the body and mind grow more plastic? Possible. Language too, maybe: instead of creating a new language, there may be transitional languages, as, for instance (not a particularly fortunate departure, but still ...), the way American is emerging from English. Maybe a new language will emerge in a similar way?

In my case it was from the age of twenty to thirty that I was concerned with French (before twenty I was more involved in vision: painting; and sound: music), but as regards language, literature, language sounds (written or spoken), it was approximately from twenty to thirty. The Prayers and Meditations were written spontaneously with that rhythm. If I stayed in an ordinary consciousness I would get the knack of that rhythm - but now it doesn't work that way, it won't do!

Yesterday, after my translation, I was surprised at that sense ... a sense of absolute: "THAT'S HOW IT IS." Then I tried to enter into the literary mind and wondered, "What would be its various suggestions?" And suddenly, I saw somehow (somehow, somewhere there) a host of suggestions for every line! ... Ohh! "No doubt," I thought, "it IS an absolute!" The words came like that, without any room for discussion or anything. To give you an example: when he says "the clamour of the human plane," clameur exists in French, it's a very nice word - he didn't want it, he said "No," without any discussion. It wasn't an answer to a discussion, he just said, "Not clameur: vacarme." [Mother's translation is: Le vacarme du plan humain.] It isn't as though he was weighing one word against another, it wasn't a matter of words but the THOUGHT of the word, the SENSE of the word: "No, not clameur, it's vacarme."

Interesting, isn't it?

But I would like us to revise the translation in the same way, because I am sure he will be here - he is always here when I translate. Then I will go back into that state, while you will do the work! (Laughing) You will write. And then, unless your vocabulary is very extensive (mine used to be extensive, but now it has become quite limited), we'll need a decent dictionary.... But I am afraid none will have anything to offer.

I even find they should be avoided.

They're bad. Somewhere they make me angry. It makes a very dark atmosphere, it clouds the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, I have lost the habit of French, the words I use to express myself are quite limited and the right word doesn't come - something looks up in the word store and doesn't find the word. I can sense it as if elusively, I feel there is a word, but all sorts of substitutes come forward that are worthless.

Now the sensation is altogether, altogether new. It's not the customary movement of words pouring in and so on: you search and suddenly you catch hold of something - it's no longer that way at all: as though it were the ONLY thing that remained in the world. All the rest - mere noise.

There, mon petit.

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Savitri translation

February 15, 1963

(Regarding a passage in "Savitri" in which Sri Aurobindo describes the universe as a play between He and She. "This whole wide world is only he and she," He, the Supreme in love with her, her servitor; She, the creative Force.)

As one too great for him he worships her;
He adores her as his regent of desire,
He yields to her as the mover of his will,
He burns the incense of his nights and days
Offering his life, a splendour of sacrifice....
In a thousand ways he serves her royal needs;
He makes the hours pivot around her will,
Makes all reflect her whims; all is their play:
This whole wide world is only he and she.

(Savitri I.IV. 62)

What a marvelous work!

He goes into a completely different region, so much above thought! It's constant vision, it isn't something thought out - with thought everything becomes flat, hollow, empty, empty, just like a leaf; while this is full, the full content is there, alive.

It's an explanation of why the world is as it is. At the start he says, He worships her (here again, there are no words in French: Il lui rend un culte, but that makes a whole sentence). He worships her as something far greater than Himself. And then you are almost a spectator of the Supreme projecting Himself to take on this creative aspect (necessarily, otherwise it couldn't be done!), the Witness watching His own work of creation and falling in love with this power of manifestation - you see it all. And ... oh, He wants to give Her her fullest chance and see, watch all that is going to happen, all that can happen with this divine Power thrust free into the world. And Sri Aurobindo expresses it as though he had absolutely fallen in love with Her: whatever She wants, whatever She does, whatever She thinks, whatever She wills, all of it - it's all wonderful! All is wonderful. It's so lovely!

And, I must say, I was observing this because, originally, the first time I heard of it, this conception shocked me, in the sense that ... (I don't know, it wasn't an idea, it was a feeling), as though it meant lending reality to something which in my consciousness, for a very long time (at least ... millennia perhaps, I don't know), had been the Falsehood to be conquered. The Falsehood that must cease to exist. It's the aspect of Truth that must manifest itself, it's not all that: doing anything whatsoever just for the fun of it, simply because you have the full power.... You have the power to do everything, so you do everything, and knowing that there is a Truth behind, you don't give a damn about consequences. That was something ... something which, as far back as I can remember, I have fought against. I have known it, but it seems to me it was such a long, long time ago and I rejected it so strongly, saying, "No, no!" and implored the Lord so intensely that things may be otherwise, beseeched Him that his all-powerful Truth, his all-powerful Purity and his all-powerful Beauty may manifest and put an end to all that mess. And at first I was shocked when Sri Aurobindo told me that; previously, in this life, it hadn't even crossed my mind. In that sense Theon's explanation had been much more (what should I say?) useful to me from the standpoint of action: the origin of disorder being the separation of the primal Powers - but that's not it! HE is there, blissfully worshipping all this confusion!

And naturally this time around, when I started translating it came back. At first there was a shudder (Mother makes a gesture of stiffening). Then I told myself, "Haven't you got beyond that!" And I let myself flow into the thing. Then I had a series of nights with Sri Aurobindo ... so marvelous! You understand, I see him constantly and I go into that subtle physical world where he has his abode; the contact is almost permanent (at any rate, that's how I spend all my nights: he shows me the work, everything), but still, after this translation of Savitri he seemed to be smiling at me and telling me, "At last you have understood!" (Mother laughs) I said, "It isn't that I didn't understand, it's that I didn't want it!" I didn't want, I don't WANT things to be like that any more, for thousands of years I have wanted things to be otherwise!

The night before last, he had put on a sari of mine. He told me (laughing), "Why not? Don't you find it suits me!" I answered, "It suits you beautifully!" A sari of brown georgette, lustrous bronze, with big golden braid! It was a very beautiful sari (I used to have it, it was one of my saris), and he was wearing it. Then he asked me to do his hair. I remember seeing that the nape of his neck and his hair had become almost luminous - his hair was never quite white, there was an auburn shimmer to it, it was almost golden, and it stayed that way, very fine, not at all like the hair people have here. His hair was almost like mine. So while I was doing his hair, I saw the luminous nape of his neck, and his hair, so luminous! And he said to me, "Why shouldn't I wear a sari!"

That opened up a whole new horizon.... We're always so closed, you know.

Of course, it [this vision or conception] isn't allowed into action, because when you start accepting everything and loving everything and seeing Glory everywhere - why change!? This is why the Force that had been in me for so long for the world to progress further made me reject precisely all that legitimized things as they are by putting you into contact with the inner joy of living - as he puts it, His Joy is there, everywhere, so nobody wants to leave the world....

In short, I was able to see the situation from above, a little higher than the creative Force - from the other side.

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The joy of being in a world of overmental expression

February 19, 1963

Mother speaks of her translation of "Savitri"

I do it exclusively for the joy of being in a world ... a world of overmental expression (I don't say supramental, I say overmental), a luminous, marvelous expression through which you can catch the Truth.

And it teaches me English without books! Now, whenever I have to write a letter, all the words come by themselves: the CONTENT of the word (just as I told you for moment and instant), now it works the same way with all words! Yesterday I wrote something in English for a doctor here (Mother looks for a paper): The world progresses so rapidly that we must be ready at any moment to over pass what we knew in order to know better. And you know, I never think: it just comes, either the sound or the written word (it depends on the case: now I'll see the written words, now I'll hear the sound). For instance, the word advance came first, and with it came quick, quickly, repeatedly ["the world advances so quickly"]. Then came progress, and quickly was out of the picture; and suddenly rapidly came forward. So I understood how it worked, how it works for all words! I understood: progress (the idea or inner meaning of progress) calls for rapidly; and advance calls for quickly. Putting it like this sounds like splitting hairs, but when I saw it, it was positively irrefutable! The word was alive, its content was alive, and along with it was its friend, the word that went with it; and the word that wasn't its friend was not to be seen, it wasn't in the mood! Oh, it was so funny! For that alone it is worth the trouble.

I have made some experiments with French too. I wrote something: Pour chacun, le plus important est de savoir si on appartient au passe qui se perpetue, au present qui s'epuise, à l'avenir qui veut naître. ["The most important point for everyone is to know whether he belongs to the past perpetuating itself, to the present exhausting itself, or to the future trying to be born."] I gave it to Z - he didn't understand. So I told him, "It doesn't mean 'our' past, 'our' present or 'our' future...." I wrote this when I was in that state [the experience Mother told at the beginning of this conversation], and it was in connection with a very sweet old lady who has just left her body. This is what I said to her. Everybody had been expecting her departure for more than a month or two, but I said, "You will see, she is going to last; she will last for at least another month or two." Because she knows how to live within, outside her body, and the body lives on out of habit, without jerks and jolts. That was her condition, and it could last a very long time. They had announced she would leave within two days, but I said, "It's not true." I know her well, in the sense that she had come out of her body and there was a link with me. And I said to her, "What do you care!" (though she wasn't at all worried, she was staying peacefully with me), "The whole point is to know whether one belongs to the past perpetuating itself, to the present exhausting itself, or to the future trying to be born." Sometimes what WE call the past is right here, it's the future trying to be born; sometimes what WE call the present is something in advance, something that came ahead of time; but sometimes also it's something that came late, that is still part of all that is to disappear - I saw it all: people, things, circumstances, everything through that perception, the vibration that would go on transforming itself, the vibration that would exhaust itself and disappear, the vibration that, though manifested for a long time, would be entitled to continue, to persist - that changes all notions! It was so interesting! So I wrote it down as it was - without any explanations (you don't feel much like explaining in such a case, the thing is so self-evident!). Poor Z, he stared at me - all at sea! So I told him, "Don't try to understand. I am not speaking of the past, present and future as we know them, it's something else." (Mother laughs)

But it's amusing because I had never paid much attention to that [the questions of language], the experience is novel, almost the discovery of the truth behind expression. Before, my concern was to be as clear, exact and precise as possible; to say exactly what I meant and put each word in its proper place. But that's not it! Each word has its own life! Some are drawn together by affinity, others repel each other ... it's very funny!

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Miracles

(Mother takes up the aphorisms to be prepared for the next "Bulletin":)

84 - The supernatural is that the nature of which we have not attained or do not yet know, or the means of which we have not yet conquered. The common taste for miracles is the sign that man's ascent is not yet finished.

85 - It is rationality and prudence to distrust the supernatural; but to believe in it is also a sort of wisdom.

86 - Great saints have performed miracles; greater saints have railed at them; the greatest have both railed at them and performed them.

87 - Open thy eyes and see what the world really is and what God; have done with vain and pleasant imaginations.

Do you have any questions?

Yes, there are two types of question....

There are two very different things.

First, one may ask: What is a miracle? Because Sri Aurobindo often says that "there is no such thing as a miracle," but at the same time, in "Savitri," for example, he says, "All's miracle here and can by miracle change.&