Integral Yoga Literature - By the Mother

Selections from Notes on The Way

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The contents of this document are copyright 1972, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, India. You may make a digital copy or printout of this text for your personal, non-commercial use under the condition that you copy this document without modifications and in its entirety, including this copyright notice.

23 November 1968

I have had an interesting experience.... not last night, but the night before, someone whom I shall not name, told me, "I am wholly down in the physical consciousness: no more meditation, and the Divine has become something up there, so far away." Then immediately, as he was speaking, the whole room got filled with the divine Presence. I told him, "Not up there: here, here itself." And at that moment, everything, the whole atmosphere.... it was as though the air had changed into the divine Presence (Mother touches her hand, her face, her body), well, everything was touched, touched, pervaded, but with... the thing that was particularly there was a dazzling Light, a Peace like this (gesture of massiveness), a Power, and then a Sweetness... something... one had the feeling that it could melt a rock.

And it did not go away. It stayed.

It came in that way, and then it stayed.

And so the whole night it was like that -- everything. Even now, the two are there: a little of the ordinary consciousness, as if in a mechanical way, but I have to be quiet or concentrated for a moment and it is there. And it is the experience of a body, you understand, physical, material, the experience of the body: everything, everything is full, full: there is only That, and we are like... everything is as though shriveled, a dried up rind, something like that, dried up. One has the feeling that things are (not entirely, but superficially) hardened, dried up, and that is why you do not feel That. That is why you do not feel Him; otherwise, all is That, That, there is nothing but That. You cannot breathe without breathing Him in; you move, it is within Him that you move; you are... everything, everything, the whole universe is within Him -- but materially, physically, physically.

It is the cure for this "drying up" that I am now looking for.

I feel it is something fantastic, do you understand ?

And then when I listen, He tells me things also. I said to Him, "But then why do people always go up there ?" And with the most extraordinarily unusual humour the answer comes: "Because they want me to be very far from their consciousness !" Things like that, but not formulated in such a precise manner: impressions only. Many a time -- many -- I had heard: "Why do they go so far in search of what is" -- of course there are tenets that said: It is within you -- "what is everywhere ?"

I did not say it to this person, first because the experience was not, as it is now, a continuous thing.

And then there was this particularly: no new religions, no dogmas, no fixed teachings. One must avoid -- one must avoid at all cost the thing becoming a new religion. Because as soon as it is formulated in a way that is elegant and imposing and has a force, it would be the end.

You have the feeling that He is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere; there is nothing else. And we do not know it because we are... shrunken, I do not know how to say it, dried up. We have made great efforts (Mother laughs) to separate ourselves -- and succeeded ! Succeeded, but succeeded only in our consciousness, not in fact. In fact, It is there, It is there. There is nothing but That. Whatever we know, whatever we see, whatever we touch, it is as though bathing, floating in That; but it is penetrable; it is penetrable, quite penetrable: That passes through it. The sense of separation comes from this (Mother touches her forehead, indicating the mind).

The experience came, perhaps, because for several days there was a very great concentration to find out, not exactly the why or the how, but the fact, the fact of the separation, everything appearing so stupid, so ugly.... I was assailed, assailed by various living memories of all kinds of experiences (all kinds: books, pictures, cinemas, and life, people, things), memories of the body, all the memories that might be called "anti-divine", in which the body had the sensation of something that was repulsive or evil, like negations of the divine Presence. It began in that way; for two days I was like that, so much so that the body almost sank into despair. And then the experience came and after that it did not move. It did not budge. It came: brrff ! finished, and it did not budge. Well, the experiences come and then they withdraw: it did not move. At this moment it is there. And then the body tries to be fluid (Mother makes a gesture of pouring herself out), it tries to melt; it tries, it understands what it is. It tries -- it does not succeed, evidently! (Mother looks at her hands), but its consciousness knows.

Only, the experience has its effects: people have felt relief all of a sudden; one or two were completely cured. And when something goes wrong in the body, it need not ask: quite naturally it is set right.

And that has not even given to the body the need to do nothing and be wholly concentrated upon its experience: no, there is no desire, nothing at all. Like this, to float in a luminous immensity... which is within ! It is not only outside: it is within. It is within. That (Mother touches her hands), that which appears as separate, truly the feeling is that it is... I do not know how to say it, but it is real only in the distortion of the consciousness, but not the human consciousness: something has happened, something has happened in the consciousness.... (Mother shakes her head) I do not understand.

(Silence)

All the theories and explanations and stories that lie at the base of each religion, all that seems to me... an amusement. And then one wonders, one wonders... I will tell you one thing: might it not be a comedy that the Lord has played to Himself ?

But it is difficult to say. I have had days when I have lived truly all the horrors of creation (and in the consciousness of their horror), and then that has brought this experience, and... all the horror has disappeared.

And these were not at all psychological things, but rather physical sufferings, yes, particularly physical suffering. I have seen it -- a physical suffering that lasts, that does not stop, that lasts day and night. And then all of a sudden, instead of being at this state of consciousness, you are in that of this exclusive divine Presence. Pain gone ! And it was physical, altogether physical, with a physical reason. Yes, the doctors would say, "It is because of this, because of that and that", quite a material thing, altogether physical; and pouf! it goes away.... The consciousness changes and back it comes.

If one remains sufficiently long in the true consciousness, the appearance, that is to say, what we call physical "fact", that itself disappears, not merely the pain.... I feel as though I had touched (there is no mind which understands, thank God!), I had touched the central experience.

Only, it is just a small beginning.

One would have the feeling, one would be certain of having touched the supreme Secret only if the physical were transformed.... According to the experience (just the little experience of a detail), it must be like that. And then, will it be at first ONE body in which this Consciousness will express itself, or should all, all be transformed ?... A phenomenon of consciousness.

But it is so concrete, yes, it is that!

(Silence)

Only, the other consciousness is still there... Now this morning, I saw a considerable number of people. As each one came, I was looking at him (there was no "I" that was looking: for HIM it was so, I was looking at him), the eyes were fixed and then it was the perception and the vision (but not the vision as one understands it: it is altogether a phenomenon of consciousness), the consciousness of the Presence, the Presence that penetrates this kind of shell, the hard thing; it penetrates, it penetrates, it is everywhere; and then when I am looking, when the eyes are fixed, that becomes something like a concentration (footnote: A concentration of the Presence). But this is certainly an altogether temporary and intermediary state, because the other consciousness (the consciousness which sees things and deals with them, which is busy with them as usual, only with the perception of what is happening in the individual, what he is thinking - not so much what he is thinking, but what he is feeling, how he is), that is there. Evidently this too is necessary in order to maintain the contact, but...

Obviously, it is still an experience, it is not an established fact. What I mean by "established fact" is the consciousness established in such a way that nothing else exists, that that alone is present - it is not yet so.

(Long silence)

And you ? What have you got to tell me ?

I felt a change in the atmosphere.

Ah!

Oh, yes. It is now five or six days that I had the feeling of something overwhelming (Mother laughs), overwhelming. And last night, it was rather bizzare, at one moment I saw you, you were lying fully stretched upon the ground, flat. Then I came near you and asked, "Don't you want a cushion under your head ?" You told me, "No, nothing." And you were lying flat on the ground.... What does that mean ?

(Mother remains silent for a long time and does not answer.)

But this notion of the Supramental "coming down", and a Consciousness "having entered" is out translation.... The experience came as the experience of an eternal fact, not at all as a thing that was happening. All that must be the outcome of states of consciousness, certainly. Whether there is something beyond, I do not know, but in any case, of this I had the positive experience. These are movements of consciousness. Why, how ? ... I do not know. Only, if one looks from the other side, the fact that something belonging to this earthly domain as it has become conscious, gives the impression that something has "arrived".... I do not know if I can make myself understood... I mean to say that this body is absolutely like all the rest of the earth, but it happens that for some reason it has become conscious in the other way: well, that normally must translate itself in earthly consciousness as an "arrival", a "descent", a "beginning".... But is it a beginning ? What is it that has "arrived" ? ... You understand, there is nothing but the Lord (I call it "Lord" because of the convenience of language, for otherwise...), there is nothing but the Lord, there is nothing else, nothing else exists. All things happen within Him, consciously. And we are like... grains of sand in this Infinity; only we are the Lord with the capacity to be conscious of the Lord's consciousness. That is exactly what it is.

(Silence)

Before this experience, at the time when I was in the consciousness of all the sufferings, the horrors of the physical life, at a certain moment something came (which did not "speak"; one is obliged to use words, but all this happens without mentalisation), it was an impression: if I translated, I would say, "Aren't you afraid of going mad?" You understand ? It is only a translation. And then the body answered spontaneously: "We are all mad, we cannot become more mad than we are!" And forthwith, it became calm.

(Long silence)

It is here that this consciousness lies (Mother points to the chest). That (Mother points to the mind and above) is light, light (gesture of wideness). But in this body, it is here that it lies, this consciousness (Mother points again to the chest). I mean the consciousness... that one is in the Lord.

I know, the consciousness that is there knows that this way of speaking is altogether childish, but it prefers this childish way to something that would try to be exact and would be mental.

THE MOTHER

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Last modified on Feb 29, 1996