The Mother Continues Sri Aurobindo’s Work — V

V

Between 1962 and 1967, Mother had numerous experiences of the mastery over and liberation from the hold of the physical mind. At the same time, she underwent the training of the cells resulting in the growth and development of the mind of the cells. These five years were marked by nonstop illness and countless heart problems which led her to find the key to the functioning of the cells. In order that the cells could function ‘purely’ — without any intrusion of factors foreign to its substance, the body had to be emptied completely of its old habits and its old coatings. This meant a direct contact of the Supermind with the cells without the need to pass through the layers of the intellectual mind, the vital mind, the sensory mind and the physical mind. All the protective walls of the species had to disappear so that the new species can emerge.

Indeed, as we have seen above, the first radical turning point was in 1962. As Mother said:

It began when the doctors declared that I was very ill [1962]. Because the body was then completely emptied of its habits and energies; I could not take a step without fainting; as soon as I stood up to walk a little, wham! Down I went! I had to be held up constantly. But I did not lose consciousness for one minute; I would faint, but I was conscious: I saw my body, I knew I had fainted; I didn’t lose consciousness and my body didn’t lose consciousness. Well, now I understand; at the beginning I didn’t understand..¹....

In 1965, she had said:

I kept remembering what Sri Aurobindo had said: the physical mind is good for nothing, the only way is to get rid of it. It is very difficult to get rid of it, because it is so closely tied to the amalgam of the physical body and its present form that whenever I tried and a deeper consciousness [that of the other state] sought to manifest, it caused me to faint. In other words, uniting or merging with the other state without that physical mind (it was cancelled out) caused fainting. I didn’t know what to do.²

Let us study certain other ‘important’ experiences in the same domain:

I am on the threshold of a new perception of life. It’s as if certain parts of the consciousness were changing from the caterpillar state to the butterfly state, something like that.³

Recently the following happened: a sort of completely decentralized consciousness (I’m still speaking of physical consciousness), a decentralized consciousness that happened to be here, or there, in this body, in that body (in what people call ‘this person’ or ‘that person’ — but that notion no longer makes much sense). Then, a sort of universal consciousness intervened among the cells, and it was as if that consciousness were asking the cells why they wanted to keep this present combination or aggregate [Mother’s present body], and pointing out to them the difficulties resulting from the great number of years, for example, or the external limitations, or all the deterioration caused by wear and tear. But it didn’t make any difference to them! That universal consciousness was saying, ‘Look, here are the problems....’ And those problems were clearly seen: the mind’s ingrained sort of pessimism. But the cells themselves couldn’t care less! To them it looked like an accident, or an ‘unavoidable disease’, in any event something that was not part of their normal development, and which had been forced upon them: ‘We don’t care about that!...’ From that moment on, there emerged a sort of lower power to act on that physical mind, which brought about a material ability to separate oneself from it and reject it.... It really seemed as if something decisive had happened. So then, there was a kind of burst of confident joy: ‘At last, we are free of this nightmare!’ And at the same time, a physical relief, as if breathing had become easier. It was like emerging from inside a shell — a suffocating shell — an opening is suddenly made in the shell, and you can breathe. And it was a totally physical, cellular action.⁴

A transfer of power. The cells and the whole material consciousness used to obey the individual inner consciousness (in most cases the soul, or the mind). But now, this material mind is in the process of setting up its own organisation, as the other mind did, or rather as all the other forms of mind did, the mind of each level of being: it is getting an education, if you can imagine. It is learning things and organizing the ordinary knowledge of the material world. It’s very interesting. You see, the memory that comes from mental knowledge disappeared long, long ago: I was receiving necessary indications exclusively from above [from higher levels of consciousness]. But now, a sort of memory is being built from below. It’s like a change in command. It is no longer the same thing that makes you act—by ‘act’, I mean everything: moving, walking, and so on. The greatest difficulty is with the nerves, because they are so used to the ordinary conscious will that when it stops and you want direct control instead, they go haywire. I experienced that yesterday morning; it lasted over an hour; it was hard, but it taught me a lot. And all this is part of what can be called the ‘transfer of power’. The old power withdraws. And before the body adapts to the new power, there is a critical interim period... the minutes seem endless. But I assure you that this mind of the cells is something totally new — totally new.⁵

This vision is rather strange. There always seems to be a veil hanging between myself and things (we will discuss this ‘veil’ later; it is probably the cellular barrier separating us from the other state), and then, suddenly, for no apparent reason, a certain thing becomes clear, precise, sharp — a minute later, it’s gone. Sometimes it’s a word shining on a page, sometimes an object. And the quality of the vision is different, too: it’s as if the light were inside the object rather than on it — it isn’t a reflected light, it isn’t bright like a candle, for example; instead of being a projected light, it has its own light, which does not radiate. That happens more and more often, but without the least sense of logic — or rather, I don’t understand its logic. But the vision is extraordinarily precise! and with the full knowledge of what is being seen as it is seen. This morning, for instance, I saw this in the unlit bathroom: a bottle in the cabinet became so bright, so... with such inner life! ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘how about that....’ — the next minute it was gone. Obviously, it is a preparation for a vision by internal light rather than projected light. And it’s very... oh, it’s warm, alive, intense, and so precise! Everything is seen at the same time: not only the color and form, but the nature of the vibration in a liquid — it’s extraordinary!⁶

All sorts of minor disorders are breaking out, but the consciousness clearly associates them with the transformation; something knows perfectly that the disorder has come to make the transition from the ordinary, automatic functioning to the conscious functioning under the direct control and influence of the Supreme [of ‘that’, of the other state]. And when a certain degree of transformation has been achieved on that particular point, another point is considered, then another, and so on.... So nothing is done until... everything is ready. And it’s all a matter of changing habits. The entire pattern of automatic, millennial habits has to be changed into a conscious and directly guided action.⁷

There is a new type of activity. I am in the process of... I catch myself in the process of doing something, to be exact; I am talking to people whom often I don’t know, and I describe a scene to them: if they do a certain thing, it will turn out such and such a way. They are like scenes from a story book or a movie. Then, that same day or the next, someone says to me: ‘I received a message from you, and you told me to write to this person and tell him such-and-such a thing!’ And I am not doing it mentally, not at all: I live — I live a scene or relate a scene to someone, and it is received by someone else (and I am not thinking about that person!). It takes place here, in France, in America, everywhere. It’s getting funny.... Someone writes, ‘You told me such and such,’ and it’s one of my ‘scenes’! One of the scenes I lived — not lived: both lived and created. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like moulding clay. Some stories concern certain countries or certain governments; in those cases, I don’t know the outcome — perhaps after some time we’ll see it. And in that type of activities, I have all sorts of knowledge which I don’t have! Sometimes even medical or technical knowledge that I don’t have at all! And I know those things, you see, because I say, ‘You must do it this way or that.’ It’s rather funny.⁸

References

1. Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 8, 22.11.1967.

2. Ibid., Vol. 6, 21.7.1965.

3. Ibid., Vol. 5, 18.3.1964.

4. Ibid., 7.10.1964.

5. Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 6, 21.8.1965.

6. Ibid., 2.6.1965.

7. Mother’s Agenda, Vol. 7, 22.1.1966.

8. Ibid., 17.9.1966.

First published in The Advent, Vol. 63, No. 1, February 2006, pp. 3–6. Page scans: p. 3, p. 4, p. 5, p. 6.