October 12, 1962
The Mother
Agenda
What shall we do? Do you have another aphorism?
79 – God is infinite Possibility. Therefore Truth is never at rest; therefore, also, Error is justified of her children.
80 – To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs; Heine was nearer the mark when he found in Him the divine Aristophanes.
Yes, he means that what is true at one moment is no longer true at another. And that's what justifies the children of Error.
Perhaps he means there's no such thing as error!
Yes, it's the same thing, another way of saying the same thing. In other words, what we call error was at one time truth.
Error is a timebound notion.
But there are things that really might seem like errors.
Momentarily.
That's exactly the impression: all our judgments are momentary. One moment one thing, the next moment something else. And errors exist for us because we see things in succession, one after the other; but that can't be how the Divine sees them, because everything is in Him.
Just try for a moment (laughing), try and imagine you're the Divine! Everything is in you; you simply play at bringing it all out in a certain order. But for you, in your consciousness, it's all there simultaneously: there is no time, neither past, future, nor present – it's all there together, every possible combination. He's just playing at bringing out one thing and then another; but the poor devils down below see only a small part of the whole (about as much as this) and say, “Here's an error!” How is it an error? Simply because what they see is only a small part.
It's clear, isn't it? It's easy to understand. The notion of error belongs to time and space.
The same goes for the feeling that a thing cannot both BE and NOT BE at the same time. And yet that's the way things are: something both is and is not at the same time. The notion of time, of time and space, is what brings in the notion of error.
What do you mean, something both is and is not at the same time?
Something is, and simultaneously its opposite exists. Well, for us it can't be both yes and no at the same time; but for the Lord it's CONSTANTLY both yes and no at the same time!
It's the same with our notion of space. “I am here,” we say, “therefore you are not here.” But I am here and you are here and all is here! (Mother laughs) But you can't understand this unless you go beyond the notion of space and time.
It's something that can be very concretely sensed, if we stop seeing things the way we usually do.
Many of these aphorisms were surely written at a time when the higher mind suddenly surged into the Supermind. It hasn't yet forgotten how things look in the ordinary way, but it now sees how they are in the supramental way. And as a result, there's this kind of thing, that's what gives this paradoxical form. Because the one is not forgotten and the other is already perceived.
(long silence)
Actually, if you look at things closely, you're forced to conclude that the Lord is acting out a tremendous comedy for Himself, that the Manifestation is a comedy He's playing with and for Himself!
He has put Himself in the role of spectator and He's watching Himself. And to watch Himself, He has to accept the notion of time and space – otherwise He can't watch Himself! And immediately the whole comedy begins. But it's a comedy and nothing more!
And we're the puppets, eh! That's why we take it so seriously. But as soon as we stop being puppets, we realize it's a comedy.
For some people it's a real tragedy, too.
Yes, because we make it tragic. WE make it tragic.
I've been focusing on this lately. I've been looking at the difference between similar events in the lives of human beings and the lives of animals. If you identify with animals, you clearly see that they don't take things tragically at all – except for those which have come into contact with man. (But then they're not in their natural state; it's a transitional state, they are beings in transition between animal and man.) And naturally the first things they pick up from man are his defects – that's always what's easiest to pick up! And then they make themselves unhappy... for nothing.
So many things, so many things.... Human beings have made an appalling tragedy out of death. And I saw, with all these recent experiences, I saw how many, many poor human beings have been destroyed by the very people they loved the most! Under the pretext that they were dead.
People give them a very bad time.
Destroyed?
Yes, burned. Or shut up in a box without air and light – while FULLY CONSCIOUS. And just because they can no longer express themselves, people say they are “dead.” They don't waste any time declaring them dead! But they are conscious. They are conscious. Imagine someone who can no longer speak or move – according to human laws, he is “dead.” He is dead but he is conscious. He is conscious, so he sees the people around him: some of them are weeping, some of them are... if he's a bit clairvoyant, he also sees that some of them are rejoicing. And then he sees himself put into a box, sees the lid nailed down, shutting him in: “Ah, now it's all over, they're going to cover me with earth!” Or he's taken over there [to the cremation ground], and then it's fire in the mouth – FULLY conscious.
I have lived this in recent days. I have seen it. Last night or the night before, I spent at least two hours in a world – the subtle physical world – where the living mingle with the dead with no sense of difference, it makes absolutely no difference there. For instance, when Mridu1 was in her body I used to see her at night maybe once a year (maybe not even that much). For years she was utterly nonexistent in my consciousness... but since she left her body, I see her almost every night! There she is, just as she was, you know (rotund gesture), but no longer troubled, that's all. No longer troubled. And there were both living and... what we call the “living” and the “dead” – they were both there together, eating together, moving around together, having fun together; and all in a lovely, tranquil light – pleasant, very pleasant. “There!” I thought, “and humans have drawn a sharp line, saying, 'Now he's dead!'” Dead! And what really takes the cake is the way they treat the body like an unconscious object, and it's still conscious!
It's treated like an object: “Now then! Let's get rid of this just as quickly as we can: it's a nuisance and it gets in the way.” And even those who feel the most sorrow don't want to see it; it's too painful for them.
(silence)
Where, where is the Error? Where is the Error?
In fact there's no such thing as error. There are only things that seem impossible because we don't know that the Lord is all possibility and can do whatever He wants, any way He wants. We just can't get it through our heads: “This can be, but that can't,” we keep saying. But it's not true! Everything is possible, and only our own stupidity says that something “can't be.”
Difficult to say anything reasonable for the Bulletin.
(silence)
So you see, the only one who's not worried is the one watching the show, because he knows everything that's going to happen. He has an absolute knowledge of everything, everything that is happening, has happened or will happen – for him, it's all ONE presence. And then there are the actors, the poor actors, who don't even know their roles very well. They worry and fret because they're being made to play something and they don't know what it is. I've just had a very strong sense of this: we're all playing parts in the comedy, but we don't know what the comedy is, nor where it's going, where it's coming from, nor what it's all about. We just barely know (and poorly, at that) what we're supposed to do at a given moment. And knowing it so poorly, we worry about it. But when you know everything, you can't worry any more – you smile. He must be having great fun, but for us.... And yet we are given the FULL POWER to have just as much fun as He does.
We just don't take the trouble to do it.
It's not easy!
Easy! If it were easy, we'd get tired of it.
One does sometimes wonder why, why is this life so tragic? But in the first place, if it were a perpetual enchantment we wouldn't even appreciate it, because it would be completely natural – that's mainly it: we wouldn't appreciate it because it would just be completely natural. And nothing says we wouldn't long for a little hullabaloo for a change! We just might.
This may be what the story of the earthly paradise is all about.... People in that paradise had a spontaneous knowledge: they lived with the same sort of consciousness animals have, just enough of it to get a little joy out of life, to feel the joy of life. But then they started wanting to know the why and the how and where they were going and what they were supposed to do and so forth – and so all their worries began... they got tired of being peacefully happy.
(silence)
I think Sri Aurobindo wanted to say that error is an illusion like everything else, that there is no such thing as error: all possibilities are present, and since they ARE all present, they are often – they are NECESSARILY contradictory. Contradictory in their appearance. But all you have to do is look at yourself and ask, “What do I call error?” And if you face the thing squarely and ask, “What do I call error?” you immediately see how stupid it is – there is no error, you simply can't put your finger on it.
I can't tell people all this in the Bulletin, mon petit – they'd go crazy! They mustn't be fed things too strong for them to digest.
There's a person I won't name who has read Sri Aurobindo's books and thought he understood them. He has been following a yogic discipline (anyway, he “thought” he was doing yoga)... and he pulled down the Force. The Force responded... (Mother laughs). He wound up with a headache! He got frightened and wrote to me in these exact words: “This Force is the Lord's Force” (which is true, quite true), “and it has turned into fear. So (Mother laughs) fear is the Lord's principal perversion.” There you have it. He read in books that the Lord is behind everything, that there is nothing that isn't the Lord; so it's the Lord who has become perverted in His manifestation, naturally.... The Force of the Lord came to help him and was changed into fear, so “the Lord's principal perversion is fear”!
If you read that, you'd say he was going off his rocker.
Yes, one can say absolutely anything with that kind of reasoning.
Exactly! That's just what happens when you feed people something too strong, something they can't understand and assimilate: it creates incoherence in their brains.
So none of this stuff can be published, though it's fine for the Agenda. How can it be told to people?
(silence)
I have the feeling that Sri Aurobindo was in his period of ascent, the intuitive mind was piercing through and coming into contact with the Supermind, and it was coming into his thought like bursts of light – whoosh! And then he would write these things. But if you follow the movement, you see the Origin.
This is plainly what he meant: Error is one of the innumerable, infinite possibilities (“infinite” means that absolutely nothing is outside the possibility of being). So where is there room for error in this? It's WE who call it error, it's totally arbitrary. “That's an error,” we say – but in relation to what? To our judgment of what is true, yes, but certainly not in relation to the Lord's judgment, since it is part of Him!
Few people can bear this widening of understanding.
When I start looking, you know (Mother closes her eyes), there are two things simultaneously: that smile, that joy, that laughter, and then... that peace! Oh really, such peace.... Such a full, luminous peace... and TOTAL: no more struggle, no more contradictions. No more struggle. A SINGLE luminous harmony... and yet everything is there, what we call error, suffering, misery, it's all there. NOTHING is done away with. It is another way of seeing.
(long silence)
There's nothing to say – if you sincerely want to get out of it, it's really not so difficult: there's nothing to do but leave everything to the Lord. And He does it all. He does it all, He is... it's so wonderful! So wonderful!
He takes anything, even what we call a quite ordinary intelligence, and then He simply shows you how to put that intelligence aside, lay it to rest: “There now, keep still, don't stir, don't bother me; I don't need you.” And then a door opens – you don't even feel you have to open it; it's wide open, and you're led through to the other side. It's Someone else who does all this, not you. And then... the other way becomes impossible.
Oh, all this frightful toil, this effort of the mind to understand! Struggling, giving itself headaches – phew!... Absolutely useless, absolutely useless. It leads nowhere, except to more confusion.
You find yourself facing a so-called problem: “What am I to say? What am I to do? How should I act?...” There is nothing to do! Nothing but to say to the Lord, “You see, here's the situation.” That's all. And then keep very still. And spontaneously, without thinking about it, without reflecting, without calculating, without doing anything, anything whatsoever, without the slightest effort... you do what must be done. But it's the Lord who does it, it's no longer you. He does it, He arranges the circumstances, He arranges the people, He puts the words in your mouth or under your pen – He does it all, all, all, all, and you have nothing more to do, nothing but let yourself live in bliss.
I am beginning to be convinced that people don't really want it.
But it's the spadework beforehand, clearing the way for it, that's hard, that's difficult.
You don't even need to do that! He does it for you.
But there's a constant invasion: the old consciousness, the old thoughts....
Yes, out of habit it all tries to start up again. But all you need to say is, “Look, Lord; see, see how it is.” That's all. “Look at this, Lord, look at that, look at this idiot here...” and it's over. Immediately. And the change comes automatically, mon petit, without the slightest effort. Simply... simply be sincere, in other words, TRULY want the right thing. One is quite conscious of being powerless, utterly incompetent: more and more, I feel that this amalgam of matter, of cells and all the rest, is just pitiful! Pitiful. I don't know, under certain conditions people may feel powerful, wonderful, luminous, competent... but as far as I am concerned, that's because they have no idea what they're really like! When you really see what you're made of... it's nothing, really nothing. But it's capable of anything, provided... provided you let the Lord do it. The trouble is that something always wants to do things on its own. If it weren't like that....
People come, letters arrive, various circumstances and problems arise (it's over now, but at the time – even a year ago – that kind of thing was sometimes a problem for me). Well, right away, I... (Mother opens her hands in front of her forehead, palms upwards, as though presenting the problem to the Lord): “Here, Lord, look at this.” All I am good for is (same gesture): “I am presenting it to You, Lord.” And then I keep still, I just keep still: “I won't move unless You move me, I won't speak unless You make me speak....” And then you stop thinking about it. You think about it just for a second, long enough to do this (same gesture). It comes in like this, then up it goes (gesture showing a problem coming to Mother from one side and being sent above). And later, you suddenly realize you're speaking or acting or making a decision or writing a letter or... and He has done it all.
But one can be full of excellent goodwill and still want to Do things. And that's what complicates everything. Or else there's a lack of faith, a lack of belief in the Lord's ability – you think you have to do things yourself because He doesn't know how! (Mother laughs) This sort of stupidity is very widespread, you know: “How can He see these things? We're living in a world of Falsehood, how can He see Falsehood...?” But in fact He does see things as they are!
And I am not talking about people with no intelligence, but about intelligent people, people who are trying.... There's still a sort of conviction in them somewhere, even in those who know that we're living in a world of Ignorance and Falsehood and that there's a Lord who is all truth. Well, they reason that precisely because He is all truth, He won't understand (Mother laughs). “He won't understand our falsehood, I have to deal with it on my own.” This is a very predominant, very widespread attitude.
One sometimes even goes to a great deal of trouble to explain things to Him: “It's this way, You see, that's how it is.” And when you're finished, you realize.... Oh, that reminds me of an experience I had one night two years ago. It was the first time the Supermind entered the cells of my body, and it had risen up to the brain. So the brain found itself in the presence of something (laughing) considerably more powerful than it was used to receiving! And, like the idiot it is, it got worried. As for me (gesture above or beyond), I saw it all, I saw that the brain was getting worried, so I tried to tell it what a nitwit it was and to just keep still. It did keep still, but... you know, it was really seething away in there, as if it were about to explode. So I said, “All right now, let's go see Sri Aurobindo and ask him what to do.” Immediately everything became utterly calm... and I woke up in Sri Aurobindo's house in the subtle physical – a very material sensation, with everything quite concrete. So I arrived, or rather not I but the body-consciousness arrived2 and started explaining to Sri Aurobindo what had happened – it was very excited, talking and talking. The response was a sort of inscrutable smile and then... nothing. He simply looked. An inscrutable smile – not a word. All the excitement died away. A face out of eternity. The excitement died away. Then it was time for Sri Aurobindo's lunch (people eat there – in another way). So as not to disturb him, I went into the next room. He came in after some time and stood before me (I – my physical being, that is, my physical consciousness – had had time to calm down). I knelt down and took his hand (a MUCH clearer sensation than anything physical, mon petit!); I kissed his hand. He simply said, “Oh! This is better.” (Mother laughs.)
I am skipping all the details (it was a long thing, lasting an hour), but suddenly he went out of the room, leaving me alone (after expressing what he wanted to tell me with a gesture, which I understood). And then I simply seemed to take a step (gesture of crossing a threshold), and I found myself lying in my bed again. And at that moment I said to myself, “Really! We make all kinds of complications, and it's so simple: you just have to go like this (same gesture) and there you are; then you go like that (same gesture in the opposite direction) and you're back here.”
(silence)
All this is now ancient history – VERY old. It's not like that at all any more.
Oh, we make things complicated for nothing!
There's no way you can make use of all this; it's strictly for the Agenda.
I often wonder: when one prays to the Lord, when one wants to tell Him that something's wrong, I always feel it's necessary to concentrate very hard because it's really something Far you have to call. But is this true? Or is it really....
It depends on us!
Personally, you know, I have come to feel Him everywhere, all the time, all the time, to the point of actual physical contact (it's subtle physical, but physical): in things, in the air, in people, in... like this (Mother presses her hands against her face). So I don't have far to go! I just have to do this (Mother turns her hands slightly inwards), one second's concentration – and there He is! Because He is here, you know, He is everywhere.
He is far only if we think He's far.
Of course, when we start thinking of all the zones, all the universal planes of consciousness, and that He's way, way, way up there at the end of all that, well... then it does become very far, very far indeed! (Mother laughs) But if we think of Him as being everywhere, in everything, that He is everything, that only our way of perceiving things keeps us from seeing and feeling Him, and all we have to do is this (Mother turns her hands inwards)... a movement like this, a movement like that (Mother turns her hands inwards and outwards in turn), then it gets to be quite concrete: you go like this (outward gesture) and everything becomes artificial – hard, dry, false, deceptive, artificial; you go like that (inward gesture) and all is vast, tranquil, luminous, peaceful, immense, joyous. And it's merely this... or that (Mother turns her hands inwards and outwards in turn). How? Where? It can't be described, but it is solely – solely – a movement of consciousness, nothing else. A movement of consciousness. And the difference between the true and the false consciousness becomes more and more... precise and at the same time THIN: you don't need to do “great” things to get out of it. Before, there used to be a feeling of living WITHIN something and that a great effort of interiorization, concentration, absorption was needed to get out of it; but now I feel it's something one accepts (Mother puts her hand in front of her face like a screen), something like a thin little rind, very hard – malleable, but very hard, very dry, very thin, very thin... something like a mask you put on – then you go like this (gesture), and it's gone.
I foresee a time when it will no longer be necessary to be aware of the mask: the mask will be so thin that we can see and feel and act through it, and it won't be necessary to put it back on.
That's what is starting to happen.
But this Presence in all things.... It is a Vibration – a Vibration containing everything. A Vibration containing a sort of infinite power, infinite joy, infinite peace, and immensity, IMMENSITY, IMMENSITY: it's boundless.... But it is solely a Vibration, it doesn't.... Oh, Lord! It can't be thought, so it can't be described. If you think... as soon as you start thinking, it's the same old mess again. That's why you can't say anything.
Indeed, He is far because you think He is far. If you could just, you know, think of Him being right here, like this (gesture close to the face), touching you... if you could feel this. It's not like touching another person, it's not like that. It's not something foreign, external, coming to you from outside – no! It's... everywhere.
There was a period when I used to sort of curl up into a ball Within. For the least difficulty I became just like a circumference! All curled up into a ball Within.
And you feel Him everywhere, everywhere, everywhere – within, without, everywhere. Him, nothing but Him – Him, His Vibration.
But you have to shut this off (the head). Until you shut it off, you can't see the TRUE thing – you can only use comparisons, you say it's like this or like that... oh!
(silence)
And how many times, how many times the feeling that.... There is no form – there is a form and there is none, it just can't be expressed. You feel a look, too, and there are no eyes – there is no look but there is a look; a look and a smile and... there's no mouth, no face! And yet there is a smile and a look and... (Mother laughs) you can't help saying, “Yes, Lord, I am stupid!” But He laughs – and you laugh, and you're happy.
It can't, it can't be explained! It can't be expressed. You can't say anything. Whatever you say is nothing, nothing.
Well.
Anyway, if you can get a suitable half page for the Bulletin out of this....
No, I am incapable of speaking, I can't say anything publishable; it's impossible, impossible. It seems so artificial to me, so artificial. And besides, it gives me a headache.
So you're the one who has to do the work. You can condense a little – a sentence here, a sentence there....
Well, petit.
I am not worth much at the moment!
Bring me your book on the 16th.
That's what's difficult – writing.
Not at all, mon petit! You just call on the Lord and say “Now then: here's the program.” And that's enough – it comes.
It comes.
It would be all right if I was writing stories or poetry, but to write something that has to hang together....
That doesn't matter! It will hang together by an invisible thread, and that will be far more interesting.
1 Sri Aurobindo's old cook, round as a barrel.
2 It is quite remarkable that it was the body-consciousness that discovered – nine years after his passing – Sri Aurobindo's abode (experience of July 24-25, 1959). The world where Mother went is thus a material world, not an “inner” world. The other Matter, the true Matter? We recall that in her very last Playground class, on November 28, 1958, Mother said: “Through each individual formation, physical substance progresses, and one day it will be able to build a bridge between physical life as we know it and the supramental life that is to manifest.”
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