But it is done - Chapter-3

Chapter 3

There was a great turning point in the yoga of the Mother be-1 tween 10th August and 22^nd August 1968. On the 22^nd August, Mother sent a note to Satprem (with packets of soup!) in which she had written:

Here are some soups, you must not have any left.

This time, it is TRULY interesting_____ but a bit total and
radical.

How far, far away we are from the goal...

I will try to remember.¹

On the 28th August, when Satprem met the Mother, he was given a few notes by her, one of which described a radical opera­tion that was effected:

"The vital and the mind sent packing so that the physical

1. Mother's Agenda, Vol. 9, p. 226.

may truly be left to its own resources."¹ Another note said:

"For several hours, the landscapes were wonderful, per­fectly harmonious.

^"... Each thing with a precise reason and purpose, to ex­press nonmentalized states of consciousness.

"Constant visions.

"Landscapes.

"Constructions.

"Cities.

"The whole thing immense and very diverse, covering the entire visual field and expressing states of conscious­ness of the body.

"Many, a great many constructions, immense cities be­ing built....²

The Mother commented on this as follows:

Yes, the world being built, the future world being built.

I couldn't hear anymore, couldn't see anymore, couldn't speak anymore: I was living inside that all the time, all the time, night and day.

There was also a note of the night of 26th to 27th August:

`Powerful and prolonged penetration of the supramental forces into the body, everywhere at the same time...'

While commenting on this note, the Mother said:

1. Ibid., p. 229.
2. Ibid., pp. 228-9.

Penetration into the body. Yes, penetrations of currents I had had several times, but that night (two nights ago, that is), what came all of a sudden was as though there was nothing anymore except a supramental atmosphere. Nothing remained except that. My body was in it. And it was PRESSING to enter, from everywhere, but every­where at the same time—everywhere. You understand, it wasn't a current flowing in, it was an atmosphere pen­etrating from everywhere. It lasted for at least four or five hours...

It's the first time. For hours. Only That remained. And this (the body) was like a sponge soaking up...

Ah! I noticed that the cells, everywhere, you know, con­stantly, all the time, were repeating, OM NAMO BHAGA­VATE, OM NAMO BHAGAVATE ... constantly, all the time.¹

This entire experience was crucial and radical. One has to imagine a true body growing up in an old body at the very cel­lular level, where there is no intermediate between the supermind and the psychic, on the one hand, and the cellular consciousness of the body, on the other. The cellular consciousness was liber­ated from all intermediate levels, including the physical mind. Here was now the possibility of infusing a new genetic code in the cells—the code of the supramental vibration of knowledge, power, harmony and immortality.

This is the phenomenon that took place in the Mother's body. A new mind in matter began to work, a new mind of the cells. The key to transform the body was turned.

On 23^rd November, 1968, the Mother spoke of a central

I. Ibid., pp. 232-6.

experience. She said:

I've spent days when I really lived all the horrors of the creation (and in the consciousness of their horror), then that brought about this experience, and ... the whole hor­ror vanished.

It wasn't moral things at all: it was mostly physical suf­ferings. Especially THE physical suffering. And that physical suffering, I saw it: a physical suffering that lasts  unceasing, going on night and day. And all at once, instead of being in that state of consciousness, you are in the state of consciousness of this exclusive divine Presence the pain is gone! And it was physical, quite physical, with a physical reason. You understand, doctors might say: "It's for this reason, that reason ..." quite a material thing, absolutely physical: poff! gone.... Your consciousness changes it comes back.

And if you stay long enough in the true consciousness, the appearance, that is, what we call the physical "fact" itself, disappears, not just the pain.... I have the feeling of having touched ... (there's no mind to understand, thank God!), of having touched the central experience.

But it's a very small beginning.

One would have the impression or certitude of hav­ing touched the supreme Secret only if the physical were transformed.... According to the experience (the experience in tiny details), that's how it should be. But then, would there first be ONE body in which this Consciousness was expressed, or must everything, but everything be transformed? ... That I don't know.¹

1. Ibid., p. 326.

As we shall see, the question of the receptivity, collabora­tion and transformation of the collectivity will become more and more imperative. One single body, it seems,—without the sup­port of the minimum collective transformation—cannot sustain full transformation. So Mother's work was constantly double: work on her own body (which had already become the body of the earth) and the collectivity around her. This work was pro­ceeding rapidly with increasing acceleration.

* * *

On 1^St January 1969, the Mother had an experience of 'new consciousness', which was later on described by her as the con­sciousness of the superman, an intermediate between the human and the supramental being.

Speaking of this, the Mother said:

On the 1st, something really strange took place .... And I wasn't the only one to feel it, a few people felt it too. It began just after midnight, but I felt it at 2, and others at 4 in the morning. It was ... I told you a few words about it last time, but the surprising thing is that it didn't correspond to anything I expected (I didn't expect any­thing), or to any of the things I had felt. It was some­thing very material, I mean it was very external—very outward —and luminous, with a golden light. It was very strong, powerful. But its character was a smiling benevolence, a peaceful joy, and a sort of blossoming in the joy and the light. And it was like a "happy new year," like a wish. I must say it took me by surprise.

It lasted—I felt it for at least three hours. Afterwards, I stopped concerning myself with it, I don't know what

happened. But I told you a few words about it, and I spoke to two or three others: they had all felt it. Which means it was VERY material. They had all felt a sort of joy like that, but an amiable, powerful joy, and ... oh, so sweet, very smiling, VERY BENEVOLENT ... something ... I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, but it's a kind of benevolence; so it was something very close to the human. And so concrete! So concrete. As if it had a taste, so concrete was it. Afterwards, I didn't concern myself with it anymore, except that I told two or three people about it: they had all felt it. Now, I don't know whether it has mingled or ... It hasn't gone, it doesn't give the feeling of something that comes only to go away.

It was far more external than the things I usually feel, far more external .... Hardly mental at all, I mean there was no sense of a "promise" or ... No. It would rather be like ... My own impression was that of an immense person­ality, immense (meaning that for it, the earth was small, like this [Mother holds a small object in the hollow of her hands], like a ball), an immense personality, so very benevolent, and coming to ... (Mother seems to gently raise the little ball in the hollow of her hands). It was the impression of a personal god (yet it was ... I don't know) who comes to help. So very strong! And so sweet at the same time, so understanding.

And it was very external: the body felt it everywhere, everywhere (Mother touches her face, her hands), all over like this.

What has become of it? I don't know.

It was the start of the year. As if someone on the scale of a god (someone, that is) had come to say "Happy new year," with all the power to make it a happy year. It was

like that.

But what was it? ...

So concrete ...

I don't know.

Is it ... is it the personality (because it didn't have any form, I didn't see any form, there was only what it brought along (Mother feels the atmosphere with her fingers), sensation and feeling, these two things—sensa­tion and feeling), I wondered if it wasn't the supramental personality ... which will, then, manifest later in mate­rial forms?

Since then, the body—this body—has been feeling (it has been permeated by that everywhere, a lot), it has been feeling much more joyful and less concentrated, living more in a happy, smiling expansion. For instance, it speaks more easily. There's a note ... a constant note of benevolence. A smile, you know, a benevolent smile, and all that with a GREAT FORCE .... I don't know.

Haven't you felt anything?

That day, I had a sense of contentment.

Ah, that's it! Yes, that's right.

Is it the supramental personality? ... Which will incar­nate in all those who will have a supramental body ...? It was luminous, smiling, and so benevolent because of its POWER: I mean that generally, benevolence in the hu­man being is something slightly weak, in the sense that it doesn't like battle, it doesn't like struggle—but this wasn't like that at all! A benevolence that imposes itself (Mother brings her two fists down on the armrests of her chair).

It interested me because it was entirely new. And so

concrete! Concrete like this (Mother touches the arms of her chair), like what the physical consciousness usually regards as "others," as concrete as that. Which means it didn't come through some inner being, through the psy­chic being: it came DIRECTLY onto the body.

What is it? ... Yes, it may be that .... The body's feel­ing since that took place has been a sort of certitude; a certitude as if now it no longer were in an anxiety or uncertainty to know. "What will it be? What will this Supramental PHYSICALLY be like?" the body used to wonder. "What will it be like physically?" Now, it no longer thinks about it, it's happy.

Very well.

Is it something that's going to permeate the bodies that are ready?

Yes ... I think so, yes. I feel it's the formation that's go­ing to permeate and express itself — permeate and ex­press itself— in the bodies ... which will be the bodies of the Supramental.

Or maybe ... maybe the superman? I don't know. The intermediary between the two. Maybe the superman: it was very human, but a human of divine proportions, you understand.

A human without weaknesses and shadows: it was all luminous — all light and smile and ... sweetness at the same time.

Yes, maybe the superman...¹

Mother continued on the 8th January her comments on the

1. Ibid., Vol. 10, pp. 18-20.

experience of the 1^st January:

And this descent of the superman consciousness ... Did I tell you I had afterwards identified it?

When you spoke last time, you had identified it. Yes, but I spoke of "supramental consciousness." Later, you said, "Maybe the superman?"

Yes, that's it. It's the descent of the superman conscious­ness. I had the assurance of it afterwards.

It was on the 1st of January after midnight. I woke up at 2 in the morning, surrounded by a consciousness, but so concrete, and NEW, in the sense that I had never experi­enced that. It lasted, quite concrete and present, for two or three hours, and then it spread out and went to find all those who could receive it. And at the same time I knew it was the consciousness of the superman, that is, the in­termediary between man and the supramental being. It has given the body a sort of assurance, a sort of trust. That experience has made it steady, as it were, and if it keeps the true attitude, all the support is there to help it. A certain number of people (I asked afterwards) had the experience, they felt it (not as clearly), felt the presence of a new consciousness—lots of people. They told me (I asked them if they had felt something), they told me, "Oh, yes!" But each with ... (Mother twists her fingers slightly) naturally his own special approach.

(silence)

The curious thing (I've noticed it with others) is that when the Action is silent, it's FAR MORE PRECISE than when it takes place through words. Words are received mentally, and there is always a slight distortion: a distor­tion of the content of those words. Whereas when the action is direct (Mother makes a gesture of inner com­munication), it's very precise.¹

The advent of this New Consciousness may be regarded as a crucial development of the Mother's yoga of the Body. Indeed, this consciousness was the supramental consciousness working through an intermediate body—a body, human in origin but thor­oughly purified and refined right up to the cellular level and thus capable of the operations of the Supermind directly in the physi­cal body.

True, the entire physical body was not yet fully transformed, but it was yet a vehicle in which the subtle physical was so much supramentalised that its real matter—which the Mother has de­scribed as something much more dense and compact and plastic that the gross physical that we see—could manifest, operate and produce results in and through the outer body.

This 'new consciousness', the Mother explained later, began to operate when her body lost all sense of separative individual­ity. Since the arrival of this consciousness, things began to pre­cipitate and there was an extraordinary rapidity of movement in the circumstances. Its method of working consisted of putting people in front of themselves and to apply a pressure so that all that resisted in the nature would come out on the surface. The Mother said that she saw all this all the time, for small things as well as for big things, for the political affairs of the country as well as for the organisation of a household.²

1. Ibid., p. 26.
2. Ibid., 19.3.'69; 19.4.'69; 7.5.69; 23.8.'69.

In the beginning of 1970, the Mother spoke of the replace­ment of knowledge-processes in her body by a new perception which was total, something that comprehended at the same time hearing, vision and knowledge. There was, she said, no differ­entiation among her organs. She pointed out that the new con­sciousness insisted on surpassing all divisions and all exclusive­ness, including the great division of life and death. The Mother discovered 'over-life', which is at once life and death, or which is rather something that cannot be described either as life or as death, but some other third state in which the contradiction of life and death is overcome.

* * *

The question of death had begun to receive the Mother's at­tention more and more pointedly during the last several years. In fact, as the Mother had said, the problem of death was the prob­lem that was given to her to solve. One aspect of the problem was the waste that death would entail by cutting short the continuing process of the permeation of the supramental force in the cells. The Mother had spoken of this problem as far back as 1964:

You see, for our consolation we are told in every possible way that the work done isn't lost and that all this action on the cells to make them conscious of the higher life isn't lost—that's not true, it's absolutely lost! Suppose I leave my body tomorrow; this body (not immediately, but after a time) reverts to dust; then all that I've done for these cells is perfectly useless! Except that the con­sciousness will come out of the cells—but it always does! ...

... it's a pure waste...

On the physical level, it's a pure waste. The mind and

vital are another affair, that's not interesting: we have known for a very long time that their life doesn't de­pend on the body—it depends on the body only in order to manifest. That's another affair. I am speaking of the body, that's what interests me: the body's cells. Well, death is a waste and that's that...

That is to say, before this body dissolves, a new creation should be there...

...a certain quality of cells should be able to allow the form to become different (the form can change, it changes all the time, it's never the same), but with the conscious interrelationships of the cells persisting.¹

No solution to this problem was found for several years. In the meantime, she made several experiments. In February 1966, the Mother said that she was trying to find out the secret of the process of death so that one could undo it. A fortnight later she said: 'I am like a dead person who lives on the earth.' She said that it was a different way of living, independent of physical laws, but dependent exclusively on the Supreme Will. Two months later, she spoke of a curve of experiences which demonstrated repeatedly the difference between being in the body and being without the body as far as the consciousness is concerned. Then came the question of eating. She said that she could no more eat; in fact this problem would remain right till the end—it was very difficult for her to eat, as though eating would mean swallowing the difficulties of the external world. She was rapidly proceeding towards preparing the cells that would be capable of sustaining the Supramental consciousness. This required, she found, an ut­ter plasticity that is impossible in the the skeleton with all the rigidity of the bones. Indeed, the supramental body which would

1. Mid, Vol. 5, pp. 175-6.

be a condensation or densification of 'some stuff' could be ut­terly plastic, but the question was how to graft that body in the body that we can see and touch. The gulf between the two was too great to be covered except by several intermediate stages.

Could this process be accelerated by recourse to a cataleptic trance? The Mother had felt the need of such a trance from time to time, but she had always considered it to be the method of inertia and laziness. However, on 14th January, 1967, she dic­tated a note in which she said that she might need to enter into a cataleptic trance and that her body should be left in peace. 'This could last several days, perhaps weeks or even more.' but she preferred that the need for immobile repose be replaced by the power of an inner concentration.

She began to perceive two states of Matter more and more persistently, the state of Matter as we ordinarily see, and the state of what she called true Matter, a luminous Matter, Matter of mul­ti-coloured light associated with the shades of all the colours.

This gave rise to the possibility of a transition so that the outer body would be gradually replaced by the new body of true matter. The Mother found that a local or momentary manifesta­tion would not be impossible; but more and more she felt that there had to be a sufficient collective transformation for achiev­ing durable manifestation.

During the first months of 1968, the Mother had repeated experiences of a state that determines the rupture of the equi­librium, the dissolution of the form which we call death. This was at one extreme; and, at the other extreme, she had repeated experiences of the state of unmixed Bliss. She said that the fusion of these two states would mean the supreme Power and that if That would be realised physically, the problem would end. The work consisted of bringing about that fusion, and this required the change of the consciousness of all the cells. Indeed, this was a gradual process, and it proceeded by taking up groups of cells

or parts of faculties, one after the other.

It was against this background that the Mother had an impor­tant experience in early February 1969.

... it was... Never, never had the body been so happy! It was the complete Presence, absolute freedom, and a certitude: these cells, other cells (gesture here and there showing other bodies), it didn't matter, it was life every­where, consciousness everywhere.

Absolutely wonderful.

It came effortlessly, and it left simply because ... I was too busy. It doesn't come at will—what comes at will is what we might call a "copy": it looks like it, but it's not THE Thing. The Thing ... There is something wholly independent of our aspiration, our will, our effort ... wholly independent. And this something appears to be absolutely all-powerful, in the sense that none of the body's difficulties exists. At such times, everything dis­appears. Aspiration, concentration, effort ... no use at all. And it's the DIVINE SENSE, you understand, that's what having the divine sense means. During these few hours (three or four hours), I understood in an absolute way what having the divine consciousness in the body means. And then, this body, that body, that other body ... (gesture here and there, all around Mother), it doesn't matter: it moved about from one body to another, quite free and independent, aware of the limitations or the possibilities of each body—absolutely wonderful, I had never, ever had this experience before. Absolutely won­derful. It left because I was so busy that ...

And it lasted for several hours ... never had this body, in the ninety-one years it's been on earth, felt such happiness: freedom, absolute power, and no limits (gesture

here and there and everywhere), no limits, no impossi­bilities, nothing. It was ... all other bodies were itself. There was no difference...¹

About a month later, the Mother said:

The body consciousness has become individualized and at the same time independent, which means it can enter other bodies and feel quite at ease there. I made the experiment one day ("I made," it wasn't the body that made it, it was "made" to make it, precisely by this Consciousness) of entering three or four people like that, one after another, and of feeling in each one the BODY's way of being: it wasn't at all a vital or mental entry, it was a bodily entry. And that was really interesting...

That completely changes the body's attitude with regard to solutions: there's no more attachment or sense of ex­tinction, you understand, since the consciousness ... it's the body consciousness that has become independent. And that's very interesting. In other words, in any physi­cal substance sufficiently developed to receive it, it can manifest.²

A week later, the Mother said the following:

One question kept coming back: "All this work of trans­formation of the cells, of consciousness in the cells, with the ordinary way [of dying], won't it be wasted since the body is going to disintegrate? ..." Then there came in a very precise, almost concrete manner: there is a way, which is, before dying, to prepare within oneself a body

1. Ibid., Vol. 10, 15.2.1969.
2. Ibid., pp. 86-7.