Chapter 116November 8, 1958

The vital world is a world of extremes. If, for example, you eat a bunch of grapes in the vital world, you feel so nourished that you can remain without hunger for thirty-six hours. But you can also run into things and enter places that will wrest all the energy from you in a minute and at times leave you ill or even disabled.

accident in the vital world. While trying to wrest someone she valued from the beings of the vital world, she received such a blow to one eye that she lost it.

Without going that far, it may happen that you meet with accidents in the vital world that leave their trace for hours after awakening.

‘All the same, I have to find my message, but what?’ I was absolutely ... like that, neutral, nothing. Then yesterday evening at the class (of Friday, November 7) I noticed that these children who had had a whole week to prepare their questions on the text had not found a single one! A terrible lethargy! A total lack of interest. And when I had finished speaking, I thought to myself, ‘But what IS there in these people who are interested in nothing but their personal little affairs?’ So I began descending into their mental atmosphere, in search of the little light, of that which responds ... And it literally pulled me downwards as into a hole, but in such a material way; my hand, which was on the arm of the chair, began slipping down, my other hand went like this (to the ground), my head, too! I thought it was going to touch my knees!

And I had the impression ... It was not an impression – I saw it. I was descending into a crevasse between two steep rocks, rocks that appeared to be made of something harder than basalt, BLACK, but metallic at the same time, with such sharp edges – it seemed that a mere touch would lacerate you. It appeared endless and bottomless, and it kept getting narrower, narrower and narrower, narrower and narrower, like a funnel, so narrow that there was almost no more room – not even for the consciousness – to pass through. And the bottom was invisible, a black hole. And it went down, down, down, like that, without air, without light, except for a sort of glimmer that enabled me to make out the rock edges. They seemed to be cut so steeply, so sharply ... Finally, when my head began touching my knees, I asked myself, ‘But what is there at the bottom of this ... this hole?’

And as soon as I had uttered, ‘What is there at the bottom of this hole?’ I seemed to touch a spring that was in the very depths – a spring I didn’t see but that acted instantly with a tremendous power – and it cast me up forthwith, hurled me out of this crevasse into ... (arms extended, motionless) a formless, limitless vast which was infinitely comfortable – not exactly warm, but it gave a feeling of ease and of an intimate warmth.

form). It was as if (because it was not visible), as if this vast were made of countless, imperceptible points – points that occupied no place in space (there was no sense of space), that were of a deep warm gold – but this is only a feeling, a transcription. And all this was absolutely LIVING, living with a power that seemed infinite. And yet motionless.

It lasted for quite some time, for the rest of the meditation. It seemed to contain a whole wealth of possibilities, and all this that was formless had the power to become form.

At the time, I wondered what it meant. Later, of course, I found out, and finally this morning, I said to myself, ‘Ah, so that’s it! It came to give me my message for the new year!’ Then I transcribed the experience – it can’t be described, of course, for it was indescribable; it was a psychological phenomenon and the form it took was only a way of describing the psychological state to oneself. Here is what I wrote down, obviously in a mental way, and I am thinking of using it as my message.

There was a hesitation in the expression, so I brought the paper and I want us to decide upon the final text together.

‘At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, generator of all creation.’

And it is again one more proof. The experience was absolutely ... the English word genuine says it.

Genuine and spontaneous?

Yes, it was not a willed experience, for I had not decided I would do this. It did not correspond to an inner attitude. In a meditation, one can decide, ‘I will meditate on this or on that or on something else – I will do this or that.’ For meditations, I usually have a kind of inner (or higher) perception of what has to be done, and I do it. But it was not that way. I had decided: nothing, to decide nothing, to be ‘like that’ (gesture of turning upwards).

And then it happened.

Suddenly, while I was speaking (it was while I was speaking), I felt, ‘Well really, can anything be done with such material?’ Then, quite naturally, when I stopped speaking, oh! – I felt that I was being pulled! Then I understood. Because I had asked myself the question, ‘But what is HAPPENING in there behind all those forms? ...’ I can’t say that I was annoyed, but I said to myself, ‘Well really, this has to be shaken up a bit!’ And just as I had finished, something pulled me – it pulled me out of my body, I was literally pulled out of my body.

And then, down into this hole ... I still see what I saw then, this crevasse between two rocks. The sky was not visible, but on the rock summits I saw ... something like the reflection of a glimmer – a glimmer – coming from ‘something’ beyond, which (laughing) must have been the sky! But it was invisible. And as I descended, as if I were sliding down the face of this crevasse, I saw the rock edges; and they were really black rocks, as if cut with a chisel, cuts so fresh that they glistened, with edges as sharp as knives. There was one here, one there, another there, everywhere, all around. And was becoming more and more compressing.105 It went down and down ...

(according to the different schools, it bears a different name), and this is what leaves the body last when one dies, usually taking a period of seven days to leave.106 With special training, it can acquire a conscious life – independent and conscious – to such a degree that not only in a state of trance (in trance, it frequently happens that one can speak and move if one is slightly trained or educated), but even in a cataleptic state it can produce sounds and even make the body move. Thus, through training, the body begins to have somnambulistic capacities – not an ordinary somnambulism, but it can live an autonomous life.107 This is what took place, yesterday evening it was like that – I had gone out of my body, but my body was participating. And then I was pulled downwards: my hand, which had been on the arm of the chair, slipped down, then the other hand, then my head was almost touching my knees! (The consciousness was elsewhere, I saw it from outside – it was not that I didn’t know what I was doing, I saw it from outside.) So I said, ‘In any case, this has to stop somewhere because if it continues, my head (laughing) is going to be on the ground!’ And I thought, ‘But what is there at the bottom of this hole? ...’

Scarcely had these words been formulated when there I was, at the bottom of the hole! And it was absolutely as if a tremendous, almighty spring were there, and then ... (Mother hits the table) vrrrm! I was cast out of the abyss into a vastness. My body immediately sat straight up, head on high, following the movement. If someone had been watching, this is what he would have seen: in a single bound, vrrrm! Straight up, to the maximum, my head on high.

And I followed all this without objectifying it in the least; I was not aware of what it was nor of what was happening, nor of any explanation at all, nothing: it was ‘like that.’ I was living it, that’s all. The experience was absolutely spontaneous. And after this rather ... painful descent, phew! – there was a kind of super-comfort. I can’t explain it otherwise, an ease,108 but an ease ... to the utmost. A perfect immobility in a sense of eternity – but with an extraordinary INTENSITY of movement and life! An inner intensity, unmanifested; it was within, self-contained. And motionless (had there been an outside, it would have been motionless in relation to that) and it was in a ... life so immeasurable that it can only be expressed metaphorically as infinite. And with an intensity, a POWER, a force ... and a peace – the peace of eternity. A silence, a calm. A POWER capable of ... of EVERYTHING. Everything.

And I was not imagining nor objectifying it; I was living it with ease – with a great ease. And it lasted until the end of the meditation. When it gradually began fading, I stopped the meditation and left.

Later, after I returned (to the Ashram), I wondered, ‘What was that? What does it signify?’ Then That’s all. Now I am going to write it down clearly. Hand me a piece of paper.

(Mother begins recopying her message)

‘At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid ...’ Because generally, the inconscience 106Later Mother further explained: 'When one is exteriorized, this body-spirit retains a connection with the being that has gone out, and what has gone out has a power over it – which is precisely why one isn’t completely dead! The being that has gone out also has the power to make the body move.’

107Later, Mother explained: ‘I don’t mean an autonomous will (it is the being that has gone out which has the power to make the body move), it has only acquired, through training, the capacity to express the will of the being with which it has kept a relationship through this link of the body-spirit which is broken only at death.’