Chapter 64December 20, 1960

And that goes on for weeks and weeks. To have the exact curve or the REAL history, we’d have to note down everything at each minute, for it’s a CONSTANT work that’s taking place. You see, the outer activities are becoming almost automatic, whereas this goes on behind – I’m speaking, yet at the same time this is going on behind.

It’s a sort of oscillation – really, it’s so interesting – between two extremes, one of which is the all-powerfulness and capital or primordial importance of the Physical, and the other its utter unreality.

And it’s constantly going back and forth between the two (seesaw motion). And both are equally false, equally true.

It goes back and forth between the two all the time – a kind of curve like an electric arc between them; it goes up, it goes down, it falls and then climbs back up. In a flash comes the clear vision that the universal realization will be achieved along with the perfection of the material, TERRESTRIAL world. (I say ‘terrestrial, for the earth is still something unique; the rest of the universe is different – so this blown up speck of dust becomes of capital importance!) Then, at another moment, eternity – for which all the universes are simply ... the expression of a second, and in which all this is a sort of – not even an interesting game, but rather ... a breathing in and out, in and out ... And at such a moment, all the importance we give to material things seems so fantastically idiotic! And it goes in and out ... In this state, everything is obvious and indisputable. And in the other state, everything is obvious and indisputable. But between the two there is EVERY combination and every possibility.

(silence)

And the problem is to hold both of them so PERFECTLY together that they are no longer in opposition. For one second, it comes – ah! – just a thousandth of a second – ah, yes! – and then it’s over, it’s gone. And you have to begin again.

(silence)

And particularly, this sense of what’s ‘important’ and ‘not important’ is something which vanishes, leaving no trace at all. You are left like that, with ... nothing. There is no SCALE in importance – that is entirely our mental imbecility. Either nothing is important or EVERYTHING is EQUALLY important.

The speck of dust, there, which you sweep away, or ecstatic contemplation – it’s ALL THE SAME.

Regarding Christmas, I’ll tell you a curious story.

pictures of him, read some books, etc. Then one year while she was here, she got it into her head that Santa Claus had to bring me something. ‘He has to bring you something for Christmas,’ she told me.

‘Try,’ I replied. sum. And on Christmas Eve, exactly this sum was given to me! And it was a large sum, several thousand rupees. Exactly the amount she had specified. And it came on that very day in quite an unexpected way.

* * *

(Soon afterwards, concerning the last conversation of December 17 – a speck of dust which you

sweep away, or ecstatic contemplation, ‘It’s all the same’)

If I could only note all this down ... It’s been so interesting all morning, right from the start – on the balcony, then upstairs while walking for my japa! And it was on this same theme (experience of the speck of dust) ... This habit people have (especially in India, but more or less everywhere among those who have a religious nature), this habit of doing all things religious with respect and compunction – and no mixing of things, above all there should be no mixing; in some circumstances, at certain times, you MUST NOT think of God, for then it would be a kind of blasphemy.

There’s the religious attitude, and then there’s ordinary life where people do things – working, living, eating, enjoying life; they regard these as the essentials, and as for the rest, well, when there’s time they think about it. But what Sri Aurobindo brought down, precisely ... I remember at Tlemcen, Theon used to say that there was a whole world of things, such as eating, for example, or taking care of your body, that should be done automatically, without giving it any importance – ‘it’s not the time to think of things divine.’(!) That’s what he preached. So you have the religious attitude of all the religious types, and then ordinary life – I found both of them equally unsatisfactory. Then I came here and told Sri Aurobindo my feeling; I said that if someone is truly in union with the Divine, it CANNOT change no matter what he does (the quality of what you’re doing may change, but the union can’t change no matter what you’re doing). And when he said that this was the truth, I felt a relief. And that feeling has stayed with me all through my life.

And now, all these different attitudes which individuals, groups and categories of men hold are coming from every direction (while I’m walking upstairs) to assert their own points of view as the true thing. And I see that for myself, I’m being forced to deal with a whole mass of things, most of which are quite futile from an ordinary point of view – not to mention the things of which these moral or religious types disapprove. Quite interestingly, all kinds of mental formations come like arrows while I’m walking for my japa upstairs (Mother makes a gesture of little arrows in the air coming into her mental atmosphere from every direction); and yet, I’m entirely in what I could call the joy and happiness of my japa, full of the energy of walking (the purpose of walking is to give a material energy to the experience, in all the body’s cells). Yet in spite of this, one thing after another comes, like this, like that (Mother draws little arrows in the air): what I must do, what I must answer to this person, what I must say to that one, what has to be done ... All kinds of things, most of which might be considered most futile! And I see that all this is SITUATED in a totality, and this totality ... I could say that it’s nothing but the body of the Divine. I FEEL it, actually, I feel it as if I were touching it everywhere (Mother touches her arms, her hands, her body). And all these